Kieran felt guilty to think it, but when he saw Ashley approach his table near the window at the restaurant, she looked quite beautiful. It was Tuesday night, the night after Kieran had put in a call to David Everett, and they had arranged to meet at Jalsha in Ealing Broadway for a curry.
Kieran had arrived a little early, so he was already sipping a beer when she arrived.
There was something about the light that made her face look radiant, and when the waiter took her coat and scarf Kieran was literally stunned by how sexy she looked in her little black strappy dress.
Wasn't it a little cold to be wearing something like that?
Only now was he fully seeing her, and he realised just how dreamlike last Friday had been. He hated himself for acknowledging that she was attractive, as though he was somehow betraying Phillip for having such unclean thoughts.
Her hair was dark brown, long and straight, but it always seemed to rest on her shoulders in a different way, framing her face uniquely each time. Sometimes she tucked it behind her ears, only to have it fall back in front of her eyes. He liked that.
She was a slim girl, and not very tall, and to Kieran she was shaped just right.
Apart from the two of them and the waiters, the restaurant was empty.
'Sorry I'm late,' she said.
'You're not late. I was early.'
Ashley put the two audiocassettes on the table and sat down, 'I made a copy like you asked.'
'Oh, thank you.' He picked up the cassettes. 'How much do I owe you?'
She waved her hand dismissively. 'Don't worry. Blank tapes are cheap as chips.'
The waiter arrived and handed them each a menu. She asked if she could have a glass of red wine.
'I'm amazed that it was fixed when you looked at it,' said Kieran. 'It really was totally broken when I gave it to you.'
He opened the original cassette box and took out the cassette. He examined it for moment and then put his finger in the spool to see that it had tension. It did.
'Well I'm flabbergasted! I really am. I don't understand how it can have done this all by itself.'
Ashley smiled. 'I don't understand it either.'
The waiter came back with Ashley's wine and took their orders. Ashley ordered a Prawn Korma and Kieran ordered a Chicken Tikka Masala.
'So what is all this about?' she said.
Kieran was about to speak when the door to the restaurant rattled open. He looked up to see two couples enter. They were taken to a table near the back of the restaurant.
Kieran momentarily searched for a place to begin.
'It’s like this. When Phillip and I were thirteen, he came over one night to my house in Highfield Road to stay the night. Our house had a really great cellar underneath it and we went down there to smoke a couple of cigarettes. We sat in the part of the cellar that was underneath my bedroom. I had a ground floor bedroom. I'd laid some blankets down on the concrete and made it reasonably comfortable for us to sit down there. I often sneaked down there for a cigarette.'
The two couples at the back of the restaurant laughed loudly, disturbing Kieran's train of thought. He took a sip of his beer and continued.
'While we were down there, we saw this word that had been written on one of the brick pillars. Spireclaw. Written in white paint. The thing is, I'd never seen it before and I'd sat down there loads of times. Well, Phillip and I had visions of someone sneaking around in the dark with us. It freaked us both out and we didn't stick around much longer. We went back upstairs. And that was that. I gave it no more thought for the last twelve years. Until last Monday. The day Phillip died. I was late for work. I missed my mail-round so my boss asked me to take some archive boxes down to one of the cages in the sub-basement of the building. While I was down there I saw the word again. Spireclaw. It was written in the dust on a window. If it had been any other word I probably wouldn't have cared. But seeing it brought back all those...'
He saw that Ashley had tears in her eyes.
'What's wrong?'
She shook her head. 'You’re telling me something about Phillip I never knew. There must be so many things about him I never had the time to discover.’ She wiped her eyes and dropped her hands to the table. ‘I just miss him.'
Kieran folded his hands around one of hers.
'I know you do,' he said.
'Please continue. I want to hear it all.’
Kieran noddded. ‘Okay. Well. A bit later on in the day I tried to call Phillip. Just to say hi and ask him if he remembered that night in the cellar. I kept getting an engaged tone and I eventually called Diane.’
‘Yes,’ said Ashley. ‘The phone was in use for most of the day. There were so many people we had to inform.’
‘Diane said it was a coincidence that I called that day. And just thinking about it gives me shivers. All these things seem to be connected. Spireclaw appeared to me on the day of his death. And last time we saw it we were together in the basement. I rang him because I wanted to ask him if he’d ever seen the word elsewhere. Something tells me there’s a connection between Spireclaw and Phillip. Something about the timings.'
‘So where does the tape come into all this?’
Kieran let out a deep breath. ‘This is the part that really scares the hell out of me. I mean it really makes me question my damn sanity. All these disconnected things and how they come together.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Okay. The tape was in one of a set of boxes I was asked to take down to the basement at work. So was the newspaper. Well, there were lots of newspapers actually, all dated… erm…October 15th 1943. Anyway, the only reason I went back down to look in those boxes was because the name on the side of them was someone who didn’t seem to work at the company. His name was Edward Gosnell, and his name didn’t appear in the company phone directory or on the temp list. I thought it might be a security issue, having those boxes sitting down there. Could have been a bomb, and my boss didn’t seem to care. So I went down and looked inside. And this is the thing that baffles me more than any of it. The thing that I just plain don’t understand. Especially after the telephone conversation I had last night…’
‘What telephone conversation?’
‘Last night I called this guy on the phone. His name was David Everett. No wait. Hang on, I’d better backtrack a bit. Okay. On Saturday I got my bank statement through the post. There was an entry in it that I didn’t recognize. It was a cheque I'd written for fifty quid. But I have absolutely no recollection of ever writing it out. I hadn't even filled in the stub. I called the bank and they told me it was paid to this guy called David Everett. So I looked him up in the phone book, and his address… His bloody address is 7 Highfield Road. My old bloody house.’
Ashley was wide eyed, ‘And, what did this David Everett guy say when you called him.’
‘He asked if I’d received the boxes okay.’
She put up her hands, ‘Whoa. Hold on a minute. The man who lives in your old house was the one who sent the boxes to your office?’
Kieran was smiling, ‘Yes. But get this, at my request. Apparently I wrote him a letter, then followed up with a telephone call about two weeks ago. He said I sent him a cheque for fifty pounds and asked him to box up all the newspapers in the cellar and write “Edward Gosnell 14R” on the side of each one and then send them to my work. I don’t remember doing that at all. I never wrote to him and I certainly don't remember calling him, or writing a cheque.’
‘So you think someone’s winding you up?’
‘It’s got to be. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. I do remember the newspapers though. There really were newspapers in that cellar. I remember seeing them when I was a kid.'
‘But what about the tape?’
‘The tape. David said I’d told him that the tape was in a plastic Tesco’s bag near the newspapers in the cellar. I don’t remember the tape though. I don’t remember the Tesco’s bag. Can you believe they were sitting there all this time.’
Ashley sat back, ‘I don’t really know what to say.’
Kieran shook his head. ‘Is it really possible that I could be doing things without even knowing it. Could I really have made a telephone call, and sent a cheque without remembering it?’
Ashley was shaking her head. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Is there a possibility that I have some kind of... I don't know. A mental disorder?’
‘Oh come on Kieran. Look, I think you’re mistaken. There must be some logical explanation for all this. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s playing a joke on you. It is Halloween tomorrow after all.’
‘Good point. It's a little too elaborate though, don't you think?’
‘I don’t know how resourceful your friends are.’
‘None of my friends would do this. Anyway. Look. I’m going over to see this David Everett guy on Friday. I've asked to see the letter and, well, I was wondering if you would like to come along. I think I might need someone... I think I’d like you... to be with me.’
