The Phantom of Barker Mill

by steve higgs

  Mrs. Barker uncrossed her legs and sat forward. ‘I think it best you go to the Mill, Mr. Michaels. I will have you met by Ronald Drake. Ronald is one of the senior shop floor shift managers and has been at the Mill for over forty years. He will show you what you want to see.' I wrote down the name while she was retrieving her phone from her handbag. ‘Are you able to go directly there?'

  I checked my watch: 1707hrs. There was nothing I needed to do other than feed the dogs and they would probably just sleep until I returned anyway. ‘Yes, I can.' I replied. Mrs. Barker nodded and dialled a number. I listened to one half of a conversation in which she relayed instructions to the person at the other end. The person was to find Mr. Drake and have him meet me in reception at half past five.

  Mrs. Barker disconnected. ‘Ronald will finish at six o'clock, so you will need to get there soon.' she told me.

  I still had some questions for her though. ‘Your Grandson,’

  ‘My Husband's Grandson.' she corrected me. ‘I am my late husband's third wife and I have no children, Mr. Michaels.' I wrote that down in case it was important later.

  I started again. ‘Your husband’s Grandson, Brett. You accuse him of murder, do you have any evidence?’

  ‘No, Mr. Michaels. That is why I have engaged your services.' A fair point. ‘I have had my personal assistant prepare a pack containing Brett's financial statements as they pertain to the firm, plus a copy of his personnel file, his old school reports and anything else she was able to obtain.' This would provide me with some riveting reading this evening. It was good to have some of the research done for me though, so I was not complaining.

  ‘Did your husband have any enemies? Rivals that had fallen foul of him at any point? Disgruntled former employees? Anyone that might have wished ill of him?' I liked the idea that it was the Grandson because it was nice and neat and solving a case is always easier if you already know the solution and need only to find the evidence. However, I did not want to waste time blindly following a lead at the expense of all other options only to discover it to be false later.

  ‘Only one that I can think of. My husband was well liked and respected. To my knowledge, he did not incur enemies, but two weeks ago he fired a young executive. Brett went mad, the man was his right hand, but we had suffered several accidents at the Mill in the preceding weeks, there was a tip-off and they found safety lockouts from an overhead crane in the boot of his car. He was blamed for sabotage and summarily dismissed.' Mrs. Barker paused to allow me to scribble on my pad and continued when I looked up. ‘His name is Owen Larkin. He threatened to sue, get an employment tribunal etcetera, but Brett paid him off with company money.'

  I wrote motivation next to his name and underlined it and drew a line to Brett’s name to join the two. Something screwy was going on, that was for certain.

  ‘Mrs. Barker, I will have more questions for you but for now, I think I have enough to get on with my investigation. We need to discuss my fees.' I outlined what I charged by way of billing hours and expenses and made sure she understood where my responsibility ended as all too many of my clients seemed to think I had some special powers of arrest. I would gather evidence, identify a killer if there was one, find the Phantom and if her husband was murdered I would hand that person over to the police. Mrs. Barker seemed utterly unconcerned about my fees, but given the house I was sat in, I guessed she was not short of money.

  I bid her good day, shook her hand once more and headed back to my car. She had given me the address for the Mill. It was only a five-minute drive away, so I was going there next.

  Barker Mill. Thursday, 7th October 1747hrs

  The drive to Barker Mill somehow avoided all traffic until the last five hundred metres, whereupon I ceased forward motion and sat stationary for several minutes. I began slowly moving again after a short, but boring interlude and crept along the road to the Mill entrance. I knew where the Mill was because I had passed it many times on my way to other places. I had never really looked at it before though and did not know its name until now. It sat on the south bank of the Thames in the shadow of the Queen Elizabeth the Second bridge that had been built in the nineties. It was a huge brick building with two tall thin chimneys escaping it to grasp at the sky. As I turned into the wide entrance, the plant stretched out in front of me and went on for as far as I could see. A forty-foot-long articulated truck rolled out of the front gate past me loaded with steel to deliver. Emblazoned on the side was Barker Steel in big blue letters against the snow-white background of the vehicle's body. A billboard-sized map of the plant was on my left, I slowed the car, so I could get a good look at it.

  Just ahead of me the map claimed, was the reception. It would be the shiny, new glass-fronted building I could see dead centre of my windscreen. I had already passed a sign instructing visitors to report to reception upon arrival. That was where Ronald Drake would be waiting for me.

  I parked the car in the first space I came to, which was also about as far away from reception as I could get, while still parking in the designated area for visitors. I looked across to reception to see if I had been observed but no one inside was paying attention. I wanted to have a look around for myself without being guided or controlled. I had a few minutes before I was expected, plus I was sure that Ronald would wait.

  From the boot of my car, I selected a clipboard on which there was a wad of paper, a hard hat with HSE in big letters on the front and an ID badge in a plastic clip-on holder. I had learned long ago that a person with a clipboard is universally accepted as rightfully belonging wherever they happened to be, but also that the Health and Safety Executive could absolutely go wherever they pleased, without warning, without permission and then demand answers from the persons they encountered without needing to justify asking them. The ID was fake and had taken me about ten minutes to make at home. I had bought the sticker for the hat online. I had only used the disguise once before, but with complete success, so I had no qualms about using it now. If all else failed a confident manner would see me through.

  The Mill had been added to over its century of life. There was a huge brick building in the centre of everything else, which I assumed housed the furnaces had been designed with architectural consideration and not just function. It had high windows stretching over several stories, a tile roof, and cast-iron guttering. All of it had elegant features, flowers cast into the downpipes, fleur-de-lei in the stone around the windows, additional lines here and there. It would most likely be missing from a modern construction where cost might dictate these minor additions are ignored. The central brick building dominated the site but there were many, many smaller buildings surrounding it, huge silver pipes joining many of them. I picked out a building that I guessed was a cooling tower, there were piles and piles of steel beams in several areas and enormous overhead cranes to carry the steel about the place and to the dockside. As I watched, a ship was being loaded by a ship-to-shore crane.

  In general, the Mill looked empty and I wondered if that was just because it was so big that you could employ ten thousand people and never see them. It appeared more likely though that the Mill could be doing better. Mrs. Barker had said that was what the new owner, Brett believed. I saw old plant equipment that looked like it needed to be replaced and it was sat idle when it ought to be busy doing something if the Mill was also busy.

  I wandered through an open roller-shutter door into the main building. There were at least workers in here and there was activity. I got a few glances, but nothing more than that. I had been wandering for a good ten minutes and it was time I went back to reception and met with Ronald. I went via the car once more to dump my disguise in the boot.

  The reception was plush, they had spent some money on it and it stood out as an oddity against all the dirty industrial landscape around it. The whole front was glass panels from the double-height roof to the floor. The doors opened automatically as I approached them with a swishing sound. Then closed behind me as I walked over an enormous m
at emblazoned with the legend, "Welcome to Barker Mill. The Home of Steel". I continued onto a marble floor where my footsteps echoed across the room in the otherwise silent space. I could see the two young ladies on reception talking, but their voices did not carry at all.

  I was greeted professionally by a pretty, blond lady. I was expected, and Mr. Drake would be back shortly. He had been waiting but had been called away to tend to something. Could I please fill in the visitors' book while I wait for him and take a seat on the right? I could help myself to tea or coffee from the machine in the waiting area should I wish to.

  I waited only a minute or so before an older chap came into reception. He had thinning grey hair that was several weeks past needing a cut, large brushy eyebrows that had retained his original black hair colour and looked to be trying to join in the middle, and watery, steel-blue eyes that looked tired. He had on a poorly fitting pair of grey trousers with a belt cinched in to keep them up. The belt itself had lost the shiny black surface leather around the buckle from the many years of being done up and undone. On his feet were workers steel toe-capped boots which looked almost new, as did the luminous yellow jacket he wore. The jacket had Barker Steel written on the back. To finish off his outfit, he had a shirt and tie under the jacket. The tie had many stains, a couple of burn holes and my guess was that he wore the same one every day and the thought to buy a new one never occurred to him. He was perhaps seventy years old and walked with a spritely pace.

  I watched as he neared the desk where the two ladies sat. The one I had spoken with nodded in my direction at which he looked up and headed over to meet me.

  I stood up before he arrived and extended my hand as I moved towards him, ‘Ronald Drake?’

  ‘Yes sir, that be I.' He shook my hand with a firm grasp, which I liked.

  ‘Thank you for meeting with me at such short notice, Mr. Drake.'

  ‘That is not a problem at all, sir. Always happy to help. Besides Mrs. Barker asked in person and I likes to keep the Barkers happy.' He said all this with a smile, he seemed a jovial sort. ‘Shall we walk while we talk? I understand you wish to see some of the Phantom marks.'

  ‘Yes indeed. Can we start with the office in which Mr. Barker died?'

  ‘Of course. Right this way please, sir.’ Ronald pointed to a door leading out of the back of reception and led the way towards and then out of it. The door led outside again where it had started to drizzle lightly. The fine, mist-like rain would soak through one’s clothes if exposed for long enough but transitioning between buildings as we were it posed no concern. We followed a yellow safety walkway from the back of reception across a large yard and into another building. This building looked old, perhaps as old as the main Mill building and as we passed through the front door I realised this would have been the original reception. The desk was still there with several other fittings.

  We crossed through the room and went up a flight of stairs, which opened out onto a wide corridor with offices on both sides. Some of the offices had windows along one wall which allowed me to see in as we passed. I was following a pace behind Ronald and trying to take in as much as I could. It was late afternoon on a Thursday and there were plenty of people working on whatever it was they were doing. Was the Mill in trouble? Did it have a shaky future? I had too little information at this point to tell.

  ‘Here you are, sir. This was Mr. Barker's office. I suppose it still is actually, although it is a different Mr. Barker now.' Ronald opened the door, which was unlocked and stood to one side, so that I could go in first.

  ‘Where is the current Mr. Barker? Is he not in work today?' The office was empty. The computer screen had timed out and switched itself off and there was no coffee mug sat empty on a coaster nor any smell of coffee. He could be a tea man, but my guess was that no one had been in the office today.

  ‘Mr. Barker comes and goes without my permission, sir.'

  I nodded. Of course.

  ‘Is he away from the Mill often?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir.’ I looked at Ronald. He was very clearly not saying what he wanted to say. I suspected this might be because we were stood in the firm’s main office building and perhaps he was diplomatically not saying anything negative about the owner. Very wise. I would ask again later when we had moved elsewhere.

  I had no real interest in the office except for the door frame where I could now see the burnt handprint. I examined it closely. The door and the frame were oak if my knowledge of wood was enough to go by. On the left, as one entered, just lower than my eye height was a distinct four fingers, thumb and palm print burned into the wood of the frame. Staring at it now, running my fingers over it and giving it an experimental sniff, I was trying to work out how the effect had been achieved. My first thought was a viscous flammable gel could be moulded into the shape and set alight, it would burn briefly and leave the print. There was no smell of an accelerant that I believed would still be present though. I needed to give it further consideration. I took a few photographs.

  ‘Where to next please, Mr. Drake?' I asked, smiling at my guide.

  ‘This way, young sir.' He replied amiably, then turned and made his way back along the corridor to the stairs.

  Once outside, I decided to press him for some more information. ‘Ronald, I can tell that you are not a fan of the new owner. I am curious to hear why.' He did not speak but instead looked around as if checking to see if there were persons within earshot.

  ‘Not here.' he said and quickened his pace as we headed for the foundry building.

  We crossed between buildings and turned a corner to find ourselves at the opposite end of the foundry to the one I had gone in. Still following the yellow safety path, we entered via a small door in the side of the building. It was warmer at this end of the building and I was assailed with the smell of tortured metal as soon as we went inside. It was not a smell I knew, yet it was somehow still familiar as if I had encountered it before. I wracked my brain, insisting it deliver the information to me but all I could come up with was being in the machine shop at my school where we had heated metal up and whacked it with a hammer or drilled holes in it etcetera.

  There were lots of shadows from the machinery as the overhead lighting failed to create enough illumination to penetrate in some areas. We were walking along a corridor formed between some of this machinery now. Above us were walkways where the floor was a mesh panel of some kind. The mesh allowed light to come down, but from my perspective it allowed me to see up into the pipework above. I had no idea what any of the machinery was for or what it did or how long it might have been standing in its current position. From its aged appearance, I suspected that much of what I was seeing would have been the original installation. Ronald reached a staircase, also made of steel mesh, and began to climb. At roughly three metres above the shop floor, we stepped off the staircase and onto a walkway that took us across the expanse of the foundry. From my vantage point, I could see workers performing numerous activities, their little white hardhats moving around below me.

  I paused to watch the molten steel being poured. I was transfixed by the beauty and horror of it. I knew very little about steel, but I did know that it was one of the most recyclable substances on the planet, even when rusty it could be melted down, turned back into steel once more and used for whatever purpose one chose. The soft orange glow emanating from the furnace closest to me, cast gloriously playful shadows against the walls and would kill anyone who got too close.

  ‘Nearly there, sir.' said Ronald, who had noticed my motion had stalled and had come back for me. I nodded and followed him once more. We got to the end of the walkway and stepped into the darkness at the other side of the building. Ronald turned a corner, descended a short flight of concrete steps in a brick corridor and fetched up to a door set into the wall.

  He pointed to the wall next to the door. A blackened but faded handprint, just like the one in the frame of the owner’s office door could be seen. There was some graffiti near to it
which I tried to read but could make no sense of. However, I could read where someone had written the year 1954 just below the handprint.

  ‘Old Sam was here when this happened, Mr. Michaels.' Ronald told me.

  I took a picture of the handprint. ‘Old Sam?’

  ‘I’ll take you to see him now. Three lads were badly injured when a walkway came loose and fell to the ground.’ A horrifying thought. ‘The mesh panels had been tampered with. As they walked across the void the floor just came away beneath them. Old Sam was a young man at that time and was working right down by Furnace A that you were just looking at. He saw the whole thing.’

  Ronald led me around more corridors, down some more stairs and I was as thoroughly lost as I could have been by the time we arrived at a small door in what I thought was an outer wall. Ronald opened the door and I expected daylight from outside to stream in. Instead, we were met with the gloom of a small room.

  ‘Now we can talk, Mr. Michaels. Here, in Old Sam's boiler room we will not be disturbed.' We were clearly not in a boiler room, but I already had enough questions without adding to them with trivial ones. The room was a box about six metres square in which there was various junk stacked and a wall of lockers facing us about halfway across the room from where we stood. Ronald was already crossing the room. As he reached the lockers he vanished from view, a pace later I saw where he had gone.

  The lockers overlapped in the middle to create a small gap through which a person could go if they turned sideways. I slipped through and found myself in a den of sorts. There were comfy chairs arranged around a coffee table, another table against one wall on which a kettle and mugs sat and either side of it was a non-matching pair of free-standing lamps casting light and creating shadows. None of the chairs matched either. I guessed that all the furniture had been brought in by people who were throwing them out and that this was a worker's escape that the bosses didn't know about.