Evil Relations (27 page)

He takes a deep breath and rubs his jaw. ‘I know that later on Myra Hindley claimed she never used that bedroom again after Lesley Ann Downey was killed. But I can say for a fact that she was lying. That’s where she and Maureen would sleep when me and Ian were having one of our all-night drinking sessions. Time and again, she slept there. The murder committed in her bedroom didn’t trouble her at all.’

Ian and Myra were also confronted with the photographs and tapes that day. Both attempted to pin Lesley Ann Downey’s murder on David. Ian admitted taking the photographs but insisted the little girl had been brought to the house by two men, one of whom he knew well but wouldn’t name, and that afterwards she had departed with the same men. Later he went further and not only named David as one of the men, but also claimed it had been his idea to take the pornographic photographs.

Myra was even less reticent in her interview with the police. After being shown the photographs, Benfield informed her that Lesley’s body had been recovered from the moor; the child’s clothing was placed on the desk. He then presented her with Ian’s alibi: ‘Brady has told us the girl was brought to your home by two men. One of them came into the house and remained downstairs while Brady took the photographs in your presence.’ At first, Myra refused to comment, but after listening to the tape, she embellished the story that Benfield had handed to her: ‘As far as Lesley Ann Downey is concerned, Ian didn’t kill her, I didn’t kill her. I suggest you see Smith.’ Pressed again, she stated, ‘You know Lesley Ann Downey was at the house. She was brought there by Smith and taken away by Smith.’

With hindsight, David muses, ‘They could have pinned all that on me far more effectively than they did. I realised that pretty quickly after being shown the photographs of Lesley Ann Downey and being forced to listen to the tape. Because on the night that Brady came out about committing murder, those photographs and that tape must have been in the house. When he said, “I’ve got photographic evidence,” it was because I’d looked at him disbelievingly. He could have decided then: “Fuck you, you bastard, I’ll show you,” staggered to his feet, got out the photos of Lesley and handed them over. And what would have been on those pictures then? My fingerprints. It was that easy. But I think he bottled it. I think he was itching to show me those photographs but lost his nerve at the last minute. He’d got to me that night by talking about Angela, my little girl, remember. So to then consider showing me the photos of someone else’s young daughter, a child that
he
had murdered . . . He couldn’t do it without ruining everything for himself. It would have been a step too far.’

David muses, ‘There was another way, though. On the night that Edward Evans was killed, the eight-track tape recorder was in the sitting room. Why didn’t Brady have it running, if that murder was something I was involved in as much as he and Hindley claimed? They would have had absolute proof of my complicity then – evidence of an attack on one man by two. But they didn’t want to risk it. And, to be honest, I don’t think I was even supposed to witness the murder that night. I think Brady intended to kill his victim before I got there, and wanted me to walk in and find the body. But he was out of control, desperate to prove himself to me. So, instead he waited until I turned up, working himself into that murderous frenzy. If he’d killed Edward Evans ten minutes earlier, that heat would have cooled down – he might have lost his nerve again. He had to show me, physically, what he was capable of and he was waiting for the right moment. And in I walked, right on cue.’

* * *

This is a seven-days-a-week circus, held in the Big Top of every police station in the Greater Manchester area. Ringmasters change on a daily basis: Talbot, Benfield, Nimmo, Mattin, Tyrrell, Mounsey, Carr, Cunningham. Different days in different stations with different detectives, all still asking the same fucking questions. Interview rooms filled with inter-force rivalry and testosterone-fuelled egos thicker than pipe smoke; it’s the old good-cop, bad-cop routine, each suit hunting his piece of glory.

These men keep me awake at night. It brings me out in a cold sweat to realise that not only are my sister-in-law and her boyfriend trying to pin their crimes on me, but also that men like Talbot suspect me of things I don’t even know about yet. At Hyde, I am a suspect. At Manchester, I am a murderer, no two ways about it. Stalybridge is the same. And no one makes their views clearer than Eric Cunningham, who, along with his anonymous smug-faced sidekick, interviews me for hours at a stretch as if he’s speaking to shit on his shoe. He tucks into tea and chocolate biscuits and raises an eyebrow when I ask for a glass of water. I don’t get anything to drink, or eat. In the end, his attitude makes me break my own rule: I refuse to answer any questions he puts to me. When I’m told that he’s coming to interview me again, I tell the desk sergeant, ‘I am not speaking to that man,’ and I mean it.

The rest of the suits, at Manchester especially, have got a dirty tricks campaign up and running. Maureen’s interviews with the police have been over for a while now, but she and Dad accompany me to every station. I feel sorry for the two of them, having to pass long hours in the canteen, smoking and drinking endless cups of tea. Lately, they’ve had a couple of visitors: Mattin and Tyrrell. The two suits stroll into the canteen and pitch up at Maureen and Dad’s table, confiding, ‘We’re getting close now, we’re almost there with your David. He’s almost cracked. We’re that close’ – finger and thumb held together – ‘to breaking him.’ Dad struggles to contain himself, and Maureen bursts into tears, not understanding that she’s being deliberately wound up.

When I join them at the end of the day, Maureen is still upset and shaking, and Dad wants to know what the hell is going on. I have to fight the urge to explode, and do my best to explain that Mattin and Tyrrell are playing a game. Often the two stooges nudge Dad and say, ‘Your David has told us this . . . What do you reckon? And you, Maureen? You’re his wife, you know him better than anyone. Is he capable of something as bad as that?’ Within minutes, Tyrrell and Mattin are back in my room and one of them, usually Tyrrell, shakes his head regretfully: ‘Poor Maureen . . . she’s sitting out there, all upset. In tears, poor girl.’ I’m baffled, then angry. That’s when the two suits launch into a fresh barrage of questions, thinking that if they can rile me, I might just slip up and say something incriminating. Somehow, Dad and Maureen hold it together. Dad deals with it privately, on his own. Maureen just wants to know, ‘Is everything all right, Dave? Is everything all right?’

It’s down to Joe Mounsey that I don’t cave in under the pressure. He rises head and shoulders above the other suits. He’s a big bloke, though since I’m only 17, rake-thin and five foot nine in my winkle-pickers, all detectives look burly to me. But where the rest are prone to plumpness in their suits, ties and trilbies, with necks as fat as their arses, Mr Mounsey is something else. I know that one thump of his fist could reduce the heavy desk between us to smithereens, but his very presence, in the new, clean interview room at Ashton-under-Lyne, has a positive influence on me. He’s a patient man and that helps. Sometimes I literally cannot speak, struck dumb by the cold realisation that the killing of children was part of Ian and Myra’s life together. Mr Mounsey sits quietly waiting, letting me get my thoughts together. Occasionally I stammer badly and he calls a halt to proceedings, taking me into the canteen for a coffee. As we chat about sport, I silently give thanks for another day spent with Mr Mounsey, a very special man whom I like a lot.

After one long and tiring day for both of us, Mr Mounsey leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk, and sighs heavily, bringing the ‘conversation’ to an end. We sit together, allowing the emotional level between us to drop. He asks softly, not as a question, but more as a concerned statement: ‘You couldn’t get out of that room, could you? No matter what it was, you couldn’t get out.’

He has an insight into something that only I can feel. The survival instinct that kicked in on the night of Edward Evans’s death has shaken me to my core; it’s a primitive feeling, so cold and deep that no words can describe it. I sit opposite the detective with my head bowed, staring at the floor between my pointed shoes. I am unable to voice the thoughts that fill my head. How can I explain to him or anyone that my mind tortures me every minute of the day with thoughts I can’t control, taking me on a non-chemical trip that’s relentless and unforgiving, filling me with nothing, leaving me frightened of myself? How do I explain to him or anyone that my mind leads me on a journey into the head of Myra Hindley, leaving me looking at the stranger that is me? Cold sober or crazy drunk, I can’t stop it from happening. It’s cruel and it hurts, but I have to go back there, to find the root of that hatred, of something I fear inside myself.

This is the start of the madness that will bring me close to suicide a few years from now.

In Ashton-under-Lyne police station, Joe Mounsey’s words have set the whole thing in motion again; I close my eyes and give in to it . . .

*

I’m back in the living room of Wardle Brook Avenue. A few short hours ago a boy my age and height, who came from the same streets as me, was sitting exactly where I am now. Not enough time has passed to remove the brutality of his last seconds of life. But I’m not seeing the room or its history through my own eyes; I’m inside Myra Hindley’s head, looking at myself on the settee next to Ian. It feels . . . how can I describe this? It’s as if I’m peering through the cut-out sockets of a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Well, David Smith, look at you, sitting there as cool as you like. I never saw this coming. How did my Ian see this thing in you? How did he know that what’s inside you is the same as it is in us? How could I have been so wrong about you? I thought Ian had lost the plot. I couldn’t understand why he wanted you when he had me, but there you sit, bang to rights, just like Ian guessed. Still, there’s one thing you ought to know, you little bastard.

You’ll never come between us. Our world is ours alone.

I see the real me leaning forward, grinning with Ian. We’re comparing our injuries, me and him. He’s gone over on his ankle and I’m showing him a dent in my left shin where the axe grazed the skin. My blood has frozen in my veins. My heart doesn’t beat. I have no emotion. I am an abomination of myself.

Ian and I share a cruel, quick humour and the laughter brings him down gently from his high. I draw on my cigarette, throw my head back and blow smoke rings into the stuffy air. Ian bends down to make a fuss of the dogs and I do the same. He’s not manic now, but his speech is still fast and his eyes are full of light. The longer this goes on, the happier he is. I’m not sweating, stuttering or trembling. I am relaxed, letting time pass at its own speed. I don’t care if I have to stay here all night. Ian has totally accepted me and if this was a test, then in his eyes I’ve passed with flying colours, all right. Myra sits on the edge of her chair, making small talk with me but thinking to herself:
What have you done, Ian? How did this happen? Why would you want it to be like this? Look at you both, laughing together as if this is the start of something. It’s not. You’ve gone too far, Ian. I don’t know this Dave Smith at all. Look at you both, shoulders touching, brothers-in-fucking-arms. It should be you and me, no one else. You wanted to blow this piece of shit away not so long ago. Now look at you. What have you found that I can’t feel? Where will it end?

Ian stands up and hobbles around the room, clutching chair backs for support. He curses loudly about his injured ankle. I’m aware of him behind me, fumbling. The fear I thought I could never feel again rises high and swift: a cord suddenly around my throat, being dragged up and backwards, eyes bulging, arms thrashing in mid-air, unable to get at him. I suppress it all. I show only concern for his pain when he finally sits down again next to me. I am desperate for a piss, but I hold it in. I have to be where they are, I can’t risk leaving them alone together while I’m still in the house.

We talk about collecting Angela’s pram and Ian nods, a wide smile spreading across his face. He’s relaxed now, long legs stretched out, hands clasped tight behind his head, eyes half-closed and dreamy, looking up at the ceiling. I feel the pressure of the growing silence and realise I’m coming back to earth, where any small, normal emotion will betray me. One mistake, one wrong word, a bead of sweat . . . I have to get out.

I stand slowly, stub out my fag and try to ignore the walls suddenly sliding towards me, narrowing the room to the smallest of boxes. The doors and windows have been bricked up from the outside. There is nothing out there at all . . .
shut up
, I tell myself. I have to be rational, but not too rational – a clear head will put me in danger.

Ian sprawls on the settee. I tell him it’s time for me to go. He looks up with a nod, and dismisses me. We part as friends.

Myra walks me to the door. I turn to look at her. I’ve faced her many times as the enemy, but now we’re the same. Inside her head is a black, steel void and the only light is the cold clear light of control. Her eyes are not a woman’s eyes – they’re not even human. They are the eyes that engaged a young man’s final seconds of life and watched as an axe crashed down on his skull.

She smiles, ‘See you later.’ As I walk away I feel her eyes drilling into me, embedding me with eternal fear.

Fuck you, David Smith.

*

Joe Mounsey’s soft voice brings me back. It’s late evening in his office and I’m very tired.

‘No matter what it was, you couldn’t get out,’ he repeats again, then adds, ‘but the way it happened is the only thing that brings us where we are today.’ I realise he means this as a sort of validation, but I shake my head. I’m lost and frightened of myself; I’m hurting deep inside and I don’t know why. I did what I had to do – I did the right thing, but it’s how I got here that torments me.

Almost half a century later, it still does.