Where There is Evil Read Free Page A

commented in 1993 that he never understood why the Monkland Canal, which went right
through the town, had not been dragged. At the time the official line was that it was too choked and overgrown with weeds, and because of Suez the petrol crisis was uppermost in the minds of the
authorities.
    Also in 1993, William McDonald of Glenboig made a statement to those who reopened Moira’s file, saying how astounded he had been to see land infilled at Coltswood, only a mile from
Moira’s home, that spring. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes to see quarrying and infill work going on when a local child had just gone missing.’
    Others have commented that they were amazed that no door-to-door interviewing took place, not even around Muiryhall Street, where Moira’s grandmother lived. A relative of mine, who has
stayed in neighbouring Albion Street all his life, said, ‘We always expected police to call because our household had three single men, all of them in different age groups, but it just never
happened.’
    The local police had made the naïve assumption that people would come forward automatically with any relevant information, but they were mistaken. Members of the public thought progress was
being made when it was not. They felt sure that any local deviants would be undergoing thorough checking.
    The only ‘local’ suspect whose movements were thoroughly checked was Ian Simpson, who was mentally handicapped, from Mitchell Street, near Kirkwood. His sister, by sheer coincidence,
lived almost next door to the Co-op to which Moira had been sent.
    In the 1990s Inspector John F. MacDonald revealed that Simpson was always his number one suspect, but he had a cast-iron alibi. He had been away with the Territorial Army that weekend, and his
sister insisted he had been nowhere near her home in Laird Street. He was allowed to go free. However, he was eventually taken to Carstairs, the state psychiatric hospital, after hitching a lift
from a Leeds man whom he murdered and buried in a lay-by in the Scottish mountains. Taking the victim’s car, he picked up a foreign student and murdered him, too, dumping the body in a forest
near Dumfries. He was in Carstairs from 1962 till February 1976, when he was hacked to death with a staff member and a police officer during a break-out by fellow inmates.
    The
Airdrie and Coatbridge Advertiser
, published weekly on Saturdays in 1957, summarized the events of the first week, stressing the concern being shown throughout the district:
‘Moira’s name is mentioned in shops, buses, public houses, in fact everywhere that people gather . . . all wish to help, yet all feel helpless in their ability to do so.’ Seldom,
they reported, in the history of the Monklands had there been such a poignant human drama, and Mrs Anderson had the sympathy of countless mothers. All of Scotland was in shock. The paper described
the ‘sightings’ in Greenock and Doncaster, but it went on to say:
    Coatbridge Police revealed that they had been contacted by a woman who had seen Moira board a Baxter’s bus in Alexander Street at 5.15 p.m. on Saturday. It was bound
     for Kirkwood [a modern housing area on the town’s outskirts], and the woman, who knows Moira by sight, distinctly remembers smiling at the little girl as she smiled back. The police
     managed to trace the conductress of this bus, but she has been unable to aid the investigation . . . The bus went from Coatdyke Cross via Muiryhall St, Kildonan St, Alexander St, along
     Sunnyside Road towards the main town centre landmark known to every local as The Fountain, and then along the Main St, down towards Whifflet; its final leg would be via School St to the
     Kirkwood area of Old Monkland.
    The mention of the bus’s destination made the police concentrate on Ian Simpson’s alibi. The Anderson parents queried why Moira would ever wish to go there. They
explained that they knew no one who lived in that part of town.
    After an appeal only one of six