Where There is Evil (13 page)

My grandmother’s funeral took place on a damp February day in 1992, with a service in Bellshill where she had lived all her life, followed by her cremation at Daldowie near Calderpark Zoo
on the south side of Glasgow. Strangely, the crematorium route was lined with policemen who were organizing themselves for the funeral of a respected colleague.

Afterwards we gathered for what we Scots call the ‘purvey’ – tea, sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes – in the little hall back at Granny Jenny’s sheltered-housing
complex. I travelled there with my friend Irene. As soon as we were alone she sensed that something was amiss. She was horrified when I related my father’s history.

‘I’m sure he
must
have been interviewed at the time, Sandra,’ she protested. ‘They brought in the Glasgow CID, didn’t they? It was in all the papers, and
they always round up the local suspects when these things happen.’

‘What if they missed him somehow?’

‘Surely that’s not possible. If he was out on bail they’d be keeping an eye on him?’

I was relieved to hear a tiny question creep into Irene’s voice. ‘I’m not convinced he was interviewed, don’t ask me why, but I’m not. What I do know is that
I’ve got to decide whether I need to find out or not.’

The meal in the pensioners’ hall passed without incident. My father sat with his son, another Alex Gartshore and a previously unseen stepbrother, at one end of the room, while I sat at the
other with Irene, my mother and my own family. The Canvey Island relatives were in the middle, with my brothers and their wives, and also William, the cousin who had travelled up from Leeds with
his fiancée Lily. The only real communication between myself and my father at the table was to pass up photographs that Ronnie and I had taken of Granny Jenny enjoying herself on Christmas
Day at the large Victorian house my brothers had bought some years ago, and divided between them. There she was, large as life, laughing and joking in her wheelchair and presiding over Ian and
Annette’s white lace-covered festive table. When three photos were put side by side, you could see all sixteen or so happy faces in the glow of flickering Christmas candlelight. A warmer
family scene could not be imagined.

For Alexander Gartshore, here was evidence that the wife and three children he had abandoned in 1965 had not only survived without him but had prospered.

I noticed that the photographs made a deep impression on my father, the reason for which I understood later when I gathered that he was living in a tower-block flat that could in no way be
described as the lap of luxury.

As we left, my father suddenly planted an awkward kiss right on my lips, then pecked my mother’s cheek. While we were recovering from this belated display of affection, we were bundled
into cars to travel the few miles between Bellshill and Coatbridge.

I was more puzzled that William and Lily had moved out of Gran’s home to my brother Norman’s. Lily was in a highly emotional state, weeping profusely, which I thought peculiar since
she hadn’t known Granny Jenny very well.

I was aghast when she told me that my dad had made persistent sexual advances towards her. She said, ‘William gave ’im a talking to, but it were no good – he wouldn’t
give over at all, acted as if it were all a big joke and I were making a fuss about nothing.’

‘Why didn’t William just thump him one so he got the message?’ I asked.

‘Well, he is his uncle,’ she sobbed through her tears, ‘but I couldn’t stand much more of it, and then the final straw was when he comes into our room wanting to sleep in
beside us—’

My jaw dropped and so, nearly, did the teapot.

‘It were the sound of your gran’s zimmer. He said he could ’ear these ghostly sounds in ’er bedroom, and he were frightened to sleep all by himself. We told him it were
just the wind or the plumbing but he was certain it were ’er.’

William had told him to get lost, and they left the house at the first opportunity.

Later, I decided to speak to my brothers and their wives about what Lily had said and the awful dilemma in which I now found myself. Shock registered on all the faces looking back at me as I
said we
had
to do something about this man. No one was safe from him. No women and no female children.

Both my brothers sat as if turned to stone.

I broke down when I explained how our conversation had ended, and told them my deepest suspicions, that our father was responsible for the disappearance of Moira Anderson.

The reactions round the table varied from incredulity to bewilderment to open hostility at the very idea. At first, Ian showed utter disbelief. His voice rose. ‘You can’t ask me to
believe that our father calmly drove around in his bus after doing something as horrendous as that – nobody could carry on doing their job quite normally as if nothing had
happened.’

It was like a kick in the stomach, but I understood how he felt. I, too, had wanted it all to go away and be a bad dream.

I pointed out to Ian that criminals
do
go about their business after they have committed offences and they do not have a label tattooed on their foreheads saying
THIEF
or
RAPIST
, but I could see that I was asking him and Norman to think the unthinkable.

One of my sisters-in-law asked me furiously, ‘What do you hope to gain from opening all of this up again after all these years? Her family have probably forgotten all about it by now. Why
upset everyone?’

‘What do you mean?’ I gasped. ‘Her family’s never known what happened to her – we can’t just sweep this under the carpet as though it was never said. I
can’t accept that what you’ve just said is true. You would never
ever
get over your child disappearing. What if it were Michelle or Lauren?’

I was so aware that we
had
our children, but the Andersons’ little girl had disappeared for ever. My reference to Michelle and Lauren had a sobering effect on everybody: the
thought of either of them going missing and never coming home was unbearable. I could see Norman nod in agreement.

He and Ian then remembered that my father had said some odd things in the past few days. They had felt obliged to let him accompany them on all the various duties that have to be performed after
a death. He had sat in the car and seemed a little confused about landmarks, they agreed, not recalling that the Coatbridge Hotel was near Drumpellier golf course. It was likely, they said to me,
that all this stuff he’d said about Moira Anderson could be put down to senility.

I pointed out that some confusion about landmarks after a gap of almost thirty years was not unreasonable, and that as someone who had taught umpteen courses for Lothian Region’s social
work department on dementia to carers who deal with clients with Alzheimer’s disease, I was clear that my father was
not
a sufferer. In vain I tried to get through to the shocked
group round the table that the truth would have to be confronted and exposed. One sister-in-law rounded on me, ‘It’s all right for you. You don’t live here any more! You changed
your name to Brown and now you live in Edinburgh. We have to live here, not you. Everyone knows Norrie and Ian because they drive taxis.
We
have to think about our kids going to school,
everybody looking at them. You’ve made up your mind that he’s guilty, and that’s it. You’ve absolutely no proof and he’s
told
you he’s been interviewed
for it. Leave it well alone.’

‘There’s things I know about him that you don’t,’ I said at last, very slowly. ‘I can’t see why you’re this upset when he wasn’t
your
dad, and you never knew him, but I want to find out if he was actually interviewed. I don’t think he was, somehow, and I’m sure he knew her. He slipped through the net at the time. Not
only did he serve a sentence in Saughton in Edinburgh for the girl who was the babysitter, he’s responsible for Moira Anderson and managed to get away with it.’

The day after the funeral, my father and his son had gone. All that was left to show that he had been there was a letter in which he apologized for their ‘shabby
behaviour’ in not staying to help. This is how I came to obtain my father’s address in Leeds.

Once again, he had disappeared out of my life as suddenly as he had come, as usual leaving a trail of havoc, but this time I was far more able to deal with it. I told Ronnie the details of the
conversation and my father’s behaviour with Lily but I could not bring myself to talk to my mother. Ronnie told me that whatever I decided to do he would support me all the way.

The next few months were a nightmare of pain and confusion, and the only thing that kept me based in reality was work. I drove back and forth to the college campus in Livingston as if on
automatic pilot. I felt that my demeanour there was normal, my breathing unhurried, but, of course, many colleagues noticed a difference in me, but put it down to sudden bereavement, knowing that I
had been close to my grandmother.

Then, my concentration deteriorated. I had a car accident and my handbag was stolen from my office, with the family snaps we had taken at Christmas. While I could pull myself together enough to
phone banks and let our minister, George Grubb, know that a set of church and Sunday-school keys were missing, I could not cope with the loss of those irreplaceable photos and their negatives. I
was inconsolable, but would not listen to my husband’s advice to take some time off work. I couldn’t sleep, I lost weight and I was irritable with Ross and Lauren. My inability to
concentrate, particularly when driving, became frightening. I would drive through to the Scottish Vocational Council’s headquarters in Glasgow, where I was one of a small national team
developing a new childcare course, and realize I had driven over forty miles on motorways without registering one landmark or road sign. I would find I hadn’t checked the petrol indicator.
The situation couldn’t go on.

I made an appointment with our doctor, Brian Venters. By the time I was called, I was like a wet rag. I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t look at anyone and, even worse, when he
asked me cheerily what he could do for me, I burst into tears. Not a word emerged as he gently asked me what was wrong. It was as if the most enormous stone was lodged in my throat. Twenty minutes
passed, in which I attempted to speak several times. Nothing came out. Just when I was positive that our GP would suggest I stop wasting his and everyone else’s time, I blurted out that it
was to do with my father. Another five minutes of racking sobs followed. Then, somehow, I managed to disclose some of what I had seen my father do when I was a child, of what had happened to my
friends. He closed his eyes. I told him of my father’s sentence and how I had only found out at the age of thirty-six. I explained how my grandmother’s death had brought my father on
the scene again and, haltingly, repeated the conversation where he had linked himself to Moira. When I stopped, Brian swore under his breath and said, ‘I see people in here regularly, Sandra,
whose families have been destroyed by child abuse, but this bastard takes the biscuit. Obviously you’re in a state because as well as your grandmother’s death – and it sounds to
me as if she was the glue holding you all together to some extent – you’re also having to deal with making a decision about what you’re going to do about this disclosure
he’s made. Right?’

I agreed, and explained about my sleepless nights. ‘I can help with the sleep getting back to normal,’ he stated firmly, ‘not through medication, just through some relaxation
exercises I can show you. But also you need some very good counselling, someone to listen to all that has happened to you, including your early childhood, and I know just the person. Ashley is her
name and she’ll come to your home.’

Easter 1992 came and went, and so did the first of our sessions, but even before I met Ashley, a tiny, neat little person with bright eyes and silver blonde hair, I had already taken a further
step on the road down which I was being slowly drawn. I had told my husband I was certain that I should take the information I had to the police and have my dad’s claims checked out. I could
not live with keeping such things to myself, where they would lodge in my conscience for ever. I was aware of the huge weight of responsibility involved in going to the police, and knew the likely
negative reaction of my family. Ronnie and I had talked it through and I was clear that, while there was a risk of relatives being shattered by my disclosure, other lives might finally heal.

I wondered about speaking to a long-standing friend, Billy McCloy. Now a police inspector, he had become a leading member of Coatbridge and Airdrie Operatic Society, the amateur club in which I
had been involved for some ten years. He’d married Fiona, who had been at Gartsherrie Academy with me both as pupil and teacher. I’d known Billy since he had joined the police, and we
had attended each other’s weddings.

Billy and I met at his home. An Airdrie boy, he knew much of the background to Moira Anderson’s disappearance. We agreed, however that neither of us could recall a bus ever being involved
in the case. That crucial sighting had been overlooked by both police and public in 1957.

I told Billy I needed him to check if Alexander Gartshore had or had not been interviewed in 1957. I implored him to go through the records without anyone else’s knowledge. Slowly Billy
explained that it wasn’t as simple as I thought: records from the fifties would not be to hand. He would need a reason as to why he wanted to trawl through them. I asked him to check the
police computer files to discover if my father had been in any further trouble down south in the seventies and eighties. He groaned. ‘Sandra, it’s more than my job’s worth to do
that. The best thing is for me to speak to someone you can trust who’s based here in Airdrie, and they’ll visit you in Edinburgh, take a statement, and
that
way you’ll
find out what you need to know, but I can assure you, if what you’re saying is right, there’s no way they’ll have missed your dad at the time. He’s
bound
to have
been interviewed.’