Where There is Evil (28 page)

I did not utter another word all the way home.

We got back to an answering machine full of messages, some irate, some bewildered, others compassionate. My mother finally got through, and said my brothers had been hitting the roof. Where on
earth had I been? To put all this sensational stuff in the Sunday papers was bad enough, but why disappear in the middle of it? ‘I hope you know what people are saying about you,’ she
said. ‘I heard the whispers when I was at the kirk this morning.’ She repeated what the couple at the service area had said.

‘And do you believe for one minute that I would do something like that for money?’ I hated to hear her sound so upset, but I realized why she needed to go on the attack: my mother
was full of the most awful guilt nowadays, acknowledging that there
had
been signs years ago that all was not well in our family, signs that she had been unable to bring herself to
face.

‘Well, no, of course I don’t think you’ve accepted thousands of pounds from a paper. I’m just telling you that the gossips are having a field day and some will think that
was your motive, Sandra, to get lots of money from a family catastrophe.’

I waited till her sobs had subsided a little. ‘The main thing is that you and I know the truth, Mum,’ I said. ‘All my life people have said how like you I am. It happens to be
right.
You
know why I’ve exposed it all, and so do I, and I don’t give a toss what the gossips think. You ignore them, and they can think what they like. The truth is what
matters, that’s all.’

A few days later, a reporter named Marion Scott, a colleague of Melanie Reid, rang me. She stunned me with the news that she was going to visit my father to give him the opportunity to reply to
my allegations. ‘It was some story Melanie did, and it’s had the phone ringing non-stop,’ she announced brightly, ‘including, you’ll be interested to hear, ex-cops who
agree with you that the original investigation was cock-up of the year at the time. It’s caused a real stushie. That’s what you were after, right?’

‘Yep, right,’ I agreed miserably. ‘That was the idea. You said you’re going south?’

‘We have to keep a balance here,’ she replied. ‘He’s bound to have seen it, with Leeds having the high ex-Scots population it does, and our circulation figures down
there. He should have the chance to put his views in print. So I’m off, to see if I can speak to him, and follow the story up. Melanie’s gone down with flu.’

It was clear that Marion was thrilled to be given the assignment.

‘You’re going to face him alone, and confront him about the accusations?’ My voice faltered. Marion’s confidence amazed me.

‘Nae problem. It’s just a matter of keeping an element of surprise, then seeing if he passes the Daz doorstep challenge.’

I protested about her safety. He might go for her. Did she know he was still a big man? She could not go alone.

‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll be at risk, but as I’m five feet nothing, they’re insisting I have a heavy with me.’ She laughed, then suddenly her voice became
serious. ‘Haven’t you thought even once about going there to confront him about that horrendous conversation you had when your grandmother died?’

I was silent for a moment. Then I said, ‘You’re right, I have. I tried convincing my husband to let me go with the cops down south, but he put his foot down, and Jim McEwan
wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘Well, there you are, then.’ Marion’s voice implied that I now had the perfect opportunity. ‘Let’s see,’ she added, while I started to shake like a leaf,
‘this is Monday, and the idea’s to buy two tickets for Leeds from Glasgow early Thursday 4 November, on the first flight. Think it over and I’ll phone you back. It isn’t any
problem to make it three of us going – you, me, and our escort for protection.’

She rang off abruptly.

Ronnie was reluctant to give his views one way or the other, but I could see he was perturbed. Clearly, he himself felt no fear of a pensioner in his seventies, albeit one of over six feet who
had been an exceptionally strong man in his prime; his concerns were for me.

I had no time to ask my cousins what they thought about me visiting Leeds, and I knew Jim would advise me against it. I decided to consult William by phone.

He was encouraging, and predicted I was strong enough to cope. ‘Seeing him again may not have the outcome you want, Sandra, because this man will do anything to save his own skin. He
doesn’t have a conscience, and will blame everyone else under the sun. He’ll probably even try to pin it on a former buddy. Everyone except himself. But he knows in his heart he is
responsible for all the things you have openly said.’ He also foresaw that I’d come back more convinced than before, with my resolve strengthened.

On Wednesday evening, I jumped into my car and drove to Milngavie in Glasgow, where Marion Scott had arranged to meet me. She was tiny, with dark brown eyes in a pale, creamy face, and glossy
jet black hair. She described the arrangements for an early-morning call at 4.30 a.m. It all felt surreal to me. ‘Child abusers really piss me off,’ she said, lighting a cigarette the
moment she had stubbed one out. ‘I can’t wait to meet him.’

I had now met several types of journalist, but Marion was different. Her language was the saltiest I had heard in ages, but I couldn’t help liking her. Perhaps her earthy sense of humour
kept her sane in the tough world of journalism – that, or the fags she smoked non-stop.

We met, as planned, in the small hours. Our male escort, Marion announced, would be waiting to rendezvous with us at Glasgow airport. I kept up with her tiny black figure as she pelted along the
tarmac into the terminal.

My jaw dropped and I almost laughed when I recognized Henry, the photographer, standing bleary-eyed by the ticket desk, almost bent in two by the amount of equipment he was carrying. He smiled
at me. ‘Henry’s our great big male protector, is he?’ I hissed at Marion on our way to the departure lounge. ‘I’m the biggest of the three of us and I’m less
than five feet six!’

‘Yeees, well.’ Marion burst out laughing. ‘Never mind. Safety in numbers, perhaps.’

Our Loganair flight was due to depart before 7 a.m. The fog outside, it was then announced, was delaying our departure. As we sat waiting for its call, I reflected wryly that if my father was
aggressive, Henry was not going to be a deterrent. I grinned at him. He was keen, he said, to snap a photograph of my father for publication.

This worried me: any identifiable snapshot could jeopardize possible legal procedures. If a meeting was granted to me by Lord Rodger in Edinburgh, it might be possible to have the Crown Office
rethink its decision and have my dad charged for the offences against my cousins . . . I did not want that chance to vaporize.

A voice announced over the tannoy that our flight was ready for take-off, but Leeds airport was fog-bound. We could expect further problems.

We trooped aboard, and as the small plane took off through the thick haar blanketing most of Glasgow, I told myself that, as usual, the fates were protecting Alexander Gartshore. It would be no
easy journey to his home.

Sure enough, my fears were confirmed when we were diverted to Teesside airport, and placed on a coach that would take us, they said, to our original destination. Of course, what the announcement
neglected to say was that this involved crossing the mist-shrouded Yorkshire moors.

The nightmare coach trip seemed never-ending. Eventually, though, we picked up a hired car, and sped towards the correct area of Leeds. It was fairly easy to locate the Burmantofts suburb of the
city, its tower blocks visible from a distance. The one my father lived in was like any other grimy inner-city fortress, with broken glass strewn around an entry system installed by the main
entrance. It reminded me of Alcatraz, but small kids were playing on the concrete.

Henry and Marion were as nonplussed as I was at the entry system, and I had not bargained for having to speak into a microphone. We all looked at each other in horror, then Marion indicated I
would have to make an initial overture to get us in. I closed my eyes and gulped. To make it even more surreal, Marion pointed to her capacious bag and showed me a cassette recorder, hidden in its
depths, as small as her mobile phone, but already running a cartridge.

‘Don’t worry.’ She grinned. ‘Whatever he says, we’ll have him taped. Henry will hang about down here, and if anything happens that worries me, I’ll give him
the signal that we want help, and he’s to come to the rescue.’

Henry smiled weakly at me, then trotted off, saying he hoped we’d be able to get my father to come out of the building so he could achieve a clear shot of him.

Marion’s bravado was infectious, and I put my lips to the mike, terrified to hear a response, and yet acknowledging I would be despondent if we had come all this way only to find that my
father was out. I buzzed the correct number, and felt my throat close as I heard a responding click. The voice at the other end sounded more Yorkshire than Scots. I said my name. There was silence,
then, ‘Is that you, love? Come on up.’

‘It’s Sandra. I’ve come down from Edinburgh to see you.’

My father’s tall figure wove towards Marion and me as we stepped out of the lift. He approached us, and I saw that he was smiling benignly. Would he say something that
would lead us to the truth? He certainly did not look as if he expected trouble as he ushered us to his door.

As we entered a dingy hallway, I told myself that while a full confession was perhaps too much to hope for, I wanted to appeal to any shred of decency he had. Surely he would see that it was
time for him to come clean, to sort things out before it was too late, and right a great wrong?

He surveyed us speculatively as he shut the door.

‘I’ve not brought the boys in blue with me, Dad,’ I said hesitantly, ‘or even the girls for that matter, so you needn’t worry. Ronnie didn’t want me to come
here at all, he would only agree if I brought a friend. This is Marion. We need to speak to you, Dad, and get some answers, for the sake of my sanity, and others.’

Marion smiled ingratiatingly while I scrutinized my father’s expression as he gestured us through to the main room of his flat. So far he had not uttered a word.

His reaction to me was interesting. Daughters who have accused their parent of murder and child abuse do not expect to be welcomed with open arms. I might have imagined I would be accused of
being a lying bitch, who should go straight back to Scotland, or I thought he could have flared up in righteous anger about me daring to make such outrageous allegations about him. Neither
happened.

He motioned us to sit down, and I glanced round briefly for the first time. There was so much junk we both had to move stuff to clear spaces on his furniture. The whole flat looked as if some
gang had been in and smashed it up.

The room was flooded with good natural light from a large window, which gave an excellent view across the whole of Leeds, and helped to combat the violent tangerine wallpaper, patterned with
wild swirls that could have induced migraine in minutes. The few pieces of furniture were meagre and basic.

As soon as we were seated, we began to grill him. I begged him to have some compassion and put people’s minds at rest and Marion implored him to have some decency, to think of his daughter
who’d been through hell for months now, and she asked him to describe just what did happen that day in February 1957.

My father reddened and blustered. If anyone had been going through hell, it had been him, he declared. We got all the details of his prostate problem. Smokescreen. Marion and I exchanged a look.
It was poor-me stuff, designed to gain our sympathy. It would not wash.

In she came with direct questions about why he had said the things he had to me at Granny Jenny’s funeral. Had he been attempting to shift a load of guilt off his chest? She reminded him
that everyone in Scotland now knew he had been the driver on Moira’s last journey, that his own father had searched for the child in his son’s home and on his bus, and had died
convinced that he was Moira’s killer.

My dad became agitated.

I tried psychology, I tried tears, I tried appealing to his conscience, but I could see why the police had run out of strategies with my father. I was not making much headway, until he said how
much he wanted things resolved. When Moira had alighted from his bus at Woolworths in Coatbridge all those years ago, she’d had a ‘mystery friend’ with her. If she could be
traced, that would clear it all up. He had mentioned this unknown girl to Jim’s team, he insisted. Yes, absolutely. He remembered her particularly because all three of them had got off
together
.

‘You got off with them?’ I brought my head up with a jerk. This had not been in the transcript I’d read. ‘You told the police
Moira
got off, and you waved
goodbye.’

Backtracking as he realized I knew the contents of the police tapes, my dad added, ‘Well, yes. I telt the polis she got off, and I mind she looked back at me. I was in my cab, and she
mouthed, “Cheerio,” tae me, through the windae, then I’d to get out tae let on ma relief driver. Ah last saw her, wi’ this other lass, going through the swing doors at
Woolies, right as rain. Aye, Ah wis the last tae see her, like Ah said at the time I was interviewed, but she left me safe and sound, I know that.’

‘You were never interviewed at the station,’ I said flatly. ‘So you got off with her?’

‘Right after them,’ he put in hastily. ‘Ah went home, for Ah’d a break. An hour or so.’

I stared at him. I knew from my own experience that it had not been my father’s custom ever to take a break that involved going home for an hour between shifts. My mother could only ever
recall him doing such a thing once, when toothache became so unbearable he had nipped home to put whisky on a plug of cotton wool; the event had stuck in her mind, because he had then taken himself
off to Mr Downie’s surgery in Whifflet to have the molar removed. He did not normally pop home for a short break, and she knew he had not done so that particular Saturday.