Authors: Maureen Reynolds
She shook her head. ‘No, I wasn’t. The first time I heard about it was when he came home in a terrible state and told me about the accident.’
‘Why was he with Lenny Barr? It seems strange that they should both go to Arbroath, especially as your mother was ill in hospital.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He never spoke about it.’
‘Did you know your Aunt Robina was back in Dundee?’
Etta looked surprised. ‘No, I didn’t. The last time I saw her was when I was about fifteen.’
‘So you didn’t meet up with her over these last few weeks?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘What I would like to know is why you’ve pretended to be a man. You were known as a stepson. Why would you need to do that?’
Etta stared at him, her dark eyes contrasting with the grey hair. ‘When Dad decided to come back here, I didn’t want to be recognised by anyone, especially my mother, so I became George instead of my stupid name Georgette. Anyway, I liked being a man.’
Charlie decided to change tactics. ‘Did you cut the brakes on Peter Walsh’s bike, causing him to fall and have a very bad accident?’
‘Who on earth is Peter Walsh?’
‘He used to be a boyfriend of yours.’
‘A boyfriend? I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was sixteen …’ She stopped. ‘Oh, that Peter Walsh; he was hardly my boyfriend. We only went out together for three weeks and I gave him up.’
‘Did you work alongside your aunt in setting fire to a doorway in Baltic Street and causing the occupant to be taken to hospital? Did you attack your mother on two separate occasions by knocking her down with a car and pushing her onto the roadway? And did you damage a car in Baltic Street and steal a notebook from inside it?’
Etta became annoyed. ‘No, I didn’t do any of these things. Maybe my aunt did those things. She was always good on retribution.’
‘Your aunt was seen on two occasions getting out of a black car and I think it’s your car we’re talking about.’
Etta laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. My car needs a new battery. If you try it, you’ll find it won’t start. Ask my dad if you don’t believe me …’ She suddenly stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. Then she began to cry. She rocked her body back and forth in the hard chair, deep sobs filling the tiny room.
Charlie stopped the interview and said she could go home. ‘Your mother is waiting for you. I want you to stay with her until I finish this investigation. I’ll be speaking to you again tomorrow, so don’t leave the town.’
‘I want to go back to the farm. It’s been sold and I’ll be leaving to go back to Dumfries where we stayed after leaving in 1930. My dad kept a small cottage with some land after he sold the farm down there and we always said we would retire there. So that’s where I’ll be going after all this is over.’ She made her way to the door with the police constable walking beside her.
‘I’ll show you out, Miss Barton,’ he said.
She gave him a strange look. ‘It’s been a long time since I was called that. Where can I get in touch with my aunt? I’d like to say goodbye to her before I leave.’
‘Your aunt died last week from a heart attack.’
She stood with her hand on the doorknob. ‘She’s dead? To think I could have tried to get in touch with her but I thought she lived in Dublin. I didn’t know she had moved back here.’
‘Well, she did, Miss Barton, just like you did. Constable Williams will take you and your mother home and I want you to stay there.’
Charlie was standing outside the station getting some fresh air when he met Williams going to get the car. ‘Where have you left them?’
‘They’re both sitting in the reception but not looking at nor talking to each other.’
‘What do you think of her?’ Charlie asked him.
‘She seems genuine enough.’
Charlie didn’t think so but he had no way to prove otherwise. Dave Barton had said he was responsible for the accidental death of Lenny Barr, but why this charade? Why change your whole life when it was an accident? If, indeed, it was an accident. Perhaps there was more to it, but the main witness was dead and Etta Barton was one cool customer.
Later, when the constable came back, Charlie said, ‘We’re going to pick up Miss McQueen from the hospital. We’ll take her home, get her car key and then you can drive me out to the farm. I want another look around out there and then I’ll drive her car back.’
Molly was still in the accident and emergency room when they came to get her. She sat in silence during the ride home. She handed over her key as she was dropped off at the flat.
‘Try and get a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you in the morning,’ Charlie said.
She nodded and went upstairs. She was so exhausted and her head was throbbing. She would take a couple of aspirins and try to sleep.
Charlie and the constable reached the farm and drove into the yard. It was pitch-black but Charlie had brought a torch with him. ‘I want to look at the car,’ he said, moving over the rough ground to where it was parked.
He was surprised to find it unlocked and when he opened the bonnet, there was no battery in it. He scouted around the shed, almost tripping over a bale of straw. In the corner, he found the battery, placed on two bricks. So it appeared as if she had been telling the truth, but how easy would it have been to take the battery out to get it charged up? This didn’t mean that she hadn’t been out on the streets at night with or without her auntie. How convenient for her, or was it just luck, that the two other main suspects were now dead and Etta Barton could get away with her attacks?
The door to the farmhouse was locked but he could see the packing cases lined up against the wall. They had almost got away with the deception and no one would ever have known what happened.
After driving back into the city, he parked Molly’s car in Baltic Street. When he glanced up at her window, all was in darkness.
Charlie went to see Molly early the next morning. He wanted to hear her side of the story before judging if he could charge Etta Barton with an assault.
Molly was still in her dressing gown when he knocked at the office door. She still had her dreadful headache and as Charlie made a pot of tea and some toast, she swallowed another two aspirins. ‘Now, explain it all to me again, Molly. How exactly did you make the connection that Eck and George were Dave and Etta?’
Molly explained about going to see Vera and seeing the album lying on the sofa. ‘I was just curious about all those old-fashioned photos and then I saw the one with Dave’s father and Vera’s mother on the farm. I recognised the gate and the house in the background immediately. Then I saw the photo of Dave and Etta that Vera had showed me at the very beginning when she first told me about the case. I thought I recognised Eck’s face when I interviewed him early on in my investigation but couldn’t place it, and it was only upon seeing the photo again along with the farm that I made the connection. As I said, Dave looked like his father in the photo. Something clicked when I saw the farm as well.
‘Vina’s daughter Barbara was picking potatoes at the farm and she said his name was Lenny Barr. However, when he said it was Eck Barr, I never gave it another thought. He mentioned he had come from the Borders with his stepson George and I’m afraid I scratched their names out from my notebook and never followed it up. All this time, I was so certain Dave Barton was dead that my brain didn’t even consider any other option. But then, when I saw the photo of Dave again and the parents standing at the farm, everything just fell into place. And then, of course, there was the birth certificate. Etta’s real name was Georgette and it all just seemed to be too much of a coincidence.’
‘You know, I’m furious with you for going there on your own. I think she’s a very dangerous woman and you got off lightly with a scalp wound.’
‘I’ve only got two stitches in it,’ she said indignantly.
‘Yes, well, you could have been badly injured or even killed.’
Molly realised that and she said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll never be the tough guy investigator like in the books.’
Charlie laughed. ‘That’s only fiction, where a tap on the head doesn’t even leave a bruise, but now you see for yourself what damage it can do. By the way, she says she was only defending her property from you as she thought you were a burglar, intent on stealing her car and whatever else you could get your hands on.’
‘Yes, that’s what she told me.’
‘Dave Barton confessed to the accidental death of Lenny Barr. He said Etta wasn’t with him and she only knew when he came home in distress. He said he wanted to get away in case he was charged with murder, that he had been wanting to get away anyways and that she wanted to go with him.’
‘What do you think happened, Charlie?’
‘I think she was there. I’m not saying she had anything to do with the accident but she knows a lot more than she’s saying, that’s for sure.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘I’ll question her again today but if she sticks to her story, then no matter what I think, I’ve got no proof of any wrongdoing except that she hit you, which she’ll say was self-defence. She’ll tell the court she came across you skulking in the yard and when she challenged you, you went to hit her. It’ll be her word against yours.’
Molly was cross. ‘I was not skulking in the yard. I was merely peering through the window.’
Charlie threw up his hands. ‘There you go, then. You looked like you were up to no good and she reacted. You should have left it to us, Molly.’
Molly agreed with him. ‘I’m not cut out to be in this business.’
She looked so tired and downhearted that he felt sorry for being so annoyed. ‘Never mind, if you hadn’t found the photographs and put two and two together as quickly as you did, then they would both have disappeared again. Why they ever came back here is a mystery. They were both safe where they lived before but there’s no accounting for human nature.’
‘What about Robina Price? Was she involved in all of this?’
‘I think she was but Etta says she didn’t even know she was back in Dundee. She even asked for her address so she could go and see her and she looked so sad when I told her the woman was dead.’
‘Do you think Etta will stay with her mother now that she’s been found?’
Charlie looked exhausted. ‘She says she’s going back to the Borders where she still has a cottage and there’s no word of an invite for her poor mother. Why Mrs Barton ever tried to find such a cold-hearted daughter is beyond me, for as I gather, she’s always been like this towards her.’
Molly was beginning to get tired again. ‘I must get dressed and go down to see Jean. I hope I don’t have to go out today as I just want to sleep.’ She looked at him and his eyes had dark shadows under them. ‘You look like you should do the same, Charlie.’
‘I wish I could, but I have to go to work. I have a desk full of reports to fill in and a huge load of crime to investigate. Not to mention questioning the fair Etta Barton again.’
They both went down the stairs just as Jean opened up the office. Her look of surprise was so comical, especially as she tried to look normal. Then, Molly realised she was still wearing her dressing gown and she blushed. Jean sat down at the desk after saying ‘good morning’ and kept her eyes on the typewriter.
Molly suddenly remembered something. ‘I forgot to ask, when will Dave’s funeral be held?’
Charlie shrugged. I expect Vera will have to arrange it but she did say it was to be a private affair, which I think is wise, None of the newspapers have got hold of the story, thank goodness, so I hope she organises it as quickly as possible.’
As he walked out the door into the street, he grinned. ‘You know, I’ll have to make an honest woman of you after being seen by Jean.’
Once again, Molly blushed and hurried inside.
Charlie made straight for Vera’s house. The two women were sitting at the table but the atmosphere in the room was icy. He felt so sorry for the older woman. It must be heart-breaking for her to find her daughter after all these years only to be faced with this sullen silence. ‘I’ve come to ask you again, Miss Barton, if you were with your father on the day of the accident?’
‘I’ve already said I wasn’t, so why don’t you leave me alone?’
‘It’s just that your father’s story doesn’t ring true. I mean, look at it this way … he’s alone with Lenny Barr and no one sees him fall, so why all this double life? It doesn’t make sense. For instance, where did he meet Lenny Barr? Why were they both together in Arbroath, especially as your mother was in hospital? You didn’t visit her that afternoon, so where were you?’
‘I was waiting for Dad to come back from his walk. He went out in the early morning and said he would be back by dinner time. I didn’t want to leave the house without him and I thought my mother would understand when we went to the hospital for the next visiting hour.’
‘Etta, did you knock your mother over with your car and then push her under a bus?’ He heard Vera give a gasp of surprise. ‘Did you also set a fire in the doorway of 14 Baltic Street and damage a car in the same street?’
‘No, I’ve told you, I never came into the town as my car had no battery. It’s easily seen. You don’t work on a farm so you might not realise, but it’s hard work from morning till night and I was always dead tired by eight o’clock and in my bed, especially as I had to get up at five.’
‘Why did you almost empty your post office savings account all those years ago?’
‘I needed to buy some clothes and I didn’t want to bother my mother for money as she wasn’t well.’
‘Were these the clothes you took with you to the farm in the Borders?’ She nodded. ‘But you began dressing as a boy. Why would you want some pretty dresses that you would never wear?’
‘I only started this as a lark when Dad bought the farm here and then realised I liked wearing men’s clothes. When we were in the Borders I dressed as a girl and was known as Etta, so I wasn’t committing any offence.’
Vera butted in. ‘Please leave her alone. I believe her and as she says, she hasn’t committed any offence. Dave told me what had happened before he died and I believe him. It was a tragic accident and although they were both stupid in running away, I do think Dave did what he thought was best.’