“Tell you later,” I said, “When the others arrive.” In the middle of this hive of activity we heard two more cars drive up to the front of the house and Mike, Sophie, Mac and Doug came round the side to join us.

I sat down again and at last managed to have a drink. I looked across at Mike and grinned. “I’ll leave you to do the introductions.”

Sophie, Mac and Doug were introduced to Oliver who welcomed them all.

“Where’s Heather?” asked Mike. “In the kitchen.” He put his arm round Sophie. “Coming?” he asked. “Are you guys scared of your sister, or something?” she asked with a smile.

We both nodded furiously. “Definitely.” Oliver looked on with amusement.

“Come on, Mike,” said Sophie and dragged him off to the kitchen door. That left five of us round the table, glasses in hand, to watch over the barbecue.

Five pairs of raised eyebrows greeted Mike when he came back out, on his own, a few minutes later. He came over and grabbed a spare seat. “She’s put her to work. Great. Now where’s my drink?”

The steaks were wonderful. The salad that Sophie had prepared was pure south of France. Just eating it one was transported to the sunshine of Provence. The wine was a delight. Light conversation flowed round the table. Mac and Doug were made to feel at home and somehow, without imposing his presence at all, Oliver was the perfect host. We concentrated on enjoying the food, the company, the sunshine and the setting, while the ducks paddled around making the odd comment in that strange language of theirs.

But at some time we had to get down to some serious discussion. After all, for all we knew, Dewar might still be intent on trying to eliminate me.

The last time I had seen Pierre or spoken to Mike had been Monday and it was now Friday and they still didn’t know of my hell in the mountains.

Coffee was organised and we got down to business. I started off by telling everybody of the arrangements Pierre and I had undertaken to distribute Purdy’s largesse to the investors who had been shortchanged. I then mentioned my, perhaps significant, discovery of Mr David Dewar on the investor’s list.

Doug immediately offered to follow that one up to see if he really was Bill Dewar’s father.

I then explained how I had been attacked in the garden and dumped somewhere up in the mountains.

“I’ve absolutely no recollection of how I got there. All I can remember is being in the garden, weeding the rose beds. I was attacked from behind and the next thing I knew was that I was lying in the heather in the middle of nowhere.”

Oliver and Heather had already heard the story but all the others were totally shocked. Questions came flying at me from all directions.

But . . .? How . . .? When . . .? Who . . .? I signalled to all to quieten down. “I’m back and safe and sound. No real harm’s been done except my feet and hands still need a few days to recover.”

I recounted how I’d got down to the road, been picked up and taken to Maggie’s hotel. No other details were necessary. Heather had come up yesterday and brought me back here “And, as you can see, I’m hale and hearty.”

“What we now have to do is decide what we should do about Bill bloody Dewar.”

Everybody started to speak at once. Heather and Sophie were for calling in the police. Mike was for charging over and giving the bugger a going over. Mac and Doug didn’t venture an opinion. They were willing to do whatever we wanted.

Pierre was thoughtful and didn’t yet express himself. “It isn’t easy,” I said. “Look at what we know and what we can use. This whole thing started off with our suspicion of a fraud at AIM and my stirring things up at the conference. Purdy organised a burglary at my house presumably because he was suspicious of my interest in his company and the fact that he had seen me chatting to Alice. He was scared.

“Then we managed, thanks to Sophie, to obtain proof of his scheme and we initiated the next step – getting these dozen or so people to send emails to AIM.

“Meanwhile Mac and Doug had found out about Purdy’s mistress and that he was buddies with Dewar. Dewar has an expensive house in Spain that we can’t imagine where he got the funds from to buy. Also it’s registered in his wife’s name. The only reason for that must be that he doesn’t want it known that it’s his.”

I paused. Everybody agreed. “Everything points to Dewar blackmailing Purdy. Either he knows he’s got a mistress or he knows of the fraud through his father, if that’s who David Dewar is.”

I was starting to feel that I was back up in the mountains blundering about in the mist.

“Then, my car was bombed. We now know it was Purdy because he told us – but we suspected it anyway. It couldn’t have been anyone else. So we grabbed Purdy and put him through his trial. I tend to believe what Purdy told us because he showed, when he was with us, that he’s a pretty weak character.”

Doug broke in. “I’ve been watching him and I agree with you. You can tell he’s slimy and he’s a crook – we know that – but I don’t think he’s got the guts to go for murder.”

“So we believe his story about being ordered to get rid of me?”

Several heads nodded. Pierre was still looking thoughtful.

“When Mike released Purdy he didn’t go straight home as you might expect but ran straight to Dewar. Is that right, Mac?”

“Yes.” “What kind of a conversation did it look like?” “Well I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It’s a bit difficult to describe. What was sure was that Dewar arrived in a rush. So whatever was the matter he thought it was urgent. Purdy did most of the talking. It looked like he was explaining what had happened to him. Dewar didn’t say much. To begin with he looked as if didn’t believe what he was hearing. Then Purdy got more excited and seemed to be trying to convince him it was all true.”

“How did Dewar react?”

“To begin with he just sat there and listened. Then he started to look bloody angry. My God he’s got a hard face, that bastard. When Purdy was done he leant forward towards him and looked like he was giving him instructions. Like he was ordering him to do something. Purdy didn’t like it one bit and shook his head. Dewar looked like he was insisting and Purdy kept shaking his head. Then he spat a few words at him and got up and stormed out.”

We all tried to imagine the scene. I could imagine Purdy but, because I had never actually seen Dewar, I built a picture of him in my head. Big, bulky, stony-faced – a hard man.

“Fine,” I said. “The next thing that happens is I get kidnapped in my garden, drugged and dropped in the mountains, presumably with the intention that I don’t get back. It would look like an accident. Another stupid walker who didn’t take the elementary precautions when he went up into the hills.”

“The whole thing is unbelievable,” said Heather. “Bob, you’ve got to go to the police.”

“And what does he tell them?” asked Mike. “We can’t explain the uncovering of the AIM fraud. That puts Sophie in trouble and I’m not having that.”

Sophie smiled at him and put her hand on his thigh. “And we have no proof that Dewar kidnapped Bob. They wouldn’t believe us. He’s an MP and, even if they did believe us, I don’t know how they could go about getting proof.”

There was silence for a few minutes. Then Pierre voiced his thoughts. “I don’t think we can do anything. We’ve achieved what we set out to do. We’ve stopped Purdy’s little game. It’s finished. He’s resigned. If that means that Dewar no longer has a source of extra cash, then that’s his problem. It strikes me that he reacted instinctively and in anger. When he stops and thinks he’ll realize that there’s no way that Bob could make any connection between him and Purdy. Think about it from his side. I think it was a gut reaction. He just lashed out at the guy who was the cause of him losing a lucrative source of funds. He’ll drop it. He’ll leave Bob alone because the risk of committing coldblooded murder would be too great.”