“Fine by me,” said Pierre. So we tried to forget everything and drove down to Elie, had lunch in the Ship Inn overlooking the harbour and did battle over the local eighteen holes. I lost four and three and decided it was time I changed my clubs.

If I remember correctly from my physics classes fifty-five years ago there is some kind of principle that says that when you undertake an action there is always a reaction.

I was soon to find out the truth behind that basic law.

Chapter 15

Monday morning.

Mrs Clark came round to check that I was alright. She was still shattered by the car explosion but fortunately no damage had been done to her house. She hadn’t seen me for a few days, she said, but had done some baking for me. She produced a fruit cake and a dozen scones which I dutifully accepted.

Today Pierre would be following up on the bank transfers. We had already set up the trust fund in advance, enabling us to supply a bank account for Purdy’s transfer.

We couldn’t release Doug or Mac yet to let them get back to Edinburgh to latch onto Dewar’s tail. But, hopefully, if all the transfers went through today, we could get Purdy off our back and get moving.

I decided to follow up on Pierre’s suggestion of talking to Keith about Gavin Reid, so I set off for Ladybank to see if he was around. I didn’t have any other way of contacting him but he was there fairly regularly. There were few people around. When I asked the pro if he had seen Keith he told me that he hadn’t seen him today but he knew he had booked a round for tomorrow. As I had made the journey over I thought I might as well get some benefit from it. I went out and had a nice quiet nine holes on my own, playing two balls whenever there was nobody on the hole behind me.

Pierre called me in the evening to confirm that all the transfers had gone through. He was back in pocket. Mike and I were now fifty grand better off. One thing I hadn’t thought of was how to explain that to the tax man, but I would worry about that later.

He had also had Purdy’s resignation letter delivered to AIM. I wondered how they were going to react to that. I phoned Steven and informed him that if he went round to AIM he might get a scoop.

All that was left to do was to work out how to inform all the AIM investors about the trust fund that had been set up specially to distribute some “unexpected dividends” that had accrued to them. We had all their names and addresses so it would be a question of writing a suitable letter and organising to get it mailed out. There was no real rush but I suggested to Pierre that we could work on it tomorrow morning if he came round about ten.

So the next day Pierre and I sat down to draft a circular letter to the eight hundred or so investors in the three funds of AIM. We had to come up with a policy which would be equitable to all concerned and then think up a way of explaining this bonus.

We no longer had the use of Sophie’s high-speed, highcapacity laptop so Pierre had gone off to buy a new one, which would save us a lot of time compared with trying to do the job on my old steam-driven one.

It took him no time at all to fix it up. I was astonished at the power and speed of the thing.

We started by creating three lists of all the names we had, the amount they had invested and the revenue that had accrued to them over the last three years. All the information was on the back-up discs that we had. Once we had totalled up the amount distributed and compared it to the revenue that AIM had generated we had a difference of about six million. We allowed a certain amount for a reasonable percentage to AIM for their overheads and profit and got the figure down to a little over the five million.

We had to make an arbitrary decision as to how much of the five million should go to each of the three funds. That done, we could add this to the total that had been paid out and come up with a new total, which we could express as a percentage of the invested capital. As each person had received varying dividends according to the various notes in the ‘commentary’ box, they would be allocated the difference between the new standard percentage and the one they had received.

It sounds complicated but by using a spreadsheet the job was done fairly quickly. After a couple of hours we had three lists with an amount against each name. On average it amounted to between five and six thousand pounds for each person. They were all going to get a very pleasant surprise.

Then came the drafting of the letter. “I’ll do that tomorrow,” I told Pierre because I felt we needed a break. Also I had to go round to the golf course as I knew that Keith was due to tee off at ten past two.

“Why don’t you come?” I suggested to Pierre. He was more than willing. We decided to have lunch round there.

While we were halfway through our lunch Keith and Jack came in. I invited them to join us. Not wanting to have to explain the intimate details of Dad’s past I introduced Pierre as a golfing friend over from France for a couple of weeks.

Keith was immediately interested and started to quiz Pierre about the supermarket industry in France. Pierre was able to describe to him how things had developed over the last thirty years and how they were now all over the place.

“Practically every town of any size has a Carrefour or a Leclerc or one of the others on the outskirts of town and, because of that, multiple stores have grown up around them. France has much more land than over here and the planning rules are not so strict, I don’t think.”

“I’ll bet they’re not,” said Keith. “That’s the biggest problem we have. All the bloody zone restrictions on buildable land drives me nuts. The consumers want supermarkets because we can offer cheaper prices and I’m blocked by local authorities who complain about us destroying the High Street. All I’m doing is trying to give the consumers what they want.”

“They’ve got a point though, haven’t they?” I said mildly.

“If they want to keep the wee shops in the High Street then they should give them subsidies or cut back the rates or find some other incentive. Where are the people going to park?” Keith was starting to get excited so I switched the conversation over to the upcoming Ryder Cup. I didn’t want him getting apoplectic.

Keith looked at his watch. “Tee off in fifteen minute, Jack. Would you guys like to join us?”

“Why not,” I said, “Are you up for it Pierre? It was decided and we went off to get our clubs and made our way over to the first tee.

It was sunny and warm, with just enough wind to make the game interesting. The fairways had been recently cut and the heather had not yet reached its full season’s growth. Getting out of the rough was going to be easier than it would be later on in the season.

Four drives, reasonably straight down the middle and Keith was waddling off after his ball in his usual aggressive manner – short bandy legs, feet splayed out at ninety degrees and shoulders hunched. His relationship with a golf ball was definitely unhealthy. For him the ball was the enemy and he was going to make damn sure it behaved itself and did what he wanted it to do. It never occurred to him that it was an inanimate object and was only reacting to the way he hit it.

In spite of Keith’s battle with the ball we had a good round and Pierre and I managed to win on the eighteenth.

Back to the bar for a beer. Jack had to leave fairly quickly and Pierre excused himself at the same time.

This was my opportunity to have a word with Keith. I suggested another drink and asked him if he had ten minutes to spare – there was something I wanted to ask him.

“Sure,” he replied.”How can I help you?” “You know Gavin Reid, don’t you? Wasn’t he the guy you introduced to me here a few weeks ago?”