Trail of Greed: Fighting Fraud and Corruption... A Dangerous Game by John Dysart Page B

men who had formed a civil partnership and adopted two kids, one of which had produced two grandchildren!
    The taxman’s contribution was a series of slides containing reams of words and numbers and percentages. He proceeded to read them to us, presumably on the basis that he thought we couldn’t read them ourselves.
    In spite of the fact that he had announced that we would all receive a hard copy afterwards, the younger generation earnestly scribbled away on notepads. He overran his time by about ten minutes, but that didn’t really matter because there were only two questions at the end – both of which were unnecessary because the answers had already been given in the presentation.
    We had a short break for coffee in the lobby. I knew nobody, apart from Pierre and Steven, so I stayed off on the side, observing the sheep networking. After a couple of minutes a lady nervously approached me and held out her hand.
    “Good morning,” she said somewhat nervously. “Are you enjoying the conference?”
    I smiled down at her. She looked about ten years older than me, in her mid-seventies perhaps and was wearing a powder blue suit, the jacket over a white blouse adorned with a pearl necklace. Nothing to indicate poverty or wealth. Just a nice person. Her hair was white and neatly kept. She was sporting a black patent leather handbag, clutching a brown foolscap envelope under her hand bag arm and trying not to spill the coffee in her other hand.
    “Here, let me help you.” I took the cup from her, placed it on the table beside us and turned back to answer her question.
    “To be honest, the first two presentations bored me rigid. I really just came to hear what Mr Purdy has to say.”
    “Me too. I’m Alice Hetherington, by the way. I don’t know anybody else here so I hope you don’t mind me importuning you.”
    “Not at all. My name is Bob Bruce.” “Originally Robert, I suppose,” she said with a smile. “How did you guess? What brings you here?” “Well . . .” she said hesitatingly, and looked intently at me. “I’m also very interested in what Mr Purdy has to say. You see, I’m a client of his and I’ve given over most of the money my late husband left me to AIM for them to manage. I’m not very good at financial things but I’m a bit concerned about what they are doing with it.”
    My antennae moved into gear. “Go on,” I said. “Well I don’t know if I should. You look like a nice, trustworthy person – certainly different from all the others here – but I don’t know you.”
    “Mrs Hetherington – may I call you Alice? I’m basically here for the same reason as you. Not for myself, but for a friend who expressed exactly the same concerns to me. I promised him I’d come along here and listen to what they have to say and see if I could help him.”
    “Are you, or were you, a financial person?” “To a degree. Let’s say I know more than my friend.” “And certainly more than me,” she went on. “The trouble is that I live up in Perthshire and I’m not exactly surrounded by smart financial management people. Our family lawyer knows a fair bit about conveyancing but that’s about it.”
    “Where do you live?”
    “Just outside Waterloo.” I knew the village which was just off the main road north to Pitlochry. I’d passed it many a time on trips north and always wondered how it got its name. It must be a village that was no older than the battle but I had often wondered who had named it and why? Perhaps the local squire had fought with Wellington and when he came back he renamed the farm cottages after the famous victory and it subsequently developed into a village. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place where you would find a lot of financial expertise.
    “What do you mean when you say you’re concerned about what they’re doing with your money?”
    “Well it’s not an awful lot, but it’s all I’ve got and I need the income to supplement my pension. It’s just not paying