Bill Nicolaisen | Letters to Ambrose Merton # 13, 1998

A businessman was driving home to Scotland after a two-day trip down south, when, in the darkness, he saw a small figure walking along the hard shoulder. There was something odd about the way they were walking, he says, and stopped to see if they needed help. The figure, a young woman, never said a word and looked as if she was in shock, and he assumed she had been in an accident so insisted he take her to the nearest police station or hospital. She wordlessly got in the back of the car and he drove off. A few minutes later, when he glanced in the rear view mirror, she was gone. Shaken he went straight to the police, who, when he gave details, reacted oddly, quizzing him endlessly. It turns out he was the fourth driver to report exactly the same story involving te same woman and the same place, over a period of a year. More horrifying still, the site they all reported picking her up was the exact spot of a fatal crash a year ago, when a young woman passenger was thrown clear of the wreck and found dead some distance along the hard shoulder. She matched the description of the phantom hiker.

“Austin Healey’s diary”, The Scotsman, 29 November 1997,