The Phantom of Barker Mill Read online

  The Phantom of Barker Mill

  Blue Moon Investigations

  Book 2

  Steve Higgs

  Text Copyright © 2017 Steven J Higgs

  Publisher: Steve Higgs

  The right of Steve Higgs to be identified as author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved.

  The book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copywrite law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ‘The Phantom of Barker Mill’ is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  For Gemma.

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  Books by Steve Higgs

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  Blue Moon Investigations

  Paranormal Nonsense

  The Phantom of Barker Mill

  Zombie Granny – a Short Story

  The Klowns of Kent

  Dead Pirates of Cawsand

  The Harper Files

  Can I Kick a Ghost in the Nuts?

  In the Doodoo With Voodoo

  Coming soon

  The Witches of East Malling

  Table of Contents

  Barker Steel Mill. Friday, July 5th, 1954

  In My Bed. Thursday, 7th October 0503hrs

  My Office. Thursday, 7th October 1511hrs

  Mrs. Barker. Thursday, 7th October 1630hrs

  Barker Mill. Thursday, 7th October 1747hrs

  My House Thursday 7th October 2015hrs

  Starting the Investigation. Friday, 8th October 0713hrs

  Owen Larkin Interview. Friday, 8th October 0932hrs

  Chat with Poison. Friday, 8th October 1100hrs

  Barker Mill with Brett Barker. Friday, 8th October 1250hrs

  Research at Home. Friday, 8th October 1443hrs

  At the pub. Friday, 8th October 1926hrs

  My Parent's House. Saturday, 9th October 0951hrs

  Grabbing Life by the Balls (AKA growing a set). Saturday, 9th October 1257hrs

  My Sister. Saturday, 9th October 1415hrs

  A date with Hayley. Saturday, 9th October 1845hrs

  A Rude Awakening. Sunday, 10th October 0815hrs

  The Office. Sunday, 10th October 0903hrs

  Dartford A&E. Sunday, 10th October 1200hrs

  The Office. Sunday, 10th October 1537hrs

  Self-Flagellation. Monday, 11th October 0530hrs

  Barker Mill Again. Monday, 11th October 1012hrs

  Staking out Owen Larkin. Monday, 11th October 1402hrs

  Tea and Biscuits Monday, 11th October 1607hrs

  Trouble at Mill. Monday, 11th October 1950hrs

  A night in the Cells. Monday, October 11th 2115hrs

  Outside Dartford Police Station. Tuesday, 12th October 0647hrs

  Interviewing an Admin Assistant. Tuesday, 13th October 0900hrs

  Spectral Dog Case. Tuesday, 12th October 1100hrs

  The House of Mrs. Collins. Tuesday, October 12th 1215hrs

  The Killer Clue. Tuesday, October 12th 1617hrs

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

  Raid on Brett Barker. Wednesday, 13th October 1100hrs

  The Arrest. Wednesday, 13th October 1527 hrs

  Training Jane/James. Thursday, 14th October 0900hrs

  The Morning Star Public House. Thursday, 15th October 1517hrs

  Junkyard Dog Thursday 14th October 1937hrs

  The Bit of New Information Thursday October 14th 2157hrs

  Breakfast and Brett Barker Friday 15th October 0907hrs

  How many phantoms can you count? Friday 15th October 1057hrs

  Brett’s Truth Friday 15th October 1303hrs

  Benover Commercial Property. Friday, 15th October 1357hrs

  Rochester High Street Flower Shop. Friday, 15th October 1600hrs

  The Dirty Habit Public House. Friday, 15th October 1917 hrs

  All the Women Gone. Friday, 15th October 2306hrs

  Epilogue: The baby Shower. Saturday, 16th October 0900hrs

  Postscript: The Klown. Saturday, 16th October 1217hrs

  Extract from The Klowns of Kent

  Fennucci’s Italian Family Restaurant, Faversham. Monday October 24th 1900hrs

  Barker Steel Mill. Friday, July 5th, 1954

  Two weeks into the job and Samuel was beginning to feel that he fitted in. The initial jokes about being the new boy had died off by the end of the first week and he had learned his way around the place. Well, pretty much anyway. The steel mill was a warren of corridors and passageways. He had really caught it from Mr. Miller, the shift supervisor on his third day when they sent him for a tool and he had got lost for forty minutes. He had found the tool shack but had come back into the Mill by a different door and had got turned about. His absence had held up production and he had been fined a day's wages.

  Expecting and prepared for a degree of banter there had been relatively little of it as if the older workers just couldn't be bothered with him. His grandad had told him about some of the tricks they might play on him, like sending him for a long wait or asking him to find some sky hooks. None of that came to pass though. At least not yet anyway. He followed everyone to the local working men's club on the first Friday night after work. Mill employment meant automatic membership and not only was the beer cheap but there were lots of girls that went there. He had been hearing about it from his mate Barry for more than a year. At the pub, the tall tales started.

  The old fellas were doing their best to convince him that the Mill had a genuine phantom haunting it. Even Barry was playing along.

  ‘Oh yes, lad.’ said Roger. One of the middle-aged chaps from his shift. ‘You mark my words. You work there long enough, and you will see it for yourself.’

  Samuel had heard about the phantom plenty of times before. It was a local legend, but he put no credence to the tales he heard. It didn't seem like a good idea to voice his opinion though, so he drank his beer and smiled without comment while surreptitiously eyeing up Margaret Miller who was sat at the bar. Margaret was the shift manager's daughter and was one hot number. She was perched on a bar stool sipping a Babycham and being chatted up by half a dozen guys simultaneously. Samuel bet she never had to buy a drink.

  Just then she laughed at something Barry said, then excused herself and hopped off her stool. The rumour was that Barry was already having his way with her, but Barry had admitted that he hadn't got there yet. He clearly fancied his chances though. Samuel thought it might not be worth the risk as all the lads were under threat of sack by Mr. Miller should they so much as look at his daughter. Fortunately, Mr. Miller never mingled with the lowly workers,
so would not enter the working men's club and see what was going on.

  That was last Friday and now it was the end of the second week and Samuel was looking forward to another night in the bar. Barry had recently bought a Ford Cortina, so the big plan was to head up to London tomorrow night. Th car wasn't much, but none of the other lads had one and all the girls wanted to go to the big town for a night out. Samuel was only too happy to be included. Barry was going to invite Margaret tonight, so Samuel had to find a date as well.

  Distracted by his thoughts, he missed the accident entirely. It was noisy in the Mill so he didn't hear it either. It was only when Roger whacked him on the arm that he realised anything was amiss.

  ‘It's the bloody Phantom.' yelled Roger, an annoyingly pedantic man in his fifties who Samuel seemed to keep getting stuck with. ‘You stay here and manage the degassing. Otherwise, the whole casting will be scrap. Okay?'

  Samuel nodded, although he did not understand what was going on. Chaps were rushing past, all heading in the same direction. This seemed like a lot of effort just to play a trick on him. He was glad though that they were finally getting it over with.

  ‘Are you sure you know what to do?’ asked Roger. ‘Don’t mess this up.’

  ‘Come on.' Shouted another man on his way past. Samuel thought the man's name was Arthur but could not be certain. He had grabbed Roger in passing and Samuel was left alone. It was the first time he had been left unsupervised. He started to feel a bit nervous. He thought he knew what to do, but he had never been allowed to touch the controls before. He watched the pressure gauge on the degassing rig. The rig supplied a mix of soluble gasses to bubble through the steel. The purpose of the process was to purge any hydrogen. Beyond that, he didn't really understand what it did. Hydrogen in the steel was bad. Apparently, his education on the subject did not need to extend beyond that.

  He could hear a kerfuffle of some kind around the corner. He stayed at his station watching the pressure gauge but after a minute curiosity got the better of him, he took a couple of paces to see if he could peer around the corner. He expected to see them all hiding just out of sight, but they were not. Maybe they were not playing a joke on him after all. He glanced back at the gauge, it all seemed fine - the needle was firmly in the safe zone. He took another few paces and leaned around a steel column to see what was going on.

  An entire raised walkway had collapsed!

  One hundred feet away, in the middle of the mill, a steel walkway was hanging down from one end. Some of the floor plates from it had come loose and fallen to the floor thirty feet below. Men were all around the accident. Through a gap, he could see prone figures on the floor. Samuel wanted desperately to see what was happening but knew he should not leave his post. They might sack him if the cast ruined.

  Then he spotted movement away from everyone else. Off to the left, high up in the rafters where the walkway had fallen from, something had moved. He looked around, no one else had seen it. He stared up, squinting. There it was again. Something black moving in a shadowed background. Light from the foundry furnace? Was it just light playing tricks? Then he saw it again, silhouetted as it moved along a walkway. It was man size and proportions, only also somehow not.

  He shouted to the men clustered around the accident. If they heard him they did not react. He shouted again, this time the loudest bellow he could muster. Still nothing. Cursing the noise-absorbing machinery of the mill, he checked the gauge once more. The gauge seemed disinclined to do anything exciting. Right next to him was a cat ladder leading upwards. Should he go?

  He glanced up again just as the shadow passed overhead. He could not discern what it was, but something was moving. He grabbed a rung and started climbing.

  Thirty feet up he emerged onto a steel walkway. The floor was a grid of steel that you could see through all the way back down to the floor below. It unsettled his stomach. Ahead of him, the grating stretched out in both directions until it met the mill wall and became a solid floor. He had been up here, or somewhere that looked a lot like here, last week when he got lost. Near the mill wall, the shape passed under a lamp and he got a good look at it for the first time.

  It was a cloaked figure, head to foot in shabby black cloth, a cowl over its head. The shape made no noise on the steel floor. As Samuel watched, it turned the corner and vanished from view.

  He ran after it. Any thought of danger had simply not occurred to him. Curiosity demanded that he discover what he was looking at. He reached the corner and found ahead of him a short corridor with a door to the left. By the door, just fading to black was a burnt handprint in the brick. Of the figure, there was no sign.

  He touched the handprint and snatched his fingers away swearing. He stuck his fingers in his mouth to cool them. They were all blistered. Angry, he kicked the door open and went through.

  There, down a short flight of stairs, the cloaked figure was just about to go through another door.

  ‘Hey!’ Samuel shouted.

  The cloaked figure spun around instinctively and looked up. Light from above illuminated the inside of the hood for a brief second. Then it spun away and shot through the door. Samuel heard the door lock and knew there was no point in following.

  He had seen its face.

  His mind whirling, he moved on autopilot back along the corridor, along the steel walkway and back down the cat ladder, taking care not to grip the rungs with the ends of his burned fingers. He was still focused upon the face he had seen when he got to the bottom and was rudely yanked from the ladder.

  ‘Where the blazes have you been?’ roared Roger. ‘The whole bloody cast is ruined.’

  ‘What happened?' Samuel asked, dazed by all that had occurred.

  ‘What happened? I’ll tell you what bloody happened. You wandered off, the soluble gas pressure dropped and because you were not here to switch the rig over to the auxiliary tank the last three hours work was for nothing. You bloody idiot.’

  ‘No, I mean, what happened with the walkway? Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘It was the Phantom.' came a voice from behind him. Samuel turned. It was Arthur, or whatever his name was if it was not Arthur. ‘You mark my words, lad. This will be his work. I bet when we search there will be a fresh handprint burnt into the mill somewhere. He always leaves his mark.'

  ‘Was anyone hurt?’ Samuel repeated his question.

  ‘Aye, lad. Three lads were on the walkway when it collapsed. Colin Higgins, Denis Lawson, and Barry Dunford. They are all in pretty bad shape. Broken bones and the like. Lucky to be alive I reckon.'

  ‘Barry.' Samuel repeated as a murmur. He wandered away then. He needed to check something. Behind him, Roger was still shouting at him for ruining the cast and threatening hell when Mr. Miller found out.

  In My Bed. Thursday, 7th October 0503hrs

  I slowly opened my eyes as I came awake. It was early still and dark outside. I stayed where I was, warm and comfortable under the covers. I glanced across at the clock to see that it was 0503hrs. This was about the time I usually came awake. My name is Tempest Michaels. I used to be a soldier in the British Army, but I left when I felt it was time to do so and decided to set myself up as a private investigator. My first advert got misread by a copy girl at the local newspaper and I was presented to the world as a Paranormal Investigator. At the time, I was incensed but before I could do anything about it the enquiries started coming and they have not stopped yet. That was a little over six months ago now and life since has been interesting, to say the least.

  I receive at least one hundred emails every day, of which probably a dozen or more are genuinely interesting enquiries for my services. In pretty much every one of those cases, the person turning to me for help has come across a problem or a situation that they either cannot explain or can only find a supernatural explanation for. Mostly, in fact, they have found an explanation and have convinced themselves, or allowed someone else to convince them that they are being haunted or that their teenage daughter has been poss
essed or that their dentist is a ghoul practising dark magic with the teeth they extract. My clients approach me with utter conviction, knowing in their hearts that the supernatural is completely real and I charge them money to prove how daft they are. I have worried at times that I could be considered a con man or charlatan, but it is not I that has created the ruse, I am the one exposing it.

  The paranormal, supernatural world of spirits, fairies, werewolves and other wonderful and horrific creatures is pure fantasy. Knowing this means that I can approach each case looking for an explanation that makes more sense than my mother-in-law is a witch and has cursed me with impotence. The answer to that particular case was that your mother-in-law is not a witch, she is just ugly, and you have impotence because you drink too much and watch porn constantly. It took me less than two hours to investigate and solve that case and I charged him at an hourly rate because he seemed too stupid to take advantage of.

  The life of a paranormal investigator is not all fun and silly games though. I have encountered some people who could definitely be classed as dangerous, including, quite recently, a serial killer pretending to be a vampire. I have sustained injuries, had my life and the lives of family members and friends threatened and genuinely thought I was going to be killed by the serial killing vampire-wannabe just a few days ago. Good timing and luck had saved me in the end.

  As I lay in bed thinking idle thoughts, I sensed movement behind me on the other side of the bed. Someone was coming awake. I rolled to my left to look at the face on the pillow next to me. Deep chocolate brown eyes were looking back at me sleepily. There was real affection in those eyes.

  ‘Good morning.’ I said, stifling a yawn as I did so.

  In return, the face leaned forward a little and licked me on the nose.

  I scratched my head and yawned. The face belonged to Dozer, one of my miniature Dachshunds. His brother Bull would be somewhere close by. The pair of them usually climbed into the bed uninvited at night. In the summer, when it is warm they will sleep on top of the duvet, but in the winter, they tunnel under the covers. Is it hygienic that I allow two dogs to share my bed? Probably not, but I find it comforting and no one else has been kind enough to share it since I moved into the house, so it seemed the practice was unlikely to cause offence. I rolled out of bed and sat on the edge for a moment while I scratched my head again and argued with the lazy version of myself who thought going back to sleep was a great idea. Forcing myself, somewhat reluctantly, to get moving, I found my gym clothes and bag, left the dogs where they were and headed for a workout.