44 Gilmore Street

by Shani Struthers

  “Ness, Theo, we can always remove Linda if it gets too much.”

  “But what about our safety?” Theo argued. “That matters too, Ruby.”

  “Please,” Linda implored. “You said we need to face our demons at some point and… he’s mine.”

  Ruby knew from past experience that these were not empty words. When she’d first said them to Linda, she’d meant it. Sometimes, no matter what the danger, it was the only way. She caught Theo looking at her, listening to her thoughts, knew what she was doing, weighing up the situation, the pros and the cons. Linda’s words earlier – the veiled intimation – had struck her too.

  “Linda.” When Theo spoke it was in a careful and precise manner. “If you do come with us to Gilmore Street, it’s important that you realise it’s for the sake of resolution, not vengeance. I know this is hard, but I’m asking you to take pity on Quinn for the tortured soul that he still very clearly is.”

  “Pity?” Linda almost choked on the word.

  “Yes, pity,” Theo was unrepentant. “If a person is happy they don’t inflict damage on others. Quinn was clearly very unhappy.”

  “He stole my happiness. My innocence too.”

  “I know he did, but do you want to continue the battle or end it?”

  “I… I want to end it.”

  “Then – and I know perhaps how intolerable this may sound considering your history – but you fight him with love, because that’s the only thing that will work. If you go into Gilmore Street with hate in your heart, we’ll lose.”

  “I can’t love him!”

  “You loved him once. Hold onto that.”

  Instead of baulking at that, as Theo clearly expected, Linda asked another question. “If I didn’t kill him, does anyone need to know, about me I mean?”

  “The police?”

  “The press too. The thought of our names entwined forever…”

  Cash came into the room. “Like Bonnie and Clyde, you mean?”

  “Cash,” Theo warned. Sometimes humour was not appreciated.

  Cash winced, did an about turn and left the room again, went back into the kitchen where he was working on his laptop.

  “I can’t promise anything regarding the press,” Theo answered, “but if you didn’t kill him, there’s nothing to fear from the police. Not anymore.”

  Linda swallowed. “You keep mentioning Ellie, this girl who seems to know all about me. Who is she?”

  “She’s a client of ours,” Ruby didn’t dare look at Ness as she said the word ‘ours’. “We don’t quite know how she’s been able to see things through your eyes, but we’ll discuss that after our visit to Gilmore Street.”

  The doorbell ringing interrupted them.

  “That must be Corinna,” Ruby said, rising.

  It was. The youngest member of Psychic Surveys entered the room in a flurry. “Linda, you didn’t kill Quinn O’Brien!”

  Linda closed her eyes, the expression on her face one of relief, Ruby decided, not disappointment.

  Corinna plonked herself down on a chair and continued to enlighten them. “Your marriage is listed under England & Wales marriages, in Brighton.”

  “That’s right,” Linda confirmed, “the Brighton registry office. It was just us, well… us and a pair of strangers who’d agreed to act as witnesses, Quinn literally just plucked them off the street.” She shook her head. “Hardly the big day every girl dreams of. The date was March 15 and it was raining.”

  “We know it was raining,” Ruby and Ness said together.

  Ruby gave a small laugh. “Sorry, Ellie again, that’s one of her memories. She couldn’t recall location, but she said it was a seaside town, with a pier. Well… we’ve two actually. Quinn wanted to find work on one of them.”

  “The Palace Pier and he did. But just for a day here and a day there.”

  “Anyway,” Corinna interrupted, obviously eager to press on, to reveal the ‘main’ news, “it took a bit of digging and Sylvia was a godsend, she helped me out loads, but from the details we had we managed to find out he was born in Ballinagar, which is south of Dublin when I looked it up on the map, in January 1945 and he died in 1989. The cause of death was prostate cancer.”

  “Cancer?” Linda queried. “He would have been forty-four.”

  “Forty-four?” said Ness. “So he was twenty-two when you married him?”

  Linda nodded. “And I was nineteen.”

  They were both so young, one naïve, the other damaged to the very core. It also validated what Benjamin had said to Delia – that he wasn’t alone anymore. When he had first moved into Gilmore Street, there would have been an atmosphere from what had happened previously, but it would have been residual, extreme emotions printed like a stamp onto the atmosphere. Later, when Quinn returned, the haunting would become ‘intelligent’, the spirit in situ and Benjamin would have felt it so much more. Even so, at no point had anyone who knew Ben mentioned that he seemed distressed or scared. On the contrary, he just seemed to mosey along – in his own world – something that suited Quinn, who was locked in his own world too.

  Reining in her thoughts, she asked Linda if knowing for certain she hadn’t killed Quinn helped in some way.

  “I can’t tell you how I feel,” answered Linda, a tear betraying her. “I honestly don’t know.” Looking at Corinna she asked where he had died.

  “Brighton. He never moved away.”

  There was a definite crack in Linda’s voice “All those years,” she whispered. “All those years he was alive and so was I.”

  “Were you ever worried he might come looking for you?” Corinna quizzed.

  “I knew he wouldn’t.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I just did,” was her enigmatic reply.

  “You thought he was dead for a start,” Ruby reminded.

  “I hoped he was dead. There’s a difference,” Linda replied.

  “Linda,” Theo warned. “Don’t sink into hatred again.”

  She looked Theo in the eye. “I’m trying not to.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Divided equally between two cars, the six of them travelled to Gilmore Street, having arranged to meet Samantha at eight o’ clock.

  “What if reporters are still there?” Corinna had quizzed from the back of Ruby’s Ford.

  “Then let them take pictures, do what they have to do. It is what it is now.”

  Gilmore Street, however, was surprisingly quiet as they drove past it to find a parking space. Her hunch had been right: the reporters fed up of camping outside had gone in search of a pint or a hot meal. Perhaps they’d be back later, perhaps not. Oh the irony if they managed to move the spirit on and their moment of glory went un-captured. So be it. The Gordons moving back into their house would be testament enough they’d succeeded.

  Waiting on the pavement for the others, Ruby wondered how Linda had been in Ness’s car. Had she been nervous on the journey over, changed her mind again? It couldn’t be easy to return to hell.

  To her surprise Linda approached with nothing less than a look of stoic determination on her face. Ruby hurried over to her.

  “Are you sure you want to go in?”

  “It’s now or never,” Linda replied.

  “Then let it be now,” Theo said, coming up to stand beside them. “Any sign of Samantha?”

  “There she is.” Ruby pointed to Delia’s door.

  Samantha emerged and quickly crossed the road. Dressed in a long white shirt and denim leggings, she shivered slightly from the cold. “A girl’s night out, eh?” she said, eyeing them all. “Or as good as!”

  “S’okay, I’m proud to be one of the ‘girls’,” said Cash good-humouredly.

  Ruby checked again that Jeff had no idea where she was.

  “No. Believes every word I tell him, that one,” she chuckled. “It comes in handy on occasions, I can tell you.” After a moment she grew serious and turned to Linda. “I don’t think we’ve met before? Are you going in too?” />
  “Sam, this is Linda, the woman I was telling you about.”

  “Quinn’s wife?”

  “His ex-wife,” Linda corrected.

  Samantha shook her head. “Blimey, and I thought mine was a miserable bugger. You had your work cut out with him, I’m guessing.”

  “You guess right,” Linda replied, before averting her gaze.

  “Sam,” Ruby interrupted, “can we go in, get off the street?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Don’t want to alert our nosy neighbours do we?” Considering the way she raised her voice when she said the word ‘nosy’ Ruby guessed that’s exactly what she intended to do.

  “Sam,” Ruby reminded her, “we don’t want the press here if we can help it,”

  “Oh, there’ll be here at some point, don’t you worry, doing their usual round of drive-bys. Incredible they are, like a swarm of locusts. They won’t give up.”

  “Sam…” Ruby all but pleaded.

  “Yes, yes, come on then, let’s go. You’ll find it quite different inside. The people that have come here before you they’ve removed virtually everything. Quinn…” she seemed to test the name on her lips, “loves to get heavy with his hands.”

  “Believe me, I know,” Linda muttered.

  As she led the way, Samantha continued chatting. “I don’t mind coming in with you. It’s strange but with you lot I feel safe enough to do that. Even after what happened to me in the living room. The people we’ve had, honestly what a motley crew. Some have been very serious, very studious, whereas others were a right bunch of hippies. Reeking of incense, dressed in tie-dye, the men with long goatee beards, the women all airy-fairy.” She stopped at the door. “At least you lot look normal.” Her gaze rested on Theo’s pink hair. “Sort of.”

  As she inserted the key into the lock, Ruby could feel Linda go rigid beside her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she whispered.

  Linda merely nodded her head.

  “If at any time you feel you can’t cope, we’ll get you out.”

  “Get him out. As much as I’m tempted to leave him.”

  “We can’t, the Gordons.”

  “I know we can’t. I realise that now. Let’s get this over and done with.”

  “Linda, when I said I’d press charges, I didn’t mean it.”

  “A jail cell doesn’t worry me, not after living here.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  Linda dragged her gaze away from the door to look at Ruby. “Afraid? You didn’t see him, like I saw him, at the end, our end I mean. He was pathetic, truly pathetic. He soiled himself you know? I left him a wreck.”

  Ruby didn’t doubt it. But before she’d done that, he’d wrecked her.

  “Come on,” she said, moving forwards.

  The house was empty, of furniture at least. Samantha hadn’t exaggerated. Every conceivable weapon removed – including the kettle, particularly the kettle, had been put into storage. Ruby was glad. It was just Quinn versus them – and there were more of them. All that filled the house was hatred, it seemed to have soaked like blood into every wall, every floorboard.

  Protection procedures had been put in place. Earlier, Theo and Ness had spent quite some time visualising white light, wrapping it round Linda as well. They had then equipped her with tourmaline – the queen of the protection stones and asked her to visualise white light too. It would not only protect her, Theo had said, it would aid in the healing process. They were armed and ready for combat, all of them steeling themselves as they ventured towards the kitchen, the hub of activity – Ruby noting the almost awe-struck look on Linda’s face as she took in her surrounds, all bright and white, so different to how she remembered it, how Ellie had described it. The only thing similar perhaps the slight smell of damp in the air.

  “Linda, are you okay?” she checked again.

  It took a few moments for Linda to reply, she was still looking around her. “It’s funny, this was the way I imagined our house was going to look, before I first set foot in here I mean, all clean and modern. More fool me.”

  “Linda—”

  Before Ruby could say anymore, he erupted. Not swearing this time, but screaming – one word surging upwards from the depths of him – “Noooooooo!” On and on it went, like a roll of thunder. Even the non-psychic could sense the anguish in the atmosphere. It was Quinn then and he’d seen her: Linda.

  “Sam,” Ruby said, the din in her head causing her to shout. “I think you’d better leave.”

  “It’s my house,” she returned.

  Fair point. They couldn’t make her, only advise.

  “Hold onto Corinna’s hand then, to Cash’s, stand between them. They’ll keep you safe. Linda, you stand between Theo and Ness. I’ll stand in front.”

  As everyone shuffled into position, Ruby started speaking.

  “We know who you are, we’ve been calling you Benjamin Hamilton, but we were wrong and we apologise for that. Our mistake must have been frustrating for you. Your name was Quinn O’Brien. We also know what happened here, specifically what took place in this kitchen. And yes, we’ve brought Linda back, whom, in life, you were married to.”

  The fucking slut!

  “Quinn, stop it. We’re here to help.”

  Get her out!

  “No, Quinn, we’re here to get you out, to send you to the light. We know you were unhappy, that you made Linda unhappy. You used physical force against her. In the end she snapped, she turned on you. But, Linda is learning to forgive, to let go, and you need to as well. You’re in hell, Quinn, but you’re here because you choose to be. You don’t have to remain. There’s peace waiting in the light, for you and for everyone. Go towards it.”

  GET HER OUT!

  Behind her Theo was growing worried.

  “Ruby, perhaps Linda should leave, just until we’ve made some headway—”

  Samantha also took the opportunity to speak. “What’s happening? What’s going on? It’s getting so cold in here. It’s bloody freezing.”

  Quinn was materialising – his eyes again very clear although the rest of him was still merely an outline, and trained solely on Linda.

  BITCH!

  Ruby turned to Linda. “I know it’s galling, I understand that, but will you take the lead, Linda? Will you tell him you’re sorry for what happened at the end?” Seeing the horrified look on her face, she added, “It’s the only way.”

  But Linda wasn’t having it. “Is he sorry for what he did to me, for how he destroyed my life? Is he?”

  “Linda!” Theo was calm now but how much longer she would remain that way was anyone’s guess. “We’ve talked about this, we’ve been clear. You are not here to exact vengeance. The only way to fight hatred and anger is with love, which is an infinitely more powerful and constructive emotion.”

  “He destroyed me!”

  “No he didn’t.” It was Ness, her voice urgent. “He tried to destroy you, but you didn’t let him. You got your vengeance when he was alive.”

  “It’s not enough.” Tears were springing from Linda’s eyes. “Where is he? Where’s the bastard? I want to see him.”

  “You don’t, Linda, believe me you don’t,” replied Ruby.

  Ignoring Ruby, she pushed past her, all the way to the front.

  Ruby shuddered. “If you must know, he’s standing in front of you.”

  And he was – right in front of her – staring at the woman who had condemned him all those years ago. Ruby made to step forward, but Theo reached out a hand and stayed her. Her expression said it all – they knew this line of action would provoke the spirit. But sometimes extreme measures had to be taken and this was one of them. Would their gamble pay off?

  Even though she could only sense him, Linda addressed Quinn.

  “I used to be a nice person. I liked myself. I had a future; prospects… good prospects. I was going to secretarial college, but then I had the misfortune to stumble across you. I fell for your charm, believed your lies. And what did you do? You conta
minated me with your filth. Why’d you do it, Quinn? Why? What happened to make you that way?”

  Quinn just continued to stare, the look in his eyes blood-curdling.

  “Linda…” Ruby chanced but there was no stopping her now.

  “Wrap her in white light,” Ness advised. “Wrap them both in it.”

  An attempt to help them climb out of the swamp they’d fallen into.

  Linda started speaking again; she wasn’t done with him yet.

  “I was reminded by this woman,” with her thumb she made stabbing gestures back towards Theo, “that I loved you once. I’d forgotten that, do you realise? I’d actually forgotten. How’s that possible? There’s no love for you in me now though. I’m trying to find forgiveness instead. For your sake as well as mine. But do you know what? I can’t find that either. You deserved what I did. I wish it had been me that had killed you, not the cancer. I hate you, Quinn, for what you did to me, to us. For what you turned me into.”

  “Linda, this isn’t helping,” Ruby stepped forward. “In fact it’s downright dangerous. You’ll both remain in torment at this rate.”

  Linda ignored her. “I hurt you, Quinn, I hurt you so bad you messed your own pants. What I did, it frightened you didn’t it? Which is why you never came after me. I frightened you more than you ever frightened me. What I did – the last thing I did – was evil, pure evil. Even you couldn’t compete.”

  Ruby glanced at Theo, at Ness. What was she talking about – the last thing she did? Was she referring to the burning or something else? Praying Linda would listen to her this time, she demanded to know, “Linda, what haven’t you told us?” Getting no reply, she asked again. “Linda, we need to know!”

  Theo had had enough. “Get her out of here. Cash…”

  Cash also stepped forward and as he did the tension in the room exploded. Again there was a roar in Ruby’s head and she screwed up her eyes against it. As she did she felt a blow to her stomach, followed by another, and another, Quinn’s fists striking over and over again: a psychic attack but no less painful for it. Instead of going to evict Linda as Theo had instructed, Cash swiftly changed direction and went to Ruby instead as she doubled up. Jed too was hurling himself at Quinn, snarling, snapping, baring his teeth, doing his best, but to no avail. He was viciously kicked aside.