The World's End

by Tom Wood

  The family liaison officers – FLOs – in our investigation did a fine job. I hope the work they have done in the twenty-first century has gone some way to redress the hurt that must sometimes have been caused through lack of sensitivity in the policing ways of the last century.

  As I have said, in the World’s End case, perhaps because of circumstances, perhaps because of other factors, Helen Scott and Christine Eadie’s families had a good working relationship with the police throughout these long and difficult years. Because of the dedication of the officers, over the years, as new initiatives were tried, the family members were amongst the first to be kept informed about what was happening. That made part of the inquiry slightly easier. It should always be remembered that, for many victims and their families, the shock, hurt and pain of crime does not disappear – it simply matures and, like a disfigurement, is constantly present.

  Helen’s mother Margaret died in her mid sixties and her surviving relatives were certain that the burden of grief over her murdered daughter played a significant part in her early death. And, by the time we were making progress towards our eventual breakthrough, Christine’s gran, who had played such a large part in her upbringing, was also dead but her mum Margaret and Helen’s dad Morian were very much alive. Both were briefed regularly as we tried to ensure they knew of each development before reading about it in the newspapers.

  The first inquiry into the World’s End murders had failed, of course, to identify the two men who were seen talking to the girls. It had also failed to uncover any hard evidence of whether the men had left in the company of the girls. The nearest that was unearthed was the statement of two police officers on duty in the High Street that night and who, by coincidence, were in the street near the bar at about the time Helen and Christine are thought to have left.

  Beat constables John Rafferty and George Owenson were on the usual Saturday night detail in the centre of Edinburgh around closing time. As folk were piling out on to the streets at about 11.15, the officers were no doubt keeping a relaxed but wary eye on proceedings, trying to spot where any trouble might be likely to start so that they could stop it before it got out of hand.

  We do not know for certain but it is likely that, since the pair were on patrol in the High Street, they could well have been close to the main door of the World’s End around the time the girls and their killers were coming out of the pub and, indeed, may even have seen the four of them. Of course they had no reason to intervene – it was just another Saturday night, just another crowd of people ranging from merry to downright drunk spilling out on to the pavement.

  The High Street then, as indeed now, is always rather gloomy at night. The high buildings and numerous alleyways and side streets mean street lighting is never terribly effective but the officers clearly saw two girls and two men leaving together. They saw one of the girls trip. The other girl helped her friend back on to her feet and PC Rafferty recalled they appeared to be bickering about how they were going to get home. He saw what he described as a youth approach them and offer a lift. A second ‘youth’ was on hand. In what perhaps was the fateful moment one girl accepted the lift, the other seemed reluctant but was nevertheless dragged off by her friend down St Mary’s Street. The officers saw them disappear down the street and thought nothing more of it that night.

  As I say, we can’t be sure it was Helen and Christine the PCs had seen – they were unable to confirm the girls’ identities despite studying a number of family photographs. Also, because of the everyday nature of what they saw, they had no clear recollection of the two men except that one of them spoke with what Rafferty said was a country accent. If that was Christine and Helen, it was the last anyone, other than their killers, saw of them alive. The next anyone was to know of the two friends was less than twenty-four hours later. First to be found was Christine.

  Derek Taylor and his wife Ruth took advantage of a late autumn sunny Sunday to drive down to East Lothian from their Edinburgh home. They stopped in a sand dune car park near the East Lothian village of Longniddry and had a picnic lunch before taking a stroll along the beach. This is a scenic stretch of coast and, looking out to sea to the left, it boasts views across the Firth of Forth to Fife. You can also see Edinburgh’s waterfront stretching out some ten miles to the west. To the south is Gosford House, the stately home of the Earl of Wemyss and March.

  After half an hour’s walking, the imposing entrance to the grounds of Gosford House, on their right-hand side, came into view. Then, to their left, Mr Taylor spotted what he thought was a tailor’s dummy lying by the high-water mark. Inquisitive, he walked across and, as he got closer, he was horrified to realise it was no dummy. It was a naked girl lying supine and, when he reached the spot, he could see she had a gag in her mouth.

  Quickly he ran to the lodge house of the nearby estate and called the police. Christine had not been reported missing at this time and so, when officers arrived at the scene, there was nothing to help them with the identity of the body that lay before them.

  A similar drama would take place a few miles away later that afternoon. By that time, it was becoming clear to the police that they were dealing with a major investigation of a double murder involving the girls who by this time had been reported missing.

  Not far inland from Gosford lies Coates Farm. It is situated on a picturesque back road that could be taken by someone wanting a leisurely drive from Longniddry to the county town of Haddington.

  John MacKenzie worked as a gardener at a nearby house and, as usual, he had left his cottage in the grounds early that evening to take his dog for a walk down the road towards Coates. He too thought the object he saw lying in a field was a tailor’s dummy. He did not venture into the stubble field but as he peered through the gathering gloom he, like Derek Taylor, came to the sudden and awful realisation that it was a woman’s body. He could clearly see her hands were tied behind her back. She had no shoes on and her legs were bare but a black coat was on the upper part of her body. Shocked to the core Mr MacKenzie ran home and drove to Haddington police office to report what he had seen.

  By this time, the East Lothian division of the force would have been buzzing. As the full realisation of what they were dealing with became apparent to the senior officers on duty, the usual Sunday afternoon skeleton staff was quickly boosted by people brought in from rest days.

  3

  The First Investigation

  The initial investigation into the double killing ran at full tilt from the moment the bodies were found in mid October 1977 until the end of May the following year.

  There were several main lines of inquiry being followed up under the various teams controlled by Detective Superintendent MacPherson, with DCIs Darling and Suddon commanding the two strands of the investigation, one based in East Lothian and the other based in the capital.

  Tracing and eliminating patrons of the World’s End pub on the night the girls vanished was of prime importance and, given the fact that most murders are committed by people who know or have met their victims, it was a channel of investigation that looked hopeful. But it was more difficult than it first seemed. The World’s End was then, as it is now, a busy pub and, being on the tourist route, it has always attracted both regulars and casual customers who pass down the Royal Mile, pop in for a drink and move on. It was no different in the 70s and, on a Saturday night, the pub was full of a mixture of people, some who stayed for the evening, most who called in, had a drink, checked out the action – the girls, the boys – and moved on up the Mile.

  Trying to fully establish who was in the pub and when was a tricky exercise. Add to that the difficulty of cross-referring very different descriptions of the same people and you can start to understand the complexity. If the World’s End killings had taken place in 2007 not 1977, there would have been a wealth of technical information to assist the inquiry team. The CCTV footage from the numerous cameras both within the pub and in the streets nearby would have been immensely valuable. The credi
t card details of customers who either paid by credit card in the vicinity or drew cash from nearby cash machines would be retrieved and followed up. Any vehicles checked on the Police National Computer or picked up on the various cameras in and around the city would be traced. Mobile telephone activity in the vicinity could even be scrutinised. Back in 1977, these technologies did not exist. We could not even establish who had used the payphone in the pub that night. The detectives back then had to log timelines and people’s positions on a huge paper chart much as detectives had done a hundred years before. Yet, as we looked back thirty years later, we were amazed just how accurate a job they did and how good some of the descriptions given had been.

  At the centre of the pub inquiry were, of course, the two men who had been seen chatting to Helen and Christine and who were believed to have left the pub with them.

  There are simple first priorities in homicide investigations, secure the locus, identify the body, establish the cause of death and trace who was the last person to see the victim alive. The two men seen with Helen and Christine in the pub and who apparently left with them were a natural priority. Not that it was a foregone conclusion that they were the culprits – all sorts of things could have happened between the door of the World’s End and Gosford Beach. Nor could the failure of these two men to come forward be taken as a definite sign of guilt. There could have been a number of reasons why they had not come forward. They may not have known of the incident – though, given the massive publicity, this was unlikely. It is more likely that they should not have been there in the first place – they could have been married and being seen chatting to young girls in a pub would have meant they’d have some explaining to do. There are many reasons why vital witnesses are sometimes reluctant to come forward and it is an age-old problem for the police to coax them to do so. As it transpired, the original inquiry team never traced the two men in the pub with Helen and Christine.

  The next problem for the original investigators was to sort out, evaluate and prioritise the mass of information, suggestions and names that came forward in the first weeks after Helen and Christine’s murder. There was a genuine mood of public outrage, fanned by an active and imaginative media. There was a sense that this crime, above all others, was beyond belief – it couldn’t happen in Edinburgh, it was the stuff of American cop fiction not reality – and the shock waves rebounded for many weeks. Frequently women who were in their teens in the late 70s tell me of the impact of the World’s End killings. They were subjected to parental clampdowns on late nights in the town, the importance of staying with the group was emphasised and, in the pre-mobile phone era, they were encouraged to keep in touch while they were out and about. Taxis did a roaring trade and many a father stayed up to the small hours to make sure a daughter came home safely. That year saw a tangible death of innocence in Edinburgh and the enormous groundswell of emotion led to thousands of pieces of information coming to the hard-pressed incident rooms.

  High-profile cases produce an interesting mix of responses. Genuine witnesses come forward but so do well-motivated ones whose information is irrelevant. Attention seekers appear as do those with a morbid fascination for the crime. And then there are the ones with malicious intentions, eager to settle a score or do a bad turn to an enemy. Add to that the deranged, the mediums and those so caught up in the event that they imagine themselves being in key witness roles and you start to get a picture of an incident room in the first few weeks of a major and high-profile inquiry. In 1977, the media intervention had not reached the twenty-four-hour frenzy we saw during the Soham and Madeleine McCann cases but, even so, this was a dangerous time for senior investigators. It is very easy to be drawn up one of the many blind alleys that always await the unwary.

  It is clear that George MacPherson, Bert Darling and Andrew Suddon kept cool heads for the documents from 1977 clearly indicate their focus and determination not to be distracted. The main lines of inquiry remained on the patrons of the World’s End, the two men and the East Lothian connection. Those close to Helen and Christine, the local boys in their group of friends, were quickly eliminated. Legitimate major lines of inquiry did, however, emerge. Near to where the bodies had been left is the caravan site at Port Seton. Then, as now, this holiday camp attracted many visitors from the West of Scotland. It was largely closed in October when the girls were murdered but those who frequented it in the summer, perhaps owned caravans there, would know the area and the back roads and might have access to the site even while closed.

  A larger and more complex line of inquiry was also emerging in Edinburgh. Naturally the two men last seen with Helen and Christine were described differently by different witnesses but all agreed they were smart with short hair. In the late 70s, this was not typical for young men – long hair and straggly moustaches were still the rage – so it was logical that the minds of the inquiry team focused on the military garrison at Edinburgh Castle, then an operational army base as well as a ceremonial HQ. Young soldiers were regular customers in the High Street pubs – they were smartly dressed and, of course, all had the standard army short back and sides. Given the information available at the time, it was a line of inquiry that had to be pursued but it was hugely problematic and it took considerable time and resources to tackle.

  Years later, my good friend Dougie Kerr, who retired as a chief superintendent but who had been a young detective on the original squad, told me how challenging the ‘soldier’ side of the inquiry had been. Like most barracks, Edinburgh Castle saw a constant throughput of solders as they moved to Northern Ireland, Germany, Cyprus and the other operational bases of the army in the late 70s. Tracking them all down, interviewing them and corroborating their statements would have been impossible, so hard decisions had to be made and a highly selective approach taken, with only men who matched certain criteria being interviewed. We now know that it was a red herring and that the energy expended was wasted. It was, however, a task the original squad could not shirk and, scanning the now yellowed original forms, it was obvious they had done the job intelligently and well.

  Much work was also done on the description of the clothes worn by the two men. One of them wore very distinctive high-waisted trousers with a row of buttons. This fashion feature was given extensive media exposure with artists’ impressions carried by various newspapers and inquiries carried out as far away as London’s Carnaby Street and other leading fashion areas. In a period of bizarre styles, the search came to nothing.

  Then, of course, there were the local suspects – the sex offenders and rapists who lived and had offended in the area. One by one, they were traced, interviewed and eliminated. There were no hot contenders – the scenes of crime and forensics yielded nothing that we could use at the time. Gradually, amidst the thousands of leads, reality dawned – there were no real quality nuggets of information to pursue. Helen and Christine had disappeared from the pub that night and, six months later, a large squad of the ablest detectives of their day, supported by huge public backing and active media, were no further forward than they had been on the weekend that the bodies had been found.

  I remember the palpable feeling of frustration and self-doubt within the CID at the time. How could a crime of such enormity happen here and, having happened, how could we fail to solve it?

  As the lines of investigation each gradually reached a dead end, the inevitable decision was taken. The World’s End murder inquiry, one of the most important crimes to be investigated by Lothian and Borders Police in modern times, was to be shelved until and unless a new substantial line of inquiry was established. It was a big decision to make in such a high-profile case but it was not the end. There was a clear sense of unfinished business and a strong belief that the answer would come. Looking back, I’m certain it was this mindset of unfinished business that ensured the inquiry was mothballed in such an efficient way. In those days, before computerised systems, unsolved cases were boxed – literally put in a cardboard box or boxes – and stored in an old rec
ord room, where, over the years, they were frequently rifled for information or old statements. With officers constantly going back over the paperwork, witness statements and police records were seldom returned to their original state. The World’s End was different – the original squad were convinced their work would be revisited so nothing was left to chance. All the files were completed, the indexes brought up to date and, in the old laboratory on the top floor of the Fettes HQ, Lester Knibb and his colleagues carefully stored all the forensic samples. Helen’s recovered clothing, samples from the sites where the bodies were found, swabs from the post-mortems and, crucially, all the ligatures, with the knots still in place, were carefully sealed away awaiting the breakthrough all believed would one day come.

  Over the years, bits and pieces of information came in – sometimes it was the name or names of suspects arrested for a serious crime elsewhere and sometimes a piece of gossip or malice. And there was the usual flurry of information that would follow the times when the news was slow and local papers printed their regular ‘great unsolved mysteries’ articles.

  By the 1980s, the responsibility for the World’s End had been handed to the East and Midlothian Division for ongoing care and maintenance. As the division ‘where the bodies lay’ or had been found, this was the long-established procedure.

  Reading through the old paper files, it struck me that the successive officers who took responsibility for the World’s End could have hardly been of a higher quality if they had been hand-picked. But I suppose in a sense they were. There was always a feeling that the World’s End was special, sacred, and that it was being held in trust until the breakthrough came. The list of officers in charge included some of the most respected of their day: George Ritchie, eventually a head of CID, whose son Andy was destined to be a key player in the 2004 team; Kenny Shanks, a formidable detective, whose family have served Lothian and Borders Police for generations; Detective Inspector Stuart Anderson, who was involved throughout his service; and latterly Superintendent John McGowan, a fastidious, meticulous and tenacious man who did so much to highlight the case and champion its continued investigation; then finally Ian Thomas and the indefatigable Allan Jones, who was to see it through to the end.