What we knew for sure was that Purdy was skimming off millions through AIM. That he had a mistress whom he presumably wished to keep secret. That Dewar was clearly a friend of some sort and he had a villa in the south of Spain worth a lot more than he could afford on an MP’s salary and he wanted to keep it quiet because he had registered it in his wife’s name – no paper trail to him.
The question was whether Dewar had got the money from Purdy and whether it was because he was blackmailing him over the mistress or the fraud that he was running at AIM.
It didn’t really matter which. The fundamental question was whether Dewar’s money was coming from Purdy or not.
Then there was the conversation that Doug had observed. I had to consider the fact that, perhaps, Purdy had told Dewar that we were sniffing around AIM. He would have received the emails I had organized and had probably linked them to my question at the conference. Perhaps he had told Dewar of the burglary he had organized to get Alice’s papers.
The scenario seemed perfectly possible but at the moment it was only supposition.
Letham is a small village. It’s really not much more than a hamlet. The main street has houses down one side and stretches up to crossroads at the top. The other side is simply fields, giving a clear view across the Howe to the Lomond Hills about six miles away. There is a school and a post office and about sixty houses. It is quiet and suits me admirably. My cottage, unlike most of the others, has two storeys and is built in large chunks of granite. Half way up the street there is a lane which leads off to the right, past the village bowling green, which sits just behind my garden, and then on up to the farm. My house sits just on the corner.
Almost all the houses are set back from the road, each with its twenty feet of front garden, separated from the road, in most cases, by a low stone wall.
The owners of a good few of the houses have widened their front gates and covered the little bit of garden with gravel and park their cars there. I haven’t. I like the idea of a small piece of cultivation between myself and the road and religiously look after the few rose bushes that make the house much more welcoming. There is little traffic so it is no problem to leave my car in the road. It’s quite safe. One day I’ll get around to building a garage up the lane at the back of the house but that is for the future.
After I had wandered up to the post office to get some milk and exchanged a few words with Mrs McLachlan about the weather I returned home to do what I had asked the others to do – think about the next steps.
I noticed that Pierre had left Sophie’s laptop in the sitting room from yesterday and thought I might as well return it to him. We could have a chat about things while the young ones were probably doing their own planning. I smiled at the thought of Mike being finally hooked. Heather would be pleased.
I took the laptop and went out to the car to go off to Fernie when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to lock the back door. The computer was in a solid protective carrying case so I simply threw it onto the back seat and turned back to the house. I had just opened the door when the blast ripped through the air.
My front door flew back, ripped out of my hand, and crashed open against the inside wall. The explosion of hot air threw me into the house after it. I was flung onto the bottom few steps of my staircase. The unexpectedness of it left me in shock for a moment or two. I struggled to my hands and knees and turned round. My car was not a car anymore. It was a burning mess. Flames were consuming the body work furiously and black smoke was billowing up into the sky.
Once I had ascertained that I was, in fact, unhurt I got gingerly to my feet.
“Good God,” I thought “What the hell was that?” I vaguely registered the fact that I had been bloody lucky. The wall, even although it was low, must have helped to deflect the force of the explosion so that I had not been caught in the full blast. But how had it happened?
It didn’t take too long to eliminate the possibility of some kind of accidental electrical fault. I hadn’t even switched on the ignition. All I had done was to open the door and chuck the laptop onto the back seat and slam the door closed.
That left the only possibility. A bomb. The noise of the explosion had brought the neighbours out. Mrs Clark came rushing out, wearing her baking apron, her hands covered in flour. Everybody was clearly shocked. Not wanting to frighten people unnecessarily I let them bandy their theories around to explain how such a strange accident could happen. I wasn’t going to put forward my theory of a bomb, but undoubtedly that was what it had been.
There was no way the car could be saved but Jack, from two houses up, managed to get a hose speedily rigged up so that we could douse the flames as quickly as possible while his wife, Sally, kept on shouting at him not to get too close in case it blew up again. How it could possibly blow up twice was beyond my imagination. After about half an hour the wreck was reduced to a pile of twisted metal emitting the odd hiss as drips of water met molten steel, lost the battle and were immediately converted into a puff of steam which rose up into the air, mixing itself with the black smoke. The stench of burning rubber added to the hellish scene.
I had remained quite calm throughout the whole circus but when the crowd had dispersed and I went back inside to sit down I suddenly realised I was shaking. Delayed shock I thought to myself and sat down with a stiff whisky to calm myself down.
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.”