Who is Ikey from The Great Divorce and what is their importance?

Many of the characters choose to be left out of the holy bright procession because they cannot shed their earthly pain and vices. The narrator first encounters Ikey, the ghost with the bowler hat, on the bus. He represents greed, although he tries to disguise his greed with beneficence, claiming that if he manages to bring real objects to Hell, it will solve the social problems of people moving away from the city center when they dispute with their neighbors. The narrator encounters this ghost in heaven when he sees him trying, with great consequence, to take a golden apple back to the bus with him.