“The whole thing is unbelievable,” said Heather. “Bob, you’ve got to go to the police.”
“And what does he tell them?” asked Mike. “We can’t explain the uncovering of the AIM fraud. That puts Sophie in trouble and I’m not having that.”
Sophie smiled at him and put her hand on his thigh. “And we have no proof that Dewar kidnapped Bob. They wouldn’t believe us. He’s an MP and, even if they did believe us, I don’t know how they could go about getting proof.”
There was silence for a few minutes. Then Pierre voiced his thoughts. “I don’t think we can do anything. We’ve achieved what we set out to do. We’ve stopped Purdy’s little game. It’s finished. He’s resigned. If that means that Dewar no longer has a source of extra cash, then that’s his problem. It strikes me that he reacted instinctively and in anger. When he stops and thinks he’ll realize that there’s no way that Bob could make any connection between him and Purdy. Think about it from his side. I think it was a gut reaction. He just lashed out at the guy who was the cause of him losing a lucrative source of funds. He’ll drop it. He’ll leave Bob alone because the risk of committing coldblooded murder would be too great.”
“Oliver, what do you think?” I asked. “From what I’ve heard so far I think I agree with Pierre. It’s true that you can’t go to the police. Why not just lie low for a while. Dewar doesn’t know you’ve survived. You could surface in a week or so and when you do we could ask Mac to run guard. Meanwhile Doug and Mike can keep tabs on him. I agree with Pierre. I don’t think there will be any more danger.”
“Everybody else?” No one disagreed. I was in favour as well and it was my life that had been in jeopardy.
“Right,” said Mike. “If that’s decided I’m going for an after lunch walk. Coming Sophie?”
He held out his hand to her to help her up from the chair and they went off up the track to the hills behind. We watched them go and exchanged smiles. I bent a question mark at Heather who answered “I think she’s lovely. Just what he needs. It’s about time he found someone he could stick with.”
“Pierre, you know Sophie better than any of us. What do you think?”
“The same as I have always thought,” he replied. “If I’m too old for her then I want to like whoever does get her. My half brother will do fine.”
Mike and Sophie were back in half an hour. We tidied up and relaxed in the sun for a while. Mac and Doug left and we promised we would let them know when I decided to resurface.
Then Heather got up and announced that she had to go down to check on the horses.
“Mike, Sophie, do you want to come?” I knew that Mike was scared of the beasts but seeing that Sophie was definitely keen he acquiesced and they left Pierre, Oliver and me to finish off the wine.
We watched them go over to the paddock, Heather and Sophie in close conversation and Mike looking on solicitously. There seemed to be some kind of discussion between the girls. They were too far away for us to see exactly what was going on. Heather disappeared into the stables and came out with a saddle and bridle which she proceeded to put on one of the horses. As soon as that was completed Oliver and I were astonished to see Sophie leap up into the saddle and canter off round the field, looking every inch the accomplished rider.
She wheeled round at the far end of the field and started to gallop back towards one of the practice jumps that had been set up. Oliver and I looked at each other. He knows more about horses than I do and his comment to me was “Wow, that girl can ride!”.
As she galloped up to the jump she pulled on the reins to check his speed so that he would be well placed to take off. The horse responded and sailed over the jump. Sophie rose in the saddle as they went over and leant over its neck to keep the balance right and, as the horse gathered itself on landing, she was back down with a triumphant smile splitting her face. She cantered over to Heather, jumped off and handed the reins over. Mike had been watching with obvious concern on his face.
When they came back Heather and Sophie were deep in horse talk and Mike was following despondently behind.
“Bloody hell,” he said. “She never told me she could do that.”
Heather offered to put up Pierre, Mike and Sophie for the night and the offer was gratefully accepted. The evening was relaxed and harmonious – a family affair.
In the meantime I had ideas of my own on how I was going to spend my time over the next few days. My transfer had gone through. Tomorrow I was going down into Stirling to buy myself a bright red Mercedes SLR convertible and do a bit of motoring.
Maybe I would return these trainers.
Chapter 20
The next morning I set off for Stirling to see if I could track down the car I wanted. I was in luck. At the second stop I found just the model I was looking for, second hand but with only ten thousand miles on the clock. It wasn’t the red I had hoped for but I accepted that blue would do. A deal was struck and I drove out of the garage as happy as a sand boy.
Keen to try out my new acquisition I headed out in the direction of Loch Lomond. It was sunny so I had lowered the hood and the long straight road west gave me the chance to feel the wind in my hair and the raunchy power of the engine. I had only driven a few miles before I was completely convinced that I had made a good choice. At the roundabout at the end of the straight I turned up towards Kippen to see how it felt on the corners. She took the narrow twisty road like a dream. No problem.
I had heard that there was a well-known village delicatessen in the main street of Kippen so I pulled over in front of Berits and Brown for a coffee stop. Sitting outside, sipping my espresso in the sun, I thought to myself that life could be worse.
The shop had an interesting selection of wines so I bought half a dozen bottles on the recommendation of the owner to donate to Oliver and Heather. I loaded up the wine, bade farewell to Mr Brown and headed on towards Loch Lomond.
I was back at the farm by lunchtime and announced my intention to go off for a couple of days to try out my new purchase.
Pierre had left to go back to Fife, Mike had gone through to help the guys in Edinburgh and, much to my surprise and delight, Heather had suggested that Sophie stay on for a few days to help her exercise the horses.
Two days of mountain air and the open road would do wonders for my spirits. I gave strict instructions to my brain to entertain no thoughts of AIM, Purdy or Dewar.
I was back in Doune on Thursday – minus the trainers.
Relaxing after lunch I noticed the Edinburgh newspaper lying on the table and started to flick through it. Not much of interest until I came to the financial page. There was an article under the headline ‘AIM boss resigns.’ That interested me.
It was written by Steven and it started: ‘The Board of AIM has announced with regret today the resignation of its founder Alan Purdy for health reasons.’
It then went on to explain how Purdy had started up the company and made it a major player in the investment market. The Board would sorely miss him etc. etc. No real truth in their announcement but a lot of marketing speak. It went on to say that Mr Ian McLeish would take on the role of Managing Director temporarily until the Board found a suitable successor to ‘drive the business forward on the path that Mr Purdy had started’!
What, however, interested me was that I knew Ian McLeish quite well. A couple of jobs back from my retirement he had been one of the partners in the firm that had been our auditors. Knowing what I knew and thinking about the trust fund we had set up I thought it wise to get in touch with him.
I immediately called AIM and asked to be put through to him.
I was greeted like an old friend and we exchanged news about what we had each been up to over the intervening years.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call, Bob?” he asked eventually.