“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’.
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.”