Trail of Greed: Fighting Fraud and Corruption... A Dangerous Game (14 page)

I was sure it had been a bomb and, if that was the case, I must have been the target. Not funny. I needed a second whisky and also someone with whom to talk it through.

I called Pierre and caught him at the hotel. I asked him to get over as soon as he could. My voice must have sounded urgent because he didn’t even ask why.

“Give me ten minutes,” he said, and, sure enough, he rolled up ten minutes later. He parked up the side road, well away from the wreck, and came slowly round to the front door, a look of total consternation on his face.

He stopped short of the still-smouldering mess of burnt- out steel, his hands on his hips and slowly turned to look at me.

I said nothing but signaled him to come into the house. He dutifully followed me in and accepted the glass I thrust into his hand.

“Somebody, I think, just tried to kill me,” I announced. Pierre doesn’t voice unnecessary comments. He simply sat down and took a sip of my best Bruichladdich.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m sure.”

“Purdy?”

“Who else?”

“Shit!” It was the only explanation. He must have been completely destabilised by the emails. He must have linked them to me. He knew where I lived because he had orgainised the burglary. He had decided I was getting too close to discovering his misdeeds. Had they found out about the hacking and backtracked to Sophie’s computer? I remembered Sophie telling me it was possible and she had done her hacking via my internet connection.

Pierre listened thoughtfully while I voiced my thoughts. “There is another possibility.”

“What?” “How was it set off? It could only have been done by some kind of device which would be tripped off when you got in – which can’t be the case because you’re still here – or, if it was ultra-sensitive, it went off when you threw in Sophie’s laptop.”

He paused. “Or it was set off by someone who was watching and it was the computer that was the target and not you.”

I thought for a second. “True, but I don’t think it makes a lot of difference. The guy has definitely overstepped the mark. We’re going to pull him in.”

“What do you mean?” “I’ve been thinking while I was waiting for you to come over. Either he tried to kill me or he tried to destroy the computer and, therefore, any evidence against him. Whichever doesn’t matter – he needs to be stopped and I can think of only one way of doing it. The police are going to be no help especially as we’d have to tell them about our hacking job.”

“We’ll need Mike, Mac and Doug. Here’s what we’ll do.” I explained and Pierre’s face lit up. “I like it. But we’ll have to wait until Mike and Sophie get back. We can wait a few days. If we do nothing Purdy will think he’s got us off his back and be less on his guard.”

Mike and Sophie had arrived back the night before. When he called from Forfar I told him about the car bomb. His reaction was immediate.

“We’ll be right over.” He and Sophie arrived within the hour. Both were staggered at the scene of the car. It now looked a very sorry mess of blackened twisted metal. Sophie was very solicitous of my welfare and insisted that I rerun what had happened.

We explained to them how we couldn’t be sure that it was murder they had been attempting or simply the elimination of Sophie’s computer.

“Well I don’t suppose we’ll ever know but it seems to me like the former. Surely Purdy would have realised that we would have made copies of the information.”

“I suppose so,” I replied. “But it doesn’t really matter now. Whichever it was it’s one step too far and, as far as Pierre and I are concerned, we are going to act.”

I then explained to them both what we envisaged. Mike was all for it. Sophie a little less so but, as she couldn’t come up with a better alternative, she went along with us. She had no part to play in the plan but was clearly concerned that we might be opening ourselves up to some unforeseen consequences.

“We’ll use one of the barns at my place,” suggested Mike.

Pierre hadn’t visited Mike’s place yet but I agreed that it would be ideal.

“Pierre and I will come up on Friday evening. Can you put us up?”

Before Mike had a chance to open his mouth, Sophie jumped in “Sure, we can,” she said. Suddenly her hand went up to her mouth, she looked round at Mike, colouring slightly, “er . . . can’t we?”

This little byplay loosened off the tension completely. Mike leant over and put his hand on her thigh affectionately.

“Not much doubt about things now, is there? Of course they can.”

Mike agreed to give his instructions to Mac and Doug and organise their side of the plan.

It was stage managed to frighten him. I wanted him scared because I needed him to crack and own up to what he had done. We couldn’t prosecute. We couldn’t use the information we had but we could bluff him. If I couldn’t put this man behind bars then, at least I wanted him out of action and, if possible, the damage repaired.

We chose the scruffiest of the barns. The two small windows on one wall were filthy, covered with cobwebs, letting in very little light. From the beams of the roof hung a single sixty-watt light bulb giving off just enough light to illuminate the centre of the floor area, leaving the corners in shadow. Around the wall was a variety of old farm implements – old sacks, dusty boxes, an old wooden ladder, a wheel barrow, bits of wood.

I had arranged a big old table at the edge of the lit area behind which we three would sit and I placed a wormeaten, rickety old wooden chair right in the middle about twenty feet in front of it.

We took our places behind the table and indicated to Mac to bring Purdy in. He went out to return shortly with Doug. They had Purdy firmly clasped by the forearms and plumped him unceremoniously onto the chair facing us. Both Mac and Doug were dressed in army fatigues and had their heads covered in black woollen helmets, leaving only their eyes showing. Purdy’s head was enveloped in a dirty old pillow case. His clothes were grubby and disheveled and he was trembling – the antithesis of the smooth confident smiling executive I had first met at the business conference.

I glanced sideways at Mike who was sitting on my left. “Well you said you wanted him scared,” he whispered, with a wicked grin.

I nodded to Doug who whipped off the pillow case and a totally mystified Alan Purdy blinked, shook his head a couple of times and looked around him at the miserable décor in which he found himself.

He then looked at the three of us ranged behind the table in front of him and the pile of documents in front of me. He could see and recognize me clearly as I was within the circle of light. Mike and Pierre were sitting back in the shadow. He could see there were two people but couldn’t see who.

Mike told me afterwards how they had kidnapped him. Mac had an old van that he used for his painting jobs and they had simply parked it in the car park of the squash club. As luck would have it Purdy had left alone after his game and there had been nobody around. It had been very simple to grab him and throw him in the back of the van amongst the ladders and paints. Doug had sat with him keeping him quiet during the journey up to Forfar. Both had played their part perfectly. Not a word during the whole operation. Silence is a great frightener.

They had stashed him in the old cow byre, shackled to an iron ring in the wall with only the floor to sit on. He had had no idea where he was. Doug and Mac had guarded him from outside, peering occasionally in the window, which must have been exceedingly disconcerting to say the least. They had left him a couple of bottles of water and a Mars bar, but that was all.

Now here he was sitting in front of what could only be called a kangaroo court. I’d have been scared stiff.

Not perceiving any immediate physical danger, he visibly pulled himself together. He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him short before he could utter any kind of protest.

“Mr Purdy, I think you know who I am. In fact I know you do, bearing in mind that we crossed swords at your conference a couple of weeks ago and last week you organized a burglary at my home.”

“I know who you are,” he spat at me. “But I don’t know by what right you think you can go snatching people off the street, keep them prisoner and then force them to sit through whatever farce it is you’re planning.”

He was angry and indignant – but still a long way from the point where I wanted him.

“I shall answer that question briefly but I will not enter into a debate on it. First, legally we have no right to do what we are doing. I will accord you that. However, we have decided to take the law into our own hands to correct a situation which the authorities have so far not been able or willing to do anything about.”

He blustered and spluttered, “I demand that you let me go immediately. I shall be contacting the police as soon as possible and I’ll make damned sure that you regret this. You’ll be behind bars before you know where you are. All three of you.”

He tried to get up but Mac and Doug thrust him, none too gently, back onto his chair.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think you would dare go near the police. Before you utter another word I would like to inform you that I have here in front of me documentation which, if the authorities had it in their possession, would very likely result in you spending a considerable part of the next years of your life at, as they say, Her Majesty’s pleasure. You won’t dare go to the police.”

A part of me was rather enjoying this. He glowered at me, his confidence still not yet deflated. “Bullshit.” I looked him straight in the eye, quietly picked up the first document, which consisted of three pages stapled together, and held it up in front of me. I pulled out my reading glasses and slowly put them on.

He didn’t utter a sound but his face started to show slight signs of concern.

“Do you know a Mrs Alice Rutherford?” “Never heard of her.” That’s strange. She told us she has met you several times.” “Never heard of her.” “I have a letter here on Ailsa Investment Management notepaper addressed to this lady. It refers to several meetings with her and is signed ‘yours sincerely, Alan Purdy, Chairman and Managing Director’.”

“I meet hundreds of people in my job. How do you expect me to remember them all?”

“And Mr James MacPhail?” I asked, picking up a second document.

“Who is he?” “You wrote to him on the fourth of September last year.”

He denied knowing any of the next three people I mentioned, each of whom had received letters personally signed by him.

I left a silence hanging in the air waiting until he was the one to break it. I didn’t have to wait long. He must have started to realise that he wasn’t in any physical danger and seemed to take hope from that. His voice almost took on its natural tone.

“Look, what’s all this about? What the hell do you think you’re doing kidnapping me and interrogating me as if I was a criminal?”

I didn’t vouch any reply. Mike and Pierre were still sitting in the shadow. Seen from Purdy’s position it must have been very unnerving. Two hooded men in battle fatigues on either side of him. Two men in the shadows whom he couldn’t make out. A stern interrogator in front of him whom he did know and who had clearly been intent on investigating his fraudulent operations. All of this in the dingiest of settings. I didn’t envy him one bit. And I didn’t have any sympathy for him either. When I thought of the money he had stolen and the types of people who were his prey I warmed to my task.

We sat and coldly watched a man who had systematically robbed a few hundred people just for pure financial gain. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the power his position gave him was the food that nourished the complete disregard he had exhibited towards his victims.

Pierre had lost money but he could afford it. The others had put their trust and lifetime savings into his hands, bamboozled by the inviting publicity, the dishonest marketing and the sweet talk. They had each been taken in by the image of the all-successful businessman and had lost thousands.

When we had started to probe and he saw that there was danger, ego had kidnapped his reason and he had slipped over the edge into criminal activity to protect his ill-gotten gains and his status.

“Mr Purdy, do you deny that you have embezzled important sums of money from hundreds of people who entrusted their money to your care?”

He looked up at us, as if astonished. “You’re damn right I do.” Here we had in front of us a perfect example of the much-vaunted modern financial services industry. A man of no morals who had realised that the technological advances that have made life nowadays so complicated for the average person had opened up all kinds of new ways for crime – or financial theft – in ways that were becoming more and more difficult to detect.

I couldn’t help thinking that the criminal of yesterday who wanted to steal money had had to knock an old man off his bicycle and steal his wallet, or personally go into a bank or a post office and threaten everyone to get at the money in the safe. Whilst I in no way condone such behaviour at least they had had to have a certain degree of courage to acquire their loot. Nowadays they can hide behind a computer screen, miles away, or even in another continent, and steal in almost perfect tranquility, while munching a packet of crisps and sipping a cup of coffee.

“Mr Purdy, we have estimated that you have stolen from the gentleman here on my right approximately two hundred thousand pounds. You have also stolen several million pounds from most of the investors in the AIM funds. These documents that I have in front me can prove this if you don’t agree with us.

“Thanks to your rapacious conduct you have made yourself an exceedingly wealthy man. We know. We have access to your computer systems.”

“Hacking into a company’s computer systems is a criminal offence,” he barked at me. “I’ll have you jailed.”

“Shut up and listen to what he has to say, you little piece of shit,” said Mike, his voice coming out of the shadows. I could feel Mike was barely able to contain himself from going over and knocking the hell out of him.

I picked up the top sheet of paper from the pile in front of me.

“Alan Vesty, invested £80,000, ex-banker, sixty-nine years old. There is a commentary box here at the bottom in which it says ‘Careful’.