WELCOME to Haunted Wirral, a feature series written by world famous psychic researcher, Tom Slemen for the Globe.

In this latest tale, Tom explores the tale of the Hamilton Square doppelganger...

Give me a ghost, poltergeist, even a witch, any day – but X is the bane of many an investigator of the paranormal.

X is the variable I assign to those things that are truly unknown; entities that swan into our mundane sphere and vex us.

They are weird beings that are as inexplicable as the origin of the universe and they make a mockery of our common sense view of reality.

The following story is just one example of X among us.

There are many more in my files.

I’ve changed a few details for legal reasons.

In the late 1960s, Sir John Waldron, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, ordered a full investigation into the activities of self-proclaimed private detection agencies in London, because there had been so many complaints about them using illegal wiretaps on GPO telephones and all manner of bugging devices, as well as some private investigators resorting to violence to obtain information.

Silver Eye Investigations, run by Des Abbatt of Birkenhead and Terry Ryecroft of Liverpool (both aged 32), were duly probed, and so they abandoned the capital and moved to Birkenhead, where they set themselves up above a shop on Grange Road, and the Abbatt & Ryecroft Detective agency was formed.

A highly-efficient 50-year-old secretary named Hazel was recruited at £23 per week, an ad for the agency was placed in the local papers and cards were stuck in every shop window.

There were calls and visits from clients concerning lost pets, the tracing of old flames, and then in walked money one October afternoon in the form of a well-heeled client named Rose Latimer, the wife of prominent businessman Stephen Latimer.

Rose said that her husband was being blackmailed by the pimp of two prostitutes who claimed they’d been attacked and seriously assaulted by her husband.

Rose assured Des Abbatt that on the night of the first alleged attack on the streetwalker in a shop doorway on the corner of Chester Street and Duncan Street at 1.30am three days back, Stephen had been sound asleep in bed with her.

“And there was a second incident?” Des asked.

Rose fidgeted with a cigarette packet and nodded.

“This morning at three, but Stephen was with his mistress at her flat in Poulton.”

“A mistress?” Des remarked, and Rose said her husband had told her the truth after the latest allegation.

The second alleged attack had been on a prostitute on her patch in Hamilton Square.

“And you believe it wasn’t him?”

Des asked the lady, and she said that on this occasion the pimp had seen Stephen throttling the woman of the night, and he had run off after punching the pimp.

“The procurer recognised Stephen from his photograph in the newspapers. He’s always in the business pages.”

Des said it was really a matter for the police but Rose begged him to help her.

“Stephen might be unfaithful but he hasn’t got a violent bone in his body,” she said.

Des said he’d look into the matter and was paid a deposit.

Des and Terry confronted the pimp and told him that blackmail was a very serious offence and he told them that attempted rape was too and pulled a knife on the PIs.

In the meantime there were more attacks on prostitutes and women out late by a man who (according to many witnesses) looked and sounded identical to Stephen Latimer, and all of the attacks were near Hamilton Square.

To make matters worse, a thick fog invaded Wirral, and after dark, Des patrolled the areas of the attacks in his Jaguar and Terry roamed the surrounding areas in his mini, and they kept in contact with one another via walkie-talkies.

One morning at 3am, Terry was driving through Hamilton Square when he actually witnessed an assault on a prostitute, and he radioed Des, then went to the woman’s aid.

What he saw was terrifying.

The prostitute screamed and fainted, and the attacker – who wore a pin-striped suit - threw her to the ground.

Terry shouted to him – and when the assailant turned, Terry saw that he had no facial features at all.

The face was as smooth as an eggshell.

Seconds later, Des arrived in the square in his Jag and he tried to confront the attacker, but he not only saw that the culprit was faceless, he saw that face open up from its centre as five flaps of skin peeled back.

The thing made a hissing sound, then the face closed and the features of Stephen Latimer appeared.

The unearthly thing masquerading as a man ran off into the fog.

It was established that the real Stephen Latimer had been in bed with his wife at the time of the latest attack.

The pimp backed off when Des threatened he’d have him investigated for procuring and pandering, as well as attempted blackmail, but the whole case was never satisfactorily solved, and a year later, Stephen and Rose Latimer were sitting in the window seats of a restaurant in Liverpool when the weird ‘doppelganger’ of Stephen walked by, dressed even in the same clothes.

It turned to look at the stunned couple, then vanished into the crowds.

Over the forthcoming weeks Tom will tell you more tales of the mysterious and uncanny in the Globe.