Chapter 8: Groundswell

The good citizens of Bearsden were shocked to awake that morning to find an entire police scene of crime team swarming over 25 Kinfauns Drive. This was sensational stuff for the residents, residents who were as used to being close to crime as they were to taking day trips to the moon.

DI MacIntosh had spent three hours at the house during the early hours of the morning and he felt sure that the vigilante had carried out this latest attack on a Glasgow gang. The detectives had been careful not to disturb anything until the forensics people arrived and began their work.

By this time the four different O'Reilly clan members had regained consciousness, but no one had moved to untie them or to remove the tape keeping their mouths shut. There was always the possibility that prints could be lifted from the men themselves. Certainly prints could be taken from the tape and it had been agreed that it would need to be removed surgically to safeguard it. As a result, all four men were taken out of the house on stretchers and wheeled into waiting ambulances.

Drew had looked at the neighbours who were straining to see what was going on. The flashing lights of the ambulances and the arc-lights of the police teams pierced the darkness of the night and lit up the scene so that onlookers had a decent, if distant view.

It wasn't clear to the neighbours whether the stretchers that came out contained dead bodies or injured people. When a single body-bag was carried out though there was no doubt that there had been at least one fatality in their street. Large evidence sacks were also brought out and the onlookers could only guess at what they contained.

It wasn't long before uniformed officers were making their way up and down the street, questioning the residents as to what they had seen or heard. When the initial results turned up nothing of any use, Drew decided to head back to the station.

The telephone alert had been recorded, a matter of routine for all calls coming in to the station. Experts were working on it, but Drew had listened to it and was sure that the caller was female, despite the heavy distortion.

"So, the vigilante has at least one accomplice. Let's hope he has more. As the saying goes, the only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead," Drew thought to himself.

The detective reviewed what he knew about this latest attack and killing.

The vigilante had killed one and subdued four others. Drew didn't know if he had managed that on his own or whether there were now more people in play. Leaving four of the criminals alive suggested a high degree of control of the situation. The fact that Gilchrist hadn't been killed outside his house was evidence that the vigilante didn't always feel the need to kill, so leaving four alive wasn't completely out of character.

Knowing where the drugs house was situated showed either the vigilante had inside information or there had been a lot of preparation put in before this hit.

The supply of drugs discovered in the house had made it clear immediately why the vigilante had taken an interest in the place and the people. Because of the vigilante's work, Strathclyde police had one of its biggest drug hauls of the year.

"How did he get to the house? How did he get in? Were all of the men in the house?"

These were all questions Drew knew he had to have answers to. He was hopeful he would soon be able to question the four men found tied up at the house and that might give him some answers. It was more likely that the hardened criminals would clam up however, and he would get nothing from them.

"Maybe he will have made his mistake this time and forensics will find something,"

Sean O'Reilly didn't take the news that one of his bases had been attacked very well at all. The loss of men - in particular his two lieutenants who had been based in the house in Bearsden - was a serious blow. The loss of the drugs and the money they represented was also not insignificant.

Sean made contact with Fraser, using the number that had been provided.

"It looks like he's struck again. One of my drugs houses was hit last night and Strathclyde's finest are all over it," he said.

"Where?" Fraser asked.

"Bearsden," O'Reilly replied.

"A bit up market for you, Sean," said Fraser.

"Fuck off! Look, we need to find this bastard. I'm losing a fortune here. Has anybody else turned up any leads?" Sean asked.

"Nothing, but maybe we'll get some help from plod. With any luck he'll have made a mistake and the boys in blue will catch him," Fraser replied.

"Fuck that! I'm not letting him away with just jail time; I want him so bad I'm getting a hard-on! If he does get banged up then he'll only last a day before one of my boys gets to him," O'Reilly snarled.

"Look, how did he manage to find your base? Is it possible you've got a squealer? Are you trying to get to the bottom of that?" Fraser asked.

O'Reilly realised that he hadn't thought of that and quickly wound up the call to set an internal investigation in motion.

By the time Gavin got himself out of his bed, Glen and Christine had both left for work. He turned on the TV and tuned to the 24-hour news channel but it didn't look as if the hit on the drug dealers had broken yet.

Going back to his room, he pulled the sports bag out from under his bed and emptied its contents onto the duvet. Fiona chose that moment to come wandering into the room and she gasped when she saw the pile of money.

"Oh my god, Gavin! Where did all that come from?" she asked breathlessly.

Gavin simply smiled in reply.

"How much is there?" Fiona asked next.

"I was just about to count it," Gavin replied, "why don't you help me?"

As she moved towards the bed, he stopped her and threw her a pair of surgical gloves.

"Put these on first," he advised.

It took twenty minutes to count it all, the gloves making the job more difficult than it normally would have been.

"How much in your pile?" Gavin asked.

"Sixteen thousand, four hundred and fifty pounds - I think," said a stunned Fiona.

"I've got twenty-two thousand, two hundred. So that's over forty thousand now," Gavin said with a grin.

"Even I can count better than that," Fiona laughed.

Gavin walked to his cupboard and pulled out the remainder of the two thousand pounds from the Portcullis.

"Ah, my Lady. You can count but you see, there's more here! Hehehehe," Gavin gave an evil laugh.

Fiona punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Are you going to tell me now what last night was all about?" she asked him.

In reply he pulled her downstairs and pushed onto the sofa.

"Watch that while I make you a cuppa," he said.

Gavin's timing was excellent. Just as he returned with a steaming mug of tea, there was a wooshing noise on the TV and the legend 'Breaking News' appeared. He handed the mug to Fiona and joined her on the sofa, draping an arm round her shoulder.

Fiona turned within the circle of Gavin's arm.

"Was that you? She said Kinfauns Drive, wasn't that the address I had to give over the phone last night? Oh, Gavin, have you killed more people?" she asked.

He considered his reply for a few moments.

"There were five drug dealers involved last night, sis. I killed one of them but left four alive for the police to pick up. The main point here is that I've removed a large quantity of drugs from Glasgow's streets - you heard the report, a major drugs haul. That wouldn't have happened without me," Gavin asserted.

Fiona buried her head against his shoulder.

"But I worry about you, Gav. Listen to yourself. You're seventeen and you went up against five drug dealers last night. How much longer before something happens to you? How many more times before it's you they're reporting as a dead body?"

"Shhh. Don't worry baby. Your bro is going to be just fine, trust me," he reassured her.

Gavin let his arm drop from her shoulders and began rubbing her back in gentle circles.

"Thanks for trusting me last night too. I didn't want to run the risk of the gang finding the drugs before the police did. That's why I had to make a call," he whispered quietly

Gavin buried his nose in her blonde hair, smelling faint traces of her apple shampoo.

"Please don't go out again, Gavin," she whimpered.

"I'm afraid I have to, baby. If I don't go out tonight and hit the next drugs house they will have too much time to find out how I managed last night's attack and get themselves ready for me. I need to hit them again as soon as possible."

He tried to continue to reassure her, stroking her hair now and enjoying how soft it felt. He brushed the hair from her slender neck and dipped his head to kiss the tender, sensitive skin just below her ear. He felt her shudder in response.

"You should know better, you need to calm down and believe your brother can look after himself," he said quietly.

Fiona felt the little sparks of electricity flying from the points where his lips and fingers touched her. All thoughts about what he was planning disappeared, as her entire being focussed on the contact she had with him. His fingers were gliding through her hair, his lips were caressing her neck, his fingers were tracing patterns on her back and her cheek pressed against the rock hard muscle of his chest.

A soft moan escaped Fiona's lips.

Gavin pulled his face from her hair at exactly the same moment as Fiona raised her face to look at him. Their eyes met and ever so slowly he closed the gap between them until their lips brushed against each other. Fiona felt even more violent sparks fly and another moan came from her now slightly parted lips.

Gavin pulled her bottom lip delicately between his teeth, nipping it lightly and then letting it slip away again before trailing his tongue slowly and sensuously across it. Fiona felt her heart grow too big for her chest and she struggled to breathe properly. Her brother was kissing her and it felt a thousand times better than she could ever have imagined.

Gavin's luck ran out a little just after dinnertime that night.

The call to the station came from the duty manager at Tesco's superstore in Glasgow's Bishopbriggs area. One of the younger members of staff had admired the shiny, black Subaru as he had arrived for work at 6:30am. When he noticed that it was still there when he ended his shift, he returned to the store and informed his manager.

A police patrol car arrived over an hour later and the uniformed officer radioed the license plate number in to dispatch to have a check run on the vehicle. The check on the Driver and Vehicle License Authority's (DVLA) computer in Swansea, Wales showed that the registered keeper of the vehicle was a John Gibson. There seemed nothing unusual about the vehicle but the dispatcher recognised Gibson's address - 25 Kinfauns Drive - and he alerted the uniforms and at the same time put a call through to DI MacIntosh.

When the dispatcher warned the uniformed officer about the address of the registered owner, he walked round the vehicle peering inside to see if there was anything interesting. Seeing nothing, he returned to his patrol car and waited for those higher up to do what was required.