44 Gilmore Street

by Shani Struthers

  Corinna, being the ‘sensitive’ she was, was certainly sensitive to the foul mood Ruby was in.

  Before entering the Malling house, Corinna asked her what the matter was.

  “It’s nothing, honestly, I’m fine.”

  Sadly, she’d fooled no one.

  “Look, you might as well tell me,” Corinna insisted. “Not just because we’re friends, but because you know as well as I do that we need to go into a cleansing in a positive frame of mind. We don’t take anger in with us.”

  Corinna’s words hit their mark. Why did it annoy her so much that everyone was gunning to get involved with Ellie’s case except her? Why couldn’t they see her point: that they were busy enough and didn’t need to diversify? Despite resisting a holiday, right now, lying on a beach somewhere with Cash, far, far away, surrounded by blue sky, golden sands and azure sea, seemed irresistible – as long as no one from the spirit world decided to holiday alongside them – a thought that made her smile. Almost.

  “Ruby, I’m not going in until you’ve told me what’s wrong.”

  Corinna was right – negativity in her might provoke negativity in the grounded spirit, and who knew where that would lead.

  Quickly she explained what had happened during the regression with Ellie, growing heated again when she talked about how Ness, rather than talk to her in private, had publicly overridden her decision.

  “It’s not that I mind, not really. She can take Ellie on as a private case if she wants to, but she doesn’t, she wants to take it on as a Psychic Surveys case. I’d already said no, that we’d taken it as far as it can go, but she completely ignored me. Anyone would think it was her business, not mine!”

  Corinna did indeed look perplexed. Her green eyes, usually so bright, looked a shade or two darker, and she was chewing the inside of her lip. Whilst she contemplated, Ruby admired once again her friend’s Titian-coloured Pre-Raphaelite head of hair, now the longest she’d ever seen it, almost halfway down her back. She really did have hair to die for.

  At last Corinna spoke. “You say you’ve taken it as far as it can go, but what if you haven’t? It seems to me there’s a lot more to discover. And as you said, she’s happy to raise money for the fees.”

  “Why does everyone thinks it’s about the money? It isn’t!” Ruby burst out, before pausing slightly. “Anyway, she’s unemployed, we can’t charge her.”

  “That’s up to you but you don’t charge much as it is. I’m seriously thinking we might have to register as a charity at this rate.”

  Now Ruby did smile. “Psychic Surveys, a charity, can you imagine?”

  Corinna smiled too. “I can actually. If people so much as heard a bump in the night, they’d be on the phone. We’d be swamped, much more than we are already.” Serious again, she continued, “I hate to say this and I don’t want to make you even more angry, but I think Ellie’s case is an interesting one, Ness might have taken the reins but you’re the one the client wants to spearhead it, so why not give it a go?”

  Ruby was dismayed. “Corinna, I thought you’d be on my side at least.”

  “It’s not about taking sides. Just see where it leads you, you never know, you might unearth a killer.”

  “Unearth? That’s an unfortunate analogy; he might well be six foot under. And if he is, it’s a cold case, even the police won’t be interested.”

  “Or he might be alive and kicking. In which case, the police will be very interested and you’ll be a hero.”

  “I don’t want to be a hero.”

  “I know you don’t, but you will be to all those who’ve suffered at his hands.”

  “If there have been any others who’ve suffered.”

  “Which is something you’re never going to know, not unless you continue with the case. Ruby, I know you well, or I like to think I do. I know what a strong sense of right and wrong you have. I don’t think you’ll be able to walk away from this case no matter how much you protest.”

  She was right, the man Ellie was complaining of sounded like a bad lot. What if he had hurt others in his lifetime, not just her? It was a slim possibility but as long as it existed, could she ignore it? No, she couldn’t. Even so…

  “I’ve got a feeling about this case, that’s all.”

  “A bad feeling?” Corinna probed.

  “There’s something not quite right with it. Also, Ellie comes across as Little Miss Victim, but I don’t know, she’s got steel running through her that one.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?” Corinna did indeed look confused.

  “No, it’s a good thing. I know it is.” Again, Ruby tried to explain her unease. “She got hold of my mobile number even though I didn’t give it to her.”

  “Ruby, she came to your office didn’t she? You have business cards. Maybe she saw one and helped herself.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes, of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She was more tired than she realised. “She seems so intent on me helping her.”

  “And you know why that is?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re good, Ruby. Your reputation goes before you.”

  Which Ellie herself had pointed out, but still that feeling of danger – personal danger, wouldn’t dissipate. Ellie’s case was going to prove trying, and not just for her, for all of them. Right now though, she needed to focus on the Malling house, on the job at hand.

  Chapter Seven

  “Goodness, that smell!”

  Ruby and Corinna were standing in the spare bedroom of the home belonging to a young career couple – Alicen and Andy Haire – a lawyer and an accountant respectively. The smell was even stronger today, even the non-psychic in the house had remarked on it. Ruby tried to explain why.

  “If a psychic has made a connection with the spirit in the house, it can unsettle the spirit further, initially that is.” The Gordons’ house was a case in point. Although thankfully when she’d done a follow-on call to check with Samantha that Ben hadn’t become more ‘unsettled’ since their visit, Samantha reported back he was neither less nor more so than before. “Activity can intensify but it’s usually very brief,” she continued. “A spirit is grounded because it’s confused. Once we’ve communicated with them, explained their situation, they’re usually eager enough to leave.”

  “It’s that easy is it?” asked Alicen.

  “You’d be surprised at how straightforward it can be.” The less straightforward times they didn’t want to know about.

  “So,” Andy joined in, “it’s all about getting the grounded to see the light is it? And I mean literally as well as metaphorically.” Tall and lean with an open countenance, he seemed very pleased with his joke.

  “In a nutshell, that’s exactly what we do,” Ruby replied with equal good humour.

  “It all sounds a bit New Age to me,” he said.

  “A bit space age actually,” agreed Alicen.

  “I know it does.” It was something Ruby always worried about, that whole ‘New Age’ thing, “but the fact of the matter is, it’s actually ancient practice that we draw on, and it’s proved itself over and over again.” She only just stopped herself from adding ‘honestly’ to the end of that sentence.

  Andy smiled, seemingly content with that reply. In contrast, Alicen, quite a bit shorter than her husband with perfectly coiffed honey-blonde hair, merely looked bemused. “All I’m worried about is the smell, whether you can get rid of it or not. It’s embarrassing when guests come to stay. Oh, and another thing, and this is fairly recent, but when I’ve woken up at night and gone to get some water or something, I’ve heard scratching too, really faint but it’s coming from inside this room. It’s beginning to freak me out.”

  Beginning? Ruby was impressed. These people were hard-core.

  Ruby had already checked the history of the house – built in the Victorian era there was nothing on record that anything untoward had ever taken place within it. That’s not to say it hadn’t of course. So much remained private. She�
��d also checked that the Haires had contacted maintenance men before Psychic Surveys, plumbers for example; blocked pipes could be responsible.

  “We’ve done all that,” replied Alicen, “had a few of the floorboards up, the works, but it’s not just the smell to be honest, or the scratching, there’s a feeling in here. Not evil exactly, I wouldn’t say that, but it’s different from the feeling in the rest of the house. Our recent guest sensed it too, she ended up leaving in the middle of the night to sleep downstairs on the sofa instead.”

  “Mrs Haire,” Ruby tried to explain, “because a spirit is grounded doesn’t make them evil. It’s like I’ve just said they’re confused and frightened, unsure of what’s happened to them. That’s often the case in fact, especially if their passing was quick and unexpected. Evil’s the last thing they tend to be.”

  “Oh, come on, come on,” Andy argued, “there’s got to be a few evil spirits hanging around, a lot of them I should imagine, intent on terrifying the life out of those of us still lucky enough to be alive.”

  “Not in my experience,” Ruby countered. Keen to discourage this line of questioning she returned to the subject of their spare room.

  Immediately Andy’s manner changed to one of brisk efficiency. “Yes, yes, best get on with it, time is money.”

  Spoken like a true accountant, thought Ruby, suppressing a smile.

  The pair left her and Corinna to it, returning downstairs to the kitchen to wait. Ruby was thankful. Some clients insisted on sitting in on proceedings and she had quite a job to dissuade them – the process of connecting with a spirit was even harder when you felt like a performing monkey.

  Hearing Corinna complain of the smell too, Ruby placed her bag of cleansing paraphernalia on the bed, opened it and retrieved two smudge sticks. She handed one to Corinna, lit them both and they started cleansing the corners of the room as well as dark spaces such as the interior of the built-in wardrobe – empty apart from some forlorn-looking hangers – and underneath the bed.

  “Smells a bit better now, doesn’t it?” she said to Corinna, referring to the heady sage scent of the herb bundles.

  Corinna wasn’t so quick to agree.

  In a while they would open the window – offering a physical exit for the spirit that inhabited this room. Sometimes the spirit seemed to need a representation such as this; sometimes they didn’t, walking in the general direction of the walls instead and disappearing right through them.

  After cleansing with the smudge sticks, Ruby placed several lumps of amethyst around the room. This was not a ‘threatening’ spirit and so she saw no need to get heavy with obsidian or tourmaline, stones which were good at absorbing negative energy. The stone she’d chosen with its soft purple facets was ideal for promoting a calm and peaceful atmosphere.

  Finally, after wrapping themselves in white light, Ruby and Corinna stood side by side in the centre of the room and tried to connect. After a few moments, Corinna turned to her.

  “It’s odd isn’t it? There is something here, I just don’t know what it is.”

  Ruby felt an ice-cold trickle of fear. “What do you mean, what it is?”

  Had she underestimated this job, been fooled even?

  Corinna could sense her unease. Immediately, she placed a hand on Ruby’s arm. “No, no, I don’t mean it’s non-human, nothing like that. Although… it’s not human, is it, not exactly.”

  “What is it then?” Ruby replied, not completely appeased.

  Corinna nodded towards the far corner of the room. “There’s something about that spot there, something under the floorboards even.”

  “They’ve had the floorboards up though.”

  “Every single floorboard?”

  That she couldn’t vouch for. Trying to work it out, Ruby heard movement to the side of her, a soft movement, barely detectable. As something brushed past her, she flinched, felt every one of the hairs on her arms stand up. When she saw what had touched her, however, she laughed in relief.

  “Jed! What are you doing here?”

  But the black Labrador wasn’t listening, he’d gone straight to the spot that Corinna had identified and was busy sniffing around. The sight of his tail wagging was also welcome; Jed was very excited about whatever ‘it’ was.

  Ruby drew closer.

  “What’s Jed doing?” Corinna asked, following close behind.

  “Sniffing by the looks of it and wagging his tail.”

  “He’s not worried then?”

  “He’s not worried at all.”

  And, because he wasn’t, she relaxed.

  Not content with sniffing, Jed began digging instead with his front paws scraping back and forth. Bending down beside him, Ruby wondered what to do. There was no carpet on the floor, but the floorboards were nailed down. They had also been lovingly sanded and varnished. Just how receptive would the Haires be to a bit of vandalism in the name of spiritualism?

  Sinking to her knees, she started feeling around the area that Jed was pawing. The wood – oak it looked like – was warm to the touch.

  “Wait,” said Corinna, placing a restraining hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “Seriously, I’ve got a feeling we should wait.”

  Not one to dismiss Corinna’s ‘feelings’, Ruby stood up again and they retreated to the bed, perching on the end of it.

  “Can you see Jed at all?” Ruby asked Corinna.

  Corinna shook her head, “I wish I could. Ruby, it’s frustrating only being able to sense things rather than see them”

  “Have you truly never seen anything?”

  “I’ve caught glimpses out of the corner of my eye, but I’ve never seen the way that you, Theo and Ness can see.”

  “That’s not such a bad thing, Corinna.”

  Corinna paused for a moment. “No, I know it isn’t.”

  The minutes passed and, although the silence was companionable, Ruby could feel the first stirrings of impatience. Jed was sitting now, staring at the floorboards, his head tilted to one side in a puzzled manner – an angle not dissimilar to hers and Corinna’s. She tapped the fingers of one hand against the other. Corinna obviously noticed.

  “We need to wait, Ruby. I honestly think that’s the best thing to do.”

  Making an effort to sit still again, Ruby started looking around the room, at the feature wall painted a tasteful shade of grey, at the minimal but clearly expensive furniture: a chest of drawers with a vase placed artfully on top, a small wardrobe and pale blinds at the window in a coarse linen material. Although a spare room, she had a vision it wouldn’t be for much longer. It would have a change of décor soon – yellow paint with cheerful murals on the wall, and a crib with a mobile hanging over it. It was rare she had a moment of ‘foresight’, that wasn’t her gift, but whether Alicen was pregnant or not, she soon would be. The room would be spare no longer.

  Jed slumped, started whining, his patience wearing thin too.

  Ruby made an executive decision. “We need to get Alicen and Andy back in here and ask about the previous owners.”

  Corinna agreed. “Yeah, you’re right, we can’t wait forever.”

  A few minutes later all four of them were standing in the room again, Jed still in the corner, occasionally nudging the floorboards with his nose. Although she knew nobody could see him but herself, she pointed to where he was and asked the Haires if that area had been checked too.

  “It was all checked,” Alicen said, looking at Andy for confirmation.

  “It was,” agreed Andy. “Or at least I asked them to check everywhere.”

  “The plumbers?” Ruby queried.

  Andy nodded.

  “Were you in the room when they were checking?”

  Again Alicen and Andy looked at each other. “Erm no… but I hardly think they skimped. We only use reputable firms you know.”

  Nonetheless, Ruby had a feeling they’d done exactly that – skimped. “There’s something about that particular spot.”

  Alicen’s hands immediately flew upwards. �
��Oh my God, there’s a body under my floorboards!”

  “Not a human one,” Ruby rushed to assure her. “But… maybe an animal.”

  “An animal?” queried Andy. “What kind of animal, a cat, a dog?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” admitted Ruby.

  Andy walked over to the corner and – unknowingly – stood right beside Jed, so much so the dog had to shift.

  “There can’t be an animal under the floorboards,” he decided.

  “Why not?” Alicen asked.

  “Because as the body decomposed, it would… leak.”

  “Ugh.” The colour drained from Alicen’s face.

  “He’s right,” Ruby admitted. “But even so, there is something under there.” She asked the Haires if they’d ever had a pet.

  “No! Whatever it is, it’s got nothing to do with us!”

  “I wasn’t implying…” She stopped. “What about the previous owners, did you know them at all?”

  “Not exactly, but they were perfectly lovely during the exchange. They’re an old couple, the Milligans, Alex and Wendy. The poor things couldn’t manage the stairs anymore. They never talked to us about having an animal though, they never mentioned this room either, or the smell in it.”

  “Do you have a contact number for them?”

  Alicen frowned. “Yes, yes, we do. Are you suggesting we call them?”

  “Or I can,” offered Ruby, “but it might be better coming from you.”

  Alicen seemed unsure. “What should I ask them?”

  “Ask them about an animal they used to have.”