Page 7 of Unalive On Air

In 1990, Imogen purchased a run‑down hotel on the south-west coast of Cornwall in a little township named Helzephron. This apparently translates as Hell’s cliff. Not at all ominous, and I can probably take a stab at where her story ends.

Under Imogen’s management, the once struggling grand Victorian guest house was given a new lease of life and brought bang up to the twentieth century. A spa was built, a Michelin‑starred chef appointed, and The Paragon went on to win several hospitality awards. The actress visited often, staying on site, greeting guests like old friends and taking nightly walks with her dogs, until one blustery day in 1995 she simply vanished.

She never checked out of the premises, and never returned to her London home. A missing persons investigation was launched, but it went dormant after two years due to insufficient leads, and after seven, a declaration of presumed death was granted. She had no living spouse and no kids of her own, so her entire estate, including the townhouse in Chelsea and the Cornish mega-hotel was left to her cousins and their children, and that’s where it starts to get blurry.

Google has been less than forthcoming with the identities of Imogen’s relatives, and the census records haven’t been as helpful as I’d hoped they would.

The Paragon is still up and running, though its reputation has been somewhat tarnished over the years. The disappearance of the hotel’s famous owner seems to have opened the floodgates on negative press.

But Imogen’s mystery wasn’t the first, and since the mid-’80s, there have been no fewer than seven sudden, uninvestigated deaths and new missing persons cases. One newspaper had dubbed the hotel “a suicide hotspot” and had attributed all the tragedies to trend followers.

It seems like lazy reporting to me. Either that, or a cover up, but it’s concerning that it keeps happening there. The latest victim was thirty-six‑year‑old French Belgian Camille Ciel, who apparently died by suicide, yet the official death certificate cites a “broken neck” as the cause of death. Who takes their life by breaking their own neck? Is that even possible?

Something isn’t adding up, but I can’t seem to find any evidence tying the other mysteries to the hotel’s former owner.

The only name that seems to crop up time and time again in connection with Imogen Savona and The Paragon Hotel is Gerald Pickett. He runs what—if I’m reading this correctly—might be a paranormal exorcising company. The ExorSquad.

I won’t lie, it all sounds shady as fuck. There’s barely any publicly available info on the business. No Companies House entry, no tax records, and little to no social media presence. The postal address listed takes me to some sketchy London back alley, and ExorSquad’s website itself belongs in a museum. It’s wildly out of date. We’re talking cornea-smiting blocks of biro-blue text on textured white backgrounds, clip art, pointlessly animated pointers, and numerous error 404 broken links. There is one link, however, that works when I click it, and I’m not even sure the general public should have unpassworded access to it, but here we are.

It’s a list of all open ghost‑fighting “cases” within the company.

It’s long. Ridiculously long. And none of them seem to be in any order. There’s a number and a short description of each case.

Haunting 439: Ardruin Castle.

Haunting 362: Grimthorne Manor.

Haunting 434: Plot 47 (Bowen’s Farm).

Haunting 389: Gravely Stables.

Haunting 442: SoulCycle Spin Studio.

Haunting 500: The Last Resort B&B.

Haunting 412: Lynch Hostel.

It feels like I’m scrolling forever before the name jumps out at me.

Haunting 401: The Paragon Hotel.

Number of ghosts: At least six and a half.

Location: The Paragon Hotel, Cornwall.

History: Built in 1899 and opened its doors to guests in 1900, The Paragon is said to be Cornwall’s most haunted building and home to a long spate of mysterious deaths and disappearances, including famous local actress, Imogen Savona.

Wanted: Figure out what’s causing the deaths and stop it.

Status: Agent sent, progress halted, paused indefinitely.

Okay, what the fuck?

Not that I believe in this nonsense, but how can there be half a ghost? Six and a half ghosts. And which half are we talking about, the top or the bottom? Or perhaps the person had been split horizontally. Maybe it’s the spirit of whoever got roped into testing out Goldfinger’s laser cutter prototype.

Stop it, Gary.

It seems that the Paragon case has been listed on ExorSquad’s to-do list for over eighteen months yet has not been completed.