Tom Slemen's Haunted Wirral: A tale of a restless spirit

In this week's tale, a restless ghost.

I'VE had to change a few names in the following story for reasons of confidentiality.

The strange incident took place during a gloriously hot summer in the 1970s in the vicinity of the Devon Doorway restaurant and pub on Telegraph Road, Heswall.

PC Glynn Jones, aged 32, was on his beat, which took in Telegraph Road, Barnston Road, Acre Lane, Brimstage Road, then back on to Telegraph Road. 

On this infernally hot day at noon, PC Jones was passing the Devon Doorway when he heard a voice to his right shouting, 'Officer! I’d like to report a crime!'

PC Jones halted and looked to his right and saw his old schoolfriend Peter Groves.

Peter obviously hadn't recognised his old mate, and PC Jones smiled, his face in darkness, cloaked by the noon shadow of his helmet’s pointed brim.

He crossed the road to see what crime old Grovesy wanted to report.

'Officer, I want to report a bigamist!' Groves said, excitedly, and shot a puzzled look at the policeman when he said: 'Hiya Grovesy – it’s me, Jonesy.'

Peter Groves thinned his eyes; ‘Glynn Jones?’

‘Yeah, the very same one,’ said the policeman, ‘now what’s this crime you’d like to report?’

‘I heard you’d gone into the police,’ said Groves, and then he indicated the Devon Doorway behind him with his thumb and said, ‘Anyway, I – I'd like to report a bigamist – she’s in there, having her wedding reception – and she’s already married to me!'

There was a pause, and then PC Jones said, 'Your wife has married again and you’re not divorced or anything?'

Groves nodded. 'She left me about two years ago – just up and went. I came home one evening and she’d gone – the house was empty, and I never heard from her again.

'We used to go to this place – the Devon Doorway – and the Clegg Arms; anyway I saw her get out a limo before with some red-haired chap and she’s in there now with him. Bigamy is a serious offence, isn’t it?'

'Is your missus Gale Garmondsy?’ PC Jones queried, recalling the girl Groves had been in love with since he was fifteen.

‘Yeah,’ said Groves, ‘can she be sent down for this?’

‘Bigamy is an arrestable offence;’ said PC Jones with a graveness in his voice, ‘she could get around six months.’

‘I’ll go in with you and watch her squirm,’ said Groves with a twisted smirk.

PC Jones looked at the pink balloons swaying in the summer breeze over the pub entrance.

He walked in there and saw that the guests of the wedding reception were having a ball of a time, but the noisy hubbub died somewhat when the guests noticed the policeman’s presence.

He walked up to Gale and her ‘new’ husband Richard and saw Gale’s smile evaporate as she sat at the head of a large table with a glass of champagne in her hand.

‘Are you Gale Groves?’ PC Jones asked, and Gale shook her head and replied, ‘I used to be – now I’m Gale Hawkins – why? What’s wrong?’

‘Your husband tells me you left him two years ago and that you did not divorce – is this true?’ asked PC Jones, and now you could hear a pin drop in the pub.

Gale’s husband stood up and asked, ‘Is this some [expletive deleted] joke? Are you even a real copper?’

‘Let the lady answer the question,’ said PC Jones, and Gale said, ‘I didn’t have to divorce my former husband – he died!’

‘Liar!’ roared Peter Groves, his fists clenched in anger.

‘Do I look dead?’ Groves asked PC Jones, and Gale’s husband poked the policeman’s chest with his index finger and said, ‘Your superiors will be hearing about this! I’m going to report you!’

PC Jones ignored the threat and said to Gale, ‘I tell you what - your husband looks remarkably well for someone who’s dead.’

In the hush that followed this assertion by the officer of the law, Peter Groves said, ‘Arrest her Jonesy! She’s making a laughing stock of you.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Gale asked the policeman.

‘Him – ‘ PC Jones tilted his helmeted head sideways to Groves, ‘your husband.’

‘Where?’ Gale asked, and Richard gripped her hand as if to steady her, because she looked shocked.

At this point, PC Jones noticed that Peter Groves had no reflection in the pub mirror – which was of course, impossible – unless...

‘I think we better call the police and have this lunatic arrested,’ said Richard, and he asked the barman if he could use the telephone.

To Groves, a confused PC Jones said, ‘Why have you got no reflection in the mirror?’ And Groves ignored the question and said, ‘Will you just arrest my wife for bigamy? Please do your duty!’

The policeman scanned the faces of the guests, and he asked, ‘Can you see this man here?’ and pointed to Peter Groves.

Puzzled faces looked at the space the policeman was pointing too, and they saw nothing there. Some of the heads of the guests shook, and some muttered, ‘No,’ and ‘There’s no one there.’

PC Jones confronted Groves and said, ‘Are you a ghost?’

Groves turned away and walked towards the door of the Devon Doorway, and slowly vanished into thin air.

PC Jones heard Richard reporting him on the telephone, and he looked at Gale and said, ‘I’m sorry – I apologise – this is very bizarre.’

‘I’ll say so,’ a guest in his seventies said to the policeman with a look of disgust, ‘have you been drinking?’

‘No,’ said PC Jones, lost for words. He walked out of the pub to the sounds of sniggering and he heard someone say, ‘He must be on drugs.’

PC Jones had some explaining to do that afternoon when he met his superiors at the police station, and they could tell something truly supernatural had taken place, as Jones was a dependable, stable copper who was certainly not prone to imagining ghosts.

A month later, PC Jones was put on another beat, and one evening as he neared the house on Boundary Lane where Gale and Richard Hawkins now lived, he saw the ghost of Peter Groves, peering through the window at the couple as they sat watching television. ‘Grovesy,’ said the policeman softly, ‘stop that – it’s time to move on.’

And the ghost turned to face him, then slowly faded away.

• All of Tom Slemen’s books and audiobooks are available from Amazon.