Ring tones that go bump in the night

My friend Murgatroyd rose from his chair, chucked another disc on the CD player, then settled back again with a sigh. "Tell me, old chap," he said, "do you believe in ghosts?"

"I have no time for all that flapdoodle," I replied.

Murgatroyd chewed thoughtfully on his Hobnob. "My view exactly until a week ago," he said, "Then there were some extraordinary occurrences which I shall now relate to you.

"It was late on Tuesday night. I was sleeping fitfully as I had been watching Film 2003 with Jonathan Ross and it had unsettled me. Suddenly, I heard the eerie sound of a mobile phone ring tone. I searched the house, but could find nothing."

"Extraordinary indeed," I exclaimed.

"Then the fax machine started up. It seemed to be delivering some macabre message about cheap flights."

"Somebody - or some thing - was trying to communicate with you," I suggested.

"The next day I spoke to the old man in the village who collects the cash from the pub fruit machine. He told me a grisly tale of a young woman who was staying in this very house some years ago. It seems this is known locally as the Cursed House because it never gets a decent mobile phone signal."

I felt a shudder of unease run through me and discovered I had left my faithful Ericsson on vibrate.

"One night, she could not get a signal on her Nokia, so she went to the graveyard, which is the best spot for phoning..." Murgatroyd pushed his half-eaten Hobnob aside. "She was never seen again."

Apparently someone spoke of seeing a ghostly white minicab in the vicinity. That same minicab sometimes reappears on moonlit nights.

"Pull yourself together, man," I said gruffly. "I'll get us a Budweiser."

In the kitchen I was aghast to hear tapping on the window. By the spooky light from the fridge I could make out a white face outside. I have to confess my heart was in my mouth as I went to the back door. It was the pizza delivery man with our order.

"Just a minute," I said. "These are two Margheritas. We ordered a Four Seasons and a Neapolitan." The pizza man gave a blood-chilling cry, ran to his motorbike and drove off as if the hounds of hell were after him.

Murgatroyd explained that this was the work of the Italian poltergeist. "He was once fined for leaving his Fiat Uno outside in the controlled parking zone. Ever since then, his unhappy spirit roams the neighbourhood seeking revenge by muddling pizza orders."

"Uncanny," I breathed. I could feel the beads of sweat on my forehead beneath my baseball cap.

That night I hardly slept, listening to the ominous ticking of the central heating pipes and thinking of Murgatroyd's tales. I thought of the Lady in Laura Ashley who had been seen several times outside the utility room. They said she once had an unhappy shopping experience and now she is doomed to wander, searching for the receipt so she can exchange the goods.

I could hear the awful squeak of trainers walking slowly across the laminated flooring. This would be the Tragic Architect. He seemed to float through the wall he had built to make an extra downstairs bathroom. The story was that something unspeakable had happened in the loft conversion.

Suddenly I heard a phone ring and realised it was mine. I rushed downstairs and along the hall, then I felt myself falling, falling, falling...

When I awoke in hospital, Murgatroyd was at my bedside. "You tripped on a pumpkin and fell down the cellar steps," he told me.

"How did the pumpkin get there?"

"It was left by the ghost of the Spurned Organic Gardener. He was in love with the Woman with the Nokia, but she left him for another at the farmers' market."