Evil Relations (52 page)

He gives one of his wry grins. ‘John Lennon sang about how life is what happens to you while you’re preoccupied with other ideas and plans. Working on this book has helped me to understand that “life” was what happened to me.’ The wry grin becomes a stoical smile. ‘It really is as simple as that.’

* * *

Another early morning in the greenhouse, but no rain today. The dogs are out, snuffling in the garden, and as Mary opens the wire-mesh door to feed the chickens, a brilliant ray of sunlight falls on the thatched roof of our cottage, where a bird has settled to clean its feathers.

I am at peace, but even on days like this I will forever turn back the pages of memory. Joe Mounsey, the most redoubtable of British detectives, is dead now, but his words linger in my mind, offering me a kind of solace:
the way it happened is the only thing that brings us where we are today.
I conjure up the image of his craggy face and wonder if, all those years ago, he was trying to tell me something specific or if he was just thinking out loud.

Survival is a different form of nightmare.

The instinct to cling to life when it’s hanging in the balance is a primeval feeling impossible to describe. Since that night in October 1965 I’ve experienced anger, guilt and shame, and cried a sea of tears while wrapped in the tight arms of a straightjacket. I think of ‘the way it happened’ and see it all much more clearly now.

Mum, Dad, the Duchess and Uncle Bert – those adults who shaped me – all are gone now, and in the blink of an eye I have become what they were: old.

But I am at peace as I sit in the greenhouse, breathing in the smell of the sun-warmed soil and freshly watered plants. I close my eyes, and let the darkness come and then lift, allowing myself to acknowledge something at long, long last.

In that house on Wardle Brook Avenue in October 1965, I was not alone. My belief that I was abandoned and forsaken was mistaken. The ‘footsteps’ were with me all the time, at every breath and turn, silently guiding me home . . . to my
real
home: to Mary, my children and my grandchildren, far in the future but there nonetheless, waiting for me. Those ‘footsteps’ were right beside me, every step of the way.

In the darkness between Wardle Brook Avenue and Underwood Court, I just didn’t see them.

Any child born in Manchester during the 1950s and growing up in the heady days of the decade that followed will forever be affected by the crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

As a child of that time, I vividly recall how freedom disappeared seemingly overnight in the wake of the Moors Murders case. My parents changed their way of thinking completely; during Brady and Hindley’s years at liberty, when children went missing without explanation, my brother and I could no longer vanish for hours only to return when hunger got the better of us. Without exception, we were delivered and collected from school and restricted to playing within hearing distance of home. My parents warned us never to leave the street and never, ever to talk to strange men (no one thought to beware strange women). To us kids, it was just a nuisance: all at once, we couldn’t go Guy Fawksing, or collect wood to make secret dens, or have any sort of adventure that involved roaming about the neighbourhood. Brady and Hindley were the end of innocence.

But
Evil Relations
was never going to be just another book on the case; there have been enough of those already. Instead, it’s been an intensely personal journey for Dave and me, and it’s given us both precious time to think and reflect on the most important people in our lives – the ones who have guided our journey.

I want to thank our boys, Paul, David and John – three fine, strong and healthy sons – who originally drew us together as a couple. I want to thank our daughter Jody, who tied us together in the most wonderful of ways and made our family complete. This book is also for our grandchildren and recently arrived great-grandchildren, in the hope that – no matter what – they may always do ‘the right thing’.

My brother Martin is like a fourth son to Dave, and he and I have always been exceptionally close. My mother was always there for us, but this written account of our lives owes so much to my daddy and to Dave’s; without their friendship, we would never have met. As a young teenager, I lay safe and sound, snuggled up in Daddy’s bed, and asked him, ‘What do you think about David Smith?’ His arm was comfortingly heavy around my shoulder as he answered quietly, ‘Without David Smith, I might not have you.’

So to our daddies, we dedicate this book.

Mary Flaherty Smith