Текст книги "Trail of Greed"

Автор книги: John Dysart

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter 14

We went back inside five minutes later. I moved the table and chairs slightly forward so that both Pierre and Mike would now be visible to him. I then asked Mac to take off his hood.

Purdy was suddenly faced by the three of us – no one any longer in the shadows. By now all the bluster had gone. He didn’t dare call our bluff. He didn’t know who Mike was but he recognized Pierre immediately. “Pierre Collard! What are you doing here?” he gasped.

Pierre, in his quiet and neat way, leant forward and rested his forearms on the table and in a quiet but steely voice said,

“Mr Purdy, I don’t like being screwed. I want you to compensate me for the money you have stolen from me. I calculate it to be about two hundred thousand pounds. I also want you to pay my two friends here the sum of fifty thousand pounds each as a management fee for the hard work that they have put in to get to the bottom of all this.”

He gasped. “You’re crazy. I can’t afford that.” “Yes you can. We know, to the nearest million, how much you have stashed away in the Cayman Islands.”

That stopped him in his tracks. There was a pause while he absorbed how much we knew.

“And if I do, will you then let me go?” He must have hoped for a moment that he might get off reasonably lightly.

Plant one idea and the next one is more likely to succeed, Pierre had said beforehand. If you hit him with everything at once we might not get away with it. “We shall see,” said Pierre. “I’m not finished yet.” Purdy started to look exceedingly nervous. “You will also transfer into a trust fund, whose trustees will be the three of us here, the sum of five million pounds for the benefit of all those who have been systematically defrauded by you. You will also sign a letter of resignation from all your positions in the Ailsa Investment Management group.”

“You must be out of your minds,” he screamed. “There’s no way I can afford that.”

“That is rubbish,” said Pierre. “We know how much you have stashed away and we know that you will still have a few hundred thousand left to enjoy your retirement.”

In fact we knew he would still have about a million left but we wanted him to think we had missed something. We wanted him to think that he was one up on us. That way we were more likely to win. This guy had an ego as big as a house and that would help him to accept our proposal. If we had gone for too much he might have blocked and taken the risk of calling our bluff. And what we were asking for did cover the amounts we knew he had stolen.

In the silence that followed you could almost hear his brain churning. He stared at us for about thirty seconds then all the bluster went out of him. His shoulders sagged.

“And if I agree . . .?” I could sense a slight lessening of tension behind his puffy, bloodshot eyes.

“Do it first, then we will see.” Pierre had pulled out his laptop and he fired it up. “It can all be done here and now.” “You bastards! I don’t have a choice, do I?” “No.” He got up and walked unsteadily over to the table. Pierre vacated his seat and stood behind him while he logged on to the various sites necessary to effect the transactions. We had prepared a list of bank account numbers for the various deposits.

I produced the resignation letter for him to sign and the trust deeds which had been prepared in advance. Mike witnessed his signature. While this was going on I went next door to the WiFi printer that we had set up and brought back paper confirmations of all the transfers for him to sign. I put them carefully in a large brown envelope and, along with the other documents, placed them in my briefcase.

“Will you now let me go?” he asked, getting up from the table.

“Please sit back down in the chair over there. There are a couple of further things we would like to ask you.”

Doug and Mac stood guard again. “In addition to theft on a grand scale you have also demonstrated that you have been capable of attempted murder and we do not wish to run the risk that you might try again,” I said coldly.

If he thought he was going to get away as lightly as that after what he had done to us, he had another think coming.

“What?” exploded out from the back of his throat. “You planted a bomb in my car last week. Fortunately it exploded while I was far enough away for it not to do me any harm. However it was clearly an act of attempted murder.”

“There was no intention to harm you. And anyway what proof do you have that it was me?”

In fact I had no proof. To the three of us it was obvious that it was Purdy – if not him personally, then someone acting on his orders. We were all watching him carefully. His eyes flicked from Pierre to Mike to myself and back again. Our faces were impassive and without pity. He seemed to be trying to come to some kind of a decision. His head dropped and he stared at the floor just in front of his feet. Finally, after a good thirty seconds, while nobody moved nor said anything, he looked up at us, defeat written across his features. He took a deep breath.

He must have weighed up the situation from all angles. He had admitted, although not in so many words, the scam he had been running. We had extorted reparations from him. He must have come to the conclusion that if he could convince us that there had been no intent to kill me that would be his best chance of getting out.

In a dull and defeated voice he said, “I organised the burglary which did you no harm whatsoever. I needed to get those papers to find out how much you might know. That I admit. As far as your car is concerned, it was not my idea. I was told to get rid of you. I planted the bomb in the car. Yes, that’s true. But I set it off by remote control when I was sure that you wouldn’t be hurt. Scared, yes, but not hurt. I could see from further up the hill. I can even tell you exactly what happened. You came out of the house, opened the rear door and threw what looked like a computer bag into the back seat and slammed the door shut. Then you went back towards your house. I suppose you must have forgotten something. I set it off when you were just opening the door. I admit I was happy to scare you but there was no way I was going to commit murder.”

He looked at us pleadingly. “You’ve got to believe me.” The three of us looked at each other, puzzled. “Who?” I asked coldly. “Who told you to get rid of me?” “I can’t tell you.”

“Who?” roared Mike. He flinched and turned his head towards Mike. “Look, I don’t know who the hell you are but there is no way I’m going to tell you. It’s not worth it. You don’t know what’s going on. You’ve found me out. Be satisfied with that and let me go.”

He was almost begging. We tried verbal bullying, softer persuasion techniques, promises, everything for at least twenty minutes but we could not get him to budge. Clearly he was far more frightened of the consequences of telling us than whatever he thought that we were capable of. Even that, in itself, made my flesh creep. Who could be capable of scaring this guy as much as that and why?

I made a sign to Mike and Pierre for us to go outside for a minute.

We all agreed that it was useless to try any more. We weren’t going to get any further without resorting to some kind of torture and we weren’t going to go that far.

Pierre suggested we let him go and put Mac and Doug on his tail. Perhaps we would find out that way.

We went back inside and sat down again. “Mr Purdy, we are going to let you go. Unfortunately not immediately as you can well imagine. You will be kept here until these transfers have taken place and the AIM board has received your letter of resignation. You will then be set free and, if you want any advice from me, I would get out of the country as soon as you can. There is no way I can prevent news of your actions getting out. When the investors hear about the trust fund and your resignation is announced you can be sure there will be speculation. I personally don’t ever want to see you again.”

We got up and Pierre and I left. Mike stayed behind to give Doug and Mac their instructions. Purdy sat still in the chair like a broken doll.

Mike came out a few minutes later and told us he would hold Purdy until Pierre phoned to tell him when he could be set free.

”I’ll give him a bit of food and when the time comes I’ll have him driven back to Edinburgh and dumped near the squash club car park and he can find his own way home.”

Pierre and I drove back to Fife thoughtfully. We now had another villain behind this one and he sounded like a real nasty piece of work. If he had ordered my assassination, there must be a reason and when he found out I was still alive it would be sensible to take a few precautions. The critical issue was to identify him.

We decided it would be safer for me not to go home so we booked me in at Fernie Castle. On the drive back we didn’t say much. The success of our plan to unmask Purdy and obtain reparations should have been a cause for celebrations, but this was overshadowed by the news that we, or I, had another enemy who was seemingly much more dangerous.

The next morning, while the brawn of the partnership was looking after Purdy, the brains, Pierre and myself, sat down to breakfast.

“Sleep well?” I looked up from buttering my toast and answered ruefully, “Not really. It’s a bit scary knowing that someone has tried to kill you – and might well try again.”

“Or might not. Whoever it is might not need to anymore.” “What do you mean?” “Well, the danger occurred while you were trying to unmask Purdy. If that’s now been done and we’ve put a stop to his operation we’ve no real reason to go on digging so perhaps he’ll feel safe and back off.”

“I wouldn’t be sure about that. Who do you think it is?” Pierre replied, “I was thinking about that all last night. The only people we know about who seem to have regular contact with him is the Dewar guy with his house in Spain and the lawyer that he lunches with regularly.” “So we watch Dewar closely over the next few days?” “That’s what I think, and maybe you could see if you could find out a little more about the lawyer through your golfing friend, Keith?”

Mac and Doug would not be available to watch Dewar until we had released Purdy. I could wander along to the club and see if I bumped into Keith. Meanwhile Pierre had to check up on the transfers. I thought it might also be a good idea to give Steven a tip off about possible news coming out of AIM in the very near future.

As it was Sunday we couldn’t do much about the banking side of things, neither could we do anything else.

Purdy, when released, had only two alternatives. He could report back to whoever the man was that he was so frightened of or simply pack his bags and run to whatever country he chose to disappear to. But as we were not going to be able to release him before Tuesday we thought that it was unlikely that there would be any danger until then. We could relax.

We phoned Mike. Sophie answered and assured us that all was well at their end.

“Come on,” I said to Pierre. “Let’s go and have a round on another of our famous Fife courses.”

“Fine by me,” said Pierre. So we tried to forget everything and drove down to Elie, had lunch in the Ship Inn overlooking the harbour and did battle over the local eighteen holes. I lost four and three and decided it was time I changed my clubs.

If I remember correctly from my physics classes fifty-five years ago there is some kind of principle that says that when you undertake an action there is always a reaction.

I was soon to find out the truth behind that basic law.

Chapter 15

Monday morning.

Mrs Clark came round to check that I was alright. She was still shattered by the car explosion but fortunately no damage had been done to her house. She hadn’t seen me for a few days, she said, but had done some baking for me. She produced a fruit cake and a dozen scones which I dutifully accepted.

Today Pierre would be following up on the bank transfers. We had already set up the trust fund in advance, enabling us to supply a bank account for Purdy’s transfer.

We couldn’t release Doug or Mac yet to let them get back to Edinburgh to latch onto Dewar’s tail. But, hopefully, if all the transfers went through today, we could get Purdy off our back and get moving.

I decided to follow up on Pierre’s suggestion of talking to Keith about Gavin Reid, so I set off for Ladybank to see if he was around. I didn’t have any other way of contacting him but he was there fairly regularly. There were few people around. When I asked the pro if he had seen Keith he told me that he hadn’t seen him today but he knew he had booked a round for tomorrow. As I had made the journey over I thought I might as well get some benefit from it. I went out and had a nice quiet nine holes on my own, playing two balls whenever there was nobody on the hole behind me.

Pierre called me in the evening to confirm that all the transfers had gone through. He was back in pocket. Mike and I were now fifty grand better off. One thing I hadn’t thought of was how to explain that to the tax man, but I would worry about that later.

He had also had Purdy’s resignation letter delivered to AIM. I wondered how they were going to react to that. I phoned Steven and informed him that if he went round to AIM he might get a scoop.

All that was left to do was to work out how to inform all the AIM investors about the trust fund that had been set up specially to distribute some “unexpected dividends” that had accrued to them. We had all their names and addresses so it would be a question of writing a suitable letter and organising to get it mailed out. There was no real rush but I suggested to Pierre that we could work on it tomorrow morning if he came round about ten.

So the next day Pierre and I sat down to draft a circular letter to the eight hundred or so investors in the three funds of AIM. We had to come up with a policy which would be equitable to all concerned and then think up a way of explaining this bonus.

We no longer had the use of Sophie’s high-speed, highcapacity laptop so Pierre had gone off to buy a new one, which would save us a lot of time compared with trying to do the job on my old steam-driven one.

It took him no time at all to fix it up. I was astonished at the power and speed of the thing.

We started by creating three lists of all the names we had, the amount they had invested and the revenue that had accrued to them over the last three years. All the information was on the back-up discs that we had. Once we had totalled up the amount distributed and compared it to the revenue that AIM had generated we had a difference of about six million. We allowed a certain amount for a reasonable percentage to AIM for their overheads and profit and got the figure down to a little over the five million.

We had to make an arbitrary decision as to how much of the five million should go to each of the three funds. That done, we could add this to the total that had been paid out and come up with a new total, which we could express as a percentage of the invested capital. As each person had received varying dividends according to the various notes in the ‘commentary’ box, they would be allocated the difference between the new standard percentage and the one they had received.

It sounds complicated but by using a spreadsheet the job was done fairly quickly. After a couple of hours we had three lists with an amount against each name. On average it amounted to between five and six thousand pounds for each person. They were all going to get a very pleasant surprise.

Then came the drafting of the letter. “I’ll do that tomorrow,” I told Pierre because I felt we needed a break. Also I had to go round to the golf course as I knew that Keith was due to tee off at ten past two.

“Why don’t you come?” I suggested to Pierre. He was more than willing. We decided to have lunch round there.

While we were halfway through our lunch Keith and Jack came in. I invited them to join us. Not wanting to have to explain the intimate details of Dad’s past I introduced Pierre as a golfing friend over from France for a couple of weeks.

Keith was immediately interested and started to quiz Pierre about the supermarket industry in France. Pierre was able to describe to him how things had developed over the last thirty years and how they were now all over the place.

“Practically every town of any size has a Carrefour or a Leclerc or one of the others on the outskirts of town and, because of that, multiple stores have grown up around them. France has much more land than over here and the planning rules are not so strict, I don’t think.”

“I’ll bet they’re not,” said Keith. “That’s the biggest problem we have. All the bloody zone restrictions on buildable land drives me nuts. The consumers want supermarkets because we can offer cheaper prices and I’m blocked by local authorities who complain about us destroying the High Street. All I’m doing is trying to give the consumers what they want.”

“They’ve got a point though, haven’t they?” I said mildly.

“If they want to keep the wee shops in the High Street then they should give them subsidies or cut back the rates or find some other incentive. Where are the people going to park?” Keith was starting to get excited so I switched the conversation over to the upcoming Ryder Cup. I didn’t want him getting apoplectic.

Keith looked at his watch. “Tee off in fifteen minute, Jack. Would you guys like to join us?”

“Why not,” I said, “Are you up for it Pierre? It was decided and we went off to get our clubs and made our way over to the first tee.

It was sunny and warm, with just enough wind to make the game interesting. The fairways had been recently cut and the heather had not yet reached its full season’s growth. Getting out of the rough was going to be easier than it would be later on in the season.

Four drives, reasonably straight down the middle and Keith was waddling off after his ball in his usual aggressive manner – short bandy legs, feet splayed out at ninety degrees and shoulders hunched. His relationship with a golf ball was definitely unhealthy. For him the ball was the enemy and he was going to make damn sure it behaved itself and did what he wanted it to do. It never occurred to him that it was an inanimate object and was only reacting to the way he hit it.

In spite of Keith’s battle with the ball we had a good round and Pierre and I managed to win on the eighteenth.

Back to the bar for a beer. Jack had to leave fairly quickly and Pierre excused himself at the same time.

This was my opportunity to have a word with Keith. I suggested another drink and asked him if he had ten minutes to spare – there was something I wanted to ask him.

“Sure,” he replied.”How can I help you?” “You know Gavin Reid, don’t you? Wasn’t he the guy you introduced to me here a few weeks ago?”

Keith looked at me warily. “Yes,” he said. “Lawyer from Edinburgh. I use him from time to time. What about him?”

“Is he any good?” “I’ve had no problem with him. Why? Have you heard something?”

“Oh, no. it’s just that I have a friend who needs a lawyer in Edinburgh and he asked me if I knew anyone.”

“What’s it to do with?” asked Keith. “I don’t really know the details,” I said. “Something to do with investments and finance.”

“If that’s what you want Reid’s not the right guy. He’s much more of a specialist in property deals. But I’ll ask around for you if you want. I’ve got quite a lot of contacts over there.”

“That would be great,” I said. “There’s no rush but if you can get me a recommendation it would be much appreciated.”

We finished our drinks, took leave of each other and I drove back to Letham.

I got back to the house. I parked the hired car I had taken to replace my old Rover, which was now a jumble of burnt out metal. Must get it taken away, I thought but I had to wait for the insurance people to send in their report. It was already a week late. With the insurance money and the management fee I had extracted from Purdy I suddenly realised I could treat myself to something a bit more fitting for my station in life. That’s what I would do. As soon as I got the ok from the insurance company I’d treat myself to a bright red convertible Mercedes.

With that decided I called Mike. All was in hand. They had transported a very subdued Purdy back to Edinburgh and left him outside the car park of the squash club. I wondered how he had managed to explain his absence to his wife. Well that wasn’t my problem. I hoped I’d seen the last of him. Doug and Mac were now taking turns to watch Dewar.

Dad was still smiling at me from the wall as I went through to the kitchen to fix myself a coffee. I sat down to flick through the newspapers. The usual hyped-up nonsense about the goings on of some celebrity football player was splattered across the front page. Any intelligent comments on issues of note were hard to find. There was a short article on Alex Salmond’s latest pronouncement on independence for Scotland. That brought me back to our man Dewar again who was, if I remembered correctly, now an SNP member.

Pierre and I had discussed who the man might be that Purdy had been too afraid of to mention. We had come to the tentative conclusion that the arrows seemed to be pointing Dewar’s way. I wondered what Alex Salmond would feel about one of his members being at the bottom of a murder plot. I recalled what Pierre had said. Now that the Purdy fiasco was over and if that was the source of Dewar’s extra cash, then perhaps he might back off and leave me alone.

But I wasn’t at all sure and hoped that the boys were keeping a close eye on him.

The phone rang about nine thirty the next morning. I cursed, got up and went downstairs to answer it. It was Mike.

“Guess what,” he said triumphantly. ”It was worth our while to watch Dewar.”

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously. I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable whenever that man’s name was mentioned.

“Our friend Alan Purdy has not yet flown off to the Caribbean or wherever we hope he disappears to. After we dropped him late yesterday afternoon he didn’t go straight to his car and drive home as you might have thought he would.”

“What did he do then?” I asked. “In spite of the messy state he was in he went straight into the squash club, and presumably made a phone call because half an hour later Mr Bill Dewar drove up in a rather excited state and disappeared inside. Mac was watching at the time and, as neither of them had ever seen him before, he had the sense to go in and see what might be going on. They were both in the corner of the bar having a very heated discussion. Purdy was apparently ranting and raving, trying to tell Dewar something. Mac says that Dewar looked as if he was going to blow a gasket.

“They argued for about ten minutes then Purdy got up and stormed off. Doug picked him up outside and said that he drove straight home.”

“And Dewar?”

“He stayed for another five minutes or so and then he left as well. He was not looking a happy man according to Mac.”

“Did he go home?” “Presumably. It was quite late. We don’t actually know for sure because Mac lost him. By the time Mac got back to his car Dewar had already driven off. He says he’ll pick him up tomorrow from his house. He knows where he lives.”

“OK. How’s Sophie by the way? Why don’t you both come over tomorrow afternoon? I’ve got a few things I need to tell that lady.”

“We’ll come over but you won’t tell her anything,” retorted Mike. “I’ll tell her all she needs to know.”

I sat back and thought about the news I had just heard. We hadn’t anticipated that. Purdy had seemed so scared about the man who had apparently told him to get rid of me that we thought he would stay well clear of him. That maybe wasn’t Purdy’s smartest move. I suspected that he would definitely be wise to skip the country now, as fast as he could.

Having nothing much to do for the rest of the day I resigned myself to do the bit of gardening that I had been promising to do for a couple of weeks.

I went up and changed into old trousers, a tee shirt and a shirt, stuck on a cap and went outside to spend a couple of hours weeding. I was very soon completely engrossed in my task. Whatever part of my mind that was not being used to make decisions about what was a flower and what was a weed became occupied with thoughts about the relationship between Purdy and Dewar. What was the hold Dewar had on Purdy? Or was it the other way round? I was convinced that Dewar knew either all about the scam of AIM or the fact that Purdy had a mistress. Either of the reasons would be enough to milk hush money from him and that would explain the hold that Dewar had over him.

Suddenly I remembered something. I got up and went indoors to the work that Pierre and I had done for the trust. A quick look through the files. There it was, near the top. A name, age, eighty-two, fifty thousand pounds, exminer and a comment, “No problem – one son but estranged.”

The name was David Dewar and his address was in Linlithgow.

Could this be Bill Dewar’s father? I went back out to continue my weeding.