44 Gilmore Street

by Shani Struthers

  “The Beatles on the wall, the way you’re dressed, it sounds like the era you’re in is the one we first thought of – the nineteen sixties.”

  “The swinging sixties! Oh, I think it is, definitely,” Ellie agreed, still with that faraway look in her eyes. “And remember I said I loved Elvis, that I’m a real fan? It makes sense it’s around then.” She sighed, almost swooned. “It’s such a wonderful time to be young, there’s so many more opportunities. For us too, for me and for him.” A shadow passed across Ellie’s face, darkening it. “And then the dream, so nice before, changes. I can hear a voice. It’s coming from below. Someone’s calling me, my mum I think. Yes it’s my mum, saying something about dinner. I shout back, tell her I’m not hungry and then I’m not quite so excited anymore. I stop hugging myself. Stand with my arms by my side instead. My eyes start to water.”

  “You’re sad? Why?”

  “Because I’m going to miss her and dad. I’m going to miss my room too, the posters on the wall and the dressing table with my make-up on, the carpet, worn in patches where I lie on my tummy, my legs in the air, listening to music. I’m going to miss the world that I know, that I’ve loved.”

  “But you’re only going out for the night.”

  “No, Ruby, I’m not. There’s a small suitcase on the bed. I’m not just going out for the night. I’m doing a lot more than that.”

  “What is it, Ellie? What are you doing?”

  “I’m running away.”

  It took a few moments but Ellie came to. She was wholly present now. Ruby sat back in her chair as Ellie did, the pair of them mirroring each other.

  “Do you realise you went into a bit of a trance there, Ellie, when you were relating events to me? Similar to how you are when you’re under hypnosis, as if you’ve travelled back in time, or at least a part of you has.”

  “That’s what it feels like all the time lately, as if I’m only half here. The other half is way back in the past. I don’t know, it’s like quantum physics gone mad.” There it was again – a flash of humour. Ruby couldn’t help but smile.

  “And this is ever since Katharine unleashed the beast, so to speak?”

  Ellie smiled too. “The beast is about right.”

  “If we continue with your case, we may need to speak to Katharine. Would that be possible?”

  “Probably. I can ask.”

  “Perhaps we ought to do that soon. Just to get a more rounded picture.”

  “I’m sorry it’s all so bitty.” Ellie seemed so downcast about it.

  “Hey, that’s okay. It’s a process. You have to go through it.” She faltered. “Well, you’re choosing to go through it. There’s a bit of a difference.”

  “I… did Ness tell you about my background?”

  Ruby was honest. “Yes, she did. That you’re adopted, your relationship with your parents is troubled, that you live in a hostel at the moment.”

  Ellie nodded. “It’s my Mum I have trouble with. She doesn’t like me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true—”

  “It is true. I’ve accepted it and so has she.”

  “Do you know your birth mother?”

  “No, she left strict instructions for me not to find her. Even so, I’ve been tempted; it’s not hard nowadays is it? Not with the Internet and everything. But… I’ve resisted. I don’t want to be disappointed again I think. At least in my past life I had a connection with my mother. I wouldn’t have been so upset about leaving her if not. I was wanted back then.”

  Ruby frowned. “Is that what’s at the root of all this?”

  “It’s just one part of it. I don’t know who I am, why I am. But if I’ve lived before and even if that life ended badly, it means I’m someone.”

  “You’re someone regardless.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s a bigger picture, and that’s kind of comforting.”

  “Even if you uncover a murder?”

  “And a murderer,” Ellie finished.

  Cold comfort Ruby would have thought.

  “Ness is a lost soul too isn’t she?”

  “Ness?” queried Ruby. “Why’d you say that?”

  “Because she doesn’t belong anywhere either.”

  That was news to Ruby. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, but lost souls usually empathise with one another.”

  Ruby considered her words. She was right. That’s what Ness had done, she had empathised with Ellie; taken her under her wing.

  “So you don’t know why Ness is a lost soul as you put it?” Ruby probed.

  “No, I just know she is.”

  In a way Ruby was glad Ellie remained in ignorance too. If Ness had confided in her, someone she’d only just met as opposed to herself, whom she’d known for a number of years, she would have felt hurt. That Theo knew more about Ness was fine as they went way back, but Ellie was a newcomer.

  Ruby! Are you adding jealousy to your list of sins?

  No, she wasn’t. She mustn’t.

  Ellie looked anxious all of a sudden. “You will help me won’t you?”

  “I’ve said we would—”

  “It’s just I really feel we’re getting somewhere now. It won’t be long until we’ve found out who I am and what he did to me. And that’s all I want you to do. Help me find out. I promise I’ll understand if you don’t want to be involved after that, if for Psychic Surveys the case is closed. If there’s anything to take further, it’ll be my responsibility. But even if what I discover is horrible, it’s something I have to do. If there’s justice to be had, I’ll work towards getting it. If not, I’ll move on, leave behind that life, and what I’ve lived of this one too. But, I don’t know, somehow I’ll be whole. I’ll be born again.”

  Born again? That was one way of looking at it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Having said goodbye to Ellie, telling her she’d see her on Wednesday and hoping sincerely she didn’t pop up out of nowhere any time before that, Ruby decided to walk the rest of the way to her office. There were no appointments in the book today. She needn’t take her battered but reliable Ford, she’d leave it parked at home. She considered the meeting with Ellie to be a positive one. She felt more predisposed towards her, especially as the girl had promised that after two more sessions it was over, for Psychic Surveys at least. The unease around her she dismissed. Ellie wasn’t so bad, just different. And that whole issue the girl had around her identity, Ruby understood. Although she knew her parentage through the maternal line, Ruby had no idea who her own father was. All she knew – and this was information only recently extracted from her mother – was that he was a policeman, an ordinary man, not psychic at all. And married too. Jessica had been having an affair with him, that’s why he’d walked away when he’d found out she was pregnant. Didn’t want anything to do with her, or the baby she was carrying, his ‘other’ life, his ‘real’ life, disrupted. Ruby hadn’t asked Jessica for his name yet, but she would – when life wasn’t so hectic. She’d find out whether he was still alive for a start, and if so, whether he’d be agreeable to meeting her or not. One day, but not now. When she felt more able to deal with the ‘or not’ option – with the very real likelihood of rejection.

  Reaching her front door, she dismissed such thoughts, focussing instead on the weekend just passed. Not a total disaster, it had had its highlights: Nancy for example. Regarding Gilmore Street, she’d call Samantha and discuss how to take the case with Benjamin forward. Hopefully, the Gordons had calmed, along with the fuss caused by what had happened. News tended to get old quickly. Current events took over. Thank God. Maybe Samantha had spoken to her neighbours and managed to fob them off. Hopefully she’d realised it probably wasn’t best to keep going on about a ‘ghost’. There were ways of announcing things to the world and the way she’d done it – hysterically – wasn’t one of them. It’d be all right. It’d be fine. No need for the press to get involved at all. Think positive, Ruby. She would, and she’d stay that way. Attract the good
things in life, not more trouble.

  Climbing the stairs, step after narrow step, Ruby longed once more for an office on the ground floor. Not because she was unfit, but because it would lend her practice more respectability somehow. Attics and basements had a certain stigma attached to them; a somewhat ‘hidden’ quality. Even so, she was fond of her office in the sky. It was a home-from-home, although, as she opened the door and saw how cramped it was getting with furniture and books she decided it could do with a clear out – once and for all. No more threatening to do it, she’d schedule in a definite time. No sooner had she fired her laptop into life than the phone rang. Picking it up, she noticed the answer machine blinking furiously. No change there then.

  “Hello, Psychic Surveys, how can I he—”

  “Ruby, is that you?”

  “Samantha, hi. Yes it’s me. I was just going to call you.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Samantha continued in a rush. “So, so sorry.”

  Alarm bells started ringing.

  “Erm… I don’t understand. What have you got to be sorry about?”

  “The South Coast Times have been round,” Samantha continued. “I tried to tell them what happened wasn’t your fault, that you and your team were trying to get rid of the ghost. But I don’t know, they just seemed hung up on Psychic Surveys more than anything. Kept calling you a ghostbuster.”

  Ruby swallowed. “A ghostbuster?”

  “That’s right. One of the reporters, only young he was, kept smirking. I hate that, don’t you, when people smirk? Kept humming the words of that song, you know: ‘something strange in the neighbourhood? Who you gonna call?’”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ruby interrupted, “Ghostbusters. I get it.”

  Reaching one arm behind her, Ruby felt for the arm of her captain’s chair and sank down onto it. Her worst fear had come true. The press had got hold of the story and they would vilify her. It might have been different if she’d succeeded but she hadn’t, Benjamin was still at large and the Gordons had had to move out. Remembering cases such as the Enfield Poltergeist, how decades later it was still made much of, Ruby shuddered. What had happened in Gilmore Street was prime tabloid fodder.

  “Samantha, are you still at Delia’s?”

  “Yes, yes, my kids and Jeff, they won’t go back.”

  “And who called the press?”

  “Not me, Ruby, I swear! I wouldn’t do such a thing. I believe in the paranormal, I’ve told you. It must have been one of the neighbours.”

  Of course it was, maybe the same one who’d called the police.

  She glanced at her answerphone again, at the red light blinking, the digital display that told her she had eleven messages waiting. How many of them were cases and how many of them reporters? She dreaded to think.

  She let her head fall forward into one hand. Felt stupid for being optimistic earlier. For fooling herself it would be all right. She’d have to deal with the South Coast Times, hope that the reportage remained local and that it didn’t spread further – although local was bad enough. Despite trying to cast their net wide, most of their cases were local – still. Only a few had come in from further afield, which they either travelled to or used freelance staff from a nationwide database they were developing of other willing psychics. There was no profit from those jobs, not yet, but hopefully there would be. You had to speculate to accumulate. She pulled herself up short. There she went again – hoping. But that hope was dwindling rapidly. There was no doubt about it, if the article was negative, the impact could be huge. There’d be a witch-hunt resulting in her business being driven underground.

  And stop, Ruby! Get a grip! You’re getting carried away.

  She also remembered Samantha was still on the phone – someone who needed her help. She wouldn’t run and hide, even though at this minute she was sorely tempted. She would face the storm head-on.

  “Samantha, whatever happens with the press, I’ll deal with it. Regarding Ben, do you want Psychic Surveys to take this case forward?”

  “No question about it, I want you to come back.”

  “And your husband? It’s important he’s in agreement.”

  “Jeff will do what I tell him. Leave him to me.”

  “Samantha—”

  “Honestly, he’s fine, he wants it sorted, just like I do.”

  “Okay, let’s focus on that then, sorting it.”

  “There’s another problem though.”

  “Another?” As if things weren’t bad enough.

  “The press, they haven’t gone away, they’re camped outside. I’m having a problem getting into my house so God knows how you’re going to manage.”

  Ruby phoned Cash in tears. Next, when she’d managed to compose herself, she phoned the rest of the team, her voice one heck of a lot steadier. An emergency meeting was called – all of them emulating the solemnity of Ness, as they trooped into her office not even half an hour later. At her feet Jed was lounging, looking up every now and again to check on her. I’m all right, Jed, honestly. Or at least she felt better with her friends around her.

  “It’ll die down,” Ness spoke first. “Press attention always does.”

  “But the people who read it, they don’t forget,” Ruby argued.

  “Look,” said Cash, “it’s not as if it’s Halloween. Minds are on where to go for the summer not spooks.”

  Corinna wasn’t so sure. “Ghosts are a popular topic at any time of year, Cash. And it’s the non-believers who usually shout the loudest.”

  Theo agreed. “The cynical, they’re such a pain.”

  Using the example of the Enfield Poltergeist again, a case that had captured the attention of the country, so much so there’d been films made about it, Ruby pointed out that press attention doesn’t always die down. Back in the 1970s, two sisters aged 11 and 13, who lived in a council house in the London Borough of Enfield, were targeted by a malevolent force. Ruby remembered being fascinated by the case as a child, studying several pictures in a magazine of the children levitating: suspended in mid-air by an invisible force before being hurled at the wall. The case held the nation spellbound for years, puzzling policemen, psychics, experts in the occult and hardened reporters alike, all of who spent time camping at the house to witness phenomena. As well as furniture being thrown, flying objects swirling towards witnesses, cold breezes and physical assaults, matches would spontaneously burst into flames – it really was quite the spectacle. Members of the Society for Psychical Research got involved, most notably Guy Lyon Playfair who wrote a book about it – a bestseller apparently – and which was just one of many on the subject, some denouncing it as a hoax, others protesting stringently that it was the real deal. As recently as a year or so ago there’d been a BBC drama about it. A very good one actually, starring Timothy Spall as Maurice Grosse, the man who’d led the paranormal investigation. Ruby had enjoyed it, sitting on the sofa beside Cash, both of them enthralled. The family who’d endured such torture had long since left the house and another family lived there, one who didn’t want to be identified. Whether it was the house or the family that was haunted, Ruby didn’t know, but the fact they were still making programmes about the case, over forty years later, went to show the public had an appetite for this sort of thing – a huge appetite. It also showed there was currently a gap in the market and that a new ‘Enfield’ was needed.

  The team listened to Ruby’s concerns and then dismissed them.

  “The important thing to do, Ruby, is not to ‘big’ it up in your mind like this. We’ll go back to Gilmore Street again, we’ll send Benjamin on his way and we’ll carry on with our daily business.”

  “But it’s not that straightforward is it, Theo? Benjamin won’t go!”

  “He will… eventually.”

  “And meanwhile we’re in a goldfish bowl with gleeful reporters looking on.”

  “Then we walk away,” Ness suggested. “We refuse to get involved further.”

  “We can’t do that,” Ruby retorted.


  “Why not?”

  “Because the damage has been done! We’re involved. If we walk away as soon as the heat is on, it would look… suspicious; portray us in a bad light.” Ruby exhaled heavily. “I’m only surprised the press aren’t here already.”

  Ruby caught the look that Cash and Corinna exchanged.

  “Cash, Corinna, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Corinna blushed, whilst Cash examined his shoes.

  “Cash!” Ruby said again.

  “Well, there were a couple hanging round actually, one from the South Coast Times and one from the Sussex Express. I put them right though, told them to scram.”

  Ruby closed her eyes. “So quick.” It was all she could say.

  “They’re probably at a loose end,” offered Cash. “I mean it’s not as if there’s real news to report on, murders, rapes, wars, massive population displacement. Oh no, none of that grabs them. Get wind of a haunting, however…”

  Ruby groaned again as Theo glared at Cash. “There were only two of them, darling,” she emphasised. “Probably popped up in their tea-break.”

  “There’ll be more,” Ruby answered. She knew it and they did too.

  “So, we’re the new Enfield,” commented Corinna. “What happened with that particular spirit? Did they manage to shift it?”

  “It’s a long time since I looked at the case,” responded Theo, “but from what I remember psychic activity diminished at the house but didn’t die down entirely. Until the day they moved the family still felt as though they were being watched. The next tenants to move into the house also reported feeling uncomfortable. Their sons would wake in the night apparently, hearing disembodied voices. They moved out pretty swiftly too. The current family, as Ruby’s just said, don’t wish to be identified, so who knows what’s going on.”

  “It could be that subsequent families were influenced by the power of suggestion,” Ruby offered. “As with Ellie, it’s imagination run riot.”