The Ghoul of Christmas Past

everything she wanted without needing a car and without travelling more than a mile in total. Now, only a handful of the shops were left.
At the library, Michael left Mary to check in her books, and made an excuse to abandon her, ‘Call of nature, love. I shall not be long.’
He was already moving away when she turned her head to say, ‘I’ll wait in the car. Don’t be long, we bought frozen things.’
The library was due to close in just a few minutes but perhaps that was all he would need. The entrance to the research library was right next to the toilets which he genuinely needed to visit. Michael didn’t lie to his wife, it was yet another policy for a good marriage so far as he was concerned, but he had to be convenient with the truth sometimes, or choose when to reveal the bigger picture, as it were.
Hurrying along the short corridor to the research room, he spotted a librarian and went directly to her. Keeping his voice low in deference to his location, even though there were no other patrons present that he could see, he asked, ‘Can you assist me with a tiny bit of research?’
The lady stared at the clock, drawing Michael’s eyes there too. ‘We close in eight minutes.’ It was a response but not an answer in Michael’s opinion.
Having no intention of being put off, he started toward the bank of computers set out around a rectangular table in the middle of the room, calling over his shoulder, ‘Good thing this will only take four minutes then.’
The lady followed him with a disgruntled sigh, so full of Christmas spirit it was spilling over. ‘What is it you need help with?’ she asked wearily.
Maintaining his own chipper attitude, Michael replied, ‘I need to look something up on Companies House. You know, where they register all the businesses and list the directors and such.’ He was sitting in the driver’s seat in front of the computer, and ready to go. Or would have been but for one small barrier: he didn’t even know how to turn the computer on.
The woman cocked an eyebrow. ‘I’m not sure what it is you need help with. That is just a simple search. You do know the name of the company you wish to look at, yes?’
Admitting the truth, Michael jumped out of the chair again so the lady could replace him. ‘Yes, I want to see who the directors of the Dickens Museum are, but I don’t know how to perform a simple search as you call it. I wouldn’t even know where to start.’
The lady blew out a breath of frustration, checked the clock again, and climbed into the chair where she tapped the mouse to bring it to life. Seconds later, she leaned to one side so Michael could see the screen. Just as he requested, the lady had brought up the pages for the Dickens Greatest Works theme park on Companies House. He’d never looked at this website before so could not tell what he was looking at or if it was as it ought to be.
Nevertheless, there was information. ‘Can you print that?’ he asked, ‘I guess you want to get away so that might be the swiftest way to get rid of me.’ He tried a warm smile, found it bounced off her grim stare like snow melting on a hot roof, and asked, ‘Any chance I can get pictures of the people named?’
Two minutes later, shocked at how fast the printer operated, Michael Michaels left the library with a quick pace as staff gathered by the door waiting to lock them.
The carpark was almost, but not quite devoid of cars, though he suspected all the cars that were not his were those of the staff now heading for home and their families. He bade everyone a, ‘Merry Christmas,’ crossing the car park and waving to the ‘helpful’ staff as they replied in kind. Spotting the stern-faced lady blithely ignoring him as she hurried away, he tried to quickly devise a cool line to offer her. None came, and had it done so he would have only her back to talk to as she never even looked his way.
However, Mary did, and she had a look that suggested she was displeased to see a ream of paper in his hand. ‘What is that?’ she asked as he slid into the passenger seat.
He hadn’t had a chance to look at it properly, and hadn’t seen any of the pictures yet, but quickly shuffled the pages to find them now and his eyes jutted clean out of his head. ‘That’s him!’ he blurted.
‘Him who?’ Mary could see that Michael was trying to show her a picture, but she was driving and unwilling to look.
Staring at the page, he told her, ‘The man in the bank last week.’
Mary was getting annoyed with her husband’s unexplained comments. ‘What man?’
Michael answered his wife, ‘The one who was shouting,’ but his thoughts were already on something else as he tried to remember what the man had been shouting about. It had been something to do with destroying jobs or ruining livelihoods. He strained his brain, demanding it recall the man’s ranting with a little detail.
‘What man?’ Mary repeated, not used to being ignored.
‘The one in the bank,’ Michael attempted to explain. Perhaps Mary would remember more than him. She’d commented on his need to use profanity as he stormed from the meeting room he’d been in. ‘Don’t you remember? He slammed the doors and swore at the manager.’
They stopped at some lights, allowing him to hold the picture up again. ‘Oh, him,’ Mary took a glance and recognised the man instantly though he was smiling in this picture and very much hadn’t been when she last saw him. ‘He was most upset about not