Evil Relations

by David Smith

  I want to tell them to fuck off, no way am I doing that again, but I tell them OK.

  The police car pulls up directly below our flat in Underwood Court. I’ve left Grandad’s and am living back here with Maureen and Dad, who moved in with us after I rang him at work in London to tell him everything. But being in the flat with Maureen and Dad is one thing; retracing my steps and setting foot in the murder house is another.

  Here we go, though: me, Talbot – who I can’t stand the sight of, and I know he feels the same about me – and two other detectives in suits and trilbies climb out of the car. They follow me down Pudding Lane on a dismally grey day, below the crackling pylons, into Sundial Close and left onto Wardle Brook Avenue. The house is 50 yards away at the end of the terrace. No one else is about, most people are either at work or school, only a spoon-faced housewife coming out into her back garden to tut at the likely rain, thinking that the washing will have to be hung up indoors instead of on the line.

  I notice with surprise that Talbot and his men have gone ahead of me and are waiting outside number 16. I shake my head: ‘We didn’t do that. Me and her – Myra – came down by this wall. Then I waited while she checked to see if it was all right for me to go in.’ They dutifully troop over to the tall wall of the New Inn and look up at the house, as if expecting the sky to darken and the landing lights to flicker. I feel my knees start to weaken, but the suits are already crossing the road again.

  Talbot asks, ‘What happened after the lights flashed?’

  I stutter slightly, like I always do when I’m on edge. I hope he won’t try to finish my sentences for me because I hate that. But I get it out: ‘I knew it was all right. So I went up.’

  ‘Here?’ asks Talbot, jerking his head at the slope.

  ‘Yeah.’ I bite my lip.

  ‘Was that normal? Or different that night?’

  ‘Normal. We never used to walk down past the houses because she – Myra – always parked the car here. We’d go up the embankment and climb over the fence. And vice versa.’

  ‘Right, let’s do that, then.’

  I lead three smartly dressed detectives on a swift scramble up the slope. We vault the fence in unison. I’m glad no one is about, but I feel the twitch of every net curtain on the estate.

  We stand at the door in a small huddle.

  Talbot asks, ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Well, then the door opened and—’

  I almost pass out with fright as the front door is whipped open. Detective Chief Superintendent Benfield fills the gap into the hallway, startled to see us, too. My knees turn to jelly; I want to crouch down and give in to the fear but tell myself to get a grip, it’s just silly old Benfield in his trilby and tweed. He always wears the same jacket, with leather elbows – a right country cop.

  Talbot frowns and hurries me into the house. There’s no room for us all in the narrow hall, with the staircase to our left, living room to our right and kitchen in front. The others go straight through to the kitchen, shoulder to shoulder in the cramped space. I’m in danger of falling apart – I can’t get my head around how everything looks the same, exactly the same. If forensics have examined the house, then I can’t tell – it’s no different to how it was when I left it. Nothing has been tidied up, or put away. But then I realise there’s a positive side to this: the miniature wine bottles are still there, lined up on top of the cabinet in the kitchen.

  Relief courses through my veins: no one seems to believe me when I explain why I went into the house that night. Miniature wine bottles? Pull the other one, son, it’s got bells on. But there they are and I’m absolutely delighted to see them, lined up neatly like toy soldiers.

  Talbot turns to me. ‘So then, after seeing these bottles, you walked into the living room, did you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘In you go, then.’

  I don’t want to do this. I really, really don’t want to do this. I’m almost as desperate to get out of the house now as I was that night, but Talbot gives me a sharp nudge and in we go.

  This is terrifying. I clench and unclench my fists and hold my arms rigid at my sides. Every detail of that room is scored on my memory, the ridges and furrows of a warped battlefield I’ll never leave: the mare and foal ornament on the mantelpiece, the binoculars on top of the telly, the magazine rack, the picture of the Alsatian dog on the wall, the settee where the lad fell screaming to the floor, the table where he tried to wriggle desperately away from Brady’s unstoppable axe . . .

  Jesus Christ, fucking get me out.

  One of the detectives walks over to the settee and drops down on it. The other stands behind the settee. Both of them look back at me, expectantly.

  Talbot nods at the men and swivels his gaze round to meet mine. ‘Right, we’ve got to get a full picture of what you’ve told us, so we’re going to go through it step by step. All right?’

  A minute ago my limbs were as stiff as the wall of the New Inn. Now I feel the need to clutch something solid to stop me from sinking to the floor. I know this has to be done, I understand the need for it, but, fucking hell, I wish it wasn’t me who has to be here with them.

  I take a deep breath and stutter out a few instructions. The two detectives on the settee move according to what I say.

  So Brady was in what position? Was he holding the axe like this? Grabbing the lad like that? More to the side there?

  I watch as the detective who sat down first is picked up roughly by his colleague and trips forward a little, unsteady on his feet. Talbot’s voice is in my ear again: Was Evans more on the settee, was he pushed back on it, had he started to slide off it at this point, where was Hindley?

  The detective acting out Brady’s role raises his arm suddenly and brings it down close to his colleague’s head, again and again and again. Was that how he did it? asks Talbot, his breath on my ear, like that, blade down, or more cutting sideways like that? How did he stand over Evans? Did he bring the axe straight down while the lad was facing upwards from the floor or . . .

  We get through it. I don’t know how, but somehow we press on through the re-enactment until Talbot flicks his thumb for me to go back into the hallway.

  I want to lean against the wall and feel something cool on my forehead, but the thought of touching anything repulses me. When my breathing slows, Talbot tells me to go upstairs and into the room where we left the body.

  The four of us stand in Myra’s bedroom. I point to a spot directly below the window: ‘We put him over there.’

  Talbot nods and grimaces. ‘What about the books?’

  ‘Books?’

  ‘Yes, the books that were placed on top of the lad. Why was that done? Was there any significance in it? Or the titles?’

  I shake my head, bemused. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know why Brady did that.’ And I don’t. Putting the books there made no sense to me. None of it did.

  Talbot asks me to describe how we dragged the bundle into the room and exactly where we positioned it. I stumble over my words again. Then it’s back downstairs and into the foul living room once more. I’m starting to switch off, only half aware of what’s being said, concentrating instead on holding in a scream: let me out. I hear Talbot asking something about the signal with the lights again, and mumble that there was nothing unusual in that – it wasn’t new – Brady had done that in Gorton, too.

  ‘Why?’

  I lift my shoulders and let them fall heavily. ‘For . . . when he was recording stuff or . . . developing photos. It was just one of his quirks . . .’

  ‘Recording stuff?’ Talbot’s blue eyes pierce my skull.

  ‘Yeah, he had a tape recorder, an eight-track or something. It was usually in here . . .’

  Benfield has come into the room, and a look passes between the two men that I don’t understand.

  ‘Tell us more about the tape recorder,’ Benfield prompts.

  I stutter again, ‘I-I don’t know what else to s-say. It was always’ – my
eyes scan the floor quickly, but there’s no sign of the machine – ‘in here.’

  Benfield and Talbot nod slowly, silently. I don’t know why they should be so interested in a tape recorder. Then Talbot speaks the words I’m desperate to hear.

  ‘Right, I think we’re done here, lads.’

  And for the last time in my life I get out of that house, gulping in the morning air as if it were pure crystal.

  * * *

  The first public reference to the case appeared in the Manchester Evening News on 7 October 1965. Under the headline ‘Body Found in House – Murder?’ was a brief description of the discovery made by police in the rear bedroom of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, where ‘Mrs Ellen Maybury, aged 76 . . . has lived for 12 months with her granddaughter Myra Hindley, aged 23.’ Talbot gave the standard quote: ‘A man is helping us with our inquiries.’ Brady remained unnamed, and no mention was made of David having witnessed the killing, nor of his informing the authorities.

  The following day another column appeared in the Manchester Evening News, reporting on the morning’s events at Hyde Magistrates’ Court: ‘At a three-minute hearing at 10 a.m., a man was charged with the murder of Edward Evans. As he left the dock, he nodded at a blonde woman friend.’ For the next few days, there was a steady trickle of information in the local papers, including the news that Myra Hindley had been charged as an accessory to the murder.

  Then, on Tuesday, 12 October, the Manchester Evening News splashed an exclusive across its front page: ‘Police in Mystery Dig on Moors’. National press interest in the case erupted, as the public clamoured for details. Denied access to the two central figures, journalists converged instead outside Underwood Court, and within hours of Tuesday’s headline the entry phone to Flat 18 was permanently jammed, as David and Maureen found themselves in the frenzied eye of a very public storm.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Mr Mounsey said, “Have you discussed killing people and burying their bodies on the moors with David Smith?” Brady said, “Yes, I talked about it in a vague sort of way. It was all part of the fiction to impress him.”’

  – Detective Superintendent John Tyrrell, Moors trial at Chester Assizes, April 1966

  Initially, David was largely able to avoid the press, since his days were spent closeted in an interview room, often for ten hours or more. ‘I’d be told to be down at Hyde station for nine,’ he recalls. ‘Maureen and Dad would come with me. They’d wait in the canteen and only left when I did. I ate in the interview room – someone would bring in a burger or chips for me and I’d be given half an hour to get that down before we were off again with the questions. I was always put in the same room at Hyde, but occasionally a bobby would appear and say, “Right, there’s going to be a couple of Manchester lads coming to speak to you today.” I was a bit bewildered the first time but soon got used to it. They’d take me down to Manchester regularly, where their coppers would ask me identical things from a slightly different angle. I hated that station. It was old and gloomy, and I was always interviewed by the same pair of “heavies”: Mattin and Tyrrell. Their boss, Nimmo, conducted the first interview I had there, but that was just a superficial thing before he handed me over to them. Nimmo stayed in the background after that.’

  He pauses and chooses his next words carefully. ‘From the outset, Mattin and Tyrrell were always . . . very stern. It was another atmosphere altogether. The station itself was grim, with interview rooms that felt like prison cells and an ancient smell of misery about the place. Mattin and Tyrrell never gave me time to think about what they were asking – if I didn’t reply immediately, one of them would bang down a fist and say, “Come on, you’ve got to give us an answer, we’re waiting.” Sometimes I needed to think it through, but they wouldn’t make any allowances. Hyde wasn’t much better. I hated having to sit with Benfield and Talbot to go over things. I couldn’t stick Talbot – we wound each other up – and I found Benfield faintly ridiculous. He looked like a womble, chubby, with little spectacles, and puffing away on his pipe until the room was so thick with smoke I could hardly see. At the end of every day I felt whacked out, drained of every emotion and incapable of thought. Then the next morning it would start up all over again.’

  He takes the cup of tea Mary has made for him and explains: ‘No one listened to me. They all wanted to speak to me, but everything I said fell on deaf ears. The Hyde brigade were only interested in Edward Evans and ignored what I tried to tell them about other murders – the ones Ian had boasted to me of having committed. I think Jock Carr wanted to know more, but the big brass weren’t interested. Talbot and his cronies saw me as someone out to save his own skin. They didn’t believe what I had to say, that much was obvious. I couldn’t understand it because all I wanted was someone to listen to me. But no one did – until Joe Mounsey came along.’

  Among the items removed from Myra Hindley’s bedroom at Wardle Brook Avenue was a notebook belonging to Ian Brady. When it turned up with the other exhibits at Hyde station, Ian Fairley flicked through the pages and in the midst of random doodles – roughly pencilled gangster caricatures and a list of film stars – one name stood out: John Kilbride. A call was put through immediately to Detective Chief Inspector Joe Mounsey at Ashton-under-Lyne; the case of the 12-year-old boy who had vanished from the town’s market on 23 November 1963 fell under his jurisdiction. His appointment as CID chief at Ashton-under-Lyne came in 1964, several months after John’s disappearance, but his determination to crack the riddle of the young boy’s apparent vanishing into thin air led to John becoming known in police circles as ‘Mounsey’s lad’. Upon being told about the notebook, Mounsey drove out to Hyde to look at it for himself. Then he asked to speak to David.

  ‘I had a great deal of respect for Joe Mounsey,’ David states unequivocally. ‘He was the first senior detective who took me seriously. He was like no one else. He didn’t bark questions at me, he never raised his voice or came down heavy, and he listened acutely, to the point where I could actually see him taking it all on board. The relief I felt at knowing someone believed me at last was just incredible.’

  With Mounsey’s involvement, David’s days were split between Hyde, Manchester and Ashton-under-Lyne. He gives a short laugh: ‘I kind of looked forward to going to Ashton for questioning. The police station there was modern and clean, all sparkling glass, and I was only ever seen – as far as I can recall – by Mr Mounsey. He had a couple of sidekicks, but he was in charge. Being told I was going to Ashton meant a good day ahead because his technique was laid-back and calm. That was the impression he gave and it worked to his advantage – no one else got me to speak at length like he did. The interviews I had with him were more like straightforward conversations. He would open with: “OK, lad, how are you today? Got enough cigarettes? Right, then, in your own time. No rush. Just take it steady and we’ll get there in the end.” He’d send out for extra ciggies if necessary and give me a proper tea break instead of just having a pot brought in. We’d go to the canteen together and he’d chat to me about rugby or football to make sure I had a rest from everything. When we returned to the interview room, he’d let me ease into it again and if there was a difficult question to answer, he’d tell me, “Take as much time as you need, lad, on this next one. I have to ask it, but no panic. When you’re ready.” He’d wait five or ten minutes if he had to, which is a long time to sit in silence. That was the big difference between Ashton and everywhere else: I was treated as a suspect at Hyde and Manchester, but at Ashton I was seen as a witness.’

  During the course of their interviews, Mounsey pushed forward a number of photographs found at Wardle Brook Avenue and asked David if he knew where they had been taken. Many were what the police termed ‘scenic shots’ or ‘moorland views’. Some featured Ian and Myra and their dogs, but others were of the landscape alone and seemed eerily devoid of purpose. In one, Myra’s car stood parked against a dark, jutting rock formation – the same rocks on which the couple posed individually in other shots. David w
as unable to identify the scene but agreed to visit likely spots with Mounsey in an attempt to narrow down the location.

  In theory, it was an impossible task: hundreds of square miles of moorland lies between Manchester and Huddersfield and, other than the rocks, there were no immediately identifiable landmarks in Ian Brady’s photographs. Nevertheless, one Sunday afternoon Mounsey and Talbot collected David and Maureen from Underwood Court in an unmarked police car and headed out of the city in a direction with which David felt reasonably familiar. Driving east along the A57 Snake Pass, the winding road that leads out of Glossop, both detectives noticed a sign to Woodhead; ‘WH’ was an unresolved abbreviation on the disposal plan.

  David recalls the difficulties he faced in trying to match a place to the photographs: ‘I was usually sat in the back of the Mini van whenever we’d gone out with Myra and Ian, completely blotto, and nodding along to Ian’s ramblings. I wasn’t even looking in the direction we travelled – my view was of the disappearing city and then lanes and fields. And we went out with them very often, to lots of different places. I never took any notice of names either, and it wasn’t until the police were later able to identify the spot by the reservoir that I knew, for instance, that the place in question was Saddleworth Moor. None of what I could tell them before then was of any use. But they did their best and took me to quite a few areas that might have been significant, though some obviously weren’t. But if a place had “special” meaning for Ian and Myra, they didn’t share that with me. It was between the two of them.’

  The accused continued to keep their silence, unwilling to cooperate with the police on the matter of the photographs. In desperation, Mounsey asked David if he had any ideas for encouraging them to be more amenable. David’s reply was immediate: threaten to kill Puppet to rattle Myra, and release an insect into Ian’s cell. He recounted how Ian had recoiled in terror when a spider scuttled across the living room floor at Wardle Brook Avenue and that he’d reacted much the same when a daddy-long-legs had fluttered in from the balcony at Underwood Court. On both occasions Ian had screamed for Myra, who dealt with the cause of his panic swiftly and calmly. Mounsey listened in some amusement, but there was no question of following through with his suggestions.