A Suburban Haunting?

By Keith Dunstable, Ghost Hunter.

Number 24 Highville Avenue looks, at first glance, like an ordinary three-bedroom semi. The only unusual feature is one of those giant plastic butterflies that were quite fashionable a few years back, high up on the gable end. Mrs Sneddon says she's been meaning to take it down for a while but she leant her ladders to her son-in-law, Alan, three months ago because he was having trouble with his Freeview and she hasn't seen them since. Anyway, other than the butterfly, an ordinary three-bed semi. Or is it?

The kitchen tells a quite different story. A ghost story? I'll let you be the judge of that, reader

On the wall between the magnet-covered fridge and a small cupboard where Mrs Sneddon keeps "tins and other non-perishables", at approximately head height, stained onto the rippled artex like the Shroud of Turin, is the terrifying image of a human face contorted in agony. Could this image have been seared into the wall following some heinous crime of yesteryear?

I asked Mrs Sneddon if she knows of any incidents in number 24 Highville Avenue's past, a violent crime, perhaps, or-dare I say it?-a murder. She says she doesn't know of any murders as such, but her and her husband have had some blazing rows in that particular room ("because it's so small and, with the oven on, it gets very hot and nerves get a bit frayed").

At that moment, Alan turns up (sans ladders), and Mrs Sneddon asks him what he makes of the strange, unnerving stain. He shrugs and says it looks like a blob. I try to draw his attention to the bulging eyes, the twisted mouth. He shrugs again, "Still looks like a bl-oh, I see what you mean. It does look a bit like a face." A face contorted in agony? I suggest. Alan steps back. He squints, then shakes his head. "It looks a bit like Bobby Davro. Sneezing."

Like the Marie Celeste and the Bermuda Triangle, this looks like one mystery that will remain unsolved. Is it the ghostly image of a murder victim? Is it a bizarre physical manifestation of one of Mr and Mrs Sneddon's blazing rows? Is it an ectoplasmic representation of Bobby Davro sneezing? Is Bobby Davro still alive? I'll have to Google him. Whatever the case, Alan's pretty certain a couple of coats of Thomson's Damp Seal will put paid to it.

Sleep well, dear reader.