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.”

“We’ll need Mike, Mac and Doug. Here’s what we’ll do.” I explained and Pierre’s face lit up. “I like it. But we’ll have to wait until Mike and Sophie get back. We can wait a few days. If we do nothing Purdy will think he’s got us off his back and be less on his guard.”

Chapter 13

Mike and Sophie had arrived back the night before. When he called from Forfar I told him about the car bomb. His reaction was immediate.

“We’ll be right over.” He and Sophie arrived within the hour. Both were staggered at the scene of the car. It now looked a very sorry mess of blackened twisted metal. Sophie was very solicitous of my welfare and insisted that I rerun what had happened.

We explained to them how we couldn’t be sure that it was murder they had been attempting or simply the elimination of Sophie’s computer.

“Well I don’t suppose we’ll ever know but it seems to me like the former. Surely Purdy would have realised that we would have made copies of the information.”

“I suppose so,” I replied. “But it doesn’t really matter now. Whichever it was it’s one step too far and, as far as Pierre and I are concerned, we are going to act.”

I then explained to them both what we envisaged. Mike was all for it. Sophie a little less so but, as she couldn’t come up with a better alternative, she went along with us. She had no part to play in the plan but was clearly concerned that we might be opening ourselves up to some unforeseen consequences.