by David Smith
We both sit on the settee, with the bundle that was Edward Evans to one side of us. Through the serving hatch, I can see Myra in the kitchen, organising bowls and cloths for the clean-up. I pass Ian a cigarette, casual and normal. He smiles broadly, his eyes glittering. He’s relaxed. We sit there, smoking together, with our shoulders almost touching.
How are the dogs, Hessy?
Myra replies through the hatch: fine, a bit quiet.
The fuckers could smell the blood, couldn’t they, eh? I was worried they would get too excited. He turns to me: we’ll finish up in here and then get a cup of tea down us. How does that sound?
Fine, just the job, I answer.
He stands up and walks to the back of the settee, facing the serving hatch. Myra, I was just saying to Dave, we’ll get this thing out and finish up in here.
Myra calls through to say that she’s going upstairs to check on Gran.
All the time I’m thinking, what the fuck is he doing behind me, he’s gone behind the settee, I need to see him, I need to know where he is, don’t turn around, don’t look, he’ll see it in your eyes, act normal, say something, any sort of shit to make it seem as if you’re OK.
Jesus, it’ll take us all night to clean this lot up, I tell him. I pull hard on my cigarette and keep myself still. I blow the smoke up into the air, noisily.
Jesus has fuck all to do with this, he replies.
I laugh and tell him, you can say that again, all right.
Myra appears: Gran’s OK, she’s settled down.
Ian jerks his head towards the bundle. I get to my feet and together we drag it to the staircase in the hall. It’ll have to go in the bedroom, we’ll shift it tomorrow, Ian tells Myra. She watches us half-lift, half-drag the bundle up the first couple of steps.
Eddie’s a dead weight, Ian grins. Myra starts to giggle uncontrollably.
The shape and heaviness of the bundle makes it difficult to handle. We’re both out of breath, bumping it up each stair to reach the tiny landing. I have to edge past Myra, who holds Granny Maybury’s door shut. We drag the bundle into the cramped second bedroom that contains nothing but a narrow bed and wardrobe; this is Myra’s room, but she only uses it when Maureen stays the night.
We set the bundle down beneath a small window to the left, and for a minute or two Ian stands in the centre of the room, looking curiously at it. I watch him from the door. He grunts to himself and picks up a few books, tossing them on top of what is left of Edward Evans. Then he turns and smiles: right, let’s get on with it.
Downstairs, Myra provides bowls of hot water and the cleaning begins. At some level that I can’t explain, this is the very worst of everything. There is a strong sense of calm between the three of us, yet the smell of the killing is thick and heavy in the air – it is a wicked smell of blood, brains and defecation, more in common with a battleground than a suburban living room. Pieces of bone and black clots are picked up and dropped into a plastic bag. Cloths are used to soak up the blood and then wrung out, time after time, into the bowls. More fresh hot water, watching it turn from pale pink to dark red, moving on all fours about the floor, into corners, under the table, even the budgie’s cage gets a going-over.
Ian straightens and picks up the axe. He holds it in his right hand, then passes it to his left and back again, feeling its weight. He smiles at me and I look up and smile at him. He pushes the axe into a carrier bag and somewhere in the core of my calmness I feel a jolt of relief. Myra playfully slaps me across the arse with one of the wet cloths.
That’s it, we’ve finished, it’s all done.
The room is back to normal, enough to receive the nosiest of visitors, but this is the most dangerous time for me. Everything has to unfold slowly – nothing must be rushed. The front door, the exit to civilisation, is within reach but still shut.
Myra plonks herself down in the chair by the fire. I sit next to Ian on the settee, sipping hot, sweet tea and smoking a cigarette. The clock is ticking, but I’m struggling to tell if it’s still moving forwards or back in time.
Ian’s excitement has returned: Myra, how the fuck did he take that, what do you think?
I don’t know, love, but you could see the blow register in his eyes, he didn’t know what hit him, I was looking right at him and he didn’t know a thing . . .
They chat as easily as if they’re old friends meeting in a doctor’s waiting room. Myra prompts him: do you remember that time we were burying a body on the moors and a policeman came up?
Ian gives a short laugh.
She turns to look at me, a half-smile on her lips: I was in the car with a body in the back. It was partitioned off with a plastic sheet. Ian was digging a hole when a policeman came and asked me what the trouble was. I told him I was drying my sparking plugs and he drove off. I was praying that Ian wouldn’t come back over the hill . . .
Ian breaks in with a more immediate concern: how the hell do we get Eddie out of here, though? I went over on my ankle, it’s pretty sore, we can’t carry the bastard past the neighbours in broad daylight . . .
I haven’t said a word until now, but I realise if I can come up with an idea, it might just guarantee that the axe stays in the carrier bag.
Angela’s pram, I tell them with great effort. It’s still at Mam’s house in Ardwick. Myra can pick me up and we can bring it back here, get him into it and push him out to the car.
My idea gets a laugh from them both, but they take it seriously.
Myra offers me more tea. No thanks, better get back, don’t want Maureen waking up and finding me gone.
Myra sees the sense in this: tell Mobee I’ll be round to see her later on.
The final minutes approach. I stand while Ian remains seated, looking up at me. Right, he agrees, we’ll sort it out tomorrow. I nod. He gives me a last, broad smile.
Myra sees me to the front door. When she opens it, I want to leap out: there’s the wall of the New Inn, the lights on the road and the cleanest, freshest night air I’ve ever felt against my skin.
I brush past her, slowly, until I’m on the path. For a moment, my feet are pinned to the ground. OK, then, I force myself to say, I’ll be off, but see you both later on.
Yes, Dave, you will. She gives me a warm, genuine smile.
As I walk away, I hear the click of the door shutting behind me. I take a deep breath that seems to last for ever and suddenly I feel frightened to fucking death.
The only way out of the house that night was to do whatever ungodly thing there was to be done and slowly, calmly, walk away.
There are no footprints between Wardle Brook Avenue and Underwood Court, not even my own.
III
Blacken Smith at All Stages
1965–66
Chapter 11
‘What Smith said sounded like a nightmare, but it was not the sort of nightmare that anyone in his right mind could possibly dream.’
– Detective on the Moors Murders case, 1965
Ian Brady’s statement, given to police within a couple of hours of his arrest on 7 October 1965, read:
Last night I met Eddie in Manchester. We were drinking and then went home to Hattersley. We had an argument and we came to blows. After the first few blows, the situation was out of control. When the argument started, Dave Smith was at the front door and Myra called him in. Eddie was on the floor near the living-room door. Dave hit him with the stick and kicked him about three times. Eddie kicked me at the beginning on my ankle. There was a hatchet on the floor and I hit Eddie with it. After that the only noise Eddie made was gurgling. When Dave and I began cleaning up the floor, the gurgling stopped. Then we tied up the body, Dave and I. Nobody else helped. Dave and I carried it upstairs. Then we sat in the house until three or four in the morning. Then we decided to get rid of the body in the morning early next day or next night.
He chose his words carefully, with three clear objectives in mind: to convince police that the murder wasn’t premeditated, to absolve Myra of any involvement, an
d to implicate David to the hilt. Not yet facing charges, Myra’s approach when questioned was the same, culminating in a single line that she repeated like a mantra in the months – and, indeed, years – ahead: ‘I didn’t do it and Ian didn’t do it, ask David Smith.’ She maintained that David was ‘a liar’, and in response to hearing that her brother-in-law had claimed she helped remove evidence after the killing, snapped: ‘Yes, and I suppose he told you he sat on the chair benevolently looking on while I cleaned up.’
The couple’s insinuations fed into the immediate suspicions of several detectives. During that first day at Hyde police station, David was questioned almost continuously. Police Constable John Antrobus conducted the preliminary interview, followed by Detective Sergeant Roy ‘Dixie’ Dean of Stalybridge’s more gruelling method of inquiry. Recently promoted Superintendent Robert Alexander Talbot, who had been due to depart for his 12 days’ annual leave that morning, then interviewed David in the presence of Detective Sergeant Alex ‘Jock’ Carr, a young, stocky Scotsman.
While Talbot and Carr were talking to David, Ian Fairley arrived at the station. Twenty-one years old and with a Scots accent as strong as Jock Carr’s own, Fairley was still on probation as a member of the CID. Now the sole surviving Hyde detective from the original Moors inquiry, he recalls seeing Roy Dean leave the interview room in disgust: ‘I have no idea why, but Dixie Dean said the lad [David] was talking a load of shit. I suppose it did sound a bit far-fetched at first, but it turned out to be true.’
The bewildering flock of police flitting in and out of the interview room where David spent the entire day with Maureen and Bob the dog swelled further with the arrival of Cheshire’s Detective Chief Superintendent. Six days into his promotion, portly Arthur Benfield booked himself into the Queen’s Hotel in Hyde, expecting to wrap up the investigation within a couple of days. David’s insistence that Ian Brady had boasted of killing others and burying them on the moor failed to register with Benfield, who regarded the case as a tidy one, with the murder victim’s body already recovered and the killer in custody, having admitted to the crime. Benfield’s greatest dilemma was whether or not to arrest David and Myra. While mulling it over, he and Talbot returned to Wardle Brook Avenue, where pathologist Dr Charles St Hill was unravelling the bloody wrappings from Edward Evans. St Hill detailed his findings in court:
At about 1.15 p.m. on 7 October 1965, I was shown a large bundle beneath the window in an upstairs bedroom at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue. I opened the bundle . . . The body was bent up with the legs brought up to the chest and the arms folded across the body. The legs and arms were kept in position by two cords. It was further secured by two loops of cord, which kept the neck bent forwards to the knees; these cords passed round the neck and were attached to the other two cords, which bound the legs and arms. I found a blood-stained cloth wrapped round the head and neck, and a piece of electric light cable was around the neck but not tied. The body was enclosed in a white cotton blanket which had been knotted. A polythene sheet lay outside this, and was itself covered by a grey blanket . . .
The body was that of a fairly slim youth, 5 ft 6 in. tall and of about 9–10 stone. It was fully dressed but there were no shoes on the feet.
There were fourteen irregular lacerations distributed over the scalp, right cheek and ear, with surrounding bruising . . . There was widespread bruising of the back of the neck and over the back of the tops of the shoulders and upper back. There was a 1 in. bruise in the small of the back. There was extensive lacerating and bruising of the backs of both hands, the left forearm and the right upper arm; these wounds are accurately described as ‘defence wounds’ . . . The greater part of the right side of the skull was fragmented and a somewhat rounded depressed fracture was present on the right frontal region . . .
There was much blood on the surface of the brain, with extensive bruising on both sides . . . The lungs were congested with a few haemorrhages on their surface. The right side of the heart was dilated and there were numerous haemorrhages on this surface . . .
I came to the conclusion that the cause of death was cerebral contusion and haemorrhage due to fractures of the skull due to blows to the head, accelerated by strangulation by ligature.
During his initial examination, St Hill removed the books David had watched Ian pile on top of the body the night before; these included The Red Brain (Tales of Horror). Forensic experts combing the house found numerous samples of hair, blood and stained clothing despite the exhaustive clean-up operation of a few hours earlier. Two tape recorders and tapes, hundreds of photographs and negatives, a tartan photo album, photographic light bulb, two revolvers and bullets, and the carrier bag containing the murder weapon were also removed from the house.
Edward Evans’s body was then transferred to the small mortuary at Hyde police station. His mother, a slight, stooping woman in horn-rimmed spectacles, arrived later that day to identify him. DS Alex Carr was with Myra Hindley when the sound of Mrs Evans’s uncontrollable anguish pierced the interview room. Carr noted the younger woman’s steady hand as she lifted a teacup, sipping at it without betraying a flicker of emotion.
As darkness fell, David and Maureen remained cloistered with police in the small, smoky inquiry room. Benfield left for Hattersley again and, having satisfied himself that there was nothing of significance left in the house, skittered down the slope to examine Myra’s car. On the dashboard lay Ian’s wallet; inside were three sheets of paper divided into columns. Obscure abbreviations had been scrawled within the columns, but there was enough detail for Benfield to realise at once that he was looking at a blueprint for murder.
When questioned that evening, Ian admitted that the writing was his but argued that he had drawn up the disposal plan after ‘Eddie’ was killed. Benfield disbelieved him and knew instinctively that some of the explanations Ian gave him for the coded words were false. David swore that he had never seen the disposal plan and couldn’t assist the police in deciphering the riddles it contained. He baulked when told his name appeared prominently several times on the pages.
At 8.20 p.m. on 7 October 1965, Ian Brady was charged with the murder of Edward Evans. He responded, ‘I stand on the statement I made this morning,’ and wrote the same words on the charge sheet before being led away to a basement cell. Benfield then turned his attention to David, and Myra. Ian Fairley recalls: ‘A decision was made not to charge Smith, the argument being if you’re going to charge Hindley, you’re going to charge Smith, because what you had at that time was Hindley helping clear up, no more than that. Who else helped to clear up? Smith. We took Smith’s shoes off; there was blood on his shoes and Brady said Smith had kicked Evans. He had this stick, too, and the stick wasn’t as thick as your finger, bit of string tied on it, that had blood on it . . . The dilemma is: Brady admits the murder, the other two are both accusing each other. In those days, you didn’t lock people up easily, so Smith and Hindley left, and Brady was kept in custody.’
David couldn’t face returning to Underwood Court. Instead, he and Maureen and Bob the dog pitched up on the doorstep of 39 Aked Street, where elderly John Smith was dumbfounded by his grandson’s halting explanation for their visit. David slept fitfully that night, agonisingly aware that his sister-in-law and her boyfriend were bent on framing him for the murder he had witnessed – and potentially more besides.
Today David reflects: ‘I think the two of them discussed turning it all on me. I’m sure they didn’t expect me to go to the police, but they’d have had a back-up plan for that eventuality because that’s how they operated. Their line of thinking would have been: “Cover all bases, and if he’s in with us, we’ll go further and do another couple before killing him and going on as we were before.” If we’d buried Edward Evans that night . . . I’m not convinced I’d have got off the moor alive. Having said that, I’m not even satisfied that they’d banked on disposing of him on the moor. He was chosen at random and, as far as anyone knows, they hadn’t been up there to dig a grave beforehand
. No spade was found in Myra’s car either, and the vehicle hadn’t been prepared to receive a body as was their “custom”.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’ve always believed that if we’d buried the lad somewhere and I’d returned to Hattersley with the two of them . . . well, I wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale much longer, put it like that. Because there would have been three musketeers on the loose then, and I know for a fact that one of them wasn’t a happy musketeer. The whole thing would have got bigger, dirtier and more complex. It would never have worked – not for Myra, nor for me. My “career” in their little gang had no prospects because, let’s face it, I was always going to be their next victim.’
* * *
From David Smith’s memoir:
The police want to take me back to Wardle Brook Avenue. A few days have passed since I made the telephone call and in that time I’ve got into a routine: down to Hyde station for nine o’clock, remaining there for the rest of the day in front of an endless succession of coppers before being allowed to go home, wrung out like a dirty sheet.
But on this particular day their questions focus on the house. My head spins. They keep going on about the axe: Have you ever seen it about the house? No, I haven’t. So that would be unusual then, would it, for Brady to have it in the sitting room? Yes, very unusual. You’re sure you never saw it next to the fireplace? No, never. Outside? No. In the car? Definitely not. Right then, we’re going to take you back. Back where? To the house. We want you to walk us round from Underwood Court, show us the route you took, that kind of thing. But I’ve already told you. We know, but it’s not the same. We need a proper reconstruction for our records. You OK with that?