Descension

by Shani Struthers

  Now!

  Look, I…

  More movement caught her eye – oh no, not more spirits. What if like at the Shoreham pub, there was an entire gang? Almost too afraid to look, she had to force herself. It was indeed another spirit, but one she knew. Jed! You’ve got to help me.

  Jed didn’t even glance her way. He ran straight to the man and nudged him. The man was clearly surprised. Surprised and then delighted. His attention on the dog now rather than Ruby, he bent to touch Jed – wonder back on his face. Jed barked a couple of times, wagged his tail, truly delighted to see the man too it seemed, and then he started to back away, as if leading the man. To Ruby’s relief, the man followed, a sigh escaping her as she saw it. Jed, you’re a godsend! He’d given her a respite; time to claw back whatever she could from this meeting with Peter Gregory.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” she apologised, cursing her burning cheeks, “I thought I saw someone I knew; not Cash, not my boyfriend, an old friend.”

  “In Windsor?” Peter questioned, clearly not buying it.

  “I do have friends outside of Lewes,” Ruby mumbled, trying to brush the whole episode aside. Jed was drawing the spirit even further away. As soon as she was done with Peter she’d go and find them; speak to the man as she’d promised; help him. “Peter, I know it probably came as a shock, me getting in touch with you. And I realise that your relationship with my mother,” she’d carefully avoided the word affair, “was never meant to develop into anything long-lasting, but even so there was a consequence and it was me. I’ve always wondered about you, you know. You were this mysterious figure in my life that I knew next to nothing about. It’s wonderful to know at least something about you; to actually say I’ve met my dad. But here’s the thing, I don’t expect anything from you – truly. I realise how awkward this is – that it could upset the apple cart, with your family I mean, not so much mine. Jessica knows I’m meeting you, although my gran doesn’t, not yet. She’s a little frail right now so I’ve kept it quiet; she tends to worry, as grans do. You’ll get no recriminations from me about what happened with Mum. It’s all in the past. I’d just… I’d like to keep in touch a little bit, that’s all.”

  Again there was silence, Ruby bit at her lip as she gazed not at the man in front of her – analysing his mouth, his nose, the shape of his eyes and comparing them to her own – but at her half empty glass. Her hand encircling the tumbler, she had to remind herself to relax her grip in case it shattered.

  “I’ve told my children about you.”

  Ruby could hardly believe her ears.

  “You have? What about your wife?”

  “Laura? I’m a widower.”

  “Oh.” Briefly, words failed her. He hadn’t said so during their former correspondence. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you, me too.”

  “How did your children react?”

  “It’s fair to say they were surprised by the news. They knew nothing about you beforehand of course. But, on the whole, their reaction has been very… mature.”

  “I’m glad,” replied Ruby, although really she felt somewhat bemused that she was regarded as ‘news’ – this illegitimate offspring; this bastard child.

  “I’d like to keep in touch with you too, Ruby.” As he said it, her heart leapt. “Perhaps you could even come and visit my home at some point and have dinner. Bring that poor young man who’s still waiting outside, with you.”

  “Cash? He’d love to. He’ll do anything for food.”

  Peter smiled. “A man after my own heart then. We love cooking in our family.”

  “Do you? Wow! I’m rubbish at it.”

  “You can’t be good at everything.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do you think Cash would mind if we had another drink and a light bite of some description?”

  “He won’t mind at all, especially if I order him something too – not to eat with us, I don’t mean that, as I said, he’s working – but I can deliver it to the car at least.”

  “That sounds like a plan and maybe, over lunch, you can tell me about the latest case Psychic Surveys is working on?”

  She almost gasped. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Actually, I’d love to know.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Ruby went to give Cash his baguette, he asked her how it was going with Peter.

  “Good, thanks. But would you bloody believe it? There’s a grounded spirit in there and it got really awkward at one stage.” Quickly she explained about Jed and how he’d bounded in and saved the day. “Look, we won’t be long—”

  “Be as long as you like, Ruby, I’m as comfortable here as anywhere. What are you going to do about the spirit?”

  “I’ll check on him after Peter’s left. Oh and Cash, he wants to know more about what I do; I think he’s quite accepting of it.”

  “Brilliant, another turn up for the books, eh?”

  The second hour passed much easier than the first, especially with the spirit still waylaid. Ruby told Peter about the Brookbridge estate and the building that was due to be torn down, and that they were trying to find out the exact date from the developer. She rechristened Eclipse ‘Edward’ – fearing Peter’s attitude to such a fey name might be similar to Cash’s and would somehow belittle what they were trying to do. She also played down her experience inside the building, ensuring it came across as a serious problem, but not an outlandish one. The paranormal was real to her because she experienced its existence every day, but it wasn’t real to everyone, no matter how keen they were to hear about it. And this man, he might be her father – her father, Ruby still couldn’t get her head around it – but she didn’t know him yet, not really. Although she was working on it – they both were.

  “The Cromer Asylum,” Peter mused, after she’d finished speaking. “There used to be a secure unit there, for the criminally insane.”

  “Ash Hill? It’s still there.” Ruby took a sip of her drink, coke without the rum this time. “But it’s on the edge of the estate; pretty well hidden.”

  “Some pretty nasty people got sent there when I was in the Force. I didn’t have anything to do with the cases, but you’d hear about it; you heard quite a bit on the grapevine. Roughly speaking, the term criminally insane refers to someone who can’t understand the wrongfulness of his acts, or is unable to distinguish between right and wrong, due to a mental defect or disease. But a lot of people know how to play the system. They think a stay in a psychiatric unit will be a hell of a lot easier than a stay in prison; that they’ll get treated better, although that applies more to recent times than in the past, and actually it’s true to a certain extent; they do get treated better, they get their own room for a start. So they manipulate their defence, the defence allowing it because, hey, it’s no skin off their nose. But some of these perps knew exactly what they were doing at the time of the offence and if they were ever released, they’d do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s the thing – nowadays they do get out. When you’ve played the system once, it’s easy to play it again.”

  “But that’s the criminally insane,” Ruby responded, “as opposed to those that occupied the majority of the buildings; people who weren’t even actually insane, that were depressed or grief-stricken perhaps; that had fallen on hard times; some were just…” she thought again of Rebecca Nash, “misunderstood.”

  “Sure, I get what you’re saying and I agree. Have you ever been inside Ash Hill?”

  Ruby shook her head. “Have you?”

  “No. I wonder how many spirits are, as you say, grounded there – evil spirits as opposed to misunderstood.”

  “I…” She didn’t know. She also didn’t want to get into a debate about evil either – she had her beliefs and they were integral to her work. What others believed was up to them.

  He sensed her hesitancy. “Have I said something wrong?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Ruby, tell me, why are spirits grounded?”
>
  “Gosh, that’s a question. Where do I start? It’s for so many reasons. If their passing was violent or unexpected it could be shock, if they’ve hurt others it could be fear of retribution. It could be they can’t bear to leave a loved one behind, a child perhaps, or a partner. I could go on and on. In a nutshell, they haven’t accepted that they’re now in spirit form and they cling to all that’s human. But everyone has to let go at some stage and start the next leg of their journey. Some of them do let go, quite easily in fact, they just need a gentle nudge; others dig their heels in.”

  “In that old building, I assume it’s the latter.”

  “Unfortunately yes.”

  “Because they’re institutionalised.”

  “Exactly.”

  Peter’s expression was one of quiet contemplation. “Look,” he said, after a few moments, “if you don’t have any luck regarding a demolition date via this friend of yours, Edward, perhaps I can help. Use a bit of police influence.”

  “You’re not in the police anymore, though.”

  He raised an eyebrow as he smiled. “Love, once a copper, always a copper.”

  She smiled too. “Thanks, if we need to, that’d be great. I can let you know.”

  They’d finished lunch – beer-battered cod and chips, both of them with a taste for plenty of salt and vinegar – and promised to keep in touch, organising between them a date for her to go to his house near Oxford for either lunch or dinner.

  Accompanying Ruby to her Ford, Peter rapped on the window. Cash, who was no longer working but had nodded off, woke with something of a start. He wound down the window and Peter bent slightly to have a word with him.

  “She’s all yours, son. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Erm… yeah, thank you. And will I? Oh… good. I’ll look forward to it.”

  Peter turned towards Ruby. “Goodbye,” he said.

  “Goodbye.” There was an air of awkwardness between them until she decided to step forward and give him a hug. His grip was loose at first, but it soon tightened, one hand patting her back in a gesture that again Ruby found heart-warming. She had to fight against a sense of loss as they parted, reminding herself that this was a beginning, not an end. He took a step backwards, his gaze still on her, as if he too was reluctant to leave, and then finally he turned and walked away.

  As he drove off, both Ruby and Cash waved. When his car was no longer in sight, Ruby gestured towards the pub. “I’d better go and see what’s going on with Jed and that man. You coming?”

  Together they entered The Red Lion, Ruby casing the joint, even asking Cash to stand guard whilst she inspected The Gents. There was no sign of them.

  Returning to Cash’s side, she was at a loss. Where was he? Where was Jed?

  Heading back towards the car, she spotted Jed in the back seat.

  “Oh my God,” she said, hurrying towards him.

  On sight of her, Jed wiggled on the seat, his tail beating furiously and woofing every now and then in an excited manner.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Cash, aware that something was going on.

  “Saying? How would I know? I don’t speak dog.”

  “Well… tell me what he’s doing.”

  “He looks pretty happy, I know that much.”

  “So hang on, he lured this spirit away, you say, so that you could spend time with your dad uninterrupted?”

  “That’s right.”

  Cash shrugged. “Perhaps he lured him all the way into the light.”

  “The light?” Ruby looked at Jed in wonder. “Did you, boy?”

  Jed barked again – victoriously. She turned to Cash. “You know I think you’re right; he did exactly that!”

  * * *

  Ruby was on a high that evening, considering it a successful day and wanting nothing more than to celebrate with Cash over a takeaway and a bottle of wine. When an emergency call came in from Brookbridge, she could have cursed. Luckily, neither the takeaway had been ordered nor the bottle of wine purchased. She didn’t think she could send Jed in to do the honours in place of her, despite his sterling work at The Red Lion, and as it was getting on for seven o’ clock, it’d be unfair to call her other team members. Cash, however, seemed happy enough to accompany her to the house on Elm Drive, belonging to the Griffiths family. ‘If it’s more than we can cope with,’ Ruby said to him on the drive over, ‘we can always come back, but Mrs Griffiths sounded so desperate, I couldn’t leave her until morning. If we do nothing else but reassure her tonight, it’ll be worth it.’

  When Mrs Griffiths had rung, she’d said that a commotion had started suddenly in the kitchen downstairs – pans had begun rattling; mugs and plates had been crashing against each other on the draining board; the microwave had been switching itself on and off.

  “I know some of the houses on the estate have problems and I know the reason why,” she explained, “but nothing’s ever happened in my house before, although…” she’d paused for a moment. “The kitchen’s supposed to be where everyone gathers, isn’t it? Well, we don’t. None of us like it in there. I cook, do what I have to do, then we head for the living room and eat in there, in front of the telly.”

  So activity was increasing on the estate, it wasn’t just a coincidence. The pressure to find out that demolition date was mounting.

  When they arrived at Elm Drive, full darkness had descended. Not yet autumn, officially still summer, the evening nonetheless had a ‘smoky’ quality to it, reminding Ruby of bonfires and sunsets and all the good things that autumn brought. But what was happening at Brookbridge wasn’t a good thing – it was like a cursed piece of land, the tears of human misery still in full flow. It was so easy to forget the existence of the secure unit, hidden as it was by trees, encircled almost – although an alarm sometimes sounded when one of the patients tried to escape. According to the residents of Brookbridge, this was quite often, but Ruby had only heard it once before. When the residents spoke about it, it was all quite matter of fact, but to Ruby it felt like living under a shadow, or even more apt, with a threat of some kind.

  Entering the Griffiths’ house, she found there was indeed a sense of acute distress in the kitchen. Whilst Cash sat with the family of four in the living room – mum, dad and two children – listening to what they had to say about recent events and doing his utmost to soothe them – Ruby got on with the job in hand, an impossible job as it turned out. As in the Barkers’ house, the spirit was agitated but in hiding, finding it hard to let go after Cromer or to believe that peace of any kind was waiting. After an hour or so, Ruby called it a night. She joined Cash and the Griffiths family and advised them regarding holistic practices to keep the kitchen clean – psychically clean that is, with the use of crystals, oils and sage, plenty of sage, she said, suggesting they filled as many vessels as possible with the herb. She also asked them to enter the kitchen with love and compassion rather than fear and terror, and to try and project those feelings as strongly as possible. “I know it sounds odd, but that alone will have a huge impact. It’ll chip away at the fear the spirit is feeling.”

  Mrs Griffiths immediately protested that it was far from odd. “Do you know what, I think it’s bloody wonderful we’ve got someone like you that we can call on; that’ll you come out, no matter what the time is, and help us. I’m grateful for your advice, and believe me we’ll be following it to the letter. But… if things don’t improve, will you try again? There’s something wrong on this estate at the moment, I’m telling you, it’s just… nothing feels right; everything feels… wrong.”

  Mr Griffiths nodded his head in enthusiastic agreement with his wife, whereas the kids, both under ten just looked dazed and upset. “At least it’s okay in their bedrooms,” said Mrs Griffiths, noticing, “it’s only in the kitchen there’s a problem.”

  Their house was where the men’s wing had been, but whether it was the men’s, the women’s, or a mixed wing, the unhappiness was still simmering away.

  Assuring the Griffiths fami
ly that of course they’d return if things didn’t calm down, Ruby and Cash left the house and returned to her car. Although Ruby was tired from such an epic day, Cash wanted to stop briefly outside the empty remaining building, so she pulled up before it and turned off the engine. She thought they’d just sit there and look at it, but as Cash immediately got out of the car, she followed suit.

  “So how’d you get in?” Cash enquired.

  “We have to go round the back,” Ruby replied, her breathing a little shallower she noticed as she stared at the building, at its huge windows covered with boards, remembering how dark it was inside and the smell of it; the walls that had writhed. Cash started walking to where she’d indicated. “Cash, what are you doing?”

  “Having a look.”

  “What? No! Come back here.”

  He slowed his pace, but only by a fraction. “Is it really that bad in there?”

  Momentarily confused, she had to remind herself how much she’d played her experience down when telling him about it. It was time to come clean.

  “Yes, Cash, it really is that bad. If you’re thinking that we might go in there again tonight, just you and me, you’re wrong.”

  “You went in alone with Eclipse.”

  “Yeah, I did, to get an initial feel for the place.”

  “So why not go in with me?”

  She frowned. Was he being serious? “I’m sorry, Cash, there’s no way I’m going back in again, not unless I’ve got the rest of the team with me. I… can’t do it alone; it’s a massive task. The biggest I’ve ever faced, that’s for sure. I need their help.”

  “What about my help?”

  Her frown deepened. “Yes, of course your help, if you’re able to give it. And Eclipse’s too.”

  Cash raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Cash,” she asked, “have you got a problem with Eclipse?”

  “No.”

  “It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “Oh… nothing. Look, I’m tired, really tired. I haven’t got the energy to do anything more today, let alone battle an army of institutionalised spirits.”