Where There is Evil

by Sandra Brown

  SEVEN YEARS LATER

  A breakthrough came from an unexpected source, but not till the spring of 2005, by which time Janet was horrified to hear that the local council had got European funding to create a nature reserve to protect rare orchids.

  ‘My God!’ she sighed, when I told her about diggers I had seen close to the burn. ‘They can access funding to protect rare plants, but there isn’t a penny available to look for my sister. What about child protection?’

  The Scottish Freedom of Information Act became law, too, and we applied for access to Gallogley’s written confession. Inevitably Strathclyde Police turned it down twice. As 2006 dawned we waited to hear if our appeal to the commissioner was going anywhere. They said a decision might come in February. Nothing happened.

  Instead, my dad was taken into hospital in Leeds.

  Out of the blue, on 22 March, I received a peculiar semi-literate email, informing me that time was finally running out for Alexander Gartshore. I wondered if it was a hoax. The sender, named Jared, claimed to be my father’s friend. He seemed unfamiliar with a computer, so possibly he was elderly. But how had he got hold of my address? He wanted anonymity, but said that if I wanted the truth about Moira, I should go. The family had ‘been told to inspect the worse’, and had warned others not to reveal Alex was there.

  ‘Time’s running out. May he rest in peace, and may you get what you want also,’ he said.

  Rather than reply to this cryptic message, I checked the electoral rolls in West Yorkshire. Jared did exist. Next, I telephoned hospitals and found that Alexander was in St James’s, in an acute dependency ward. The staff nurse I called was cautious. Who exactly was I?

  ‘His daughter.’

  ‘Oh, you speak to your mother about his condition, then. She’s next of kin.’

  ‘That’s not possible. My mum’s been dead eleven years.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, love! You need to speak to his second wife, then.’

  ‘Actually, she’s his third wife. Is he able to speak at all?’

  ‘Well, he’s a very sick man, on oxygen for fluid on the lungs, but he can converse – do you want me to put him on?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said quickly. ‘We haven’t talked to each other for thirteen years. I would prefer you said nothing about me. I don’t want any unpleasantness with his wife.’

  ‘Right, love, it’s up to you. You do have rights, though, if you come. You’re a blood relative, and though she’s next of kin, if your dad says he wants to speak to you, then she cannot stop that. It’s entirely up to him.’

  I saw my brothers next day. Both voiced worries about the email, and how it had reached me. However, when I said Jared’s information was true, and our father was dying, we all discussed the implications. Neither Norman nor Ian wished to see him. I did, however.

  By coincidence, Ronnie and I had a week’s trip to London planned from Friday 24 March. We agreed to telephone the hospital from the M6 and, if my dad was still in a critical condition, detour to Leeds. I didn’t ring Janet. It was possible he might not even see me.

  We set off just forty-eight hours after I had received the strange message. On the advice of my brothers I dropped brief thanks to the mysterious Jared, just prior to leaving.

  We arrived at St James’s Hospital after a nightmare drive. Fog covered the moors and it was fully four p.m. by the time we drove into the complex. My father’s room was immediately next to the nurses’ station of Ward 8, emphasizing his poor condition. I said, ‘No,’ to the nurse who tried to shoo me in: someone was with him. I explained to her that I was not at all sure of my father’s reaction. Could she ask if he would see me?

  I told myself that if he declined, I’d go, having ensured I had not slammed shut any door that could help Janet.

  The nurse returned, perplexed but professional. My father, very shocked, had initially said no, but his wife had persuaded him it might be a good thing to make his peace with me as I had come all the way from Scotland. However, he wanted her by his side.

  I said I was grateful to her, but it was unfinished business between two people. I had never met her before. As my husband, who had never met my father, was prepared to wait outside in the corridor, would she agree to that?

  Mystified, the nurse went off and returned to say that Alex would see me alone. As I followed her, she reminded me to switch off the mobile I had in my hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and switched on the tiny Dictaphone I had borrowed that morning before leaving. I could not predict what might happen, or know if I would be too late. It had seemed clear to me that if something was said that would help in the search for Moira, it should be recorded.

  The nurse warned me I might get a shock at how illness had affected Alex. However, the first impression I got as I entered the room was of an elderly man sitting beside his bed, attached to oxygen, but not horizontal and still very, very large.

  My heart was racing. His eyes were unfathomable.

  I have always found people on their deathbed who lie on snowy pillows strike fear into you precisely because they are as chalk white as their surroundings. That was not the case with my dad. His colour was not healthy, but it was reasonable, and some half-eaten food lay on a tray. He surveyed me calmly for a man whose daughter had exposed him in a book, accusing him of murder. He beckoned to me. I put the chair at the foot of the bed so that it was close, but not too close.

  The nurse told him to buzz if he was upset. He shrugged.

  I noted his feet were very swollen, mottled and puffy. His circulation must be packing up, I thought, as he greeted me with a wave of his hand.

  It was a surreal feeling. I placed the Dictaphone openly on the window sill, and put my bag on the floor, brushing away tears, which annoyed me by springing from nowhere. I remembered vividly the last time we had spoken in Leeds, when I had met him with Marion Scott, and he had agreed with her he had problems. Some kind of urge, he’d said, that had been with him all his life. Something he could not help. My words came back: Dad, you’re not ready for the truth to come out just yet, but you know you have to do it. Maybe not this week, or this month, but the time will come.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, through sobs that suddenly tore through me, ‘you know why I’m here.’

  He nodded. I produced photos of my two grandchildren to break the ice. He assured me he didn’t need glasses. Trying to gain some control of my emotions, I told him he was a great-grandfather. The tiny baby in the picture had just come into the world, and he was leaving it, I said. This meeting was not about hassling him, but making some peace.

  ‘Aye, Ah want to, Ah do. Ah mean it,’ he said tearfully.

  Strangely, as the hour progressed, our roles reversed. While he had been composed at the start, much more so than I had been, that changed. Still surprised that he had agreed to meet, I was shocked again when it was he who brought up Moira.

  ‘You know, Sandra, that I never touched that little lass . . . Ah never even seen her. Ah seen her coming off my bus . . .’

  He broke down, and was still crying when the nurse checked if he wanted milk.

  As she fetched it I brought out other photos and handed him one of my mother, which raised a smile, then one of him in his Royal Artillery army uniform.

  ‘Tank Corps,’ he repeated. Then he winked. ‘Looks real nice.’

  ‘Oh, you were a dish of fish when you were young.’

  ‘That’s all over.’ His voice was regretful as he stroked the picture of Mary. ‘Bonny.’

  I took the bull by the horns and told him his treatment of her had been dreadful. Shock registered in his face as I described how, since I had published Where There is Evil, a whole cupboardful of his skeletons had rattled out.

  I had discovered the entire truth about his relationship with Isa, his mother’s sister.

  Three years older than him, my granny Jenny’s youngest sister had not escaped his attentions. It was entirely possible, despite the age gap, that she had started off as a victim. However, I n
ow knew that he had fathered two children by her before he had married my mother, who had walked up the aisle oblivious of the fact.

  Poor Mary had eventually worked out years later that the father of Isa’s illegitimate daughter and son was not some missing soldier, but in fact her own husband, Alex.

  After their marriage, though, he had carried on a long affair that produced two more little girls, both put into homes for adoption. My mother had never had any inkling of their existence.

  I would never have had any idea either, except that a woman who had read my book called me on my fifty-fifth birthday, explaining we ‘might be related’. I was shocked when she said she believed we shared the same father. We were exactly the same age. As soon as I met her, before she had produced any adoption certificates, I knew intuitively she was telling the truth, such was the likeness to my dad and his aunt Isa, who had long since died. I reacted as if I had seen a ghost.

  All she wanted was answers. We’d got our own answers when we went for DNA tests, and then she wrote to the Leeds address I gave her. My father had never replied, but now I let him know we needed closure.

  ‘Mary did not deserve what you put her through, Dad,’ I said. He agreed. ‘She found out about Isa. It wasn’t right! She always felt second best because Isa was very pretty.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded heavily.

  I shook my head. It was hard to believe it had taken me more than fifty years to discover I had three half-sisters in Scotland. I had also had a half-brother in England I would never know because he had died in 2000. My dad looked shaken when I told him this, and I explained that a son of this half-brother had made contact with me, thanks to the Internet.

  ‘So really you are like Jacob in the Bible, Dad; it’s like the twelve tribes of Israel! Four to Isa [he held up four fingers], four to Mary, counting Catherine, who just lived for six days [he did the same again], and how many to Pat?’

  ‘Three. Three boys.’

  Eleven kids. Those are the ones we know about, I thought. Pointing at Mary’s picture, I told him she had forgiven him. When I took out Moira’s photograph, my dad recoiled. ‘She has forgiven you, too. Mary tells me Moira has forgiven all the men involved as well. I know that you would not have set out to harm somebody deliberately. There were three of you. Whatever happened, you must get it off your chest. You only have days.’

  My father started to shake. I said my mother bore no grudges, and it was clear he was not going to face a court or jail, but he was going to have to give an account of his actions to a much higher authority. Jim Gallogley had written fifteen pages.

  ‘This is between you and me. You don’t have long – I want you to go and rest in peace. I want to be able to go and pray for your soul. Did you know he had written it all down?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He rolled his eyes, clearly irritated that Gallogley had let the cat out of the bag.

  ‘He didn’t put all the blame on you. He said it was three of you together. Forget the police and the court. You’re leaving this world, and I need to forgive you, my mum says.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Because . . . it is something that just happened and it should not have happened.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He raised his voice, bleating, ‘And, Sandra, do you forgive me?’

  Silence.

  I thought back to the kind of father he had been, the relationship we had had. Despite what I’d said to him, there was no way I could give him any kind of collective forgiveness on behalf of Moira, or his other victims, but I hated to let of any chance of him confessing slip away, too. I took a breath, concentrating on that little girl who had been me, and his betrayal of her.

  ‘I do, I do. I didn’t ever think I’d be able to say those words, but I do forgive you.’ I gulped. His face lightened. ‘You didn’t mean it to happen. Jim Gallogley said that you never meant it to happen.’

  My dad nodded vigorously then leaned back in his chair with a huge sigh. ‘Nooo . . .’

  The nurse interrupted us at that exact moment, when I felt I was getting somewhere. She fussed around briefly, admiring some of the pictures, noticing one of me being awarded Scotswoman of the Year. His eyes filled as I said Jenny, his mum, would have been so proud. He was overcome when I picked out Moira’s photo and showed him the leaflet of the charity I had set up in her name in 2000. The Moira Anderson Foundation. I told him she would be remembered; we had now helped hundreds of people who had been abused.

  ‘The folk who served the prison sentence were Moira’s mum and dad. They never knew what happened to her.’

  He broke down completely.

  ‘Are you glad for getting it off your chest?’ I handed him tissues, as he nodded hard. ‘Yes.’

  I begged him not to leave this world without further closure for us all. ‘Dad, nothing will come out till well after you have gone – to anybody. I need to know where she is, for her sisters’ sake. Is there anything you can say to help us find her?’

  His colour drained, eyes flicking to the door in panic. He was back in denial mode.

  ‘Not a thing. Ah huv something tae say – Ah wisnae involved.’

  I closed my eyes. Maybe he thought I had a policeman nearby, instead of Ronnie.

  ‘You can try and put things right before you go. Dad, this isn’t like an episode of Taggart or The Bill. There isn’t going to be a big cop in here in a minute to take a statement. But you won’t have an easy time of it on the Other Side if you haven’t cleared your conscience here. That’s what Gallogley did – wrote it all down. He trained as a butcher in the army and you were in the Tank Corps. But I know he was quite clear Moira did not get cut up. She is still in one piece, and we are going to find her, Dad.’

  His expression was horrified.

  ‘You can try to put things right before you go. Gallogley had eight months to clear his conscience; you’ve probably got more like eight days. If you can’t tell me, what about your wife? Could you tell her?’

  ‘Aye, maybe. Ah wish there were things Ah could change. Isa and those kids . . . What you have tae understand Sandra, is we had no entertainment then . . . no television.’

  I gasped in disbelief. ‘Uh?’

  How could my father try to justify his behaviour with such an excuse?

  He looked at Moira’s photo as if it was possessed in some way.

  ‘She’s haunted me ma hale life. She was bonny, too bonny for her own good . . .’

  The nurse came back. My father’s wife wanted to meet me. I held the photo and tapped it.

  ‘It’s strange how you’ve spent all this time trying to forget her,’ I said, ‘and I’ve spent more than a decade trying to make sure she’s not forgotten. Moira won’t be.’

  ‘You’re like a dog wi’ a bone.’

  ‘But you know why, Dad. You know why.’

  ‘Ah do, but ye cannae change the past. Ah regret everything to do wi’ that kid.’

  ‘I suppose in a way I’ve haunted you, too. Sorry, but it needed to come out, it did.’

  ‘Ah forgive you for that.’

  ‘That’s good. It means I can get on with my life, not be stuck in this situation. I’m glad I came, and we made peace.’

  ‘Ah feel better fur it,’ he declared.

  I reminded him we are all responsible for our actions, and if he felt he’d had hell on earth, he had created it. If he felt better for telling me some things, then I urged him to make a clean breast of it to his wife.

  ‘Ah think Ah could; she’s made me happy,’ he said, as she appeared. I rose to go.

  She was pleasant enough, protesting I need not leave, but I was drained. I commented that it was good she had made him happy; perhaps it was third time lucky.

  She beamed. He was a grandfather recently as well, she said, twin girls.

  Nice, I said, but I must go.

  ‘How did you know he was here? Who told you to come?’

  ‘I’ve told Dad I think I was guided,’ I said guardedly. ‘We’ve forgiven each other and made some peace. Le
t me just say cheerio, Dad. You won’t see me again.’

  ‘Well, it was good you came and saw Alex. You are his only daughter.’

  I explained to her I wasn’t. She looked dumbfounded, saying his second wife had three boys, so I was definitely his only lass.

  ‘No, I’m not. That is what we were just talking about. I’m his only legitimate daughter. There are at least another three to a woman called Isa. Isn’t that right, Dad?’

  My father’s expression was priceless, as he nodded in agreement.

  ‘My goodness, I never knew that.’ She was blinking in shock. ‘Is that right, Alex?’

  He answered, ‘Aye,’ as she expressed astonishment, looking at a young man who had entered the room. He was the youngest of Pat’s three, the same age as my own son, Ross, yet, weirdly, also my half-brother. He looked furious. I recognized him from my granny Jenny’s funeral. I was relieved to see that his twin brothers were not with him.

  ‘There are a lot of things my mum never knew either.’ I squeezed past her. ‘And there are other things my dad here has to tell you. A lot. Cheerio, Dad.’

  My dad had spilled some beans, but not enough. It broke my heart, I explained to Janet later, that he had not found the courage to conclude the whole matter on his deathbed.

  Ronnie and I had gone on to London, and I could not bring myself to listen to the tape with that voice on it until my return. I left some messages for Janet, not realizing she was away from home and not picking them up. Then my brother Norman had a call from one of the sons in Leeds. Alexander had died on 1 April. It was from the twin who was my dad’s namesake. There were no details of arrangements or when the funeral would be held.

  I was shocked when I accessed my email after a week away to find messages from the same twin, demanding to know about the conversation I’d had with our father. What exactly had passed between us? I ignored him initially, but wondered how he had traced my email too. More messages came.

  Then I was flabbergasted to find long missives from his twin, Fraser, whom I had never met either. These had pictures of his small daughters. He wrote that he had left Leeds, turning his back on my father after the publication of Where There is Evil, changing his name by deed poll, moving to another country, and trying to establish a writing career. His comments about my father were interesting. He had always had ‘a crippling feeling that he is not as innocent as he makes out’. He would never have returned to Leeds, but personal reasons brought him back, and he wanted me to know that my dad had only met his little girls on a few occasions, ‘always in a public place, never alone’.