Where There is Evil (23 page)

C stared at him as he got out and went into the station.

The following day, she took her car in for a service. A number of faults came to light.

There are those, I am sure, who will be cynical about the events that occurred in Coatbridge that evening of 23 April 1993, and of what passed between a young man from Glasgow
and a woman he had never set eyes on before, from Edinburgh, and who will question both sincerity and authenticity. All I can say is that Jim McEwan was not one of them.

D’s brother-in-law taped a copy of the recording of our consultations and Ronnie listened to it carefully. He said, ‘Give it to the police team, tell them he’s willing to help,
and leave it to them to decide on whether this man is some kind of fraudster or the genuine article.’

While the tape made its way to Airdrie police station, I got William’s full name and address from D and telephoned him to let him know the police might contact him. He did not sound
surprised. ‘I’ll do all I can to help,’ he said simply. ‘Something similar has happened before.’

He told me a little of his background, and I realized he took his gift very seriously.

‘So, anyway,’ I said, ‘you’re quite happy for me to pass on your name to the police?’

‘Absolutely,’ said William. ‘What you should be aware of is that your gran told me she couldn’t rest in peace, knowing she had covered up for your dad all these years.
Now she’s in spirit, she knows he’s responsible. This is why something is being done to try and balance the scales of justice now.’

I was silent. I thought of Granny Jenny and the cryptic remarks she had made to me, always retracting them or changing the subject.

‘I’ve had her back,’ said William, as if describing someone he’d bumped into in the street.

‘So is she still worried about me?’ I asked with interest.

His answer was forthright. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. She’s just very upset that he has the same name as his father, who she tells me was a very respectable ambulance
man.’

‘Did she say his name to you?’ I held my breath.

‘Yes, she did,’ he answered cheerfully, ‘and I can see you’re called after him, too – it’s Sandy, or Sanny or something like that, short for—’

‘Alexander.’

‘That’s right. She was worried about the surname too, because it was unusual.’

Jim McEwan and Gus Paterson arranged to interview William a week or so later. They assured me it was not preposterous to involve him and Jim spoke of a recent murder
investigation where the killer of a Rutherglen woman taxi driver had been traced through the help of a clairvoyant. Jim’s view was that, with a murder case as complex and long ago as
Moira’s, he was willing to meet William and form his own opinion. The two policemen picked up William, escorted him to Coatbridge and drove him around the area to see what he picked up in the
way of vibes.

I spoke to Gus the day after. He said that he had been almost as staggered as I was by William. ‘It was uncanny,’ he said. ‘Jim and I were determined to give the guy as few
clues as possible, so we just drove him around to see what he would say and do. We headed through the Cliftonville area, and it was as if the guy came to life. He recognized her street and murmured
something about it “not looking right”. The Andersons’ home was knocked down years ago. He said, “It isn’t there any more,” though all the rest of the houses are
exactly as they were. He talked about the park being nearby, and directed us to Dunbeth Park. Then, at the gates, he asked us outright if it was an ex-cop we were interviewing. He seemed confused,
then stressed the man we have to speak to wore a uniform. He kept repeating, “She says she trusted him because of his uniform, so I guess it must be a cop.” Then, a moment later, he was
saying, “Where is a bus involved in all this? I’m clearly picking up she got on a bus.” On the way back from the Townhead area, he made us turn off a side road. We went up
Gartgill Road, into quite a desolate area. It takes you up towards abandoned pits and quarries, but he got us to stop at the large pond that’s round that way, near the old signal box. He
seemed to be looking for three big brick chimneys near railway lines. There
were
old brick works round there, years ago, but they were demolished in the sixties.’

‘I lived in Coatbridge all through my childhood,’ I said, ‘and I’ve never wondered where that little road goes or used it.’

‘It’s a real backwater although it’s only a mile from the town centre,’ Gus agreed, ‘and few people seem to notice it. The pond is hardly any distance from the bus
terminus in Townhead. All the drivers would probably know that a pond was screened by the wood near their turning circle. Now you can’t see it for high flats. William got out of the car and
indicated to us that he felt Moira all around. It’s marshland and you’re sinking up to your knees in bog, but though he couldn’t pinpoint an exact spot, he said he was certain he
was being directed to the general location. Then he looked pale, and started choking and being sick. He threw up, and told us he wanted to leave.’

I recalled William’s pallor when I’d last seen him, and decided it would be difficult to vomit unless it was the real thing.

‘He talked about people being burned and drowned and said it was a tragic spot. He was in a state, so we decided to take him up to the station in Airdrie and let him get cleaned up.

‘We checked the map of the whole burgh on the wall here,’ Gus added. ‘I’d been trying to remember the local name for the pond, when some guy said he’d lived in a
police house round that area of Townhead. Told us the tower block’s called Witchwood Court, and the pond’s been called that too for donkey’s years.’

‘Witchwood Pond,’ I repeated.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Gus. ‘You’d need to check it out with the local historian.’

I had few problems finding my way round the familiar haunts of the Carnegie Library, where John White, an expert on the folklore of the Monklands area, has built up a formidable archive. I
discovered that while there is only fragile historical evidence for witch-hunting having taken place in that part of Coatbridge several hundred years ago, no one has ever been able to explain why
those woods and that pond carry the name they do. I resolved that I would visit the spot when I could.

On my first free afternoon, I set off to explore an area of my childhood home that we kids had never gone near. I parked my car by the signal box, climbed over some wire, then set off towards
Witchwood Pond, with its spread of bright marsh marigolds.

I had worried that I, too, would pick up horrible feelings in this lush green place so incongruously set in an industrial sprawl, but this did not happen. I did not feel nervous, although I was
alone for half an hour without seeing another soul. Perhaps dreadful events
had
happened here, but I could not detect the malevolence that had so upset William. I placed the bunch of red
carnations I’d brought on the soft moss before I rose to leave.

I knew Jim had arrested my father on suspicion of the murder of Moira Anderson on his visit to Leeds on 18 May, then had to release him on bail until 11 August. He planned to
use divers to search the pond at Witchwood in the autumn when the undergrowth could be cut back, but it began to look more and more likely that things would go public in a much more national way in
the summer.

His months of work, contained in seven large boxes of documentation, were all with the Depute Procurator Fiscal, a Mr Griffiths, who Jim thought would wish to see A and B. We would have to wait
for his decision on the next move. His recommendations would be considered higher up in Edinburgh’s Crown Office.

The days slipped past, but my cousins heard nothing from the Fiscal’s Office at Airdrie and I went south for my university summer school at Nottingham. When I returned, Ronnie said Jim
wanted me to call him.

The next morning, 29 July, I went down to the police station and Jim showed me the letter he had received from the Crown Office. At the top, my father’s full name and address were given,
under it the words ‘Investigation into the Disappearance of Mary McCall Anderson (known as Moira) from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, on February 23rd, 1957’, then: ‘The Scottish Crown
Office notes with interest the stage reached by the present inquiry, and advises this matter should continue to be investigated. Further evidence will continue to be examined. You are instructed to
proceed with such till further notice.’ Below this were the names of my four cousins. My father was also named, in connection with five charges of lewd and libidinous behaviour against them
on various occasions. I read the concluding sentence with disbelief: ‘On the above matters, it is advised that there be no further proceedings.’

I knew my father had admitted the abuse of A, and he had made another incriminating statement on tape, which indicated that B’s allegations were also correct. What more did they need? I
demanded angrily.

‘I have spoken to the Fiscal and he won’t reveal reasons,’ explained Jim. ‘It may seem odd, but they don’t have to tell you or me why. I told David Griffiths that
you’d be at a loss to understand this decision, Sandra. I was sure you’d want answers from him, so I’ve arranged for a car to take you to his office shortly.’

Jim and I walked to where a driver was waiting. Jim slid into the back seat beside me, saying he would make the formal introductions. Seconds later we arrived at the large, airy offices of the
Procurator Fiscal, and Jim escorted me upstairs to a seat, where I waited. When Mr Griffiths came in Jim made formal introductions and departed. He had to be as neutral as possible, but I felt
uneasy as he left and I was shown, with no obvious cordiality, into an office.

The man sat down behind a huge desk and I asked why such a puzzling decision had been taken regarding my father and my relatives. He told me, rather as though he were delivering a lecture, that
it was a long-standing tradition for the Crown Office never to give any reasons. ‘The documentation I sent to Chambers in Edinburgh went to a very senior level for consensus, Mrs
Brown,’ he answered stiffly. ‘They have obviously reached the unanimous conclusion that what happened to your cousins is not to be proceeded with because it is not in the public
interest. In other words, in their view it is not worth pursuing this case.’

Not worth pursuing! I began to argue that abusers don’t stop, and my father had continued to add to his victims over the years. How could they have reached this crazy decision to do
nothing about my cousins and the trauma they’d endured, when if they charged him, and brought him north, they would, in all probability, gain a confession for murder?

‘There is no murder without a body, let me remind you,’ said Mr Griffiths. ‘The Moira Anderson case is still officially a missing person’s inquiry, pure and
simple.’ He went on to say there had, of course, been one or two examples in British courts of a murder trial without a body, but it was rare; that, in such cases, there would always be other
evidence to go on. Everything he had read in Jim’s documentation, he said, was of an overwhelmingly circumstantial nature, and there was no proof that Moira Anderson had met her death at my
father’s hands. ‘I know your father has said some extremely incriminating and suspicious things, but they have not enlightened us. In my view, the police aren’t much further
forward than in 1957.’

This was nonsense, and we both knew it.

‘My father has lied to other people as well as myself, about not knowing Moira, about saying he was interviewed at the time when he wasn’t, and the tape recordings made with his
co-operation in Leeds are full of inconsistencies.’

‘That may be so, but just because someone lies about something doesn’t mean to say the converse is true,’ Mr Griffiths said. ‘Inconsistencies aren’t enough to go
on. While your father’s made a number of very suspicious admissions, we take the line that an admission is not the same as a confession.’

Then he added, ‘I have never understood – what do you hope to gain from all of this coming out? Why would these women want to go on a witness stand and testify to sordid acts your
father committed long ago? What possible satisfaction would your cousins gain from sitting in a witness box here in Airdrie, in front of the local yobs and describing what your father did all those
years ago?’

‘Justice, perhaps.’ I felt my cheeks glow with anger. ‘Justice for what happened to them and all his other victims including those who can’t speak up. Like Moira, who was
murdered.’

‘You can’t call this a murder inquiry, it’s a missing person’s,’ Mr Griffiths said again. ‘May I remind you that your father
has
served his
sentence.’

I regarded him with incredulity. ‘Mr Griffiths, these offences happened to my cousins
after
my father had served his sentence at Saughton prison. I was unaware of what he had put
them through till this investigation brought it to light. What do I tell them now?’

‘Sordid things happened to all of us,’ he replied. He went on to describe some of the things he was presently coming across in child-abuse cases, and said that what had happened to
my family was long ago and relatively less severe.

Shaking with anger, I made a mistake that would return to haunt me later. ‘If you’d taken the time to interview my relatives, you would know that all have suffered long-term
emotional damage, and you cannot possibly be in a position to judge the effects of it unless you have been a victim of sexual abuse yourself. He is still a danger to children in my view. What about
his recent prison sentence?’

Mr Griffiths answered, ‘I know nothing of that.’

I went on, emphasizing that because of my own field of expertise, teaching child development and child protection, I felt qualified to judge whether my family was still suffering. He rose. My
persistence annoyed him. I could see he had reached the end of his tether and was relieved when I got up. I told him that I would be writing to the Crown Office to complain. He handed me a note of
their address. ‘No one is disbelieving you or your relatives,’ he repeated several times, ‘but I assure you it just isn’t in the public interest to pursue these
matters.’