Trail of Greed: Fighting Fraud and Corruption... A Dangerous Game (22 page)

“Perhaps – indirectly” “So what do you propose I do now?” “We want to transfer the management of the fund over either to you personally or to AIM to manage the correct distribution of the funds to the people that should have had it in the first place.

“I think you’ll find that your auditors are bent. We don’t see how Purdy could have done what he did without sweetening their fees to turn a blind eye. If that’s the case you can persuade them to find a way of getting that money back into the company and out to the investors. You can threaten to get them struck off if they don’t. Once that is done I suggest you change your auditors.”

“Bloody hell! You’re asking me to blackmail the auditors!”

“No. We’re asking you to help to correct a wrong. Purdy has been punished. True, he won’t spend fifteen years in jail which is where he ought to be but he’s out of the way and won’t dare show his face back in the UK again. He still has enough to have a reasonable retirement but nothing like what he had planned. What’s the alternative? If we hadn’t acted Purdy would still be screwing people left, right and centre. If we had tipped off the authorities we’d have got nowhere and the reputation of AIM would have been mud. This way you can repair the damage and clean up AIM before handing it over. You may need to tell your successor but he should see the logic. Anyway he won’t have to worry because nothing will have happened on his watch.”

“No, only on mine!” “Have you got another option?” I asked. Ian was leaning back in his chair. He crossed his hands over his ample stomach and pursed his lips, looking thoughtfully at the documents lying in front of him. There was silence for a couple of minutes.

I was myself wondering if we had been a bit naïve in thinking we could hand over the fund just like that. But it did seem better to me that AIM should manage the process. It was really their money to be distributed and it struck me as more logical that they should control the process. There must be a way they could do it and avoid all the negative publicity that would come from making the whole thing public. It must be in the interest of AIM’s auditors to find a way otherwise they would be obliged to admit collusion in the whole scam.

Ian eventually stirred. “One thing for sure is that I can’t keep this to myself. Some of my colleagues are going to have to know about it. And I’m going to have to understand how he managed to keep it quiet inside the company.”

“My guess,” I replied, “is that he divided things up into very separate functions and didn’t let anyone see the whole picture. I can well imagine him managing to do that. Firkin is probably the only guy that knew anything about it. He could well be the man who fed the comments into the database. These comment boxes are not available to anybody who simply accesses the system. They are protected by a password which our expert managed to crack.”

Ian’s eyebrows shot up. “This expert of yours must know what he’s doing.”

We made no comment. A few more minutes of silence and suddenly Ian galvanized into action. He stood up abruptly and his chair, on its five wheels, went careering off across the room.

“OK. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep all this stuff if you don’t mind. I‘ll have to talk to the board. They are ultimately responsible and I can’t clean this mess up without letting them know what has been going on. This expert of yours – would he be willing to come here to AIM for a week and do a review of our IT systems and “accidentally” discover all that you guys have already discovered? That way the information is officially inside the company and then I can explain to the Board without getting you involved. Once they are aware of the problem they’re going to be shocked. I can then – say, a couple of days later – tell them of your visit which we’ll say took place after our IT review and what it discovered. How’s that?”

It made sense to me. I looked at Pierre. He nodded his agreement.

“Fine,” said Ian. “Where is this expert of yours? Is he in Edinburgh?”

“Our expert is, in fact, a ‘she’,” I replied. “Her name is Sophie Lamarre and she used to work for Pierre in his IT company in France. She now operates as an independent consultant. At the moment she is staying with my sister in Doune.”

“Would she be willing to do this? I’ll put her up in a good hotel in Edinburgh and pay her five grand for a week’s work. The objective is to generate a report that I can present to the Board which explains all this.”

“Pierre, what do you think?” He fished in his pocket for his phone and got through to Sophie straight away. They conversed in French for a few minutes which neither Ian nor I could follow. Then Pierre hung up.

“No problem,” he said. “She can be here on Monday morning and she’ll ask for you.”

“That’s settled then,” replied Ian. “We’ll give your Sophie a week to produce a report. I’ll speak to the Board and we’ll take it from there. You hold on to the trust fund documents but don’t do anything yet about contacting the investors and I’ll call you back in about ten days. OK?”

Business being concluded we got up to go. Ian accompanied us down to the ground floor and we took our leave. He was looking distinctly preoccupied.

Just as we were leaving I suggested to Ian that he be careful about Firkin. “I’m pretty sure he was in on the whole thing,” I warned him.

Pierre and I headed back towards Waverley station to catch our train back to Ladybank where we had left the car.

As the train travelled north, over the bridge and through the countryside of Fife, I told Pierre of the trips I had made as a kid when the trains had been powered by steam. We had revelled in the tradition of lowering the window by its strap as we puffed over the bridge and dutifully throwing the coins that Dad had given us out of the window into the steel grey waters of the Forth. This was supposed to bring us good luck.

We recovered the car, I dropped Pierre off at Fernie Castle and drove back home.

I hadn’t been back since being abducted from the garden and immediately went out to review the scene of the crime. Sure enough, my secateurs and kneeling mat were still there, poignant evidence of the event. I picked them up and stowed them away in the shed.

It had been about ten days since I had been home. The wreck of my car had been cleared away by the insurance people and I looked forward to a couple of days of quiet reading, comfortable in my own home, surrounded by my few, but familiar possessions.

The weekend permitted me to relax and reduce the level of adrenalin that I had been running on for the last four weeks. At my age I needed it. Thirty years ago it wouldn’t have been much of a problem but nowadays I was glad that I could enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.

Pierre and I had agreed that, even although I was back in circulation again, it was highly unlikely that there would be any more danger.

I had done what I thought was right. Purdy was gone. Dewar would assume I was gone too and, when he did find out that I had survived, he no longer had a reason to get rid of me because AIM was definitively in other hands now and he would just have to get used to the idea that he had lost a neat source of revenue.

We did agree, however, just to be on the safe side, that now that I was back, Mike and Doug would keep an eye on Dewar for a week or so. Mike was happy to do so as he would then be in Edinburgh while Sophie was there.

Sophie would do a good job for Ian and I would help him in any way I could if he needed it. Pierre and I could now perhaps plan that trip round Scotland that we had talked about.

On Tuesday afternoon I got a call from Ian to tell me that Sophie had arrived the day before and that he was most impressed with her. He had introduced her to all the staff and she was now hard at work.

“There is one other thing, Bob, which might interest you.”

“What’s that?” “Well you told me to keep my eye on Firkin, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and . . .?” “It so happens that I can’t anymore. He’s resigned.” “What do you mean – resigned?” “He came in to see me this morning and explained how he had worked very closely with Purdy and, now that he had left the company, he didn’t want to stay on. He regretted it but was leaving with immediate effect – he and a guy called MacLean who works with him. They both cleared off at lunchtime, which, according to their contract, they could. I just thought I’d let you know.”

“What does this guy MacLean look like? Big, muscles, crew-cut?”

“Yes. Do you know him?” “I think so – and thanks for the information.” I wished him luck and hung up. Firkin and No Name (MacLean) had immediately resigned the day after Sophie arrived to audit their IT systems? In the back of my mind I had suspected that they were the two who had grabbed me out of my garden and, if I was right, I didn’t much like the idea of them being on the loose again.

I felt I was back in a mist again, not knowing in which direction to go. The last time I had, thank God, picked the right direction. Maggie had told me afterwards that any other direction would have left me walking twice as far before I came to any civilization. This mist was pretty thick so I sat down to think it out with a good stiff whisky.

I still thought Purdy incapable of the mountain operation and I was sure it was Dewar who was behind it. If that was the case, and if Firkin and MacLean had done the kidnapping and dumping, it must have been on Dewar’s orders. Therefore they were working for him. Perhaps he had planted them in AIM to keep an eye on Purdy. That seemed to make sense.

Conclusion: warn Mike and Doug to watch out for any meeting between these two and Dewar. I phoned Mike straight away and gave him a brief description of the two. He was to let me know if he saw any meeting taking place and, if there was one, to try and get a sense of the relationship between the three.

Over the last three years I had gradually got used to being on my own. I had slid gently into a rhythm of life which I thought suited me. The last five weeks had completely upset that, but I realised that I had enjoyed it. Apart from the obvious danger I had gone through, there had been a purpose – a certain excitement. Sitting there, thinking back to my life before Pierre had knocked on my door, I realised that things had been a bit empty. Even the house felt, all of a sudden, empty. My thoughts drifted to the quieter, calmer part of the last few weeks – Maggie.

When I had gone back to return the trainers she had definitely been glad to see me – and had said so. We had spent two totally comfortable days together, happy in each other’s company. We had walked in the hills. We had explored each other’s histories, likes, dislikes and experiences. It had been a haven of peace without any hint of pressure or tension. On parting I think we both knew that we would see each other again.

There was a long way to go before anything more permanent might happen but already I was wondering how it would be like being a couple again. Maybe my house did need a woman in it. Liz had never lived here so there would be no ghosts.

Suddenly I wanted to make a move.

Sophie was doing her audit. Pierre had gone back to France for a couple of days. Mike was watching Dewar. There was nothing to keep me here.

I decided that I was going to do something about it. I heaved myself up from my chair, washed up my glass in the kitchen and went straight upstairs to pack a bag. Why sit being morose when I don’t have to be? I said to myself. With the house safely locked up, I knocked on Mrs. Clarke’s door to tell her I was going away for a few days, threw my bag into the back of the car and hit the road north.

When I arrived Maggie was as welcoming as I had hoped she would be.

Unlike the last time, there were a few guests in the hotel but that didn’t matter. They were mostly hikers or elderly couples, all of whom tended to go early to bed so we had our evenings together. I did a lot of walking which did my back no end of good. The hotel had a good stock of books and I was able to do a bit of motoring around in the glens and the mountains, appreciating the breath-taking scenery and the wildness and beauty of it all.

Saturday came round all too quickly. I had promised to check in with Mike to see how Sophie’s week had gone and to hear about his tracking of Dewar.

“Sophie’s week went fine. Ian McLeish was very pleased and he told her he would give you a call next week to let you know the reaction of the Board.”

“And Dewar?” I asked. “Disappeared,” said Mike. “Haven’t seen him since Thursday, so I reckon he’s gone off to Spain. I suppose he’ll be back but it looks like you don’t have anything to worry about anymore. And I haven’t seen the two guys you told me about.”

“Great. I’ll be back down tomorrow and, if you want, Sophie can take us out for a good meal on the fees she got from AIM. I think Pierre is due back tomorrow as well.”

Mike agreed and we hung up. Saturday evening there were no guests. Maggie and I had the place to ourselves. She rustled up a magnificent meal and we shared an excellent Burgundy. The night was one of gentle love-making – completely satisfying for both of us – and we drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms. How great it was to be able to give pleasure to someone again, I thought as my eyelids closed, Maggie’s gentle breathing ruffling the hairs on my chest as she snuggled up against me.

We were up fairly early and, after a good Sunday breakfast I volunteered to walk down to the village shop to get the Sunday paper. It was a fresh day and the cloudless sky promised a sunny morning. The sun was still low in the sky, creating strong light and shadow on the hillsides.

I picked up the newspaper, put it under my arm and strolled back up the village street to the hotel where I knew a cup of coffee would be waiting.

We sat down in the lounge and, as usual, I started with the sports section, handing the rest of the paper to Maggie. I had got as far as the first few football reports when Maggie looked up.

“Bob, have you seen this?”

“What?” “They’ve found a walker’s body up in the Cairngorms.” “Thank goodness that wasn’t me,” I said. “It could have been, if you remember.”

She handed it over to me to read. The headline read ‘Man’s body found in Cairngorms’. Underneath the headlines was a head and shoulders photograph of a man in his early fifties looking seriously at the camera. I started to read the article and stopped suddenly after five lines, stunned.