Harold Barton has kept a copy of the statement and the weight of its words lies heavy across the living room where we sit for this episode’s interview. Mr Barton is stoic as he reads, the pain in his eyes and on his face, betraying the power of his voice. This is only the second time that Mr Barton has read this statement out loud and when he finishes it, the resonance of it hangs in the air between us.
Harold and Mildred Barton were not satisfied with the sentences handed down to the three killers but would any punishment have been enough?
—I don’t believe in the death penalty. What is it they say? – An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Ghandi, that was, wasn’t it? He was right, of course, but it’s hard. It’s hard to think like that after what happened.
I cannot imagine how this must feel for Mr and Mrs Barton. I have come to meet Elizabeth’s parents with a thousand questions, but really, I want to let them speak. I want to see Elizabeth through the eyes of those who loved and cherished her most of all.
—No parent should have to bury their child. No parent. There’s no coming back from pain like this.
The Barton house is set back from a main road and is enclosed by a wall and wrought-iron fences; in the garden there are trimmed rose bushes and neat shrubs. The graffiti on the wall has been cleaned off.
The house is modern, built in the 1990s, perhaps: three floors with stone stairs up to the front door – faux Victoriana. Inside it is simple, modest. Clean and comfortable. Despite it being not far out of Ergarth proper, the difference in the class of people who live here is obvious. The paintwork is neat, and there are framed photographs of the family in happier times and a crucifix on the wall. A sloppy brown spaniel snores on a rag rug before a coal-effect fireplace.
Mr Barton is sitting on a large leather sofa.
—This is Sammy. Lazy thing. We got him from a breeder last week. Beautiful, isn’t he?
At the sound of his name, Sammy’s ear twitches and his back leg moves in a slow-motion scamper. Our attention shifts gratefully until Mildred Barton, a slight woman with black hair and wide blue eyes, comes in with a teapot and mugs. Harold tucks the statement he’s just read to me into a brown leather folder, which he places on a side table.
Mrs Barton sits down and turns her eyes on me. She smiles, her face creasing. There’s no joy in the expression.
—No one’s been interested in Elizabeth. Not really. They only ever want to talk about what those lads did to her. That’s the thing we can’t understand. That stays with us now; it’ll never go away. The knowledge of what they did to our beautiful girl. So savage. So inhuman.
It was Harold who identified Elizabeth’s body, he tells me.
—After that, I drove through Ergarth, my home, and I looked around. I looked at the place like I’d never looked at it before. Everything was still frozen; the roads had been gritted and there were great piles of slush everywhere. The verges were spattered pink and the sky was a soulless grey. The cold was relentless, unending, uncaring. I even went out to that tower; drove past and just stared at it. It was freezing – that cold that gets into your fingers. That was about the only thing I could feel.
I drove around the town faster and faster, something inside me praying I’d slip. Because all I could see in my head was what they did to her. All I could feel about this entire town was that it didn’t care. There was no heart, no community, no compassion. Just endless grey. That’s what we brought our Elizabeth into. An endless grey.
All anyone has to say is that they wonder why they did it, those three. That’s how it is these days. The killers become the story. The criminals are more exciting than the victims. We’re the ones left behind in all this. No one wants to know about us, what we have to say.
—I’m only here to talk to you both about your daughter, Mr Barton. As much as you want to. We can start where you like and we can stop whenever you want. But I’m here to listen.
Mildred pours the tea. It’s begun raining outside, and the slight patter of the drops against the windows is soothing. There is no awkwardness between us; just a reverential solemnity. Mrs Barton leans forwards and pulls a photograph album from underneath the coffee table. She turns the pages gently, touching only their edges. I have questions that are burning inside me, especially the one about Solomon Meer being here, at the Barton’s house, a few days before Elizabeth died. I’ve been wracking my brains to come up with a possible reason. Was this an early attempt on Elizabeth’s life? If so, why didn’t anyone call the authorities – straight away, or at some point after Elizabeth’s death?
Or was he invited here? Or here on other business – on the command of Elizabeth, or someone in her family? If so, what business? Jason Barton told me to ‘force this story’ about the death of his sister. I can only hope I’ve chosen correctly.
I want to dive in straight away, get this question in the room, but it would be tactless to be so abrupt, right after Harold Barton has shown me a little of his anguish.
Mildred sighs and turns another page in the photograph album on her lap.
—We don’t look at these very often, Mr King. Only on special occasions, so they don’t become too familiar. There’s always something new to see when I turn these pages, something I’ve forgotten or some new memory. One day, there won’t be. Hopefully I’ll be gone before then.
It’s heartbreaking to see the couple look through the photographs of their late daughter, savouring them like chocolates. I feel wrong being here at all. I feel like I’m intruding on their moment. But the Bartons agreed to an interview, they even welcomed it. If they don’t feel like they want to speak about her death or those who caused it, I have made it clear that is fine. The last thing I want to do is exploit these people’s grief.
However, some of the things Jason told me about Elizabeth are also humming at the forefront of my mind, and I feel that they must, at some point, be addressed.
—We read that article in The Times about you Mr King.
Mildred Barton’s eyes are wet with tears.
—About what … happened to you when you were young. I don’t know why, but it feels like, if anyone could understand our pain, it would be you.
We’re all damaged somehow. It’s a strange one; since the revelations about my past unfolded in front of the world, people have felt like they can relate to me; they can connect. It was a reaction I was not expecting. In some perverse way, it feels sometimes as if the darkness inside me gets me into places I may not have had access to before. But that access comes with its own guilt. Am I using my own trauma as a way in? Am I being disingenuous? The way I justify it to myself, is that if someone feels they can relate to me, that I might understand them, then that’s OK.
The photograph album is a nice way to begin. The Bartons tell me that they are aware that for me, there is no album of baby photos. And for my part, learning a little about Elizabeth Barton as a young child is somehow comforting.
According to the Bartons, Elizabeth was an intelligent baby; inquisitive and well behaved, she slept well, and exceeded all her developmental targets. I recognise Mr and Mrs Barton in the photographs, yet there always seems to be a different face holding Elizabeth. Mildred Barton explains.
—We both worked a lot. We both worked hard. Enough to give our children everything they wanted. Unfortunately that meant we were not always there as much as we wanted to be. These women are nannies, babysitters and the like. Lovely women, all of them. But they were young, always temporary; we could never find someone who would stay with us long term, unfortunately.
Mr Barton chips in, wagging his finger.
—Mind you, there was always plenty of food in the cupboards and a roof over their heads. Elizabeth and Jason never wanted for food and shelter. Never. We provided for them. Not like our parents did for us.
I don’t want to stray too far from the subject, but I think it’s important to know where both Harold and Mildred Barton are coming from. Both grew up poor, the son and daughter of a shipbuilder
and a trawler man, respectively. ‘Dirt poor’ are the words they both use. Harold Barton continues.
—Both our fathers were hard men, wouldn’t you say, my love? Hard workers. Hard drinkers too. That’s what it was like back then. There wasn’t much in the way of work. The shipbuilding was all but gone from the North-East, the trawler men made little and were away a lot. We were both … disappointed … when we were children. There was never much on birthdays and Christmas. Sometimes nothing. We didn’t want our children to grow up like that. So we made sure they were never disappointed. With anything.
Mildred and Harold Barton were both high achievers academically, escaping their modest childhoods by way of work. Harold went from a delivery driver to being a trustee on the board for Hylux – one of the biggest UK haulage companies. Mildred was regional director of the Pinston boutique hotel chain. They had their children later in life and both are now retired.
As Elizabeth grew into a toddler, she was plied with toys and books. There are many photographs of the youngster amid piles of cuddly toys. The Bartons, however, began to show some concern over Elizabeth’s interactions with other children.
Mildred Barton shows me a photograph of a chubby-faced Elizabeth at around three years, sat amid a tight circle of cuddly toys while two other children play together on the outside of the ring of stuffed animals. It’s a poignant image, not lost on Mildred Barton.
—That was all her doing, Mr King. She would surround herself with toys, sat in the middle, orchestrating the tea party. That was Elizabeth. She was always happiest when she was in charge, when she was calling the shots. But when she started going to nursery or the crèche at the church hall, that’s when we thought something might be amiss.
There wasn’t a problem as such, it wasn’t that she couldn’t play with other children, she just preferred to be alone, lost in her little world by herself. It seemed, to us anyway, that when other children joined in Elizabeth just…
—They just didn’t understand her, did they, my love?
—We never saw it as a problem. That’s just who she was. Her personality was emerging, that was all. I told the nannies and the childminders to take her to all the baby groups while we were working. It wasn’t like she wasn’t socialised.
—Did this introversion ever become a problem, when she was older, or was it just a little-kid thing?
—No, it was always a part of who she was. She was never unhappy with others, she just preferred her own company.
—What about when she started school? Did things change?
—I feel like that was when we started to lose her. I know how that sounds; it was so early, but it’s true. Primary school just seemed like a big competition: who had the best toys, who had the most things. We couldn’t be there to pick her up but there was always a present waiting for her when she got home … we always made sure that she wasn’t the one missing out…
Mildred Barton has begun crying. It is silent, just tears down her cheeks, a hairline crack in her voice. I pause for a moment, let her compose herself. There’s a word in here that has felt to me like it is a cornerstone of this case: ‘competition’.
A snore from Sammy breaks the tension and Mildred passes the open photograph album to her husband.
Even from a young age, Harold tells me, Elizabeth was a hard worker. She loved to achieve. As you heard in the statement at the beginning of this episode, they still keep all her trophies and rosettes pinned to the walls of her bedroom – which is now, like so many bedrooms in the aftermath of a tragedy, a shrine.
—Look, Harold, do you want to explain about this one? The Sunday Club?
Mr Barton takes the album from his wife and points to a photograph. The inside of a church hall, a group of children stand before a trestle table; all of them look around eight to ten years old. They are muddy, smiling, some of them have brown stains around their mouths.
—That was the Ergarth Explorers group. The Sunday Club. I thought that it might help her with … with the others … Look, we’d just been building a camp fire that evening down the Dene. It was a cold one that night. All the children were warming up with some hot chocolate. It was a lovely evening. Magical. There’s Elizabeth there.
A young Elizabeth Barton grins, gap-toothed at the camera. Harold runs his finger along the row of children, naming names. Behind them there is a frieze on the wall – a giant whale and a little boat: Jonah and the Whale in cut-out card. Green see-through-plastic seaweed. He continues.
—It was just a little thing I helped out at when she was little. I thought it would make up for me working all the time. I did it when I could, helped out with the seven- and eight-year-olds. Just for the church. We didn’t call it Sunday School and no one preached to them. It was something to do – making things, listening to stories, singing. Campfires and marshmallows in the autumn. Elizabeth and her school friends. She invited them all, and look at who came, look how many of them wanted to join in. It’s heart-breaking really.
There is only one set of photographs from this particular event, which suggests to me that it was only this once that Harold Barton helped out. Elizabeth and two others are the only children there. Harold doesn’t need to tell me how he feels he failed his daughter. He tells me he was hugely relieved when Elizabeth’s popularity soared in her later years. This is a huge conflict in Elizabeth’s life that cannot go unnoticed.
Mr Barton’s finger points out a third child I did not notice in the photograph. A small boy standing just off from the others. He’s pale, his eyes on the floor.
—George Meldby. There he is.
There is a pregnant pause and I feel the atmosphere in the room tighten. Harold’s finger stays below the pale boy and he looks past me, out of the window. Mildred gets up and drifts away into the kitchen. I say nothing. Eventually Harold speaks.
—Even when they’re that age, you can tell how they’re going to turn out. There’s the talkative ones, the shy ones, the naughty ones. It all starts emerging at that age. George was summer-born, one of the youngest in the year. His mother was … well, she was a funny one, with all her dogs and the house full of junk and tanks of lizards. We all knew that, and we all felt a bit sorry for little George. Everyone did. He was an odd one even then. They caught him trying to set a fire in the girls’ toilet. And when he was caught, he tried to blame our Elizabeth for it! Said she told him to do it! I mean, I ask you. Everyone knew the Flynn boy as well. We kept our daughter as far away from his lot as possible. He was a nasty little thug from the off.
I’m glad to say we have no photographs with him in them. They kept themselves to themselves up at that terrible place on Skelton Road. I imagine he was taught how to kill things from a young age.
—Were he and Elizabeth and George Meldby all friends?
Harold Barton sighs and a look passes between him and his wife. Eventually Harold clears his throat and puffs out his chest.
—Like we said, Elizabeth found it hard with other children when she was little. We just didn’t think associating with George Meldby, considering … er … how he was, how his family was, was a very good idea. We discouraged the association, let’s say. But the lad wouldn’t leave our Elizabeth alone. What could we do? We had words with that bloody mother of his down on the Prim – the Primrose Villas estate. When we drove down there, I thought the car would be stolen, if I left it too long. I told her in no uncertain terms to keep him away from our Elizabeth.
Harold Barton shows me another couple of photographs from the Sunday Club night. George Meldby always sits just on the outside, his wide eyes staring at Elizabeth as if posing some eternal question. It sends a shiver through me, so I cannot imagine how the Bartons feel. I wonder why they keep these particular photographs. Everyone grieves in their own way, though. Everyone has their own way of bearing such trauma. I’m not going to question the Bartons’.
Mildred takes over and flicks through more of the album until the page comes to rest on a photo of Elizabeth in a school uniform. She
is stood straight-backed in the porch. Sun pours in through the coloured glass. Mildred sighs. The difference in Elizabeth’s appearance is striking. Her face is almost stern, her mouth a line and her eyes serious. She looks significantly older than her years.
—This was her first day of year seven. She was twelve. Elizabeth … developed … quite early on. She certainly had a growth spurt. But she also grew academically as well.
—Were her high-school years better than in primary school?
—Yes. So much better. It was at high school that she really started to flourish.
—What do you think was different for her there?
—It felt like a new start. She had matured physically, of course. And it was easier for her to achieve things in high school. She was part of everything, all the sports teams, the after-school clubs and she won in all of them. That in itself brought new friendships and new opportunities. It was like she left the old Elizabeth behind in primary school. This was the new version.
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