The Towpath to Perdition

Lochlan Lamond looked out across the crowd of ghosts and smiled that well-known smile. A good turnout, and his talk had gone down really well. He’d have to thank Gus later for organising the event so successfully, if he remembered. Lochlan himself was only recently dead and still learning the ins and outs of the afterlife, but Gus was an old hand, and knew how to use Midnightish to create the kind of buzz that would generate such a large and eager audience.

To be honest, it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t remember to thank Gus. For Gus, simply being allowed in close orbit of someone as famous as Lochlan Lamond was reward enough in itself. Lochlan had met enough people like Gus when he was still alive – celebrity chasers who’d take on jobs where they could rub shoulders with stars so that they could claim, “Oh, yes – we’re actually close friends.” Lochlan didn’t mind Gus pretending that was the case; he’d just never do the same in return.

The ghostly gathering was taking place in the atrium of a shopping centre in Staines (apparently now officially called “Staines-upon-Thames”, which Lochlan thought was a textbook example of polishing a turd). It had to be somewhere like this, Gus had explained to Lochlan; empty when the shops were closed but with enough ambient lighting switched on so that he wasn’t trying to give his talk in the dark. Only free spirits could attend, of course. Tethered ghosts would sadly be denied the thrilling experience of hearing Lochlan Lamond talk about himself for an hour, because he certainly wasn’t doing home visits.

But Lochlan Lamond really did love talking about himself. In life people actually paid him five-figure sums to do it. There was no money in the afterlife, but he soon found he still wanted to do it. For the admiration. For the love. And ghosts really were a receptive audience. They had so little else to do.

So he’d been regaling the crowd with anecdotes from his life in the spotlight: from campaigner, to news pundit, to chat-show regular, to reality presenter to actor and occasional singer (with a lot of studio-production help to keep him in tune, but he never mentioned that). He knew he was lucky. His square-jawed good looks, winning smile, urbane manner and purring Scottish brogue meant he was made for TV. Viewers loved him as much as the camera did, and the fact he that was always associated with the road safety campaign that first put him in front of the cameras gave him that extra layer of authenticity – “One of the genuine good guys of TV,” as The Mirror had once described him (that quote made the back cover of his ghost-written autobiography).

It all started by accident – literally. Before fame he was a mere estate-agent with a passion for triathlons at the weekends. No great ambitions, other than maybe a few medals at amateur level, a big house and a collection of cars his mates would be jealous of.

Then one night he was cycling along the canal when he crashed head-first into another cyclist on an old stone bridge. In a freak accident, the other guy went over his handlebars, cracked his head on the parapet of the bridge and fell into the canal below. He was unconscious as he hit the water and dead by the time Lochlan had managed to clamber down to check on him.

Eventually, the coroner recorded the incident as a death by misadventure, as the guy hadn’t been using lights on his bike and wasn’t wearing any hi-vis clothing. There was no way Lochlan could have seen him in the darkness, the coroner concluded. Lochlan, who’d spent weeks convinced he’d be sent to prison for manslaughter, felt like a weight had lifted from his shoulders. But the trauma left him with a determination to make something good out of the situation.

So he created the “Bright Cyclists” campaign, encouraging cyclists to make sure they could be easily seen, not just at night but in any conditions. Pretty soon he was being interviewed by local papers, local radio and local TV. That quickly graduated to national papers, national radio and national TV. Then a guest-presenting spot on Crimewatch. Then it just snowballed.

Lochlan was delighted to learn that his fame had spread beyond grave, especially as he died way too soon (while he’d been awarded an MBE, his early demise had scuppered his chances of a knighthood). Forty-nine was no age, but there wasn’t much he could have done about that Alpine avalanche. And while he would have preferred spending his afterlife in one of his Armani suits, the ski-jacket look was kinda James Bond, so he was fine with that. “Thank God I wasn’t wearing ski goggles at the time,” had earned him a big laugh in the talk earlier. It could have been worse. There was someone in the crowd stuck in a hazmat suit.

“So,” said Lochlan, addressing his audience, “that’s all I had prepared for tonight, but if anybody has any questions…?”

A few hands immediately shot up. One skeletal arm belonged to a gaunt guy in road-cycling gear standing towards the back of the crowd. Ah, thought Lochlan, he must be a fan from my early campaigning days. “Yes – the gentleman in the Lycra with the helmet?”

“I was just wondering if you recognised me?” the skinny man responded.

Lochlan peered at him. “I don’t know. Have we met?”

“Too right we have,” said the man in a terse tone that Lochlan didn’t like at all. “I’m the cyclist you killed.”

For a moment, Lochlan froze. A moment of panic, of disorientation, of dread. But years of live TV had honed Lochlan Lamond into someone adept at thinking on his feet. The moment passed. Only a few of the assembled ghosts would have noticed a tiny twitch in his features before he near-imperceptibly course-corrected. He knew how to style this out.

“Oh my word,” he gasped, placing crossed hands on his chest, and affecting an expression of pure rapture. “Alan Cross? Is that actually, really you? I never thought I’d be given this opportunity. Come up here. Come up here!”

Lochlan was pleased to see that the cyclist looked taken aback. He’d not been expecting a reaction like that and Lochlan had put him on the back foot. But the guy soon recovered and started walking through the crowd towards the makeshift stage area. His face was now impassive.

Was it Cross? Yes, Lochlan could see that it was, now. Not that he recalled his face from the actual night of the crash – that was all a blur and it had been very dark – but rather from the photos that various newspapers and local TV news bulletins had used in the reporting of it.

When Cross emerged from the crowd he came to a stop a few feet from Lochlan, who mimed deferential applause. Some of the ghosts in the crowd whooped, though they couldn’t have known why they were whooping. Lochlan’s actions just seemed to suggest whooping was the required reaction.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lochlan began, in sombre tones. “I am humbled… truly, truly humbled to finally be able to apologise in person to the man I accidentally killed on the night that changed my life.”

More whooping. Cross, annoyingly, showed no emotion at all.

“If it’s any consolation, Alan, your death led to a cycling safety campaign that has saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives in the years since.”

More whooping. Still nothing from Cross.

“You are a hero. A legend. You can be so proud.”

That got a flash of emotion. Not a good one.

“Do you really believe the shit that comes out of your mouth?” spat Cross.

Gasps from the crowd. Then booing. Cross span round to face them.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I being nasty and unkind to Mr Popular TV Personality here?” he sneered. “I’d have thought you’d have some sympathy for the guy he knocked off a bridge and drowned.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” shouted someone in the crowd. “You should’ve used lights.”

“Yeah, I should have, shouldn’t I?” said Cross with more than a hint of sarcasm. “And maybe a hi-vis jacket too, yeah?”

Lochlan began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” shouted someone else from the crowd.

“You mean, like the one I’m wearing now?”

An awkward hush fell over the crowd. Lochlan gulped. Yes, Cross was wearing a hi-vis jacket.

“Because – correct me if I’m wrong,” continued Cross, “but don’t ghosts wear exactly what they were wearing when they died?”

Oooohs and aaaahs from the crowd. Damn it, thought Lochlan, they’ve worked it out. He began to edge off the stage.

“So if I was actually wearing hi-vis, maybe – hey, I dunno – just maybe I was using lights as well? And maybe – let’s speculate here – somebody who wasn’t using lights or hi-vis nicked them off a dead man to make it look like it wasn’t ALL HIS FAULT!”

The crowd was jeering loudly now, and Lochlan made a hasty retreat through River Island. Even though he wasn’t clear on how Midnightish worked, he got the feeling this news was going to spread fast. 

He’d just been cancelled in the afterlife.

© Dave Golder 2025

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