Where There is Evil (12 page)

She stopped as if terrified she had said too much. Lauren, toddling into the room, distracted me briefly as I placed the guard in front of the blazing fire I had just fuelled. Then she went on:
‘Yer daddy killed all Sanny’s love for him. That’s all Ah wis meaning.’

She refused to say any more on the subject. But I was chilled.

On the sunny, clear morning of my grandmother’s death, Jeanie, the management-course leader, noticed a profound change in me and had coffee with me at break time. She had heard I’d
suffered a family bereavement and comforted me. We chatted about the assertiveness training which had formed part of the course, and I found myself telling her that a man at work, older than
myself, used subtle ways to undermine my authority. I found him difficult to handle. She looked at me obliquely.

‘Women who have encountered very early rejection from their opposite sex parent often have problems needing to be liked by males. They go through life effectively seeking male
approval,’ she commented, and suggested some strategies to try with the man at work. I explained that my father had, indeed, gone off in my early years and had returned only to abandon us
again. Jeanie said that she could empathize with this. In some ways, she told me, I was a young version of herself. We had had similar events to cope with in our lives, and she too, had had to deal
with problems that stemmed from childhood. I told her I loathed my father for the things he had done. ‘Don’t underestimate the father–daughter thing,’ she said, ‘and
how powerful that relationship is for the first seven years or so. It’s the very first one you have with the opposite sex. Out of curiosity, when did you last speak to him? Have you ever told
him how you feel?’

I explained that for twenty-seven years I had felt unwilling to exchange a single word with him. I was frightened of the consequences.

‘What would you say to him if you were to meet him today? Role-play it with me,’ said Jeanie. I unloaded a lot of anger in the exercise, choosing my words with care. I felt better
for it and promised that, should the opportunity arise to tell my dad what I really thought of him, I would grab it.

The opportunity arose that very evening.

I picked up my mother to go to Granny Jenny’s. I knew that because of her blindness, caused by diabetes, she could not see how upset and dishevelled I was, but I gasped when she said in
the car, ‘By the way, I think you should know your father’s here at Gran’s. He and your cousin William, and his fiancé e, they’re all here until the funeral on
Tuesday.’

Accelerating, I said grimly, ‘Actually, it’s going to suit me just fine, Mum. I want to have a word with him on my own.’

There was silence while she absorbed this. As soon as we arrived, she began to organize tea for everyone. William and Lily were blowing up an air bed in the living room, as my father had taken
the one small bedroom that had been Gran’s. He hovered, watching me expectantly with a half-smile. He did not look like a man of almost seventy-one. He was still a man it was hard to
ignore.

‘I’d like to speak to you in private.’ My words were terse, and everyone else studied the floor with interest. He ushered me through to the bedroom, still nodding and smiling.
We sat inches apart on the bed, him on the window side, I nearer the door. I was nervous, but adrenaline was pumping through me, and the anger I had expressed in the role-play with Jeanie came back
in its rehearsed phrases. Fate had played me the most incredible hand, and I was determined not to cry or lose control. I inhaled deeply, and began.

He drew back, visibly shaken and unprepared for the unrelenting tirade I unleashed.

He muttered, ‘Once you’re a black sheep, you’re always a black sheep.’

I could tell by his manner that he had been wrong-footed by my attack. He tried to get a word in edgeways, making the excuse that his mother had always preferred Robbie, his young brother, to
him. He had always felt neglected, and so he was the one who got into scrapes.

‘Scrapes?’ I cried in disgust, my flesh crawling as he tried to pat my hand. ‘Is that what you call going to prison for sexual offences and serving a sentence?’

He caught his breath, and his eyes flickered oddly in the light. I told him how I had learned the truth about his ‘hospitalization’. He looked away.

‘I thought you knew about that,’ he said slowly. ‘Your mam should’ve told you. Her name was Betty, but you won’t remember her.’

‘But I do,’ I retorted angrily. ‘She’d fair hair and lots of freckles and she giggled all the time. She came to babysit.’

His eyes narrowed. There was something strange about them, I realized. They were like grey, flinty pebbles now, remote and filled with anger. But they no longer instilled in me the fear of long
ago, I noted triumphantly.

‘No one gave me the chance of turning over a new leaf,’ he said. ‘Not one.’

‘That’s not true!’ I burst out. ‘My mother told me when you got out of jail both of you got down on your knees in front of the minister and prayed for a fresh start. You
promised you’d change your ways.’

‘I tried tae,’ he said heavily, looking at his hands, ‘but not everyone would forgive me and let me start again. Your gran forgave me, and your mam, but my father never ever
did.’

There was a silence between us now. I thought it an odd thing to say. According to my mother, her father-in-law had been a tower of strength, organizing petitions with my father’s
workmates to send to the trial judge to persuade him that the events with the babysitter had been out of character, and getting church people to write saying that my father was a pillar of the
community.

‘
Why
wouldn’t your father forgive you?’ I quizzed him several times. I was not prepared to let go now, not when I seemed to have him on a hook.

Another long silence followed.

‘He wouldn’t forgive me for the Moira Anderson thing.’

My head shot up. Had I heard him correctly? He was looking bleakly out of the window now, where snow had started to swirl past.

Then he went on: ‘I was charged about the babysitter, then I got out on bail. You won’t remember this, it was all a long time ago. It was away back in 1957. My father wouldn’t
forgive me for Moira Anderson. You won’t remember her either – you were too wee.’

My heart raced and my throat closed painfully. I did not want to hear any more.

I forced out, ‘You’re wrong. I
do
remember her.’

‘Grandpa was always convinced I’d done it. He said to me tae tell the polis where I’d put the wee lassie.’

My father’s fingers were now working at the fabric of the candlewick bedspread. He stared unseeingly at the snow, which was flashing past the window, the flakes strangely orange in the
neon street light, for all the world like phosphorus. Was it my imagination or was the room darkening? Some instinct told me that I must imprint every detail of this weird conversation on my
brain.

Terror wrenched at me, and I cried, ‘But why on earth would Grandpa even
connect
you to Moira Anderson? What could possibly make him think you were responsible?’

Those cold eyes shifted away again and silence fell. Finally, he said: ‘I told him I had nothing to do with her, but I was the driver of the bus the day she went missing. I told Grandpa I
didn’t even know her, but she got on my bus, in all the snow. I was the last tae speak tae her. I was the last person tae see her . . .’

His voice trailed away and my heart lurched. My mind finished the end of the sentence, which he could not bring himself to say, as tears ran down his face.

Alive
.

As I drove shakily east towards Edinburgh on the M8, which that evening was reduced to one lane, blinding blasts of snow tried to claim the few patches of visible road. My mind
was in turmoil. With a kaleidoscope of snowflakes dashing against my windscreen, it seemed as if I was venturing through a tunnel of whirling elements with no clear view ahead. This image has
stayed with me, and it sums up the state of mind I was in during the days following the conversation I had had with my father.

Over and over, even when I was asleep, I heard the words he had used, like an interminable tape-recording. Two assurances he had given me before we had left Granny Jenny’s bedroom kept
echoing through my brain. I had frantically demanded to know if he’d been interviewed when Moira disappeared. ‘Oh, aye, I wis.’ He nodded quickly. ‘I telt them the same as
Grandpa. I didn’t even know her.’

These two statements disturbed me because I knew he was lying. I didn’t know how I could feel so sure of it, but my conviction that my father and Moira had known each other was
overwhelming.

In the meantime, there was the funeral to get through, but before that I managed to pull myself together enough to telephone Aunt Margaret, my mother’s sister.

‘Margaret, I expect you know my father’s back on the scene at the moment, which has been very upsetting for us all. Never mind having to cope with bereavement.’ She made the
normal expressions of condolence at the other end of the line. ‘I don’t want to ask my mum about this, but I wondered if you would know. Was my father ever interviewed regarding Moira
Anderson going missing in 1957?’

I was astonished when, after a short silence, my aunt said categorically, ‘Oh, yes, that’s right, he was. In fact I was there at the time. He came in when I was visiting your mum in
Dunbeth Road, and I can remember him saying, “Now, don’t put my tea out, Mary, I have to go round to the police station to be interviewed.” ’

I chewed my lip, and said, ‘What else do you remember about it?’

‘Well, your mum was shattered. I can tell you Mary hit the roof. She said, “Whit’s happened now?” because, of course, he was already in all this bother and out on
bail.’ There was a delicate pause. ‘D’you know, Sandra, about all that?’

‘I do now,’ I said wryly. ‘So, let’s get this right, you’re absolutely sure he was interviewed? When was this?’

‘It was a Monday, the week after she disappeared. We were living in Alexander Street, just round the corner from her home, and I remember all the men searching in the back closes. He said
to us that he was being seen because during the week some woman had said Moira got on his bus. She’d thought she’d heard the driver say, “Hello, Moira.” He was going round
to explain to them that it was another girl that he’d actually spoken to that day – a different Moira, a Moira Liddell, who gave all the drivers sweeties, and the lady must have been
mistaken . . . Anyway, your mum was in a state, and I waited with her till he came back about an hour later.’

Mentally I pictured the scene, reminding myself that my father had had only to walk round the corner to the local station. It would never have occurred to either woman, as one sister comforted
the other, to check on his actual movements. As far as they were concerned, when Alexander Gartshore returned to say that all was well, they accepted that he had been through a full police
interview and had not been detained. Both women shared a family trait of always seeing the best in others and would go to great lengths to defend an underdog. I could almost see the relief on their
faces when he returned, his tale seemingly checked out.

Not only had he convinced them but there was also every chance that if his name were to arise in the investigation they would staunchly defend him and spread the word that he had already been
questioned. I shook my head at my father’s sheer audacity. I was quite unprepared, however, for my aunt’s next revelation, when I outlined the weird conversation he and I had had. She
murmured that my grandfather had indeed had problems in believing that his son, already bailed for sexual offences involving a young girl, had had nothing to do with Moira’s disappearance.
When he heard that Alexander had been driving the bus on which she was alleged to have travelled, he and Jenny had journeyed from their home in Bellshill to Coatbridge to confront him.

Ignoring my father’s protests, my grandpa had produced a crowbar and proceeded to pull up floorboards in the kitchen of 51 Dunbeth Road. He was aware that his son had recently renovated
the scullery and had purchased new flooring from the ironmongers, Nelson and Clelland, who traded in the town’s main street. He also knew that the sink units had been replaced, and he pulled
out everything to check behind the new ones, ripping out the false panelling.

My father had been furious. I later heard from my mother that he kept repeating in greatly affronted tones, ‘You surely don’t think I did away wi’ her, do ye?’

My grandfather’s search of the whole house, including the large walk-in cupboard in my parents’ bedroom which doubled as a workshop, was fruitless. He sat, head in hands, and said
grimly, ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is. God knows I don’t want further shame brought on our family’s good name, but I’m convinced you’re involved in this.
You tell the polis where ye pit that wee lassie, Alex.’

But my father stuck to his story that the police had seen him, and the child he’d been seen talking to was not the one for whom everyone was now searching. (Later I found that my
grandfather had not restricted himself to our home, but had searched anywhere that someone could conceivably hide a small girl’s body. He had insisted on checking the boots of my dad’s
bus and car.)

‘As if I would do such a thing,’ my father complained afterwards. ‘What kind of man do they think I am, saying I’d lay a finger on anybody? Jist because I’m in
bother for the other thing, they’re wantin’ to pin this on to me, too. My father’s right out of order doin’ what he’s done, and I’ve telt him all I know, but he
still won’t believe me, so what can I do? You know I’d never harm any wean, Mary.’

When my mother recounted this conversation to me, years after it had taken place, I felt like saying to her that if the police had spoken to me at the time, and I’d just been a bit older,
I would have let them know he was more than capable of harming young children. Moira’s appearance, slim, boyish, with an exceptionally striking smile, I could have told them, was a type much
admired by a predatory, unscrupulous male like my dad. Her outgoing personality would have drawn him to her like a magnet, as he liked liveliness in a child.