THERE’LL ALWAYS BE GHOSTS
Nik Morton
I'm going to miss old Thomas Howard. He was one of the oldest ghosts in
this area, and though he talked a mite strange, he was personable enough, even
with his head under his arm. And smart. He looked the part, with his doublet
and hose, his Elizabethan ruff and jewelled rings. In pinstripes and white
shirt, I must appear very nondescript for a ghost. My whole life I've been
plain Charles Inchcape, a not particularly edifying fellow. Yet somehow we took
to each other straight off. Perhaps because we both haunted banks in our spare
time, of which we accrued plenty. His was, inevitably, the Queen's bank,
Coutts; mine's the Allied & Northern (they insist on the ampersand,
thinking it’s trendy).
It took a little adjustment.
One minute I was hurrying round to see Jimmy, the next I was hit by a car which
didn't stop.
I died on the way to hospital.
But, as Thomas said, at
least I kept my head.
Mr. Digby Wessex
had been the branch manager at Allied & Northern for about six years by the
time I joined as assistant manager. He had an abrupt manner, was going to fat
and looking for a coronary to happen. We never got on from the start. He was
sanctimonious and a hypocrite: do as I say, not as I do. He deplored unpunctuality
in his staff and upbraided anyone unfortunate enough to arrive late due to
inclement weather or unreliable public transport: he seemed to take great
pleasure in embarrassing his staff, particularly in front of customers. If any
mistake occurred, it became public knowledge.
Jane Mumford was a
charming blonde young teller, always there with a cheerful word for the
customers. I was in love with her, but being a balding old coot of fifty-two, I
would just have to dream. Yet she was pleasant to me, with a lovely genuine
smile and bright blue eyes. She was also the epitome of banking efficiency. Her
book-work was immaculate and precise.
When customers started
complaining about phantom withdrawals, Jane agreed to look into the matter. It
wasn't simply a case of withdrawals from the ATM, where the bank could
reasonably argue that the customer was mistaken. No, these debits were made by
cheque and though many accounts were affected, the cheque-numbers were all the
same sequence. It was as though a cheque-book had been printed with a different
account number for each cheque! A good scam for a printer, if he could manage
it, I suppose ...
Jane and I stayed late
a number of nights, working on this problem. Mr. Wessex vetoed any overtime and
dismissed the customers' claims as nonsense.
Then one afternoon
while Mr. Wessex
“popped out for lunch” - a three-hour session, usually - I searched through his
in-tray for a missing file. He constantly denied having any files that went
astray; they all turned up, eventually, often mysteriously, and I continued to
harbour the feeling that he had them.
On this occasion the
file was there all right, tucked inside a wallet folder. At the same moment I
noticed his PC terminal was still switched on and he was logged into a session.
The screen was in INQUIRY mode, so there was no risk of updating the computer
records. However, I was surprised to note extra User Help icons along the top
of the screen. Not unusual, though their names seemed odd: UPDQ and UPDS. The
screen was on a customer's bank record, and I did a double-take as I recognised
the cheque-number of the latest entry - it was in the same sequence as all
those phantom withdrawals!
Curious now, heart
hammering, I rummaged in Mr. Wessex's
drawers and in-tray, but could find nothing of any relevance. I logged out and
switched off the Personal Computer and tidied up.
Before leaving Mr. Wessex's office
I telephoned a friend in the Fraud Squad. Jimmy was most helpful: some PC
programs could update the database and there would be no audit-trail of the
action other than the revised record ... I asked if I could call on him next
evening.
The following day I advised Jane I was onto something but would rather
wait till after my meeting with Jimmy. For the time being I suggested she
suspend any further investigations. Afterwhich she could do a search for the
amounts deposited in customers accounts that tallied with the phantom amounts:
I did not believe Mr. Wessex
would use his real name or his own account.
On my way round to see
Jimmy, the car hit me but didn't stop.
Old Thomas sympathised, as
his death had been swift while mine had been quite protracted and agonizing.
Thomas showed me what happened. Ghosts have this knack of
pulling back the veil of the past. It makes timeless wandering bearable, if you
have any interest in history.
“’Tis a strange gap in time,
it seems, this haunting business,” observed Thomas feelingly.
When Mr. Wessex came
back into the office, he looked worried: he'd noticed the tidy desk, the PC
switched off and obviously recalled leaving with it switched on. He picked up
his phone and jabbed the Last Recall button and of course Jimmy answered.
Wessex
apologised, said it was a wrong number ... Then he swore and his face seemed to
go pale and cold, the eyes dark and fathomless. Even watching as a ghost, I was
startled by the sheer evil in his face. As my Gran used to say, “It's not the
dead you need to worry about.”
Thomas remarked sadly,
"The dark augury of your death was etched in those features.”
“But he'll get away with it, unless Jane ...” I stopped, fear for her
safety suddenly making me uneasy. I had no heart, no physical presence, so I
could no longer experience distress through the emotions, yet strangely I
sensed a phase-shift in my astral being, a disconcerting disquiet when I
realized the danger Jane may be in.
“Precisely,” said
Thomas with his usual percipience. “Welcome to the hell of our limbo, where you
can observe those you hold dear without being able to offer any solace or
guidance, where you must suffer all the torments of the shell you have departed
though multiplied a thousand-fold.”
“You sound very
bitter,” I said.
“I have reason to be,
for I was the subject of a trumped-up charge of treason. Simply because I would
not bend to the Queen's command.”
With a single blow of
the axe he was beheaded in 1572 near the Tower of London,
where he had been imprisoned: he was accused of plotting to wed Mary Queen of
Scots and then seize the crown from Elizabeth I.
“Yes,” he said again, “I
hold much bitterness.”
I’d awoken in my ghostly form about a week after my death. Lying on a
park-bench opposite the Allied & Northern bank, I accepted this strange
unreality with surprisingly little concern.
To my chagrin the funeral
was over, so I didn't even have the solace of hearing any eulogy: strange, they
only tend to write or say good things about you when you're dead - unless you
happen to be in show-business... “You may wish to journey back to the funeral
later,” suggested a voice, “to hear what was said about you.”
Despite being a ghost,
I found I was capable of being startled.
Strolling across - no,
floating above - the grass was a headless Elizabethan: he introduced himself,
“Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, at your service, sir.” He bowed,
which amused me, as his head stayed in the crook of his arm.
It was comforting to
know I could still be amused and it seemed that I was not destined to be alone
in this limbo. “The regrets and anger will visit upon you in a while, my
friend,” Thomas told me.
We soon became firm
friends. I enjoyed his dry sense of humor: “All the best banks have a ghost,
though it can become quite tedious in this credulous age.”
We watched as Jane stayed behind one evening and ran a small inquiry
program knocked together by a computer whiz, a nice young man.
“If she finds out
about Wessex
and he gets to know, he's not going to hesitate... Another hit-and-run...” I
tried concentrating, passing mental messages, STOP IT, DON'T GO ON, JANE, STOP!
She would pause, as if
listening to something imperceptible in the air, then shake her head and
continue with her investigations.
“This new world of
banking offers me new interests, young Charles,” said Thomas. “Despite having
no palpable form, I find I can affect the conduits which emanate from these
machines and thus disturb their esoteric messages.”
“A gremlin, you mean? You're
a gremlin in the system?”
Thomas shrugged his
headless shoulder. “If you say so. It has proved fun in the past, to discern
the bafflement of the machine users when my intervention has taken effect!” The
wily old buzzard, I thought.
“I've been called
worse,” he sallied back.
After much effort we could actually substitute separate characters
displayed on the terminal’s screen. “Now we can send her a message, warn her!”
“No,” said Thomas. “I
have a better idea.”
So we set to with a
will and after two days of extreme astral exertion we’d accomplished everything
that was necessary.
The Allied & Northern Head Office received a message on their
electronic mail system, on every terminal, which read:
MR. D WESSEX THE
BRANCH MANAGER OF A&N ALVERTOWN HAS BEEN SYPHONING OFF PHANTOM WITHDRAWALS
FROM HIS CUSTOMERS. SUGGEST YOU INVESTIGATE. JANE MUMFORD.
There followed full details
of the withdrawals and the bogus account they were syphoned into. Jane was
puzzled as she noted these same details in her own computer investigations.
A secret Head Office
entrapment program was installed in Mr. Wessex's branch which succeeded in
logging his next illegal withdrawal. It also traced the transaction to Wessex's bogus
account. He tried to protest his innocence, blaming Jane, but Jane's meticulous
records exonerated her.
A couple of days later Thomas was exorcised by his illustrious
descendants. As he faded from sight, he gently placed his head on his shoulders
and smiled. “At last, with my family's help, I can now let this bitterness go.”
Fortunately, I have met other ghosts
since Thomas left. I still miss him, but this non-life is interesting. I
attended Jane's wedding the other day. She married that computer whiz-kid and
they honeymooned on the bonus she was awarded for bringing Wessex to
justice.
Unlike Thomas, I’m not
bitter. Perhaps that will come as time goes by; he tarried a while, some four
hundred years. I wonder what life will be like in the next hundred years or so?
Perhaps theft will be obsolete, unlike ghosts. There'll always be ghosts.
***
Previously published in Portsmouth Post as ‘Phantom Withdrawals’,
2004.
Copyright Nik Morton 2014
***
If
you liked this story, you might like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat, which
features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own words’. He is also featured in the story
‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.
Spanish Eye, released by
Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback and as an e-book.
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