Evil Relations (34 page)

I freeze. Something more threatening than straightforward antagonism comes away from the men, and a voice within tells me to keep my mouth shut no matter what. This isn’t the time for bravado.

Three men come towards me. I grip my pack-up box tight enough to turn my knuckles white.

‘You Smith?’ one asks.

I nod.

‘Turn around and fuck off, this is no place for you.’

I mumble something about the office knowing about everything, but he shuts me up with a jab in the chest and snarls: ‘I couldn’t give a
fuck
. I’m the Union in this place and the Union is telling you to fuck off for your
own
good.’

I don’t need further explanations. As I walk away, their fury rings in my ears: ‘Murdering bastards, they should’ve hanged the fucking lot of you!’ One man attempts to calm the situation, but his words aren’t any consolation to me: ‘Easy now, steady, lads, just let the cunt go.’

Their jeers follow me along the street.

By the time I’ve reached the dole office, I’m trembling with fear and resentment, aware that this was probably my last shot at getting a job. When a concerned supervisor beckons me over to listen to the story of my morning, I finish by throwing my pack-up box and insurance cards across the counter, yelling, ‘I’ve had enough of this fucking shit – you can shove my cards up your arses!’

Two days later, a brown envelope with the Social Security office logo arrives at Underwood Court. The letter within informs me that: ‘Due to exceptional circumstances you are no longer required to seek employment.’ Graciously, the civil servant dogsbody who drafted the letter assures me: ‘This decision will not affect your entitlement to unemployment benefit at the awarded rate.’

I screw the letter up into a tight ball and bin it.

Geoffrey Potter – I always address him as ‘Mr Potter’ – is a gentleman in both senses of the word, kindly, thoughtful and calm. He’s a new breed of probation officer, nothing like the retired coppers of old. Mr P has ‘supervised’ me for a sizeable chunk of my life and I respect him totally, but there’s just one problem: he’s too nice.

Ironically, he’s a born listener, but I find it impossible to offload on him. He doesn’t have the distance and authority that I need in order to function with someone in his position; instead he worries over me as if we’re real friends, willingly dipping into his small ‘probation fund’ if he suspects I’m a few bob short. Years ago, he’d walk across from his office in Gorton Town Hall to seek me out in Sivori’s, after I’d typically forgotten our appointment from days before. Each time, he’d give me an old-fashioned look and ask if I was hungry, then without waiting for my answer he’d order a hot Holland’s meat-and-potato pie with gravy, a frothy espresso and a packet of fags. We’d chat easily while I ate my free dinner, with one ear cocked to the sounds of the jukebox.

But those days are long gone and on this particular morning I’m standing at the door of the flat, waiting for the shuddering lift to bring Mr P to me. He emerges, looking lost, eyes drawn straight to the insults and threats sprayed on the door and walls. He greets me warmly; I’m glad to see him, even if only to pass another hour and the rare chance to do so with a friendly face from a hostile world. I’m at least ten degrees below my normal ‘morose’ reading, physically drained and weary.

Maureen is quick to provide us with cups of tea before gathering Paul up from the floor and disappearing into the kitchen. Alone with Mr P, I’m suddenly unable to speak. The same rotten filth that plagues me around the clock refuses to give me this time with someone who genuinely wants to help. Lately, whenever I close my eyes I see nothing but blood, oozing from the edges of my subconscious. I’ve reached a point where I’m not only forcing myself to stay awake at night but am too frightened to blink. When my eyelids shut for more than a second, I see congealing blood and small, glistening pieces of brain, while the smell that fills my nostrils is beyond description. I wish I could slice off the top of my head and empty out its memories into some other vessel, even into someone else’s head – especially one of the thousands who hate me, just to find out how they might handle what I’ve seen.

Mr P coughs politely, hoping to jolt me into speech. We sip our tea and I notice his gaze on the overflowing ashtray and my trembling hands. He takes a deep breath and in a gentle octave begins talking about Maureen and her condition, then about Paul, Dad, and the future. He measures out his words as carefully as a doctor dispensing medicine, while I hang onto each one, trying to absorb their meaning instead of just watching his lips move.

Part of his speech penetrates the red fog in my head: he has a suggestion for me, which he’d like me to discuss with Maureen and Dad later. He explains that he knows things aren’t good for us and that’s unlikely to change, but there
is
a way out. He’s made several phone calls to colleagues and services around the country and he’s in no doubt that we could be re-housed, away from Manchester and even the north itself. Changing my name wouldn’t be a problem (‘though, of course, Smith is most people’s first choice when they want to become anonymous’) and would give us a better chance of ‘disappearing’ as a family, putting us in a prime position for a fresh start.

I say nothing. Finally, realising that my silence is deliberate, he gets to his feet, reminding me to think it through. We say goodbye and as the lift doors close, I do the polite thing and promise to do as he’s asked. Then I return to the flat with no intention of ever mentioning it.

His solution is not the answer to our troubles. I can call myself by another name and live wherever I like, but I’ll still take the nightmare with me. Where’s the sense in lying in a different bed while having the same screaming flashbacks? To follow Mr P’s suggestion would be the equivalent of a rat going underground. I think of Mum and the Duchess, and how they brought me up. I did the right thing, as I was taught to do, blowing the whistle on a pair of murderers whom the police could never catch, so why should I run?

My name is David Smith and that’s how I’ll be known until my last breath. Even with the whole world hating my guts, I won’t be made to hide in the sewers, not for anyone.

* * *

In the summer of 1966, actor and dramatist Emlyn Williams became a familiar figure about Hattersley. During the research for his book about the crimes of Brady and Hindley, he spoke to scores of residents, police and several members of the victims’ families. Williams’s main source of information was Elsie Masterton, whose young daughter Patty had led the police to the burial ground at Hollin Brown Knoll. He visited her frequently, curious about David and the aftermath of the trial but seemingly reluctant to make the approach himself.

It wasn’t long before David heard that Williams was in the neighbourhood and making enquiries about him. ‘Elsie kept turning up at our flat,’ he recalls, ‘asking all sorts of questions. I knew Elsie and her family from my visits to Wardle Brook Avenue, but I was a bit pissed off with her constant appearances at our door. In the end, I asked her, “What are you bothering me with all this for?” She admitted, “Well, I talk a lot to Mr Williams.” So I told her, “Right. Well, in future, if Mr bloody Williams wants to know anything about me, he can come and bloody ask me himself.” I knew he was writing a book about the case and I didn’t like the idea of not having a say over what was written about me. Elsie must have passed on the message because he wrote to request a little chat with me. I’ve got to admit that once I was in touch with him, we were all excited – me, Dad and Maureen. He was in the films and a well-known name. So we spring-cleaned the flat, dolled ourselves up and waited for him.’

Emlyn Williams was not alone when he called at Underwood Court; nor was he quite what David had expected. ‘This funny little voice came over the intercom,’ David remembers. ‘“Mr Williams and son Brook.” I thought:
oh, a son as well
, and imagined him turning up with a toddler. Then the buzzer went and I opened the door to this raving queen and his equally “flamboyant” grown-up son. Williams was the campest thing I’d ever seen – no one was openly homosexual in Gorton or Hattersley! But here was this madly theatrical chap with pomaded white hair and a scarlet cravat, flinging his hands about. Everything was cuffs and drama. We sat down for a chat. Whenever he asked a question, he would lean in close and I would almost topple over backwards trying to put some distance between us. The son was cut from the same cloth – all melodramatic sympathy.’

Williams and his son remained at Underwood Court for a couple of hours, asking many of the questions David had grown used to answering. ‘When we’d run out of things to say, he asked if we’d like to have a drink with them and said very coyly, “Treat’s on me.”’ David grins, ‘Of course, me and Dad never turned down a free drink. Then Mr Williams said, “I’d like to take you to a hotel, where we can relax.” Now, the only hotel we knew was the Spinners Arms in Hyde, which was like Gorton’s Steelworks Tavern – rough-and-ready and only used by locals. It had the same rules as the Steelie: ladies weren’t allowed in the vault, which was strictly for professional boozers who liked the dark atmosphere and spent their nights gambling, playing cards or skittles.’

His grin widens. ‘We turned up in the vault, the four of us. God only knows what the local hard men thought, but their eyes were out on stalks. My future father-in-law was in there, and I think he offered to buy Mr Williams a pint, but dear Emlyn couldn’t lift a pint, never mind drink one. Maybe if it had a pretty little umbrella in it . . . He wasn’t a bad chap, though. He certainly liked the local colour and spent the evening floating up and down, saying, “Well, isn’t this splendid?” He was generous with his money. And there weren’t any fights that night.’ He laughs at the memory: ‘I think Mr Williams and son Brook floored the locals.’

There was no further contact for a year or two, until David received a letter explaining that the book was almost complete. ‘Mr Williams had one last question for me,’ he recalls. ‘He wanted to know if I thought Brady was “queer”. You know me, I can never give a straightforward yes or no, so I wrote him a fairly long letter. I told him that I didn’t think he was “queer” in the way that he himself – Mr Williams – was, but that he was “queerer than queer”. And he used that phrase as the title of the book’s last chapter.’

David was unaware that from their prison cells, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were also exchanging letters – frequently and written in code. In one, Hindley made a heartfelt vow: ‘Smith must die. Maureen too.’ Neither had forgotten their hatred of him; both regretted not killing David when the chance had presented itself. But there were other, slower methods of ruining his life.

* * *

Dad needs to get away from Underwood Court two or three times a week just to get his head straight. The atmosphere within the flat is like a greenhouse where all the plants have been poisoned. It’s suffocating and tense. We argue a lot, Dad and me, just like the bad old days, our fights turning from verbal to physical. Dad leaves the flat with black eyes and split lips on a too-regular basis, slinking back to his old haunt, the Hyde Road Hotel in Ardwick. But the strange thing is, no matter how vicious our rucks are, we always part as friends.

He washes and shaves before leaving, and wearing his one good suit he looks a hell of a lot more dapper than the price of a one-way ticket, which is all he has in his pocket. In Ardwick, he meets his friends, listens for any news about jobs and usually manages to blag a few quid off a mate. But first he has to bum his ‘entrance fee’. To do that, he stands outside reading the
Daily Mirror
(he’s just pretending to read it, having already scanned the ink off the page during the day) and it’s never long before he spies an old crony who’s happy to slip him enough for that first drink. Once inside, he starts his patter like the professional Jack the Lad he is, and it’s always late when he arrives home, chuffed with himself, loaded with a bellyful of Chesters Best Dark Mild, head full of gossip and pockets as empty as the day he was born. The yawningly empty packet of 20 Senior Service he took out with him will be full to bursting with every brand of cigarette available. But it goes both ways: Dad is generous with a loan or a few pints himself whenever he’s ‘carrying’ – usually after a win on the horses. He often assures me we’ll be ‘all right tomorrow’ because he’s off to the Hyde Road to do a spot of ‘debt collecting’ . . . but he finds it easier to let his debtors buy him a few pints than settle the score. I don’t mind, because if he’s in a good mood, we don’t fight.

One morning I get up to find Dad sat in his new chair next to the electric fire, both bars burning brightly. He’s turned up the under-floor heating to its fullest and as I enter the room it scorches my socks. I shake my head, exasperated. He doesn’t have a clue how to set the temperature – he just winds it up like a bloody clock. He’s in good humour despite looking rough from his ‘debt collecting’ expedition the night before. I wrinkle my nose: the sweltering heat, Dad’s farts, and the reek of stale beer are a bit too much for me to manage a ‘good morning’.

I turn down the temperature and open the balcony doors, gulping in fresh air while Maureen makes a pot of tea. Today I get my dole money; a few bottles of beer, a half of whisky and a good dose of Dylan strike me as the way to go. I light a cigarette, feeling the urge to drink to oblivion.

Maureen is heavily pregnant now and waddles as she crosses the sitting room to hand me my tea. She smiles, but there is no truth in it; the struggle just to keep going shows in her eyes and the dark emptiness behind them. None of us are living any more – we’re all filling time. Maureen never leaves the flat except to walk to the shops. The short journey is always harrowing: women go out of their way to spit at her and shout ‘whore’, ‘Hindley bitch’ and ‘Hindley cow’ to her face. She has to fight to protect Paul in his pram from the thick phlegm that’s directed at him too, and returns home weeping and terrified. That’s her daily existence.