Evil Relations (50 page)

David and Mary primarily agreed to collaborate on
The Ballad of David Smith
for one reason.

‘I pushed for it,’ Mary admits, ‘because I’d
always
wanted Dave to tell the story of his life to date. I thought someone would probably do it at some stage, so better for us to be involved – as long as we could trust the person or persons concerned. And in this case, we really liked Granada’s head of drama, Jeff Pope, and the rest of his team – writer Neil McKay and producer Lisa Gilchrist – who all came to visit us often here in Ireland. It was a big thing for us to put our trust in them, but we did it because they had given us their word that they didn’t want to do a “Moors Murders” story. This was going to be about Dave’s life and what had happened to him. Jeff seemed a bit obsessed with Maureen – I think he had the drama in his head as a sort of romance between Dave and Maureen, if anything, but that was OK. We still believed it would be Dave’s story at the end of the day.’

‘If we’d known what was going to happen, though, we wouldn’t have touched the idea with a bargepole,’ David declares. ‘Jeff told me that he was the boss, so no one could overrule him. Neil, the writer, showed us the script as he worked on it and it was brilliant – he’s got a good reputation as a screenwriter and we understood why very quickly.’

He smiles: ‘Then we met the actors who were playing Maureen and me. That was a bit strange – to shake hands with an imaginary version of yourself. Originally Ralf Little, who plays Antony in
The Royle Family
, was on board and, though I never met him, I just couldn’t see him in the role of “me”. But then he vanished from proceedings and Matthew McNulty got the part. He was terrific, though I felt awfully old and more embarrassed than flattered when he came to stay with us with Joanne Froggatt, who was playing Maureen. Matthew soaked up all my mannerisms and did a really good job. I took him down to our local and he did his best to keep up with the clique there, but he’s not a “professional” drinker, so he had to slip into some method acting. We came back here and I taught him to jive in my workshop in the garden. We stayed up all night.’

In his memoir, David writes only briefly about returning to Manchester. ‘It was very painful to go back,’ he grimaces, stubbing out one cigarette and lighting another. ‘And I didn’t like how the Granada team treated me then. I think they probably did certain things in order to provoke a reaction from me, to spark long-forgotten memories. But there were a couple of times when I got angry with them, as they ferried us round all the old places, looking for locations for the dramatisation. They drove past the Victoria Baths, which of course I knew – everyone in Manchester does – then pulled into one of the old streets that had escaped demolition and asked me if I recognised it. I told them truthfully I didn’t.’

He bites his lip. ‘Then they told me it was Eston Street, where Keith Bennett had lived at the time of his murder.’ He shakes his head. ‘I was angry about that – and upset. Because that was low, and I don’t know what they hoped to gain or coax out of me.’

Mary interjects quietly, ‘There was a camera in the jeep because they wanted to film our “tour”. We didn’t mind that, initially. And they wanted to see all the places Dave remembered – the ones that hadn’t been pulled down, at least. I persuaded Dave to go along with it. We travelled through Ardwick, Gorton and Hattersley, stopping at the relevant places, and Dave told them a few things that he remembered. But then they suggested going to the moor.’

David shakes his head more vigorously. ‘That was the one thing I did
not
want to do. But they really pushed for it, and Mary looked at me as if to say, “We may as well, now we’re here . . .”’ He pauses and draws deeply on his cigarette. ‘I hadn’t been to the moor since that disastrous encounter with Topping about 15 years earlier, which felt like a lifetime ago. And back then I’d been so furious with Topping, and the landscape was so unrecognisable, that it didn’t upset me in the sense of “returning”. But this was different – this
was
going back.’

He stumbles over his words, remembering: ‘The jeep crawled up the long, winding road to the moor, to that particular place . . . I could see it coming towards me . . . you know, on the left . . . those rocks, sticking out from the roadside . . . The Granada team were filming and watching me at the same time, but what did they expect me to do? Get all excited and say, “Oh, look, look there, oh, I remember that.” No, I wasn’t going to do that.’

He clears his throat, agitated. ‘We drove very slowly past the rocks. We drove until we ran out of moor. Then they stopped the jeep and turned to me: “Didn’t you recognise anything?” I said yes. “Then why didn’t you say anything?” I told them I had nothing to say. They turned the jeep around and we went back the same way. A couple of miles down the road and, sure enough, there are those rocks again, coming towards me. I did start to say then, “That’s where they found . . .”, but my voice stuck in my throat. I went quiet until we were almost off the moor and then I made them stop the jeep again. I had a go at them for taking me there. Because I hated that place – I never wanted to go back. Never, never,
never.
’

He stubs out his cigarette, grinding it to nothing.

* * *

The hotel window is open. I’m looking out across a neon nightmare; it’s over 30 years since I was last here. Mary moves about the room, sorting out the clothes we’ve brought with us.

If I close my eyes, I can still hear and smell the ’60s.

Across from the hotel is an original railway viaduct with its many arches. In my day, it carried huge, black locomotives, spewing smoke and soot into the skies. Railways were frightening places back then, haunted by men who waited in the shadows, asking us kids to do unmentionable things, and the cobbled alleyways were littered with used condoms and empty beer bottles. They were places that one man in particular visited, knowing just what he was looking for, and he frequented certain pubs too, the ones everyone knew as ‘queer bars’. They heaved with trade, filled with businessmen who led double lives and a few boys who were so feminine you had to wonder if they stood up or not to take a piss. The lights spilled out of those bars, glowing on the wet cobbles, and one man was able to walk by without even making a ripple in the puddles, no one knowing what secrets he kept.

But this is Manchester 2004 and it isn’t the city I remember. My city felt more intimate than this. Its face has been ripped away; the streets I loved have gone, taking with them the cobbles, the wash houses, the coffee bars and the all-consuming pride of the working class. Everything has vanished into a vast, unfeeling metropolis. I long for Ireland, for my sheepdog and chickens and the smell of the turf fire. Here, I’ve seen more cars and people in ten minutes than I have in the past ten years. Mary shares my acute loneliness in this world of bright lights and anonymity, and we both want to go home to tranquil reality, leaving this fake, brash young pretender of a city to its pitiless ways.

But tonight I stand at the window, remembering, and it isn’t long before my thoughts turn to
them
.

I believe Ian did far more evil things in his life than is known. And I believe that Myra, after meeting him, was his equal in every sense. Following their arrest, they each held an unspoken power over the other. Ian alone knew exactly what Myra’s part had been and held it back as a permanent threat; whatever path she took, he always had that ace up his sleeve, keeping her trapped within the maze of their mutual dependency. Myra would never admit what he had truly done because to do so would have revealed too much about her own involvement. But she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t – a real-life catch-22.

I don’t believe that the killing of Edward Evans was the first murder she witnessed. I was there, and the three of us watched each other like animals, ready to spring at the sign of any weakness. I heard her laugh as she recounted how she had distracted their victim, looking into his eyes as the first blow crashed down. It meant nothing to her. Watching a young man die was of no more consequence than making a pot of tea.

I don’t believe – and I realise I am probably alone in this, but I knew them both well enough to have given it much thought – that Ian and Myra always acted together, posing as a harmless couple, when they abducted the children. Ian’s appearance was too conspicuous. In Gorton, everyone talked about his strange manner and old-fashioned attire, and even the adults were wary of him. He had to work hard to make me feel comfortable in his company; I simply cannot picture a child walking away from everything familiar to be with him, or climbing happily into a car where he sat waiting. Far easier if the woman acted alone, and the public far less likely to notice as she and the child disappeared from view. He isn’t noticed because he isn’t there, but close by, just far enough away to ensure that their desires are realised. And if the blonde no longer exists, why look for one?

But why am I even thinking these things when all anyone ever wants is to rummage through the old myths? Nobody listens, and apart from Mary, nobody has ever understood the nightmare. They think it’s gone away: two killers, caught, tried and sentenced – end of story.

I look out at the neon lights and bend my head, gripping the windowsill. Mary wraps her arms around me. ‘Stop thinking,’ she tells me gently, but we both know that ‘thinking’ is the only answer, the only exit I can find. In nearly 40 years, no one but her has ever listened and that alone makes me hate this city with a rage so deep I could choke on it.

* * *

After two years of intense work on the dramatisation, including numerous interviews and putting to paper his memories, David received a telephone call from Jeff Pope, telling him that the ‘suits’ at Granada had rejected
The Ballad of David Smith
in favour of a straightforward re-telling of the Moors Murders story.

‘The disappointment was overwhelming,’ David admits. ‘I lost my temper during that phone call with Jeff. I swore like the old days. I slammed the phone down and then rang him back to give him some more. But we soon understood that there was not a lot “our” team could do when faced with the orders from the top brass. Jeff, Neil and Lisa were good people and all their hard work had been for nothing, too. They tried to keep us involved, but we didn’t want to go any further with it.’

Mary nods, adding, ‘We felt bitterly let down at first and then our attitude was, “Well, sod it, then.” They brought
See No Evil
over to show us before it was aired. But we had absolutely no interest in it and watched it with a real apathy and resignation.’

‘All the old clichés were there,’ David shrugs. ‘Ian was portrayed as the master and Myra his willing servant. Any attempt I’d made to explain that it wasn’t like that – the two of them were equal partners in everything – had gone to the wall. They even used the “rolling a queer” motive, which did hurt, because I’d had a row with Lisa about that and told her that it was Ian’s invention, something he came up with after the fact. But they went ahead and used it anyway because it was what the public knew and wanted more of, I suppose.’

‘We resolved our differences with the team, though,’ Mary is keen to point out. ‘What happened with
The Ballad
was not their fault. But it hurt. And I gave up all hope then, of ever getting David’s story out there.’

See No Evil: The Story of the Moors Murders
(Granada TV, 2006) aired over two nights in May 2006 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the trial. Members of the families of John Kilbride and Keith Bennett gave their approval to the programme and assisted extensively with the research, as did Margaret Mounsey (widow of Joe Mounsey), Bob Spiers (the policeman who found Lesley Ann Downey’s grave) and Ian Fairley (who arrested Ian Brady). The dramatisation was a critical and commercial success, and won a British Academy Award for Best Drama Serial in 2007. Ian Brady complained publicly about the programme, stating: ‘The true facts have never been divulged.’

For once, but from a very different perspective, David Smith agreed.

* * *

It’s a cold, grey morning as I sit in our greenhouse, listening to the beginning of a day’s rain bouncing off the roof. Two sleepy dogs lie at my feet: Parsley, a gentle, black-and-white sheepdog, now blind and approaching the end of his years, and a much younger handful of a mongrel, aptly named Rebel. In the distance, over the fields, I can hear the echo of exploding shotguns: the boys are out hunting the fox. Another winter has passed, short days and long nights, rain, rain and yet more rain. ‘High stool weather,’ we call it, suitable only for passing time drinking creamy pints of Guinness and sharing village news. I glance at the thatched roof of our cottage: Mary has lit the fire and thick smoke rises from the chimney, filling the air with the homely smell of turf.

Most of the time, here in Ireland, I don’t worry about what day or even month it is, but yesterday was the first day of spring: 21 March, Dad’s birthday. Without looking at a calendar or asking, I always seem to sense when this particular anniversary comes around. The only other date I remember without prompting is Elvis’s birthday.

The first day of spring . . .

I am 63 years old, silver-haired and with the breathing difficulties that’s the legacy of more than 50 years of tobacco dependency. My old life seems such a long time ago now, but occasionally I get a glimpse of the ’60s on Sky TV. My heroes are dead, apart from Dylan, who played a concert recently in Dublin at the grand old age of 68. Me, I’m a grandfather for whom time is passing quicker than Hendrix’s fingertips on a Stratocaster.

The future is fast becoming far shorter than the past, leaving only reflections, some beautiful and bright, many impossibly black. Mary is still my love after all these years, my children are grown but still children, and our many grandchildren are emerging into fine young people. I live in a peaceful place, an extraordinarily beautiful spot that wraps invisible arms around me, offering solace within a land that has experienced immense hardship and suffering, and yet brims with tolerance and understanding. Each morning I rise early, feed the chickens, groom the pony and spend long, contented hours in my workshop, carving wood and listening to country music. I still drink like a fish and smoke like a whore, but now my indulgences are etched on my face for all to see.