The Phantom of Barker Mill

by steve higgs

  Barker Mill was a steel mill that created several steel products for the construction industry a new search revealed. The firm's website showed various pictures of the mill itself, both inside and outside and on a separate page, pictures of their products. I did not know much about steel, but I recognised beams and flat bars and had seen them being used in the erection of steel framed buildings. I guessed there were other uses for them, but it seemed unimportant to the case in hand. The Barker Mill was opened by Mr. Tristan Barker in 1907 and had stayed in the hands of the Barker family ever since. Passing from father to son, the recently deceased Mr. George Barker was the fourth Barker to run the Mill. It would now pass to his son I assumed. Was there some motive there? Too early to tell.

  The phantom I read, had struck terror into the mill's employees and brought destruction to mill property over several generations. It had never been caught. In 1912 there had been a series of accidents where equipment had been tampered with or sabotaged. The two deaths occurred when an overhead crane broke free from its moorings and poured molten steel onto the hapless workers below. Since then there had been phantom sightings reported in the forties, fifties and seventies but nothing from then until this year when a new series of accidents had led to an investigation and an employee had been fired after safety lockouts from a crane had been found in his car.

  There had been investigations in the past, most notably in 1912 when they had hired Archibald Quibly. The article I was reading went on to describe that Quibly was a special investigator often hired by the police of that era to assist them with unexplained crimes. Quibly had been a police detective originally but had moved to the private sector after the death of his wife in unusual circumstances. It did not elaborate on what the circumstances were.

  I felt that the further back in time I looked, the more superstitious and ready to believe in unnatural explanations people were. I could well believe that in 1912 the workers at the Mill and the general populace would buy into the idea of a phantom.

  I had scribbled a few notes on a pad I kept on the desk while I had been reading. I looked through these again now.

  Mr. Barker was dead, probably of natural causes

  Mrs. Barker was convinced he had been murdered

  The phantom had been blamed for the recent spate of accidents

  Someone had been blamed and fired

  The phantom seemed to be the first cause considered whenever anything occurred at the Mill

  It was an intriguing case. I considered whether I should call Amanda. If she was to be my partner from here on I would need to include her. It felt like the right thing to do, so I picked up my phone once more and placed the call.

  The caller ID on the phone screen read PC Hotstuff, I would need to change that before she saw it.

  Amanda answered almost immediately. ‘Tempest.'

  ‘Amanda, we have a case. I will be off to interview a lady shortly. Are you available?’

  ‘Bugger.' she swore. ‘I have an interview with HR in thirty minutes. Thank you for including me but my proper start at the firm will have to wait I guess.'

  ‘Understood. Well, I don’t suppose I will solve this one this afternoon.’ I outlined the case to her. She asked a couple of questions I did not yet have an answer to and we disconnected with a promise that I would fill her in on the case tomorrow morning when she had more time off.

  It was time to go. I placed my notebook and pen in my shoulder bag, along with a camera and a few other items, and headed out to my car.

  Traffic could be quite iffy at this time of the day on the run to Dartford. It is close to London and the motorway bridge over the Thames where altogether too many cars try to funnel through a small gap. At peak times all movement appears to cease. I had allowed fifty percent longer than the journey ought to take and hoped that it would be enough.

  Mrs. Barker. Thursday, 7th October 1630hrs

  On the way to Dartford, the phone in my car rang. Caller ID claimed it was my mother. I groaned a little internally and debated not answering. My mother probably caused me no more grief than other people suffered from theirs, but for me, our conversations were a continuous loop of what so and so's son is doing now, how many children he and his wife have produced etcetera. Each time the theme would culminate in the eternal question of when I planned to settle down and provide her with Grandchildren. You are the only male in the family, Tempest. You must continue the family name. Her voice echoed in my head.

  In the end, I hit the answer button because I knew she would just keep calling if I didn’t. ‘Hello, mother.’

  ‘Where are you, Tempest?’

  ‘Working mother and currently on my way to Dartford on the M2.’

  ‘Dartford?’

  ‘Yes, mother. Dartford.'

  ‘What is in Dartford?’

  ‘A client, mother.’

  ‘A client?’ Good God this conversation was becoming a struggle already. I elected to move it along at a pace that might be slightly less than glacial.

  ‘How can I help you, mother? I will arrive where I am going soon, so you do not have long.’

  ‘I need you to organise your sister’s baby shower.’ I have a twin sister, she is fifteen minutes older than me and never lets me forget it. Rachael already has two children, a fact that I had expected would alleviate my mother’s pressure on me to produce a grandchild for her but apparently, I simply failed to grasp the requirement of the male heir. I let the demand sink in for a few seconds while I considered what I was being asked to do.

  ‘Am I not missing a vital piece of equipment required to take that task on, mother?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I don't have a vagina, mother. Organising and running a baby shower is principally the remit of the female relatives and friends of the expectant mother, mother. I do not have any children, my friends do not have any children, I don't know anything about babies or childbirth and have never been to a baby shower to have gained any experience from which I could plan a baby shower.'

  ‘That is a little sexist, Tempest.’ Chided my mother.

  My right eye was starting to twitch. I indicated to leave the motorway and cruised down the offramp. The satnav claimed that I had less than one mile and only one minute to go to my destination.

  ‘Are you there, Tempest? You have stopped speaking.’

  ‘I am here, mother. But I am arriving at my meeting, so I need to go. I would like to know though how you come to be asking me to organise a baby shower for Rachael? Surely she has friends lining up to do this.’

  ‘Actually, she asked me.' Mother said, and I understood how it came to land at my door ‘I thought that since you are so good at organisation you would be happy to help me.'

  Resignedly I admitted defeat. If I left it to mother, the event would be in the church hall with all the pensionable age ladies from the church in attendance, and the gifts would all be hand knitted clothes and toys.

  ‘I have to go mum, but I will call later to discuss it with you.’

  ‘Thank you, Tempest.’ she disconnected.

  The satnav took me around a final corner and instructed me that I was now at my destination. Unfortunately, as so often happens when following a satnav, there was nothing actually there. To my right was a brick wall stretching as far as the eye could see and a good two metres high. Behind it was a forest of coniferous trees stretching toward the sky. The general message appeared to be to keep out. I drove on for a minute or so and spied ahead a gap in the wall which turned out to be a double gate entrance. The gates were huge and ornate and very much closed. Beyond them, a driveway stretched between oak trees for what must have been a quarter of a mile. Where it terminated, stood a house that could probably be called a stately home.

  There was no question about whether I was at the right place or not, as set within the gates, arranged symmetrically on each side was the name Barker in huge wrought iron letters. The entrance had an intercom which I pulled up to.

 
I pressed the button and waited for a voice. ‘How may I help?’ it asked quite politely.

  ‘Tempest Michaels to see Mrs. Barker.' I answered.

  ‘You are expected. Please park at the front of the house where you will be met.’ The intercom fell silent again as the person took their finger off the button at their end. Moments later the gates began to open, the soundless motion a statement of quality.

  It was an impressive, imposing place to visit. To either side of the driveway were fields of grass with trees and bushes as if a naturally occurring piece of the countryside had been captured and brought here. I spotted Zebras to my right, silhouetted against the trees in the distance. The enormous house loomed as I neared it. It was a giant box of a structure, all brick, and ornately carved stone. The roof was either flat, or the front fascia extended upwards to hide it and there were fourteen windows I could count each side of the massive front doors going up three floors. I wondered how many people lived there. The driveway was almost wide enough for two cars to pass without either needing to move over. I discovered though that it was only almost wide enough, when just before I got to the end of the long line of trees, a yellow Nissan Skyline swung into view and belted down the driveway towards me. My brain told me it was not going to stop or even slow down. In fact, it was picking up speed, probably doing fifty and accelerating towards me. I had very little time to react, it had appeared so suddenly. I twitched my steering wheel to the right to get out of its way.

  At the wheel was a young man. A young member of the Barker family I assumed since he drove like he owned the place and had not spared so much as a glance in my direction despite forcing me off the road.

  Unphased, I pulled back onto the driveway and continued towards the house.

  As promised I was met by my car. It was a young chap in a suit that came out to meet me and escort me inside. He said very little, but I did get, "Please come with me." And when we arrived in a small anti-room a minute later, "Please wait here."

  I pulled my notepad from the bag slung over my shoulder and scribbled a few questions:

  Circumstances of the death. Where was he?

  What time was he found?

  By whom?

  How long after he died was he found

  Details of what killed him if the natural causes report is correct?

  Why does Mrs. Barker think he was murdered?

  Who does she believe is to blame?

  The list went on for a bit and I was still pondering questions I might want to ask when a lady entered the room. The lady was short at perhaps five feet and two inches but wearing heels that elevated her by at least three inches. She was slim, and her clothes fit her very well. I estimated her age at a shade over fifty, which made her a good two and a half decades younger than her late husband, whose particulars I had researched before I left the office. Mrs. Barker was wearing a simple, yet very elegant fitted navy-blue dress and sheer, nude stockings over matching blue heels. She was a very attractive middle-aged woman.

  I took three paces in her direction as she came towards me and extended my hand. ‘Mrs. Barker?' I enquired.

  ‘Yes, Mr. Michaels. Thank you for coming on such short notice.' I nodded rather than make more of it than was necessary. ‘Will you walk with me?' she asked indicating toward the door back out of the room.

  ‘Lead on, please.' Mrs. Barker turned elegantly and went back out the door she had just come through. I followed her down a short corridor and into a great entrance hall leading away from the massive front doors. I had been escorted in through a side door, probably a tradesman's entrance once upon a time.

  ‘I see you looking around at the opulence of the Barker residence, Mr. Michaels. I find myself doing that still and I have lived here for twenty-three years now.' I was listening to her voice and watching her body language. Mrs. Barker seemed sad. Whether it was sadness for the loss of her husband or for another reason I could not tell, but what I saw was a woman trying to pretend she was not weighed down by a terrible burden. I had a built-in need to rescue women. It did me few favours, but right now I wanted to solve this case for her.

  ‘It is an impressive place.’ I conceded.

  ‘The gentleman that opened the steel mill, my husband's Great-Grandfather, had it built at the turn of the last century using money his Grandfather had made. The Barker fortune has passed from eldest son to eldest son for generations and the last four generations have lived in this house. It is surprisingly uncomfortable to live in.' I raised an eyebrow, which she saw, and she smiled before continuing. ‘I realise that must sound ridiculous. The house is so large that it is impossible to heat in the winter. One can heat small portions of it and try to shut them off, so that the heat does not escape. The windows though cannot be replaced by modern heat retaining versions because the house is listed. They shed warmth all winter long and when one gets to one's car and discovers one has left an item in the bedroom it is a fifteen-minute trip to go back for it.' She was silent for a moment as if considering something. ‘I am describing first-world problems I realise. Perhaps we should get to the matter in hand.'

  We had arrived in an office of sorts. The double height ceiling and enormous expanse of the room made it the biggest office I had ever been in. Mrs. Barker strolled across the room to a window and took a seat on one of four sofas arranged around a knee-high coffee table.

  ‘To Business.' Mrs. Barker said. ‘I am sure you must have lots of questions for me but let me begin by framing the case I want you to investigate.'

  ‘Very good, Mrs. Barker.' I sat back on the sofa, adjacent to her and with my back to the windows. The notebook and pen were in my hands ready for taking notes should I feel anything noteworthy.

  ‘My husband, George had been ill for several years. He had a triple-bypass in 2012 and was taking medication to prevent further heart failure. The drug was Captopril.' She paused so I could write that down. ‘He was very good about taking the medication, but the coroner stated in his report that there was no trace of the drug in his system and that he must have stopped taking it weeks, if not months ago. Despite the heart issues, George had lived a full life and worked every day. He loved the Mill, which he inherited when his father died in 1988, but worked there from the day he left university. He had grown up with the Mill as a focal point in his life and everything he did was for the good of the Mill and the people that work there. You are probably wanting to ask why I think he was murdered, so let me pre-empt the question. It seems likely that the coroner was right and that the drug had indeed left his system, but I think he was still taking the medicine, so I can only believe that someone had switched the pills. Worse yet I think the person that switched the drug was his Grandson, Brett.'

  I wrote that snippet down and circled it, then wrote grandson is not hers with a question mark and drew a line between the two.

  ‘I am sure you can expand on that.’ She really needed to.

  ‘Brett has been vocally opposed to everything my husband has been doing for years. The Mill does not make enough money in his opinion, the staff are too old and not productive enough and he wants to tear it all down and sell it off. Brett, like all the Barker men before him, has worked at the Mill all his life, he is thirty-two now and seems to have had enough of it. He and I do not communicate very well I’m afraid, which is adding an additional level of difficulty to the current situation as I am the Financial Director for the business and he is the new owner. I believe Brett wants to sell the Mill, realise an instant fortune and leave. My husband, his grandfather stood in the way of that but most damningly my husband suspected Brett’s plans and was looking to hand the Mill on to someone else.’ She paused for a moment while I was writing.

  ‘Continue please.’

  ‘Well, there are other Barkers of course. The eldest son has always inherited the Mill, but the younger siblings are out there so George reached out to the eldest son of his brother. Thomas Barker made a career as a lawyer and has an MBA. My Husband felt he would make a worthy succe
ssor. Brett found out that my husband was considering naming him as heir and they had a big fight. That was two weeks ago. Now my husband is dead, and Brett is the new owner.’

  I had a question. ‘What happened to his father? There is a generation missing.'

  ‘Brett’s father died in a skiing accident fifteen years ago. I do not think there was anything untoward about it, he was an adventurous sort and broke his neck going too far off piste.’

  ‘Understood.’ I said, making another note. ‘So, please tell me, how does the phantom fit into all this?’

  Mrs. Barker sighed at the question, looked down at her dress, brushed some imaginary crumbs from her lap and looked back up again. ‘The Phantom is a fairy tale perpetuated by the workers at the Mill. Some of the men are past retirement age and remember the attacks and accidents in the nineteen seventies and many of them had fathers and grandfathers that worked there who would regale them with tales of the Phantom from even earlier incidents. There is an infamous photograph someone took a hundred years ago which shows a cloaked figure in the rafters above what is now B furnace. I expect it was faked at the time, just some chaps having a bit of a jape. The Phantom is supposed to leave a mark whenever there is an attack, a burnt handprint can always be found somewhere near the scene of the accident or event. A burnt handprint was found on the doorframe of my husband's office the night he was found dead.' Mrs. Barker was fighting to control her voice. It threatened to crack and hinted of sobbing episodes already endured.

  ‘I will need to see that handprint Mrs. Barker and any other handprints that remain in the Mill anywhere from previous incidents. You said accidents and events, can you elaborate on what specifically happened at any point? More recent events would be more pertinent.'