by John Dysart
I picked up another one at random from the pile. “Keith Dalgleish, invested £150,000, ex-sales director, seventy-four years old. In the commentary box it says ‘Went into retirement home in 2007, no known relatives, no problem’.
“Next one, ‘Ethel Neale, invested £180,000, eighty years old, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2009, no problem’.
“‘David Stevenson, seventy-six years old, invested £90,000, No knowledge, treat as normal’.”
I looked up at him. His face had lost all colour. He was visibly shocked and starting to sweat. He was frantically looking around for some means of escape. He certainly didn’t want to sit there and listen to a litany of his crimes.
“Do I need to go on?” I leant forward and picked up another piece of paper from the second pile on the table.
“This document details the investments made by AIM over the last three years with the dividends and the capital gains that were realised. The medium risk fund has averaged a return of nine per cent. You have passed on to your investors only three point nine per cent. You must have realised when I asked that question at the conference that you were in danger. You then organized a burglary at my house to steal the papers that Alice Rutherford had given me.”
He was really under pressure now. He tried again to get up but Mac and Doug held him fast.
“You can’t use that stuff. There’s no way you can prove anything,” he cried desperately.
“We are quite happy to hand ourselves in – with all of this – if you do not do what we want.” I waved my hand over all the documents lying on the table in front of me. “I don’t think a jury would convict. We have done nothing for personal gain - only to unmask an enormous fraud.”
“You’re bluffing.” “Try us. We will give you five minutes to reflect on the position you’re in and then we’ll tell you what we want. Put his hood back on lads and keep an eye on him.”
Once he was blind again we got up and went outside, leaving him to think. A strangled cry of “You bastards!” followed us out.
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.