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 mystery of the Oxton witch...

For legal reasons I’ve changed a few names and minor details in the following story but the rest, to the best of my knowledge, actually took place.

In March 1995, a banker in his 40s named Alistair Telford returned from work, arriving at his detached five-bedroom house on Village Road, Oxton at 6.30pm.

His 39-year-old wife Angela had made Alistair spaghetti con salse di vongole from a recipe in a book her mother had given her years ago: The Galloping Gourmet Cookbook by the television chef Graham Kerr.

Angela placed the dish down on the dining room table as Alistair dialled his financier friend Dominic on the landline, then clicked his fingers at his wife and made a drinking gesture with an invisible glass between his fingers and thumb.

She rushed to the wine rack in the kitchen and uncorked a bottle.

She poured a glass and told him the spaghetti was going cold as he talked.

“Yes, Thorn EMI’s buying Dillons, and what do you think about the latest on the Barings fiasco? Well, it appears that...”Alistair was saying when Angela happened to mention that the food was going cold.

Alastair exploded into a rage and told Dominic he’d call him later.

He sat at the table and tried the dish, then smirked.

“What do you think?” Angela asked, sitting opposite.

“So-so,” he said, then grimaced as he sipped the wine.

Angela looked sad at his reaction, and he gave an insincere smile and said: “You’ve made better meals; I’m just being honest. I’d never lie to you.”

“Took me hours making that,’ she said in a broken voice.

“Oh yes, Angela,”Alastair said, pointing his fork at the ceiling, “I’ve got to go and see Rex North later, and I might stay over if business goes on a bit, is that all right?”

“Again?” she asked with a resigned look.

“Is he the fella who lives in West Kirby?”

Alastair nodded.

“That’s him yes – close friend of Eddie George – and a very influential real estate investor. Wants to run a huge business idea by me.”

“Who’s Eddie George? A footballer?” asked Angela.

“The Governor of the Bank of England no less,” he bragged and gave a smug grin.

And so at 7.45pm, Alastair left in his Range Rover, but unknown to Angela, he did not head for Rex North’s West Kirby residence; instead he set off to the Meols flat of an 18-year-old cashier named Tammy.

He’d been seeing her now for just over a month, twice a week.

Angela knew something was going on but she wanted to trust her husband of 10 years.

She sat on the sofa, drank a little wine, then dozed off as she watched Gardener’s World on BBC Two.

Angela had a very strange dream.

A woman with white hair, a gaunt pallid face, dressed in a long black robe, stood in front of the TV.

In a quivering voice the eerie woman said: “Your husband is having an affair with a girl half his age!

“He’s no good for you, and he is evil, so I will get rid of him!”

“He’s not!” protested Angela, “Don’t do that!”

The telephone rang, awakening Angela.

It was Alastair.

He was lying in bed with Tammy as he spoke to his wife, and Tammy was giggling under the duvet.

“Everything all right Angela? Just checking,” said the duplicitous banker.

Angela said she was OK, and Alastair said he’d go straight to the bank from Rex North’s in the morning, then hung up.

That night at 10pm, the boyfriend of Tammy, a security guard named Adam, was on duty at a building in New Brighton, when he received a telephone call from an old woman who refused to give her name.

She told him that Tammy was in bed with the manager of the bank she worked at, and she supplied all sorts of personal details which convinced Adam she was telling the truth.

He left his post and arrived at the flat in Meols at 11pm. Tammy refused to let him in the flat and Adam kicked the door in.

He threatened Alastair with violence. The banker fled and drove off, heading for home.

As he came down Prenton’s Wellington Road, a woman with long white hair and a ghastly emaciated face appeared out of thin air in the middle of the road with her arms reaching out towards the banker.

She wore a black gown of some sort, and Alastair heard her let out a piercing scream before the Range Rover hit her.

He tried to avoid her and the car spun out of control and crashed.

Alastair had minor injuries, and when he got home and told Angela what had happened, she told him how she had seen the same woman in a dream.

Alastair became afflicted by a mysterious illness, and kept telling his wife an old witch was stalking him. He admitted he’d had numerous affairs over the years and Angela divorced him.

Angela believed that the ‘witch’ had been the ghost of a woman who had been wronged by a man once, and she thanked her for unmasking her cheating husband.

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