The Phantom of Barker Mill

by steve higgs

  The drive to the yard took me less than five minutes although I had to get out and walk the last five hundred metres because the road was full of terrible potholes and I was driving a low-slung Porsche. The road only led to the breaker's yard, which explained the lack of upkeep and repairs. To either side, piles of litter fought weeds for dominance. I passed abandoned white goods, tyres and every manner of vehicle component.

  I was wearing Italian leather loafers that were not designed for their current use, but I refused to tiptoe too daintily around the puddles, mud and oil spills. I would clean them later instead of being precious about getting them dirty.

  I arrived at the yard gates. To my left and right stretched fencing that had seen far better days. It was intact though and had a good layer of barbed wire at the top which looked like a recent addition. Inside the yard, the tarmac road continued for about thirty metres to terminate at a portacabin - the office no doubt. All around the site, what I could see of it anyway, were old, broken cars stacked in piles. One atop the other and four, five or even six deep in places. They had been piled up to make lines so that the gaps between looked like corridors.

  I watched for a few minutes, but no dog the size of a Rhinoceros wandered past. I whistled and tried, ‘Here boy' a few times. Still nothing. I gave up and headed home.

  I got back to my car, took a rag out of the boot and wiped the worst of the muck from my shoes before I got in. Heading back out towards Gillingham and home I placed a call to Big Ben.

  The display screen in my car showed the call connecting. He picked up on the first ring.

  ‘Alright, bender. What’s up?’ Big Ben was such a delight.

  ‘I have a job for you, mate. We need to catch a giant spectral dog that is haunting a breaker’s yard in Gillingham. Can you fit that in between women tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Sounds like fun. Count me in.’

  ‘I need you to do something else first.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I am sure you must have a few lady vets in your back catalogue. You are always bragging about how they all leave you grateful for the experience and begging for more so now you get to prove it. We need a couple of things that might be difficult to obtain without a bit of inside help.’ I stopped talking then because I had just seen something and needed to go back and look again. ‘Hold on a second mate.’

  I slowed the car and swung it around in a big loop to go back over my tracks. The crappy road that led to the Breaker’s Yard was accessed through an industrial estate. I was almost out of it when I had spotted a business name. I pulled my car in front of it now and took a picture with my phone. Palmer Pharmaceuticals was housed in a squat brick building perhaps ten metres square over two stories. This was an old industrial estate from the seventies when the businesses were proper individual buildings in contrast to the modern version which was generally lines of units inside a single larger building. There were a few cars in the car park, but it did not look like it sold anything from the premises unlike most of the businesses around it. Perhaps then it was simply a cheap rent from which they could conduct their enterprise and their goods were sold via third parties.

  I scratched my head. I was staring at the name of the business because it meant something important. I could not work out what though. The information would not coalesce into something meaningful. I said the name over out loud a few times. That made no difference either, so I filed it away to research later.

  ‘Dude are you ok?’ asked Big Ben. ‘I can hear you mumbling something.’

  ‘Does Palmer Pharmaceutical mean anything to you?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ he answered after a pause.

  I put the car into reverse, swung it around again and pointed the bonnet back in the direction of home. ‘So, here is what I need you to get…’

  The Killer Clue. Tuesday, October 12th 1617hrs

  I got home soon enough but did that thing where you have driven somewhere and then have no memory of the journey as if you have been on autopilot instead. I had been thinking about the pharmacy. It meant something, but I didn’t know what and had been wracking my brains to make a connection.

  I was getting nothing. Perhaps it would come to me if I got on with something else. I was out of the car and opening the door to my house. Bull and Dozer were excited to see me as always. I patted them each and let them in the garden, I stood on the patio watching them snuffle in the bushes. They showed no sign of wanting to come back inside, so I went to fetch a cup of tea thinking I could sit outside with them or maybe throw a ball if either of them felt inclined to chase it.

  I left the patio door open despite the cool air, hoping that this would impart to the dogs the message that I would return shortly. From the kitchen window, I watched Bull disappear behind the greenhouse as the kettle boiled. He emerged the other side just as the kettle reached a full violent boil and flicked its own switch off.

  Water poured, I opened the drawer next to me for a teaspoon and the dots I could not join together five minutes ago aligned themselves in my head and solved the Barker Mill case in one hit.

  In the draw, my hand was hovering over the small spoons and next to them was a packet of painkiller tablets I had bought whenever I had last suffered a headache. Palmer Pharmaceutical made pills. That was the connection. I picked the packet up forgot my tea entirely and rushed through to the office.

  To the left of my desk was a pile of unfiled paperwork. I had yet to work out what I ought to do with old case files. My head said they had no purpose after each case was closed and that if I held onto everything I would soon be paying for offsite storage. Furthermore, I would spend all too long organising and storing the files rather than doing investigative work. The piles of paper had not yet grown to such a proportion that I could not ignore them though so that was what I had been doing. Right at the top, because it was a chronological pile was the Brett Barker file. I pulled it onto my desk and started leafing slowly through it. Less than five minutes later I pushed back in my chair and sat jubilantly holding the smoking gun.

  In my hand were copies of Brett Barker's business finances that Mrs. Barker had provided. Among the many pages were his company credit card statements and there on June 5th was a payment of twenty thousand pounds to Martin Wilkins. I had been curious about it at the time, as it was such a large and exact amount, and I had performed a brief search to find that Martin worked at Palmer Pharmaceuticals. I did not know what the money had been for, but I had a pretty good idea.

  I went onto a search engine and looked the firm up. Lining up the crosshairs on Brett Barker had not taken very long at all. Palmer Pharmaceuticals made a wide range of medical treatments administered in pill form. Among them was Captopril. George Barker had been taking Captopril to control a heart condition and I was willing to bet that Brett Barker had bought a supply of the packets with a placebo inside instead of the real drug. He could swap the old man’s pills over, they would look exactly the same but do nothing to aid his failing heart.

  It was not solid evidence. However, I was certain it was enough to make people look further. I had him. I just needed something more so that I could remove any ambiguity – like a note from Brett plotting the whole thing. That would be nice, but was unlikely, so it was time to act in a calm and strategic manner.

  I called Amanda. Her phone rang for some time before it connected to her messaging service. I elected to disconnect and leave her a text instead. The text simply told her that I had evidence that Brett was guilty, and she needed to call me.

  I would call her again in a few minutes if I did not hear from her and keep trying her number until I was successfully connected. I needed to call Mrs. Barker though, so I tackled that next.

  Mrs. Barker must have assigned my mobile number to her phone as she answered with, ‘Good evening, Mr Michaels?'

  ‘Good evening, Mrs. Barker.' I started. ‘I believe I have found the evidence that implicates Brett in your husband's death.'

  I hear
d her catch her breath, the noise suggesting that I was delivering news that was very exciting. ‘I am glad to hear it, Mr. Michaels. After last night's debacle, I was considering releasing you from the contract. What is it that you have found?' she asked.

  ‘Evidence that he has been substituting your husband’s heart medication. It is circumstantial evidence at this time leaving me to find something more concrete before I go to the police. I need to search his rooms at the house as well as his office at the Mill. Does he have any other property or hideaway locations where he might stash something?’

  ‘Not that I am aware of, but I will give that some thought.’

  ‘What I am looking for initially may be in his wing of the house and I do not wish to tip him off that we are searching, so I need you to provide me with free access to his rooms. Can you do that?'

  ‘Of course, Mr. Michaels. Brett will leave the house at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, as usual, to go to work. I can let you into his wing of the residence any time after that.'

  ‘Very good, Mrs. Barker. If I do not find what I am looking for there we may need to search his office or car.

  ‘What time should I expect you?’ she asked.

  I ran the question through my head quickly. I was keen to get on this right now, but the task had to wait until Brett was going to be out of the way for a few hours. If there was evidence in his apartment I expected it to be hard to find. Probably hidden. I still hadn’t spoken with Amanda and I wanted her there for several reasons. ‘Shall we say 1100hrs?’ I offered.

  ‘You mean 11 o’clock?’ she clarified, sounding confused.

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Barker. Eleven o'clock. If I need to change that time I will inform you.' My phone vibrated in my hand to indicate another caller was trying to connect. Pulling the phone from my ear I saw that it was Amanda. ‘I have another call, Mrs. Barker. Please excuse me, I will see you tomorrow at eleven o'clock.'

  ‘Good evening, Mr. Michaels.' she hung up.

  ‘Amanda?’ I said quickly punching the answer button on my phone to switch between calls.

  ‘Tempest.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Err, sorry. This conversation got lost somewhere. I was just on the phone to Mrs. Barker. I believe Brett bought fake heart meds and substituted them for his grandfather's. I intend to look for additional evidence of this in his wing of the Barker house tomorrow morning and need our help.' I let that statement hang for a moment. ‘I think he really did it.' I added as I knew Amanda was less inclined to believe the handsome, super-rich beau was guilty.

  ‘Okay. What did you find?’ she asked.

  ‘There is a transaction a few months ago in his financial records where he paid twenty thousand pounds to a Martin Wilkins. Martin Wilkins works at Palmer Pharmaceuticals and Palmer Pharmaceuticals make Captopril. You are going to tell me that this is circumstantial, but we must follow this up. If we find anything else, bearing in mind I intend to find and quiz Martin Wilkins, then we have him.

  ‘What are you asking me?’

  ‘I am going to the Barker mansion tomorrow at 1100hrs. Mrs. Barker will let me into his wing of the building so no warrant to search the premises is required or anything else that might hinder the chain of evidence should we find what I am looking for. I want you to come with me though to corroborate what I find, call in the detectives who will catalogue and record the evidence and to make the arrest if we can find what we need.'

  I could hear her thinking. She made small noises as she mulled the idea over. Was I asking a lot? I did not think that I was and there was no risk to her that I could see.

  ‘Okay.’ She said having arrived at the same conclusion. ‘We search his place and if we find anything I will make the appropriate calls. This needs to be done right.’

  ‘Deal.' I replied, cheering silently. I was going anyway but having Amanda along would speed up the search and make any evidence found more legitimate.

  ‘Will you be at the office?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Meet me there?’

  ‘I’ll be there by ten.’ she disconnected.

  I put my phone down. Then realised I was not yet finished. I had loosely organised to raid the Breaker’s yard with Ben tomorrow night. Was that still a good idea? Probably not. I did not want to run the risk that I was tied up still dealing with the Phantom case.

  I picked up my phone once more and placed a call to Big Ben.

  ‘Dude.’ he answered sounding a little out of breath.

  ‘Hold fire on that gear I asked you to get, mate. We need to postpone the raid for a day or so.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay? Really? No questions to clarify why or what has changed?’

  ‘Well, I would take an interest in your stuff but then I would be ignoring the two naked girls that are currently waiting for me upstairs.’

  I had no idea if he was lying or telling me the truth. It seemed entirely possible he was being honest though.

  ‘Well, we still need the gear, just not tonight.’

  ‘No problem. I have it already. I went to visit the vet lady like you suggested and she was just finishing her surgical shift for the day, so she brought it to my house and decided to stay for a shag.’

  ‘Then where did the second girl come from?' I asked, thinking I had caught him out.

  ‘There was too much gear for her to carry so she brought her vet nurse with her.' He explained as if it were obvious. I really hated him sometimes. Mr. Wriggly echoed the sentiment. ‘Got to go. Talk later.' He hung up, leaving me with imagined images of the impending shagfest at his place flashing through my mind.

  Git.

  I checked my watch. It was very nearly 1700hrs. My stomach growled, politely reminding me that I needed to eat.

  I called the dogs in for their dinner. Then looked up a number for Palmer Pharmaceuticals and dialled it.

  It connected almost immediately. ‘Palmer Pharmaceuticals, Good afternoon.’ A man’s voice.

  ‘Good afternoon.' I started wondering what approach would get me the information I wanted. I went with the direct question first. ‘This is Dr. Edwards of Dawlish Medical Supplies. Can I speak with Martin Wilkins please?'

  I was half expecting to be asked what my call was pertaining to but after a very short pause his voice came back with, ‘I’ll put you through now.’

  Pleased that I was going to get to question the chap and be able to hear from his reaction whether he was indeed guilty of supplying Brett Barker with dodgy drugs I was surprised to hear a woman’s voice instead.

  ‘Good afternoon. How can I help?’ It always annoyed me that receptionist staff would put a call through without telling the next person in line what the caller wanted thus forcing them to start their explanation all over again.

  ‘Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Edwards. I was hoping to speak with Martin Wilkins.'

  ‘Can I ask what it is pertaining to?’ she was rude enough to see no need to introduce herself.

  ‘It is a long-running matter that he and I have been working on together?'

  ‘Really?' her voice full of disbelief. ‘You have been discussing a long-running matter with the office mail boy? I hardly think so.' I was going about it badly, but I was getting information nevertheless.

  I tried a new tack, taking some of the polish out of my voice and allowing in some local guttural drawl. ‘Okay. You got me. I'm his mate, Dave. Is he there?'

  ‘You are not his mate. I doubt your name is even Dave. Martin Wilkins quit his job here four months ago. I shall assume you are another debt collector after money that he owes someone. Please do not call again.’ She hung up abruptly.

  The short phone call had not given me what I wanted, which was to talk to Martin and pin him down so that I could force him to meet with me. He might be key to proving Brett's guilt. I had however, found out plenty about him. I performed some internet searches, but he was not on Facebook and although I could find some limited information about him I could not find a photo
graph or where he was currently employed.

  I fixed myself some food and turned on the TV. There was not much more I could do tonight.

  My New Office Assistant. Wednesday, 13th October 0857hrs

  As it was my business, I came and went from the office as I pleased and rarely kept exact office hours because I had no need to. If I had no case to pursue and I felt like a lie in or wanted to spend longer in the gym I simply did so. Only once had this practice caught me out when I had arrived at the office at around 0930hrs to find a client waiting. The client had elected to come to the office rather than email or call because, like so many others with a genuine case, he had felt he would sound like a mental patient through any medium other than in person.

  This morning, I had risen and walked the dogs and eaten a nutritious breakfast all before 0800hrs. Then I had sat on my sofa with Bull on my lap watching breakfast news when I remembered that I now had an employee at the office and ought to be there before him.

  As it turned out, I got to the office only just before 0900hrs and in my rush skipped my usual routine of going via the coffee shop to get a beverage, read the free paper and maybe flirt with Hayley. Going through the bottom office door at 0857hrs, I could see that the office light was on. James had beaten me in, opened up and was already at it.