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.”

“You must be out of your minds,” he screamed. “There’s no way I can afford that.”

“That is rubbish,” said Pierre. “We know how much you have stashed away and we know that you will still have a few hundred thousand left to enjoy your retirement.”

In fact we knew he would still have about a million left but we wanted him to think we had missed something. We wanted him to think that he was one up on us. That way we were more likely to win. This guy had an ego as big as a house and that would help him to accept our proposal. If we had gone for too much he might have blocked and taken the risk of calling our bluff. And what we were asking for did cover the amounts we knew he had stolen.

In the silence that followed you could almost hear his brain churning. He stared at us for about thirty seconds then all the bluster went out of him. His shoulders sagged.

“And if I agree . . .?” I could sense a slight lessening of tension behind his puffy, bloodshot eyes.

“Do it first, then we will see.” Pierre had pulled out his laptop and he fired it up. “It can all be done here and now.” “You bastards! I don’t have a choice, do I?” “No.” He got up and walked unsteadily over to the table. Pierre vacated his seat and stood behind him while he logged on to the various sites necessary to effect the transactions. We had prepared a list of bank account numbers for the various deposits.