“And could they get back to you?”

“What do you mean?” “Could they identify where the hacking came from?” “If I left a trace and they had the software, yes.” Sophie went back to work. I went back to pottering and the afternoon wore on slowly.

About four o’clock I heard Sophie call me. I went in to find her with a very pleased expression on her face.

“I’ve done it,” she said with glee. She waved a CD at me. I walked over and congratulated her. I took the disc from her hand. It looked pretty innocuous – like any other disc.

“On there is a list of all the investors in the three funds run by AIM and all the information about the funds’ investments over the last five years. I haven’t looked at the detail yet but it’s all there.”

“Great,” I said and asked her if she’d made another copy.

“Not yet,” she said, “But I’ll do it right now.” She stuck a new disc in the slot on the side of her machine, punched a few buttons. It whirred away for a minute or two and then ejected.

“We’ve now got two copies on disc and one on the machine. Now give me some quiet while I get rid of all the traces of my visit. It’ll take me a good half hour.”

I left her to her labours and went to tidy away the tools I had been using outside. Tomorrow we’d be able to have a good look at the inside workings of AIM and get to grips with Mr Purdy’s machinations.

Pierre arrived about ten minutes later, full of the joys of his golfing experience. He’d met a couple of members who had invited him to play with them and he had thoroughly enjoyed himself.

We interrupted Sophie to share the news of her success and opened a bottle of wine. We decided to meet the next day and take our time to analyse what we had found.

“Leave one copy here for safety,” I said to Sophie, and she put one on the shelf above my computer.

Pierre then got up to leave. “Come on Sophie, hurry up. Don’t forget I promised you a good dinner tonight. Do you want to come along, Bob?”

I declined. “No thanks. I’m going to have a good bath and an early night after all the work I’ve done outside.”

“Sophie, are you not finished yet?” “Nearly,” she said. “Stop hustling me.” Her finger tapping speeded up and a few minutes later she closed the lid of her machine and got up to go.

We decided to leave it with me until tomorrow. I wasn’t going to try to read the disc until Sophie came back the next day to show us how. I was scared I might wipe something out.

Hot bath. Meal in front of the TV, watching some European Tour event and then off to bed with a book – a reasonable evening programme for an oldie like me.

We started the next morning just after ten. I had nipped in to Cupar and stocked up with printer ink and paper. I guessed we were going to need it.

Sophie powered up my PC which was linked to the printer and slipped in the disc. The screen was suddenly filled with stacks of file references. Each had names and codes which meant nothing to any of us yet.

We opened up the first one which turned out to be a file of data concerning a certain Michael Baxter. It listed all his personal details – name, birth date, marital status, children, occupation or previous occupation. It turned out he was widowed, seventy-eight years old and lived in Inverness. He had been a veterinary surgeon and had one daughter (details given), who had presented him with two grandchildren. He had invested three years ago and had still two years to run. He had invested a hundred and thirty thousand pounds and had earned a return of three point two per cent which had been paid out to him in the middle of January each year - just over four thousand pounds to add to his pension.

We tried a few other ones. Each file had the same kind of information. There were between two hundred and fifty and three hundred of these files for each of the three funds, which meant an average investment of about a hundred and eighty thousand pounds.

Suddenly Pierre told Sophie to stop for a minute. “What’s that box over there on the left?” On the left-hand side of the screen there was a framed box with nothing in it. Sophie moved her mouse over it and up flashed a label with the words ‘Password Protected’.

We all looked at each other.

“Can you bust the password, Sophie?” I asked. “Should be able to,” she replied. “But it’ll take a bit of time.”

She pulled a set of discs from her briefcase and stacked them up beside her then proceeded to feed the top one into the slot.

“This could take an hour or two,” she told us. “So you two can go and have a walk or something while I work.”

Pierre and I took her at her word and went off for an hour up through the village to the hills behind. We walked gently, admiring the view and enjoying the fresh air. As we walked I pointed out some of the landmarks and gave him a brief history lesson about the area.

We returned after an hour and a half and I made us all a cup of coffee. I was in the middle of explaining to Pierre the history of Falkland and its palace when Sophie called through to us. She had found the password and could now show us what was written in the box.

For the particular file we had on the screen it said ‘Admitted retirement home March 2011. Trustee solicitors MacLean and Padgett, Stonehaven’.

We went back over some more files looking for other comments. There was one where the comment was ‘Careful, ex-accountant’ and another with ‘diagnosed dementia’.

Pierre then spotted something else – not everyone in the same fund was receiving the same rate of return. There seemed to be a correlation between the rates and the comments. Where ‘careful’ was noted, the return was higher than the poor guy who had dementia. Those in the hands of trustees seemed to be somewhere in the middle.

We sat back and looked at each other, horrified. They were systematically adjusting the rates according to his perceived danger of someone kicking up a fuss.

“Can you guys pull all this information out on to a spreadsheet so that we can really see the overall picture?”

“Sure. No problem.” “Let’s do it then. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going outside to think about this.”

I poured myself a stiff whisky, even if it was before noon, and went out into the garden. I was shocked to the core. I couldn’t believe that anyone could mount a scheme so brutally fraudulent and think he could get away with it. But the evidence was there. He must be creaming off millions.

How did he get it past the authorities? The answer must be that he had crooked accountants and lawyers that he paid to turn a blind eye. The authorities would accept what was lodged with them and as long as nobody blew the whistle he was printing money. He had carefully selected his target group so that it was unlikely that anybody would challenge him.

Inside the company I suppose a few people must be in on it but he would probably have sectioned off the work amongst different departments so that no one saw the whole picture.

I went back in after ten minutes to see how Sophie and Pierre were getting on.

“OK you geniuses, where are we?”

Pierre pointed to the screen. “We’ve got a spreadsheet for each fund, listing all the investors and all their details. We can sort them by any characteristic you want. Watch.”

He called up a menu screen, made a few selections and the whole list sorted itself out into ascending reported rate of return for 2011. All the other characteristics automatically sorted themselves out as well. Hey, presto! All the people in the low percentages had comments indicating that there was little chance of complaints – dementia, deceased, estate awaiting probate, etc. Down at the bottom were all the ‘careful’, ex-bankers and the like. They had the best returns.

“Pierre, there’s your proof if ever you need it. This guy should go to jail.”