by Sandra Brown
He frowned when I passed him the letter Maggie Barry had sent. Then I showed him the letters from Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and John Smith. Jim read and reread them.
‘Inaccuracies? About what?’
‘Exactly. I haven’t a clue what they find inaccurate,’ I said indignantly. ‘But here’s the original letter I sent off. Plus all the correspondence I typed up to both the politicians. I’ve gone through it in detail. See if you can spot what isn’t correct.’
Jim began to read, then groaned. ‘I’ve just spotted it, and it’s a cracker.’ He glanced up. ‘You report here that Griffiths didn’t appear fully conversant with all the facts about your dad – including not knowing of his prison sentence in the mid-eighties down south.’
‘But my dad was in jail then.’ I looked at Jim in stupefaction. ‘You’d his mug shot on the wall, with an ID number under it, in your office in Airdrie. You asked me to identify him for you the first time I went there.’
‘I don’t deny it,’ said Jim, ‘and I even remember telling you your dad had been in trouble with the law but I have the sinking feeling that you’ve picked up that information the wrong way. I don’t recall a sentence, so maybe he got community service or a fine or something in Leeds, but not jail.’
‘But his photograph, and number?’ I was aghast now. ‘Wasn’t it taken in prison?’
Jim shook his head. ‘It was certainly taken mid-eighties, when he was in trouble about obtaining a mortgage under false pretences and deception. But that’s what they do to everyone who’s in for questioning at the nick – they all get mug shots taken by a police photographer, and get given a number.’
I put my head in my hands. I had scored an own goal. Angrily, I reflected that I had given Crown Office the perfect opportunity to claim that I’d provided misinformation.
‘Well, it’s done now and there’s no going back.’ Jim passed me the letters. ‘I can see how you came to that conclusion, given what I had said. It doesn’t change the fact that Mr Griffiths alluded to your dad having served his sentence, without acknowledging that these crimes against your cousins followed it.’
‘You’re right, Jim,’ I said. ‘As far as they’re concerned, he’s done his time. But not for Moira, and not for my cousins.’
‘I advise you to put what’s a genuine misunderstanding to one side,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, you can bounce back from it, and that’s what to do now. Forget the murder investigation, and concentrate on your cousins. This is about getting justice for them – Moira’s past all help. So acknowledge that, fight for compensation for them, and do it right. See it through for their sakes.’
But I knew I could never give up on Moira. It was Moira with whom everything had started, and she was the reason I had approached Billy in the first place, long before I had ever known about my own relatives. I said, ‘I’ll do all I can to secure a meeting with Lord Rodger. Even if he agrees purely for public relations, it’ll do. But count on it – we won’t give up.’
I felt strong, despite discovering the stupid error I had made, which had cost us dearly, but I had a feeling that for what lay ahead I would need incredible reserves of energy.
‘Good luck with your exam!’ Jim called as I drove off.
It loomed within days, and I needed peace to revise for it. Maggie Barry, however, had other ideas. She rang me out of the blue. ‘Hi. It’s just to let you know my paper will carry the story tomorrow evening. Lawyers are checking out the possibilities of us naming him, but we’ll certainly highlight your dad is the same person involved in both the stories coming from the Monklands in recent weeks.’
‘But what about repercussions?’ I asked. ‘What about Eileen’s prediction that doing that could knock a court case on the head? Don’t you need to get permission from anyone to do that?’ I could not think straight.
Maggie Barry, however, was unequivocal. ‘We don’t need permission. My boss wants to run with it in tomorrow’s edition.’
After she rang off my mind was still in turmoil. I had spoken freely to her, in my own home, and now she was to use what I had given her. She didn’t need permission.
I contacted Eileen’s office next day. ‘I don’t believe it!’ she gasped. ‘They can’t identify him and link the two things without running the risk of libel. If they go ahead, the whole thing steps up a gear again, and it will go crazy. Look, if it’s all going to blow, will you think about speaking to a national reporter, on my recommendation? Someone who’ll treat this the way it should be handled, to give maximum publicity to the miscarriage of justice going on here.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve my exam on Thursday. Who are you thinking of?’ I was wary.
‘Melanie Reid. She’s to be trusted, believe me,’ said Eileen. ‘Sunday Mail columnist and one helluva reporter. Think about it. I’ll ring you later.’
At work I tried to keep my mind off her words. As I left college, I ventured into the nearby Livingston shopping centre, and purchased a copy of the Evening Times. ABUSE PROBE POLICE IN MURDER MYSTERY was Maggie Barry’s headline. I noticed that my father’s name was not used throughout her half-page article, but that she had revealed that ‘police have been talking to one man about the unsolved disappearance of Coatbridge girl Moira Anderson in 1957 and the sexual abuse of four young girls from the same area, now grown women’.
I told Ronnie that things were taking an explosive turn. ‘Maybe when I’ve done the exam tomorrow we should go away for the weekend, right out of Scotland. It could all get nasty.’ I rang Eileen and told her I would see Melanie Reid, then spoke to our friends Peter and Gillian, who lived in Wolverhampton. Surprised, but delighted to hear from us, they confirmed they had no plans for the coming weekend.
I felt relieved I had taken Thursday off. My exam was scheduled for the afternoon, but instead of being able to spend the morning calming myself and getting into the right frame of mind, I was visited by a Sunday Mail staff photographer, who introduced himself as Henry. He would take some photos, he explained, unpacking a battery of camera equipment, and Melanie would come to see me later in the evening. His portrait would be from the back, so that nobody would recognize me. ‘Only your nearest and dearest.’ He smiled, not realizing the irony of his words as he looked for a location. His eyes brightened as he spotted a small statue I have in our bedroom, of a young girl, hunched over her knees, whose face is hidden, but whose posture conveys sadness. Somewhat bemused, but wishing to indulge his enthusiasm, I obligingly perched on our bed and gazed out of the window, so that the statue and I were framed together.
After Henry had gone, I set off for the city centre. My heart thudded into my boots when I saw the sea of wooden desks inside the examination hall, but the hour of reckoning had arrived. If I did not know the course material by now, I never would.
The three hours passed in a flash, and then I headed home, where a tall, fair-haired journalist was speaking to my husband in our lounge. She smiled reassuringly as I kicked off my shoes, and poured us a drink. We discussed our respective jobs. I had read some of her columns, and we had similar views on several subjects. Then, delicately, she asked me about child abuse. I told her of my childhood, my father, Moira and my cousins. She only interrupted with an occasional question. She asked about William, the psychic, and I explained that Eileen could put her in contact with him. When she asked the location of the pond to which William had taken the police, I would say only that it was on the outskirts of Coatbridge.
More than two hours passed. I tucked my feet under me, and pressed my knuckles into my eyelids, shattered by the long day. Melanie surveyed me. ‘You’re exhausted,’ she declared, tucking her notes in her bag. ‘Thanks for sharing such an amazing story. It’s right the public should know what happened to Moira, and your family. It’ll appear this Sunday. How will your mother take it?’
‘It’ll be devastating for her and my brothers,’ I said quietly. ‘We’re going to go away for the weekend, with the children. To friends down in the English Midlands.’<
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Chapter Thirty-Four
On our way back from our trip, stopping at a motorway service area on the M6, I had no doubt that I had certainly blown the whistle. My eyes widened as I saw rows of Sunday papers on full view, with a front-page picture of Moira on the Sunday Mail prominently placed, and the headline screaming beside it: MY DAD KILLED THIS GIRL.
People were discussing it in wonder, as I stood behind them in the checkout queue, surrounded by Hallowe’en merchandise. ‘In’t it queer,’ a lady was saying, ‘that such a thing should come out so long after?’
‘Nowt surprises me these days, but it’s hard to imagine it’s his own lass saying such things about him. Likely she’s doing it for the money.’
I wanted to tell the Lancashire couple who had said this that in this case no cheque-book journalism had been involved, but I didn’t. When I returned to our car, I handed the newspaper to Ronnie. He glanced at the headline, the portrait of Moira, and the double-page spread inside. As well as Melanie’s article, it featured a photograph of an old-fashioned Baxter’s bus of the correct era, a less well-known faded snapshot of Moira in a cotton summer dress, a wide-angled view of the pond at Witchwood, with high flats shown in the distance, and, of course, Henry’s picture of me by our window, gazing at the small portrait photograph he’d given me of Moira.
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 th
at 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.’