“I suspect you’re right but we can’t condemn the man without proof.”

“Why not?” she shot back. “A crook’s a crook.” “Alice, we don’t know yet for sure if he is. That he might be is all we can say at the moment. I and the friend I told you about feel that there is definitely something suspicious and we’ve decided to see if we can find out for sure.”

“That’s good.” She was clearly excited about the idea that this man would get his just desserts.

“So, in the meantime, what do I do about my money?” “I’d move it, if I were you,” I replied. “I can put you in touch with a good trustworthy financial advisor who will plan a proper investment strategy for you. But talk to him first before you move it. Let him handle that. He’s used to it. There may be ways around the penalty clauses. If there are, he’ll find them. What you can do for the moment is write to AIM and ask them how much you would get if you cashed in everything now. Just tell them that you have some important costs coming up and you might need to free up your cash. So you need to know how much you would get back if you sold out.

That will serve two purposes – you’ll be able to show their reply to Jack Thomson, who is the financial advisor, and also it might get Mr Purdy worried. After all, he didn’t like my question and he saw us chatting together after the meeting. He’ll probably put two and two together.”

That was how, sitting quietly in a verandah in a little village in Perthshire, I stuck a red hot poker into a hornet’s nest – but I didn’t know it at the time.

I gave her Jack’s phone number and she agreed to do what I had suggested. I told her I would keep the copies of her paperwork and asked her to send me a copy of whatever reply she received from AIM.

Before I left I asked Alice if she knew of any other people who were AIM investors.

“Only one,” she told me, and gave me a name and address in Perth. A David MacLean.

“He’s an old colleague of my husband’s. They worked for the same company. He retired a few years before Malcolm. But he must be about ninety by now, if he’s still alive.”

I thanked her for the lunch, promised to keep in touch and set off back home.

During the journey home I wondered how I might be able to track down other Alices or Davids. If APA was going to achieve anything we were going to need as much knowledge as we could dig up. Perhaps Steven would have an idea.

Chapter 8

I picked up Pierre at the hotel on Saturday morning and we drove through to Doune for our lunch appointment. I took him the more picturesque route through Glendevon.

The Ochil Hills stretch across that part of Scotland from North Fife to Stirling. They form a natural barrier to the Highlands farther north and Glendevon is one of the few roads piercing them. Driving through the glen is the quickest way to get a feel for the rugged wild country farther north. The road twists its way through the glen and comes out into the last low-lying countryside before you hit the mountains. From the shadow of the steep-sided glen we emerged into blue skies stretching to the north where the ominous grey shapes of the mountains filled the horizon.

We came out at the main road from Perth to Stirling, crossed it, and a few minutes later entered the famous golfing domain of Gleneagles, where we had agreed to meet Mike.

We stopped for enough time for a coffee and to show Pierre what a real golf course looked like. He was completely taken by the magnificent surroundings and we promised we would bring him over to play sometime soon.

We left Gleneagles in the two cars and proceeded towards Doune. Mike had announced that he would have to get back fairly early, because, he told me with a grin, he had “to pick up a photograph”.

The old grey farmhouse stood on the south-facing slope of a small hill. It was protected from the east wind by a copse of trees. We were on the southern fringe of the Highlands. In the distance were the mountain peaks of varying shades of grey and blue, eventually fading with the distance until they merged into the sky.

There were no crops in the surrounding fields. This was not an arable farm. Oliver, my brother-in-law, raised cattle for the meat industry. The fields were grass, populated by young cows, which he bought regularly at the local sales, fattened them up for a year or so and then sold them on to the meat-packing industry. It was a profitable enough business and it had the advantage of not being very labour intensive. He ran about three hundred cattle, buying and selling three or four a week except during the winter when he depleted his stock with sales, and built it up again during the spring.

During the cold months, when the cattle were inside, he needed a young lad to help with the feeding, but other than that he could run the whole place single handed. There had, however, never been very much opportunity for holidays when the kids had been small. Perhaps that is why they had both chosen other careers.

The life suited Heather who had always had a few horses. It was permanently busy but there was little in the way of the stress of city life, the professional politics and the bloody traffic that I had had to put up with all my life.

I had explained all this to Pierre as we had driven through and he was looking forward to meeting them.

I rang the door bell and was immediately rewarded by a pile of noises from inside the house. I say “a pile” because they all seemed to me to be stacked on top of each other.

“I’ll get it” – thump of running feet – “Get off” – “I’m first” – a crash of something falling over – a clunk on the inside of the door – the noise of the handle being wrenched open.

The door was hauled back to reveal two grinning, perspiring faces – Rory, ten and Paddy (Patrick), eight – Heather’s grandsons.

“Hi, Uncle Bob,” they cried in unison. “Hi, Uncle Mike.” “Hi, scamps,” I replied, ruffling their hair. Mike’s welcome was more violent. He lunged forwards and grabbed them both, one under each arm, and promptly turned round and walked over to the pile of grass clippings against the wall and unceremoniously dropped the two squealing boys into it.

“Hi guys,” he said with a grin, and came back to us, rubbing his hands. “That’ll keep them quiet for a while.”

Oliver came to the door to welcome us. Looking round he saw his two grandsons emerging, covered in grass clippings and, with a wink to us, roared at them, “What the blazes do you two think you’re up to?”

“It was him,” they cried, pointing fingers at Mike who was looking a picture of innocence.

“Me? Nonsense.” “Get yourselves cleaned up before you come back in the house.”

They scampered off round the corner, grinning at each other.

Oliver ushered us in through the hall and into the kitchen which was at the back of the house.

Heather looked up and smiled at us from behind a pile of kitchen utensils and food, spread out all over the place. She was in the middle of preparation for lunch.

“Hi guys, you’re early. I haven’t finished all this yet.” She waved her arms vaguely over the work in progress, a wicked looking knife in her hand. “Why don’t you go out the back and Oliver will get you a drink. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Out the back” was a stone-flagged terrace with a large teak table and eight chairs looking out over a small pond off to the left and a view across the carse to the mountains in the distance. The pond was the territory of a few ducks that were gliding around on the surface of the water.

Pierre had followed along behind and before we sat down I introduced him to Oliver as a friend who was staying at Fernie Castle and whom I had met at the golf club.

I had decided to break the news to Heather alone to give her a chance to absorb the shock on her own, rather than in front of Pierre.