by Sandra Brown
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘It’s Sandra. I’ve come down from Edinburgh to see you.’
My father’s tall figure wove towards Marion and me as we stepped out of the lift. He approached us, and I saw that he was smiling benignly. Would he say something that would lead us to the truth? He certainly did not look as if he expected trouble as he ushered us to his door.
As we entered a dingy hallway, I told myself that while a full confession was perhaps too much to hope for, I wanted to appeal to any shred of decency he had. Surely he would see that it was time for him to come clean, to sort things out before it was too late, and right a great wrong?
He surveyed us speculatively as he shut the door.
‘I’ve not brought the boys in blue with me, Dad,’ I said hesitantly, ‘or even the girls for that matter, so you needn’t worry. Ronnie didn’t want me to come here at all, he would only agree if I brought a friend. This is Marion. We need to speak to you, Dad, and get some answers, for the sake of my sanity, and others.’
Marion smiled ingratiatingly while I scrutinized my father’s expression as he gestured us through to the main room of his flat. So far he had not uttered a word.
His reaction to me was interesting. Daughters who have accused their parent of murder and child abuse do not expect to be welcomed with open arms. I might have imagined I would be accused of being a lying bitch, who should go straight back to Scotland, or I thought he could have flared up in righteous anger about me daring to make such outrageous allegations about him. Neither happened.
He motioned us to sit down, and I glanced round briefly for the first time. There was so much junk we both had to move stuff to clear spaces on his furniture. The whole flat looked as if some gang had been in and smashed it up.
The room was flooded with good natural light from a large window, which gave an excellent view across the whole of Leeds, and helped to combat the violent tangerine wallpaper, patterned with wild swirls that could have induced migraine in minutes. The few pieces of furniture were meagre and basic.
As soon as we were seated, we began to grill him. I begged him to have some compassion and put people’s minds at rest and Marion implored him to have some decency, to think of his daughter who’d been through hell for months now, and she asked him to describe just what did happen that day in February 1957.
My father reddened and blustered. If anyone had been going through hell, it had been him, he declared. We got all the details of his prostate problem. Smokescreen. Marion and I exchanged a look. It was poor-me stuff, designed to gain our sympathy. It would not wash.
In she came with direct questions about why he had said the things he had to me at Granny Jenny’s funeral. Had he been attempting to shift a load of guilt off his chest? She reminded him that everyone in Scotland now knew he had been the driver on Moira’s last journey, that his own father had searched for the child in his son’s home and on his bus, and had died convinced that he was Moira’s killer.
My dad became agitated.
I tried psychology, I tried tears, I tried appealing to his conscience, but I could see why the police had run out of strategies with my father. I was not making much headway, until he said how much he wanted things resolved. When Moira had alighted from his bus at Woolworths in Coatbridge all those years ago, she’d had a ‘mystery friend’ with her. If she could be traced, that would clear it all up. He had mentioned this unknown girl to Jim’s team, he insisted. Yes, absolutely. He remembered her particularly because all three of them had got off together.
‘You got off with them?’ I brought my head up with a jerk. This had not been in the transcript I’d read. ‘You told the police Moira got off, and you waved goodbye.’
Backtracking as he realized I knew the contents of the police tapes, my dad added, ‘Well, yes. I telt the polis she got off, and I mind she looked back at me. I was in my cab, and she mouthed, “Cheerio,” tae me, through the windae, then I’d to get out tae let on ma relief driver. Ah last saw her, wi’ this other lass, going through the swing doors at Woolies, right as rain. Aye, Ah wis the last tae see her, like Ah said at the time I was interviewed, but she left me safe and sound, I know that.’
‘You were never interviewed at the station,’ I said flatly. ‘So you got off with her?’
‘Right after them,’ he put in hastily. ‘Ah went home, for Ah’d a break. An hour or so.’
I stared at him. I knew from my own experience that it had not been my father’s custom ever to take a break that involved going home for an hour between shifts. My mother could only ever recall him doing such a thing once, when toothache became so unbearable he had nipped home to put whisky on a plug of cotton wool; the event had stuck in her mind, because he had then taken himself off to Mr Downie’s surgery in Whifflet to have the molar removed. He did not normally pop home for a short break, and she knew he had not done so that particular Saturday.
Marion spoke of the abuse to which he had subjected various children, while I sighed at his indifference. Names from the past, that was all they represented to him. She berated him about the effects on kiddies of such a tender age. She mentioned A’s name at this point and, to my shock, he suddenly ventured a detached observation. ‘Aye, ye’re right about her.’ He sighed. Yes, he had molested her, but it had happened just the once, when she was about fifteen. Marion’s eyelids lowered, and I knew she was wondering if her tape was still running, because we had had two tiny breakthroughs in the past couple of minutes. We were wearing him down, seeing glimmers through the tissue of lies that he had spun for so long he half believed them. I held my breath.
‘Aye, Ah admit that Ah did touch her, but it wis never the full thing,’ my dad chipped in now quite briskly. ‘Everythin’ else, like, but she wis a relative, and I liked her ma and pa, so it wisnae the whole hog. And she was fifteen, like Ah said.’
‘That’s not what she says.’ I stared at him. ‘It wasn’t just once and she wasn’t fifteen at the time, Dad. She was eight the first time.’
He shot me a furious look. He insisted then, as anger built up in him, that everyone was telling lies about him. All these children I had known when I was little, friends, neighbours I had played with, and my cousins – they were all making it up, these kids, he didn’t know why. I pointed out that not all his accusers were children he had known. Some of his former colleagues had made some allegations to the police every bit as damning as mine. The only difference, I reflected wryly, was that the cops had had to go to them, whereas I’d gone to the police myself.
‘They’re all being paid,’ he asserted. ‘All of this comes from up there. It’s a campaign, Ah tell ye, a vendetta goin’ on against me by them . . .’ He pointed towards a copy of the Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser. ‘They’d no right to start it all up. Ah’ve gone through hell, wi’ two strokes, ye know. And the doctor says Ah’ve got palpitations now, tae.’
‘You started it yourself,’ I pointed out, pleased that his anger was taking us forward a little, ‘when you spoke to me the day Granny died. You were the one who linked yourself to Moira. You were the one who said you were last to speak to her. You had me cracking up with worry. Then it turned out all the stuff you gave me about going to help the cops at the time was garbage. Grandpa was right about you all along.’
‘I’d a good relationship with my father.’ He shot an indignant look at me. ‘I don’t know why he came to look in the house and insisted on searchin’ ma bus. Ah took him and Ah opened that boot and Ah showed him. Ah telt him, “How could Ah do somethin’ like that wi’ all thae passengers around and a conductress tae? How could I possibly harm a wean like her?”
I gazed at him as if hypnotized. I thought, These are like the rhetorical questions you fed my mother, which made her feel terrible for even thinking them. It was quite a strategy, I had to agree.
‘Naw, how could he think it? How could I do such a thing?’
Oh, you could, I thought, you could. Particularly if you managed to get rid of the pas
sengers and your conductress, and achieved your goal, which was to be alone with that kiddie. Particularly if you can convince yourself my cousin A was seven years older than she actually was. Particularly if you’ve convinced yourself that whatever went wrong with Moira was all the child’s fault.
I knew from Jim, too, that my father had insisted he had never had the T-key of EVA 56 to gain access to the boot, yet here he was telling Marion and me that he had used it to reassure his father that the boot contained no child’s body.
‘Oh, yes,’ he smiled now at Marion, repeating, ‘I’d a good relationship with my father. In fact, he forgave me on his deathbed for everything that had happened.’
Marion raised her eyebrow at this.
‘Well, that’s very interesting,’ I put in, ‘since I don’t recall you being at his deathbed at all. You didn’t show up till the day of the funeral.’
He recovered quickly, and added coolly, ‘What Ah meant was my mother told me later he had forgiven me completely.’
So manipulative, so skilful.
He was angry again, now, that I’d dared to voice any doubts. He couldn’t understand it, he said, pacing up and down, why everyone told lies about him, always painting him as a villain when it wasn’t true. He said he was fed up being questioned. Interviews, he ranted at us, it was nothing but interviews, and the police just picked on him. He was a fall guy, and over the years he’d got fed up with it. They treated him like a black sheep too, always looking for things to pin on him. All these kids, he argued, who’d nothing better to do than tell lies about him, it was pathetic. He’d kept count and over the years the figure was over a hundred – in fact, they’d questioned him about one hundred and twenty-two kids.
My eyes widened in disbelief.
Marion and I could not even look at each other. I knew my jaw was agape. Had I misheard? But no. My dad repeated the exact figure. ‘One hundred and twenty-two, Ah tell ye!’
He thought it ridiculous. Some kids he’d been questioned about he didn’t even know properly, or he couldn’t remember their names after all these years, and some he’d bought sweets for and had been friendly with, though now he wished he hadn’t bothered. He’d always liked kids, always been pally with them, playful with them, and this was the thanks he got.
Regaining her composure well, Marion took a breath and started to flatter him subtly, saying she could see he had been a fine figure of a man in his prime. He had obviously been very noticeable, she simpered. He started to chuckle and nod. ‘Yes. Ah wis well liked.’ He smirked. ‘All the women liked me, and Ah liked them.’
I interrupted his reverie once more, with another home truth. ‘But it wasn’t just women you wanted sex with, Dad,’ I said. ‘You liked wee girls too – you still do. You wanted away on your own with them. It’s true, isn’t it?’
I was amazed when, solemnly, he agreed. Marion, seeing another chink in his armour, followed this line of thought. She smiled sympathetically, moving from the role of coquettish young vamp to serene-faced counsellor. ‘Is it something – like an impulse? You know, like something you can’t help?’
He nodded. His head lowered, and I thought, We’ve pushed a button somewhere. This has hit a raw nerve.
‘Is it something you’ve done all your life?’ Marion asked delicately. I noticed his eyes shift sideways, and his knuckles tighten on the couch.
‘Aye.’ He said it at last after what seemed like the longest silence. ‘Ah regret it. It’s been wi’ me all ma life. It’s just somethin’ that comes over me. Ah cannae help it. Still happens, even now. And Ah regret leavin’ my first family tae. Ah dae.’
His eyes were swimming and it was difficult not to feel pity. He was sad and sick. I could not hate him. It is so much easier to abhor the murderer and molester who looks like a monster. I recognized that it was the behaviour and crimes that repulsed me. The man was separate. Tears swamped me, but all my grief was for his victims. How terrible to contemplate the havoc he had wreaked, how ghastly to think of the lives he had ruined, when all his days he had needed help.
‘Dad, you’re really not ready for the truth to come out just yet,’ I said. He looked at me with the eyes I would never forget, for their coldness, detachment and callousness. ‘But you know you have to do it. Maybe not this week, or this month, but the time will come.’
We had been with my father almost two hours. Marion had gone into the loo at one point, I realized to change the tape and let Henry know we were both OK. It was a measure of my father’s sharp hearing that he picked up the sound of her dialling.
‘Is that your pal phonin’ somebody?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes. She’ll just be phoning up north to let them know we got here safe and sound,’ I agreed. ‘She’s got one of these mobiles.’
‘Oh. One o’ thae new mobile phones.’ There was not a sign of suspicion on his face. When Marion returned, she tried to regain his confidence, but he deflected her attempts with different tactics. If we would just come with him to his ex-wife Pat’s, she’d tell us what a good guy he was. She would tell us he had nothing to do with it all those years ago, and these bastards up north were just pinning it on him.
We had no intention of taking up his offer.
Marion asked him about Witchwood Pond, describing the area with some accuracy. My dad shrank back on the couch, hands clutching uncontrollably.
‘What happened there, Alex?’ she demanded. ‘That’s where you took her, isn’t it?’
My father grabbed a Bible. He swore on it dramatically: ‘Look, Ah swear on ma children’s lives up there, and down here, Ah never touched that wee lassie Moira. This has come back tae haunt me, but honest Ah didn’t.’
His body language told another story.
In the last fifteen minutes of our strange three-way meeting, my father tried to shift the blame on to another of Baxter’s bus-driving staff. He mentioned one of the ex-colleagues interviewed by Jim’s team, and said there had been others, on that route that day, who could be responsible for the girl’s murder. And if he could just have a think about it, maybe he could come up with something to help us in the new inquiry. I scribbled my phone number on a piece of card, and he went through the ritual of saying if he managed to come up with new information he would contact me. It was almost laughable, the way he took the card, nodding sagely, and he emphasized his ex-colleague’s possible involvement. William had been spot on again, I thought.
Immediately afterwards, I felt terrible as he came down in the lift with us to see us away. He accompanied us to where our hired car was parked, giving us directions to the ring road. As he waved his arms around, I could see Henry, who was beside the car, snapping happily.
My father caught sight of him, and I expected him to go purple, but still there was no recognition of the set-up. I felt ill. It wasn’t fair. Why the heck did I care so much? He asked who was the guy taking all the pictures. Just a friend, I lied, although Henry was so loaded with equipment, he could have been David Bailey.
‘He’s our driver,’ Marion said smartly, ‘and he’s taking us to the airport. OK?’
My father’s jaw dropped. It was clear he had few visitors who followed our pattern.
Henry moved closer to my father so that he was now just feet away. My emotions were in turmoil as I attempted to get in the car. I could see him, smiling trustingly, as Marion said I wanted photos of him. It felt deceitful to me, though I was in no doubt that this same man in his life had laid some pretty devious traps for children. Tears of bitterness flowed unchecked, and I was ashamed of the huge sense of betrayal that swamped me.
He hovered beside the car, while Marion attempted to get me to come and embrace him. She looked from one of us to the other, but then perceived that there was no way I would do it. Back came the memory of how as a child I’d had to be pushed forward to kiss him on his return from ‘hospital’. I was unable to put one foot in front of the other. As my father stood grinning at us all, she pulled me into her chest and comforted me. Although a
welcome gesture, which helped me hide my tear-stained face, it also seemed pretty manipulative. I dissolved, and Henry snapped this frozen trio.
Chapter Thirty-Six
To her annoyance Marion’s report on our visit to Leeds appeared on an inside page of the newspaper. She let rip a series of irritated epithets on the royal beauty whose troubled marriage was beginning publicly to founder. ‘Our story was front page, till Di did her usual and hogged all the headlines.’
I was noncommittal. I felt uncomfortable about Henry’s photograph of the three of us standing outside the tower block with Marion clutching me determinedly to her. I consoled her as best I could.
‘Did the whole tape turn out?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ve been able to transcribe the bulk of it. I’ll give you a copy.’
‘I did some notes on my return,’ I replied, ‘but it would be great if you would. Jim McEwan says he’d welcome a copy too, of any part which is incriminating.’
Marion snorted derisively. ‘The whole effing conversation was incriminating! I’m as positive as I’ve ever been about anything in my life that your dad did that little kid in, Sandra. Did you see his face when I described that wee road that winds along to the pond under the old railway bridge? God, he was having kittens.’
After Marion’s call, I gazed out of the window, absently noticing the first decorated Christmas trees going up in the homes of neighbours. Did my father really feel a strong bond with me that had affected him deeply enough to disclose subjects he had avoided strenuously with the police? I could not be sure. I was reminded of the famous words Sir Thomas More wrote to his children: ‘Brutal and unworthy to be called father is he who does not weep himself at the tears of his child; I love you with my whole heart, for being a father is not a tie which can be ignored.’
