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

In this latest story, Tom tells the ghostly tale of Hamilton Square's headless woman...

For reasons of legality and confidentiality I have had to change a few names in this strange story.

A fortnight before the Christmas of 1971, Anne, the 45-year-old wife of Dr Geoff Cuthbert, aged 49, went to stay with her newly widowed sister Fiona in Kilmarnock for a week.

Anne had asked Fiona to come and stay with her and Geoff at their Prenton home but her sister wished to remain with her six children.

Now, while Anne was away comforting her sister, Dr Cuthbert became fixated with a very pretty 22-year-old patient of his named Lynda Wagstaff.

As ‘luck’ would have it, Lynda came to see Dr Cuthbert at his surgery the day after his wife had left for Scotland.

The young lady was experiencing palpitations and after the diaphragm of the stethoscope was placed on her chest during the examination, the eyes of the patient and doctor met and in that mysterious silent ocular language which can say much more than the spoken word, it was instantly obvious to Lynda that the doctor fancied her, and something in the glint of Lynda’s blue eyes told Geoff Cuthbert that she wanted him.

In that brief period when the tongueless two-way communication of lustful longings took place, the pendulum of time seemed to halt, and as soon as the doctor smiled he heard the rhythmic 'lub-dub' beating of Lynda’s heart falter.

"Are you getting enough sleep, Lynda?" Geoff asked, when Lynda leaned forward and kissed him.

She got to her feet and he enclosed her in his arms.

He led her to the examination table and was about to lay her across it when the secretary rapped on the door. "A moment!" Dr Cuthbert cried, and quickly took Lynda by her arm and guided her back to the chair.

"Yes?" the doctor enquired near the door.

The secretary entered and asked the doctor if he could see a Mrs Rumford next because her asthma was particularly bad today.

Geoff nodded and as soon as the secretary left he began to kiss Lynda, and then he told her that they should meet up tomorrow and then spend a few days at a hotel, preferably one far away from Wirral, perhaps in Wales.

He explained how his wife was away for a week, and that his six-year-old daughter Poppy was staying with his mother.

"Is this an affair?" Lynda asked, looking dazed. Geoff kissed her again and nodded.

"Can you meet me tomorrow at 4pm?" he asked the young lady, and she thought for a moment then said, "Yes, I can get away from the shop a bit early, but where do you want me to meet you?"

Dr Cuthbert told her to meet him in John Street, which is almost a narrow alleyway near Hamilton Square.

That evening at 6pm, the doctor’s mother called with his daughter Poppy.

The girl had wanted to see him, and Geoff coldly told the child she couldn’t stay with him tomorrow because he had to go to Wales on business.

His mother became a little suspicious when Geoff mentioned this, and thought something was going on. Poppy stayed with her father that night and wrote a short story in her writing pad entitled 'The Best People' and she listed all of the people, who in her eyes, meant so much to her, including her Nan, her art teacher, and so on.

That evening, Poppy startled her father with a very odd question: "Daddy, you’ll never leave mummy and me will you?"

"Of course not, Poppy, what made you think of that?" the girl’s father asked.

"I had a terrible dream you left mummy and me," Poppy replied.

On the following day at 3.50pm, snow began to fall from the gathering grey clouds, and Dr Cuthbert left his car near John Street and gingerly waited at a corner of Hamilton Square, keeping a lookout for Lynda.

Out the left corner of his eye something red caught his attention, and he turned to look at it – and saw a woman with no head.

The apparition wore a red PVC coat, mini skirt, fishnet stockings and pointed shoes, and it had a black leather handbag strung from a shoulder.

Struck with terror at the surreal and unsettling sight, the doctor remained rooted to the spot.

"Don’t do it to her!" said a sad sorrowful voice, and then the ghost stood there for a moment.

A snowflake which fell on the stump where a neck would be became tinged with red – and the form vanished. Geoff Cuthbert wandered back to his car, knowing the whole thing had been some warning omen not to proceed with the affair, and drove home.

He telephoned his mother and said the business meeting had been cancelled, and his mum brought over Poppy.

Geoff telephoned Lynda and said he couldn’t see her again, only as her doctor.

That night, Poppy came into her father’s bedroom and said the piano was playing by itself.

It had just turned midnight, and sure enough, the piano was playing. It was Erik Satie’s 'Gnossienne No.1' – a very sad piece of music Geoff recognised. He went downstairs and the piano stopped playing, and its lid was still down.

In the middle of the kitchen table, Poppy’s exercise book was open, and upon the last page of her story about the 'Best People' someone had written in neat handwriting: “The best people are the ones that stay.”

I discovered that in the 1960s a Birkenhead woman, deserted by her husband (who ran off with a young lady) put her head on a train track in Crewe, and was killed.

She was a pianist...

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