Where There is Evil (18 page)

Red blisters appeared on my abdomen, sprinkled round to my armpit, and a doctor found I had a severe attack of shingles. Had I been in contact with chicken pox? I recalled dropping off some late
Christmas presents for E’s children, who had been going down with something. But the underlying cause was the stress of what I had been going through over my father. The body soon lets us
know its limits of tolerance.

The shingles left me at a low ebb, and I had never felt so down. Jim told me that he was planning to go in late March to Australia to visit his wife’s relatives and
celebrate her fortieth birthday. He would interview my father before he left.

Things were now very strained between me and my family, and my brothers were questioning the allegations made by my cousins.

I had explained to my children what their grandfather had done and that he was now facing prison, but Norman refused to tell his children. I thought this was wrong, because they might find out
about it, as I had, from a stranger. I told him it would be dreadful for them to see it on a news-stand and then find out our family was involved: Lauren and Ross had accepted what I had told them
without any ill effects, but Norman understandably wanted to shield his children from it until the issue could no longer be avoided.

When Jim and his then superior Detective Chief Inspector Ricky Gray were interviewing my father in Leeds, on 17 and 18 March 1993, I was staying at the Station Hotel in Inverness before speaking
at a conference. I tossed and turned all night and wondered if my father was in his own bed or in police cells.

Waiting to find out what had happened in Leeds was dreadful. Somehow I got through the events of that day at Inverness College. I couldn’t stop worrying that Jim would return to tell me I
had made a ghastly mistake, and I had wasted everyone’s time. He had promised to phone when he got back, so all I could do was wait, something I am not good at.

Finally, he called me from his home and we agreed to meet up at Airdrie police station on 22 March. Then he’d fill me in, he said.

I braced myself for the meeting, when I now expected him to tell me that they’d got nowhere with my dad, who had probably accused me of being a scheming liar. I’d show Jim that I
could take it on the chin.

Jim was remarkably perky. He cleared his throat, then picked up a photograph of Moira. ‘Well, Sandra, I have to tell you that you’re absolutely correct in your view that your dad is
responsible for what happened to this young girl. I have come back convinced that we have our man. He holds the key to her disappearance.’

My legs turned to jelly and my heart dropped to the soles of my shoes. There were so many reasons why I hadn’t wanted to be right. I asked, ‘What did he say that convinced
you?’

Jim handed me the photograph of Moira. ‘As well as my own gut intuition, your dad’s reaction to this. If I had lived down south for the amount of time he has, no way am I going to
recognize after thirty years a school snap of a child to whom I’ve got no connection. When we showed him it, and asked if he knew who it was, he stammered out, “Moira!”, and he
started to shake. Then he said a very odd thing. “She looks a lot older there.” ’

I demanded to know what had been my father’s first words to Jim when they arrived at his flat, and Jim’s impression of his mental state.

He grinned. ‘First, let me say you’re right about your dad being on the ball. He told me, quite categorically, that everything you reported of your conversation with him in your
gran’s house was true. He didn’t argue with the accuracy of the account you gave us. In fact, he agreed with you.’

I was astonished. I’d expected vehement denial.

‘We took your dad to police headquarters in Leeds and interviewed him there, Sandra. There are quite a few hours of tape, which right now are all being typed into transcript,’ he
continued. ‘The other person we thought we’d speak to was his estranged wife, Pat. We decided not to hold your dad at that stage, and took him home, then waited to see what he would do.
He made a beeline to her home, where he spent a great deal of time, presumably filling her in on the events of his interview with us. He emerged in the small hours, and we picked her up in the
morning. Hers was an interesting statement.’

I looked at him expectantly, reminding myself that although I’d never seen this woman, she was only a little older than me and she was now living with another man.

‘Patricia told us two things I found hard to accept,’ Jim sounded cynical. ‘When we asked if she had ever heard your dad mention the name Moira Anderson, without a flicker, she
said we of course were referring to the child who’d gone missing in the fifties in her home town. She said she could clearly recall him discussing Moira when the chum of Christine
Keeler’s was thought to be her in London in 1963. Just like that. We had no need to prompt her memory. This answer came out slick as you like. At the end of the session, we asked if she kept
in contact with her ex-husband. She said only rarely. It tended to be of an accidental nature, such as running into him at the shopping centre. When I asked when she’d last seen him, she was
adamant that it had been “some months” since they’d last met.’

Here was another of my father’s ex-partners willing to protect him from the law.

I asked Jim if I could listen to the tapes. Not at the moment, he replied, perhaps later. He knew that many of the things my father had referred to could be checked out with me. And while he
would not normally allow a witness access to them, he felt in this case it might aid the inquiry. ‘Your dad is cunning, Sandra, and all my experience of handling suspects tells me he feels he
can play cat and mouse with us. “You could check this out with so and so,” then two minutes later, “but they’re dead, unfortunately.” That’s the type of thing
he’s trotting out. He’s damn sure that because I’m in a different age group, and not from the burgh itself, he can talk of routes and buses and crews, and we haven’t got his
inside knowledge. We’ve interviewed a number of his ex-colleagues, and I’m hoping the flurry of publicity will reap rewards.’

It didn’t surprise me that my father was toying with the policemen. It had all happened so long ago that he had convinced himself that he had got away with it. I asked how his health
appeared.