CHAPTER 24 The Revenge

 

Walking through the concourse at Kennedy Airport in New York, Jock was aware of the inquisitive looks from other passengers as he strode to the exit, laden with his huge rucksack. He was dressed in hill-walking attire, in marked contrast to the casual dress of the passengers who were collecting their suitcases.

He took a taxi to the railway station where he boarded a train to Maine. He intended to start his walk at Mount Katahdin and finish at Springer Mountain in Georgia. Once he started the walk, he surprised fellow walkers, whom he met enroute, with the daily distance he covered.

Six weeks later, he arrived in Damascus, Virginia, booked into a motel and phoned Doug Campbell. The following day, he withdrew a large sum of money from the local bank, telling them that it would see him through a good part of his planned walk. That evening, he was standing at a small airport with all his gear when a private plane, piloted by Doug Campbell, landed. After a quick refuel, Jock boarded the plane and they flew to New York where it landed at the freight area of Kennedy airport.

In the office of the hanger of Campbell Holdings, Doug Campbell introduced Jock to an employee called Captain Roy Steele. He was flying the following afternoon to Prestwick in Scotland, carrying boxes of computer units and spares for the IBM factory in Greenock. Doug showed Jock the equipment which Jock had asked him to provide. There was a black parachute, helmet, wind smock and a medium-sized rucksack with all the necessary essentials in it for lightweight camping.

Just as the inspection of the requested equipment was completed, the company was joined by the co-pilot, Joe Rice. Both pilots were long-time, trustworthy employees of Campbell Holdings and had been sworn to secrecy about what was to take place. Plans and timings were also made for Jock’s return flight in four weeks’ time. At the allotted time, Jock was put into a large cardboard box which would be loaded onto the plane as freight. There was an emotional farewell between him and Doug before the box was sealed.

Just before take-off, once all freight was loaded, Joe Rice came and opened up the cardboard box and Jock made himself comfortable in the spartan conditions of the freight deck of the aircraft. He was wakened by Roy as they flew over the coastline of Scotland.

As they approached Prestwick Airport, they circled over Fenwick Moor, dropping altitude where the lights of the runway could be seen in the distance. Conversation between Jock and Roy was limited to sign language because of the noise, especially when the side door was opened. Jock then made his exit, jumping into the night sky.

The parachute opened with a resounding crack and the only sound Jock could hear was the fading drone of the aircraft and the rustle of the wind in the canopy of his chute. Happy memories thought Jock as he tried to distinguish between the lights of Ayr, Kilmarnock, East Kilbride and Glasgow in order to gain his bearings.

It was five o’clock in the morning and still very dark, but he could smell the ground as he came down and executed a perfect landing on tussock grass. He shed his harness and equipment, dug a hole and buried the chute. A quick check of the compass and he headed for the lights of the nearest town, Darvel, which he reached after two hours of walking.

At a local bus stop, he checked the times and found that he had only fifteen minutes to wait until a bus could take him to Glasgow via Kilmarnock. When he arrived in Glasgow, he had a cooked breakfast at the bust station before buying a bike and panniers in a nearby shop. He then cycled to Queen Street railway station where he caught a train to Inverness.

It was early afternoon when he arrived in Blair Athol. As he cycled up Glen Tilt, he thought about the last time he had travelled this route which was with Mary and it only hardened his resolve to complete the task he had in mind. He reached Glen Geldie as darkness was approaching and set up camp for the night.

Up at first light, he walked to the watershed between Glen Geldie and Glen Feshie and retrieved the cache he had buried previously, his Mauser rifle, the ammunition, food, thermal blankets and money, before returning to his small tent and bicycle. As he walking along the track to Braemar, he was confident that no-one would recognise him on account of the large beard he had grown. If the truth be known, he didn’t recognise himself.

Through Braemar he went and onto the track at Loch Callater where he hid the bike in the deep heather at the head of the loch, then made his way by foot up the steep slope to Jock’s Road. Again, the memories of him, Mary and Rambo came flooding back as he remembered this walk when they had done it together. He set off at a blistering pace, reaching Glen Clova quickly and left the road at Rottal, over the hill to Glen Moy, through the forest there and reached Glen Ogle as darkness came down. He bedded down amongst the whin bushes overlooking the reservoir.

He was woken by the dawn chorus of a family of blackbirds and as he began to assemble the rifle from the case, his thoughts returned to how it had come into his possession.

 

The Falklands War had been nearing its conclusion. The attack on Tumbledown Mountain to dislodge the strongly positioned Argentinians, who had dug in there, had begun. The Scots Guards and the Gurkhas had been given the task of clearing them and opening the route to Stanley. It was a night attack and the first attempt proved futile. In the confusion, Jock found himself with only half of his platoon which was about ten men, and six Gurkhas who had lost their officer and NCOs. All were low on ammunition.

Jock was considering what his next course of action would be when they were joined by Piper McDonald from right flank Company of the Scots Guards. Piper was confused about what had taken place, he had lost contact with his platoon and was unsure of his whereabouts. Jock was amazed to see him in the middle of a battle, unarmed, and carrying only his bagpipes, a haversack of medical supplies and a very welcome sight, several bandoliers of ammunition. Jock divided the ammunition amongst his makeshift command and decided to sneak up on the machine gun post immediately above them. Piper McDonald would bring up the rear and tend to anyone who was injured in the attack.

Although tired and hungry, the prospect of action ran through Jock’s veins, making the fatigue disappear. He led from the front and crawled up to where he could see a sentry leaning against a rock, smoking. Jock silently indicated to his command that he would deal with the sentry, which he did silently by pressing a bayonet against his throat. He was joined by two Gurkhas who dealt with the other Argentinians using Kukris, Gurkhan knives, in the same fashion. They left two men to guard the prisoners and repeated the procedure at the next post. Again, they were successful.

During the attack on the third post, one of the Argentinians ran off and raised the alarm, and a firefight developed. Flares and tracer bullets were being fired all over the place. Suddenly, the sound of bagpipes could be heard and Piper McDonald could be seen striding over the terrain, playing the ‘Black Bear’ as though he was on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle. Jock and his men fired the last of their ammunition at the next post and charged with fixed bayonets. They found the post deserted, the occupants having fled downhill to Port Stanley.

There were cheers and more pipes as Scots Guards and Gurkhas came up the hill. The enemy had deserted their posts, heading for Port Stanley. The rest of Jock’s squad took the prisoners down the hill, while Jock sat with the Gurkhas drinking tea. Piper McDonald was still playing his pipes, oblivious to all that was going on around him. When Jock came up to him, he realised that the piper was intoxicated, which made Jock laugh out loud and he just let him carry on playing to his heart’s content.

Jock and the Gurkhas were wondering what to do next when they encountered Major Marson, the adjutant of the battalion, who congratulated Jock on opening up the line of defence and putting the enemy to flight. He also said that Jock and Piper McDonald would be recognised for their efforts. His last instructions were for Jock and his Gurkhas to search the bunkers for any intelligence.

It was while searching a bunker, which was obviously the quarters of an officer, that Jock discovered the case which held the Mauser rifle. As it had a silencer and top-of-the-range telescopic sights, Jock thought it would be ideal for poaching deer, so he purloined it. The only disadvantage was that there were only about one hundred rounds of ammunition and it would be almost impossible to find any more. No doubt this weapon had been used with deadly effect on British troops during the conflict.

As he assembled the rifle in Glen Ogle, Jock reflected that when he had first got it, he never thought that he would one day be using it on a fellow Scot in anger. However, the criminal world had declared war on him and he was fighting back in the only way he knew how. The passage in the bible, ‘an eye for an eye,’ gave him a feeble excuse, but it was his basic instinct for revenge that was the real reason why he was lying here in wait, hoping that the information the private detective, Geroge Young, had given him was correct. He had been informed that Slim Jim Arthur was in Noranside open prison and that his favourite pastime was fishing. If so, Slim Jim could be in a group that came here, unattended by prison officers, in the afternoon. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Barry, when he and Mary had stayed at Memus caravan park the previous year.

Lying camouflaged as he had been trained to do, Jock watched the wildlife. Deer, hares, rabbits and otters and various species of birds helped him pass the time. He saw the official in charge of the reservoir check the drains and pipes and two fishermen in a boat.

About one o’clock in the afternoon, he saw approximately fifteen men in prison clothes walk along the far side of the reservoir and spread out. Once they had cast their rods, they sat or lay down, reading books and magazines. Slowly Jock looked through his telescopic sight at each one, then gave a small gasp as he recognised, not only Slim Jim, but also the man called Lobo who had decapitated Rambo. He could not believe his good fortune. His two targets were well apart from the rest of the group.

As Jock was lining up the rifle, his attention was drawn to another man, dressed as though he was going fishing, with waterproofs, rod and fishing basket. This man approached Slim Jim and Lobo and shook hands with them before having a brief conversation and handing a small package to Slim Jim. That’ll be drugs, mused Jock, for him to distribute in the prison to gain money, control and prestige. After a few minutes of conversation, the man left the two prisoners and casually walked back towards the car park. As his two targets began to concentrate on fishing, casting their rods into the water, they presented an ideal target for Jock to aim at.

His first shot caught Slim Jim in the chest and he fell back onto the bank. The second shot hit Lobo in the identical spot and he too was hurled back onto the bank with the velocity of the bullet. None of the prisoners appeared to notice that anything was amiss. Jock slowly tidied up the area where he’d been lying, brushing the grass and removing any object which indicated that a body had lain there. Slowly, he crawled through the ferns and long grass, as he had been taught all those years ago. It was only when he reached the woodland that he stood up and ran at a steady pace until he reached the other side. Then he crawled across the moor until he reached the forest at Glen Moy. At any time, he expected to hear the noise of a helicopter or a police siren, but nothing came.

Once in the forest, he ran all the way to the hill above Rottal in Glen Clova. By this time it was getting dark, so he rested between two rocks and had his first hot drink in twenty-four hours, courtesy of his chemical tablet stove. Refreshed, he made his way along the road and ran nonstop to Glen Doll. He didn’t see a soul or a single motor vehicle. In the wood at Glen Doll, he made a hurried temporary shelter and slept until dawn.

 

Meanwhile, the police had been alerted and Detective Superintendent John Blincow had taken charge of the investigation. At his instruction, all the prisoners on the fishing trip had been separated and questioned in turn. Statements had been taken from the two fishermen and the workers at the reservoir. Enquiries at the local farms proved negative. DS Blincow was convinced that one of the prisoners was the miscreant. It was only when the registrations of the cars in the car park were checked that suspicion changed. A suspected drug dealer, John Simpson, had been in the area. A search warrant was obtained and DS Blincow led a team to apprehend him and search his house at Pannal Court in Ardler, Dundee.

They asked the concierge in charge of the building to secure the lift to the tenth floor and then they forced entry into the house. After a lengthy search, drugs, money, offensive weapons and several phones were confiscated. John Simpson was taken into custody, despite his plea of innocence in the murder at Glen Ogle. When they came out of the building, the area was strewn with football strips and athletic tops still wrapped in plastic. The detective immediately linked the clothing to a break-in at a sports shop in Arbroath the previous week. A quick check of the other residents in the building revealed a well-known housebreaker who was also taken into custody.

Back at Forfar Police Station, DS John Blincow reflected on a good night’s work. A murder suspect in custody, vital information about drugs and a shop break-in solved. However, when the forensic report revealed that the bullets used in the murder were from a high-powered Mauser rifle and not only were they expensive but almost unobtainable in this country, it cast serious doubt in his mind before he interviewed John Simpson.

By this time, newspapers and TV crews were clamouring for interviews and statements, as the sensation of the murders of two well-known criminals, while in custody, had become public knowledge.

 

Jock awoke with the dawn and ran and walked all the way along the hill path called Jock’s Road to Loch Callater where he retrieved his hidden bike. He cycled through Braemar and Glen Tilt to Blair Athol where after a huge meal at a café, he caught the train to Glasgow. By this time, the beard he had grown was such that he hardly recognised himself when he looked in the mirror.

Darkness was falling as he cycled into the run-down housing estate, known as Milton. He left his bike and made his way on foot to the derelict tenements which overlooked the public house called the Ponderosa. This, according to the information from the Glasgow private detective, was owned by Tommy Arthur and was from where he allegedly conducted his business.

Jock had a good view of the Ponderosa, about five hundred yards away, from the top flat of the tenement where he lay in wait. He had no misgivings about the path of revenge that he had taken. As well as protecting himself, he also believed that he was doing society a service.

About eleven o’clock that evening, the clientele of the pub began to leave the premises. Two security guards stood at the door, obviously members of Tommy Arthur’s gang. Then Tommy Arthur emerged from the doorway, surrounded by various other members. As they waited for a car to be brought to the front of the pub, Jock had a clear view of his target. It had to be a head shot as Tommy Arthur was known to wear body armour under his suit.

The shot was accurate and his victim fell to the pavement, his frightened associates looking around for the assailant. A second shot, straight in the chest, took out the man who was waving a pistol and he fell alongside his boss. With this, the rest of them scrambled inside the doorway of the pub. Two shots through the door made any attempt to leave seem very foolish.

Jock made his way from the building very quietly and crawled to an old disused railway line where he walked slowly and quietly until he reached a spot that he had earmarked several weeks ago. He lay undetected under a clump of bushes and felt quite secure as he was now about three miles away from the Ponderosa pub.

When daylight broke, he saw, about four hundred yards from where he lay, a large parking area with several portacabins and a fuel pump on it. About a dozen ice-cream vans and several taxis were parked there. The area was secured with a high fence which had fearsome razor wire on top to deter any intruders, and two Alsatian dogs roamed the compound.

Jock waited and saw several workers or gang members arrive and appear to busy themselves cleaning and fuelling taxis and loading ice-cream vans. A large Land Rover drew up and Jock saw that it was his target, the Quinn brothers. They ruled this area of Glasgow with fear and were involved with protection rackets, drug supply and gambling. The two men left the vehicle and were waving rolled-up newspapers about as they shouted to the staff, asking them about the headline news. Through the telescopic sights Jock could see that the headline was about the death of Tommy Arthur. He looked at his ammunition and saw that he only had fifteen rounds left. He decided that he would use them all up here as he had no further use for a firearm. He would leave the bike, sure that someone would find it and think that all their birthdays had come at once.

Jock’s first shot struck the older brother in the chest and the second went in the back of his younger brother as he was turning around. Panic and bewilderment set in with the rest of the group. They did not know where the silent gunfire was coming from and therefore hid behind various vehicles. A hand brandishing a revolver was the next target, which brought forth a howl of pain. The man who had been filling a vehicle with fuel had hidden behind the vehicle leaving the pump to overfill and a stream of petrol was flowing under all of the parked vehicles.

After the third shot there was a mad dash, as desperate men made for a portacabin which appeared to serve as an office. The fourth shot caught the last man on the shoulder, just as he crossed the threshold, causing him to collapse inside. As there appeared to be no more human targets, Jock fired four shots into the Portacabin to remind them that they were still under attack. His attention was drawn to the pools of petrol filling the parking space, and he fired at the ground near the fuel pump, hoping that a spark would ignite the fuel. On the fourth attempt he was successful and with a flash and a loud bang, the yard became an inferno, with vehicles bursting into flames. The remaining rounds were discharged into the portacabin to deter the inmates from venturing outside.

As he had been trained to do, he cleared his site, removed all trace of himself being there and slowly crawled through the undergrowth away from his former position. He had only gone about a hundred yards when he heard the first of many sirens attending the incident he had created.

For over an hour he crawled undetected until he came to a viaduct on the Forth and Clyde Canal, where he rose and ran and walked along the footpath. He decided that here would be a good place to get rid of the rifle and its case, so he took the various parts of the disassembled weapon and, every hundred yards or so, threw a piece into the middle of the canal. He filled the wooden case with stones and threw it into the canal as well. He followed the canal path until it reached the River Clyde where, on the waste ground, he remained out of sight until darkness fell and he made camp for the rest of the night.

Next morning he made his way to the city centre and booked into a small hotel, explaining his rough appearance by saying that he had just finished a series of long-distance walks, including the West Highland Way. After getting a haircut and his beard trimmed, he bought some new leisure clothes and after a good meal slept for about fourteen hours.

The following day, after an enjoyable breakfast, he bought a small, cheap second-hand car using a spurious name and address. Back at the hotel, he read several newspapers, all of which carried the headlines about the gang warfare that had engulfed the city of Glasgow.

 

At Forfar police station, Superintendent John Blincow had all firearms licences checked to see who, in the area of Glen Ogle, had high-powered rifles. He discovered that George Milne, the gamekeeper at Cortachy Estate, was the holder of such a weapon and information received showed that he had been a sniper while serving in the Black Watch. However, this potential lead proved fruitless as the rifle was a Lee Enfield with a .303 bullet but the endorsement by Mr Milne when questioned still reverberated in his mind. He had said, “The person who fired the shots made a mistake, he should have shot them all as it’s costing us taxpayers a lot of money to keep them. Money that could be put to better use to benefit society. There is something seriously wrong when ordinary folk have to work hard to make a living but criminals, when caught, are punished by being allowed to go fishing and sunbathing.”

Then, all the details of events in Glasgow came to his attention, plus forensic confirmation that the weapon used was the same as the one used at the reservoir in Glen Ogle. John Simpson was cleared of murder but pled guilty to the sale of drugs. John Blincow was baffled and ordered that all residents in the locality were to be questioned again about any strangers or strange vehicles that had been sighted in the area. However, no new information was gleaned.

He welcomed the invitation of the Serious Crime Squad to attend a meeting in Glasgow to co-ordinate evidence on all three shooting incidents. It was at that meeting, several days later, that the reason for Slim Jim and Lobo being in custody became clear. It was because of the attack in the house at Achlean, and one of the detectives spoke of his interview with Jock Stewart after the roadside bomb at Glen Feshie.

Like drowning men clutching at straws, they got Ordnance Survey maps and concluded that Jock Stewart could have travelled overland from Glen Feshie to Glen Ogle. However, they were unsure how he could have travelled unseen to Glasgow or how he could have had all that knowledge of the city’s criminal underworld.

They decided to eliminate him from their enquiries by going immediately to Achlean. Before going there, they called in at Aviemore Police Station on a courtesy call, knowing that they would get background knowledge of their suspect.

Speaking to Sergeant Murdo McLeod, their hopes were dashed when they were informed that Jock Stewart had left for America seven or eight weeks previously. However they still decided to visit Achlean.

When they arrived there, they were met by Ewan and Betty who had just finished work and were unloading the Land Rover and trailer. Both of them confirmed what Sergeant McLeod had said, that Jock Stewart was in America and that Nan had received a postcard from him only last week.

When they called in to see Nan, they were made very welcome but when she discovered that they were making enquiries about the shootings at Glen Ogle and Glasgow and not about the bomb blast at Glen Feshie, she became very angry and ordered them out of the house, telling them to get their priorities in order, to get justice for law-abiding citizens and let the criminals kill one another, saving the taxpayers a lot of money.

Only the diplomacy of Sergeant Murdo McLeod calmed Nan down and very reluctantly she showed them the postcard that Jock had sent from America. She scoffed at the idea that Jock Stewart had anything to do with the shootings and said that she had never seen a rifle at Achlean all the time she had worked there. Jock had no need of a rifle as he had got all the venison he ever needed from the estate, for all the work that he did there.

The police left the area, still baffled. They had no suspects and were beginning to consider that their theory about organised crime intending to take over Glasgow or even Scotland might just have some substance.

 

Jock sat in his car for the third night in Blythswood Square, waiting for the lawyer, Bill Liddle, to come out of the St Andrew’s Club. It looked like it was going to be another unsuccessful evening when Jock suddenly spotted him, waddling to his expensive Bentley motor car. He then followed him as he drove to the part of the city centre where the ‘ladies of the night’ and rent boys paraded their wares, awaiting custom in St. Vincent Street.

That private investigator is spot on with his information thought Jock, as he saw his target stop his car and engage in conversation with a youth who, after a little discussion, got into the vehicle which then drove off. Jock followed at a discreet distance until they reached a deserted car park at Hogganfield Loch. It was pitch black and no-one was in the vicinity.

Jock parked his car and slowly and quietly walked to the parked Bentley. He pulled the ski mask over his face and with the cheap camera at the ready, he pulled open the rear passenger door and caught the occupants half-naked, engrossed in sex.

A cry of terror came from Liddle as the flash of the camera lit up the interior of the car. The youth burst into tears. Without a word, Jock seized the lawyer and dragged him out of the car and threw him half naked onto the tarmac. Bill Liddle was begging for him to stop the violence. The youth was cowering in the well of the back seat, sobbing. Jock took the wallet and car keys from Liddle’s trousers which were hanging over the driving seat of the car. He gave the wallet to the youth and whispered to him, “Get dressed. Get the hell out of here, get what money you can from these bank cards then destroy the wallet and tell no-one what happened here.”

The youth did as he was told and scuttled off into the darkness. Jock threw the car keys as far as he could into the loch. Turning his attention to the half-naked blubbering excuse for manhood, he asked for information about Tommy Arthur’s crime activities.

The denial of such knowledge enraged Jock, so he dragged the victim to the edge of the loch and held his head under the water for about a minute. Gasping for air, Bill Lobban started to babble information about the drug trade in Glasgow, how it was conveyed and distributed. Before leaving, Jock threw the rest of Bill Liddle’s clothes into the loch, making him plead for leniency.

Driving back to the city centre, Jock stopped at a phone box and telephoned the Daily Record newspaper office. He told them to go to the car park at Hogganfield Loch where they would find Bill Liddle in a distressed state. He then returned to the hotel.

Next morning after breakfast Jock bought a Daily Record newspaper and the front-page headline was Bill Liddle, claiming he had been kidnapped and robbed while leaving his club in the evening. Jock smiled and went to the Post Office where he posted his camera spool and a wee note to the Daily Record office which would prove Bill Liddle to be a liar and a pervert and would result in his dismissal from the legal profession. When the police acted on the information he was going to give them, Bill Liddle would also be under the scrutiny of the criminals. So much for the arrogant lawyer strutting about in the courtroom, ridiculing witnesses in order to allow criminals to escape justice thought Jock.

That afternoon, Jock parked his car in a side street next to Raeberry Street in Maryhill. He walked to the public house called the Shakespeare Bar. As he entered, he pulled down the ski mask to conceal his identity. He walked quickly past the pool table and, picking up a pool cue he went straight to the far corner of the bar where four men were sitting, drinking beer and deep in conversation. Again, Jock thought about how accurate the private detective’s information had been.

Without speaking a word, he used the pool cue like a club and struck each man on the head, leaving them draped across the table in a blood-soaked mess. The men had been taken by complete surprise with the speed and ferocity of the attack. The bartender and the few clientele who were in the pub were agog with astonishment and then fear as they all hid behind any convenient furniture for safety.

Jock walked back through the swing doors, turned and inserted the pool cue between the two handles, jamming the door shut. He then pulled down the metal grill and put the hasp in place, making it very difficult to open from the inside. Casually, he walked to his car and then drove off, as though nothing had happened.

That same evening, as darkness was falling, he parked his car in the large car park of a busy supermarket in Halfway, Cambuslang and walked to the railway bridge over the main Glasgow to Carlisle railway line. When no-one was looking, he climbed over the fence and made his way to the sidings which were opposite the housing estate called Caledonian Circuit. As he lay in wait, he was surprised at the number of people who crossed this busy line, using it as a short cut to the Miner’s Welfare Community Hall in Halfway. He watched each individual through his very powerful night glasses, looking to see if they met the description of the local drug dealer Mike Brogan, who according to the private detective, used this route every evening to visit the Miner’s Welfare.

Sure enough, at about nine o’clock, he saw two men climbing the fence and recognised the taller figure as Mike Brogan. According to the private detective, whose information was again one hundred percent accurate, Mike Brogan was the biggest drug dealer in the area, with very strong connections to the criminal fraternity in Liverpool.

Taking a large sock that he had previously filled with sand, Jock quietly stole up behind them and hit them on the head with his improvised weapon, as he had been taught by the army all these years ago. With both men unconscious, he taped their hands, legs and arms together and dragged them one at a time to the railway line. He pulled the ski mask over his face as he waited for the men to regain the power of their faculties. When they realised their predicament and the danger they were in, a look of sheer terror came over their faces. When questioned, they denied all knowledge of drugs or criminal activity. However, with the noise of a train coming and the vibrations on the rails, they screamed in terror.

The train was on the opposite track and after it had passed, Jock spoke to the men again and information was freely given this time, some of which corroborated that given by Bill Liddle. The smell coming from the two men, who had passed a motion in their trousers, convinced Jock that he had got all the information he required.

Leaving the two men still tied up on the embankment, Jock left the focus of his interrogation, telephoned the office of the Daily Record newspaper from a telephone kiosk in Cambuslang and then collected his vehicle. He drove up to a quarry in Cathkin Braes where, after removing the number plates, he set fire to the vehicle. Dressed in a tracksuit he gave the appearance of a dedicated athlete out training. At the first rubbish bin, as he came to the outskirts of Rutherglen, he hid the number plates in the rubbish and ran all the way to his hotel.

Next morning, he sat in a cafe reading the Daily Record, the headlines of which told the story of drug dealers in Maryhill and Cambuslang being assaulted. The criminal fraternity in Glasgow was in turmoil and police were being alerted to where drugs were on sale, just by observing the antics of the customers, desperate to get their usual supply. Discretion was non-apparent and numerous raids on small time operators were yielding a lot of seizures.

Jock then posted a letter with all the information that he had collected to the City of Glasgow Police Headquarters in Pitt Street. He finished the day by shopping for various items of clothing that he needed. On his return to the hotel, he slept for almost twelve hours.

After breakfast the following morning, he caught the train to Ayr where, on his arrival, he again had his hair and beard trimmed before taking a bus to Prestwick. As arranged, he booked into a hotel a day in advance, using the excuse that he was waiting for passengers from a charter flight arriving at Prestwick airport.

Two police cars were parked in a lay-by on the A74 at Beattock Summit, surveying the traffic and waiting to observe a Ford Transit van with the logo of a florist. After a three-hour wait the van was spotted, intercepted and the two occupants detained. A radio message brought CID from Lanark and the vehicle was searched. Drugs to the street value of twenty million pounds were found and confiscated. Crime lords in Liverpool and Glasgow would be rather annoyed, as one newspaper put it, when the haul was made public.

A day later, in a combined operation involving the Drug Squad, Serious Crime Squad, CID and uniform, a lonely farmhouse was raided in Muirshiel Country Park near Lochwinnoch. Here they discovered a huge cannabis farm with a great many polytunnels, all containing cannabis plants. It was the biggest cannabis manufacturing base ever found in the British Isles. Documents found proved that the whole organisation was owned by Tommy Arthur. It was ironic that his funeral was on the same day as the farm was raided. The police were ecstatic about the damage done to the financial structure of this criminal gang and the seizure of buildings, vehicles and cannabis worth well over one hundred million pounds. A great deal of criminal intelligence was also found, but the occupants of the farm remained tight-lipped and refused to divulge any information. The next day’s newspaper headlines were dominated by Tommy Arthur’s funeral and the huge cannabis find.