Private Sorrow, A by Maureen Reynolds

outside but we’ve had a bit of trouble with people coming round the doors, wanting to buy furniture and ornaments. The woman up the next close let a couple of men into her house and they robbed her.’
    Molly was alarmed. ‘That’s terrible. Did the police catch the thieves?’
    ‘No, no. They weren’t burglars,’ clarified Mabel. ‘They bought a few of her lovely things from her display cabinet and a footstool and small table. They paid her two pounds for the lot but when her son came to see her, he was furious because they were antiques and worth a lot more. So we’ve all been warned not to let any strangers in.’
    Molly was quite bemused by all this drama. She had come here to question Mrs Pert and here she was, listening to what sounded like an episode of Mrs Dale’s Diary . She decided it was time to mention why she had come. She explained her part in the search for Etta. ‘You stayed in the same close as the Bartons. Can you tell me anything about them, especially Etta?’
    Thankfully, Isa and Moira stayed silent. ‘I remember the family very well. It was a small community in that close and we all knew one another’s business.’ Molly knew this wasn’t totally correct, as she knew Mrs Pert was the main gossip, but she stayed silent.
    Mabel continued. ‘The father was a strange man. He would take off at weekends and go for long walks, and Etta was like him. I used to see them sometimes going off together and I felt sorry for his wife. He may have had his job in the foundry but she worked hard with her lodgers.’
    Molly mentioned Sasha Lowson. ‘There were rumours about a relationship between Dave Barton and her.’
    Mrs Pert drew herself upright and said. ‘They were not rumours. They were true.’
    ‘I spoke to her yesterday and she said there was nothing true about the gossip.’
    Mrs Pert laughed. ‘Oh, she’d say that, of course. A young girl of nineteen and a man in his early thirties. But he was a good looking man and he certainly fancied his chances with her. And she left very suddenly. One day she was there, the next she was gone. Now why is that we ask ourselves?’
    ‘She said it was because of a threat from Etta.’
    Mrs Pert laughed again. ‘Oh, I can well believe that, but I think it was because of him.’
    Molly was getting a bit tired of all this rumour and conjecture with no proof to show of any wrongdoing. She said as much to Mabel Pert.
    ‘Oh, but I’ve got proof,’ she said. ‘There used to be a small woodshed at the end of our houses and I caught them twice coming out of this shed late at night and they weren’t carrying wood. Then there was the fact that her parents lived in Arbroath at the time – could that have been the reason why he was there on the day he died? I think they met up and something happened. Perhaps she told him it was all over and he threw himself off the cliff in despair, because let me tell you he was in love with her.’
    ‘And what about her? Was she in love with him?’
    Mabel made a rocking motion with her hand. ‘I’m not sure. I think she was flattered that an older man fancied her, but she wouldn’t have wanted it to go any further.’
    ‘What did Etta think about all this? When he went off to Arbroath to meet Sasha, she must have known about it.’
    ‘Oh, she did not like having Sasha as a lodger and what a noise she made about it. We could hear her shouting at her mother so much that Vera used to put her coat on and clear off out of the house.’
    ‘I think it’s a pity that Etta didn’t have a boyfriend to take her out and about. It couldn’t have been a great life for her, only having her father to talk to.’
    Mabel’s eyes lit up. ‘What makes you think she didn’t have one?’
    Once again Molly was surprised. ‘Everyone I’ve spoken to said she didn’t.’
    ‘Oh, she was a fly one all right. I used to see her sneaking into the backgreen with a young man. I almost knocked them over one night when I was putting my ashes