The sound of the telephone shocked Gandalf into a frenzy of tail-chasing and general cat lunacy, resulting in the little white monster colliding with the door of the kitchen, at which point he realised his stupidity and slinked off towards the living room.

‘Gandalf you’re an idiot!’ said Kieran as he turned off the hob underneath the baked beans he was cooking and crossed the kitchen to answer the phone, flicking the tea cloth in his hand over his shoulder.

‘Hello?’

‘Kieran mate it’s Tim.’

‘Hello Tim, how are you?’

‘Not too bad at all squire. Listen, are you up for Boy’s Night Out this Friday? It’s probably the last one before Christmas now. People will be buggering off to other parties and going on holiday and stuff so we want to get everyone together for one last piss-up.’

‘Sure. Sound’s messy, and good.’

‘Nice. So don’t forget to bring in a change of clothes so you don’t look like an office tosser when we hit the bricks.’

‘Okay. I’ll remember.’

‘Cool, see you tomorrow.’

 

~

There were six of them, and they went to the Buzz Bar in Panton Street. On a Friday night the bar was full of office lads like them looking for a shag, and girls trying to outdo each other in the provocative clothing stakes. Usually on “Boy’s Night Out”, practically all of the boys scored, but Kieran was never usually among the ones who succeeded in getting into a clinch with a member of the opposite sex. He just wasn’t very good at it. He knew he thought he had more style than his creators had actually blessed him with.

Once they all found a place to sit for the evening, a base from which the boys could attempt to pull girls, get rejected and then retreat back to before trying again elsewhere, Kieran and Darren went up to the bar to get drinks.

‘What’re you having?’ shouted Kieran, keen to get the first round and then not have to worry for the rest of the evening.

‘Me? I’ll have a bottle of Spireclaw please.’

Kieran’s nerves jumped. Ice shivers traversing his veins. ‘A what?’

‘I said I’ll have a bottle of Stella please,’ Darren shouted over the thumping rhythm of the music. ‘You’ve gone a bit pale mate. Are you okay?’

‘How can you tell in this light? No honestly I’m fine. It’s just been a weird time lately.’

Darren nodded. ‘I heard about your friend. That must have been pretty nasty. Losing a mate like that.’

‘Kieran nodded. It’s tough, but also pretty difficult to know how to act. Sometimes I feel like I’m lucky I didn’t get into a situation like that.’

‘You mean the fact that he…’

'The fact that he killed himself. Yes.’

Darren nodded. ‘It is pretty messed up for sure. Imagine what his parents must be going through.’

'I dread to think. So that’s one bottle of Stella for you. One for me. What did the others want?’

'A Newcastle Brown and three Becks.

Kieran paid for the drinks and the two of them carried the drinks back to the others at the table.

Other than Tim, Darren and Kieran, the other three lads were Tom, Jake and Dean, who all worked in the IT department at the same company. When the drinks arrived courtesy of Kieran, the three of them were engaged in a heated discussion about something called Active Directory DNS replication. It all sounded incredibly technical and Kieran’s mind seemed to automatically blank itself to what was being said.

Darren said. ‘You mentioned he left behind a girlfriend.’

Kieran nodded. ‘They were living together. She came home one night and found him dead on the sofa. He’d drunk half a bottle of cleaning fluid.’

‘Jeeeezus. Why would anyone do something like that?’

Kieran was shaking his head.

‘I met the girlfriend at the funeral, and we went out after and got hammered. It was really odd.’

‘Is she a sort?’

Kieran nodded, looking out across the crowded dance floor. ‘We’ve sort of been out a few times.’

‘No way!’ said Tim. ‘How come you never mentioned this at work?’

Kieran shrugged. ‘Never seemed appropriate. Besides. I’m not really sure how I feel about it. It’s a bit crazy. I feel like I’ve betrayed him, y’know. Like maybe she should be out-of-bounds.’

Tim threw his hands into the air. ‘I don’t think you should worry about it mate. If she’s okay with it, and especially if she’s a sort. Then everything’s okay.’

Kieran and Darren stared at Tim. Kieran was unsure what to say.

Tim rocked his head from side to side, as though attempting to reason his way to safety. ‘Okay, but look. He obviously didn’t want to be with her. Otherwise he wouldn’t have…’

Tim’s eyes darted back and forth between Darren and Kieran. ‘I’ll get my coat shall I?’

 

~

 

November gave way to December, and where leaves once lay on the soggy morning ground, now it was the early winter frost, giving the days an icy, hollow, desolate opening when the clouds were gone and the lonely crescent moon hung in the pastel morning sky.

Christmas was approaching fast. Decorations were appearing in windows. Little pockets of flashing happiness telling the world that there was fun to be had, and soon.

After the day in Crown Passage, the conversations with Duxford Museum, and the night with the video camera, Kieran's dual investigation into Spireclaw and Edward Gosnell became less busy. This was due to Ashley taking a few weeks compassionate leave off work to go and see her aunt in America. She would be returning just after Christmas. She said she needed to get away from London to take stock. Her grief over Phillip came in waves for her, and she said she found there were times when she couldn't even muster the motivation to get out of bed. Kieran was surprised to discover this, because he had always thought she had been dealing with it so well.

She had clearly shown him her brave face.

Kieran found that his own grief over Phillip was numb and unquantifiable, and he felt fairly sure that the numbness was quite common amongst people who grieved. He hated to admit it but he found it difficult to miss his friend. They had not seen very much of each other over the past few years, what with Phillip travelling so much and the two of them having quite distinct and separate lives.

Christmas Day arrived. The world outside - as ever at Christmas - possessed a muted stillness devoid of cars and life.

In the morning, Kieran telephoned Diane Hynes to say hello and let them know that he was thinking of them. Their first Christmas without Phillip was undoubtedly going to be hard for them. They chatted for about five minutes and Diane thanked him for the card he had sent.

Later on, Kieran cooked a turkey for him and Gandalf, although he only cooked enough potatoes, parsnips, sprouts and carrots for himself. Gandalf - for some reason - was never interested in the vegetables unless it was mange-tout.

Gifts for Kieran came in a box from his mother in Cape Town. A Springbok rugby shirt which he couldn't imagine himself ever wearing, three cans of Milo which he couldn't imagine himself ever drinking, and a Panic Mechanic video which he couldn't imagine himself ever watching. His mother had also included a long newsy letter about the latest golf-club gossip. Such-and-such this and so-and-so that. All people that Kieran had never met. People whose lives were just words on a page to him.

Gandalf and Kieran sat down to eat just before the Christmas film started on the television. Kieran had barely picked up his knife and fork when the phone began to ring.

He dropped his cutlery down noisily on the plate and looked resignedly at Gandalf, who was happily dragging a piece of turkey across the carpet.

'Bugger', he said, and put his plate aside.

It was Ashley. 'Merry Christmas!' she bellowed into his ear from four thousand miles away.

'Ashley! Merry Christmas. I wasn't expecting to hear from you.'

'Well. If I must be honest I wasn't planning on calling.'

'Oh, thanks!'

'But I have some very interesting news.'

'What kind of news?'

'Are you having a good Christmas? How's Gandalf?'

'He's good. Right now he's tucking into his Christmas lunch. So what's the news?'

'And you're okay? Did you hear from your Mum?'

'Yes I did. Loads of lovely presents and a letter to put War and Peace to shame. Ashley, what's the news?'

'Oh Kieran you are an impatient so-and-so! I was enjoying keeping you in suspense.'

Kieran waited.

Ashley remained quiet.

The silence got longer. He could imagine her grinning at the other end of the line.

They both burst into laughter.

'Well?' said Kieran, still laughing.

'Okay okay. Make sure you're sitting down,' she said, 'Because. Well, you're not going to believe this, but I think I‘ve found out who Edward Gosnell is.'

Kieran dropped the handset. It clattered on the table and skidded onto the floor.

'Shit!'

When he rescued it and put it to his ear, he could hear Ashley laughing again at the other end of the phone.

'Did you just drop it?' she said.

'Yeah. Did you say you've found Edward Gosnell?'

'Not exactly found, no. But I think I know who he is.'

'He's in the States?'

'In the States,' she said.

'What are the chances of that? I mean, how do you know it's the same guy.'

'Well, in truth, I don't. But you said yourself there aren't any Edward Gosnells listed in the UK.'

'Well, there might be ex-directory ones.'

'Fair enough. But wait till you hear about this one. I've got a newspaper article here, from nearly thirty years back. Can I read it to you?'

Kieran thought about his lunch, getting cold in front of the Christmas film. Then he visualised it being reheated in the microwave. 'It's your phone bill, Ashley.'

'Actually it's my aunt's, but she doesn't mind. Okay, now. This article's in a newspaper dated Tuesday 15th May 1973. I got it from the library archives. Edward Gosnell's a bit of a local hero round here. Bit of a martyr. He's quite well known.'

'So what's the story?'

'Okay, here's what it says. Hang on. "Protests over the execution of Edward Gosnell three days ago have shown no signs of abating. The gathering of two hundred people outside the Lubbock Texas Town Hall are adamant that Gosnell's conviction is both unjust and barbaric. Edward Gosnell 29, was executed in the electric chair on Saturday May 12th for murdering three young men; Jonathan Parry, Michael Rosen and Randy Brecker outside the Holy Road truck-stop twenty miles northeast of Lubbock. Gosnell had always maintained that he had caught the three men intimidating his wife Mandy Gosnell and preparing to perform unlawful sexual intercourse with her in the parking lot outside the diner. Gosnell was found guilty of shooting the three men. The husband and wife maintain that the shooting was to prevent the rape.

 Each of the three men had been accused and acquitted..."'

 

~

 

...of previous rape charges. Judge Wendell Holmes refuted Gosnell's claims, stating that the previous cases against the men resulted in innocent verdicts, and therefore he did not condone Gosnell's "own sense of misguided justice. The protests continue."

Kieran finished reading the photocopy of the newspaper article and dropped it on the table. He looked up at Ashley. They were sitting at a little table near the back in Jackson's Bar on a bitterly cold, cloudless evening. It was the eve of New Years Eve.

Kieran tapped the page. 'This guy was executed on my birthday.'

Ashley nodded. 'That was what made me take notice.'

'But don't you think it would be a bit of a huge coincidence that you happen to go out to the States and accidentally stumble across the very Edward Gosnell we're looking for?'

'Yes, true,' she said slowly. 'But hasn't this whole thing been about coincidences. Spireclaw popping up like that, twice in your life. You deciding to ring Phillip out of the blue on the day he... on the day he...'

Kieran flattened both of his hands on the piece of paper and leaned forward. 'But Ashley, what possible significance can this murdering hick from Texas have to do with all of this.'

Ashley was rubbing her forehead. 'I don't know Kieran, but don't you feel it's all connected in some convoluted way?'

Kieran could feel tension in his shoulders. He let them slump and sighed.

'That day in Crown Passage. I could feel something. A presence. A force. Some sort of connection. Or even a sense of belonging. Maybe it was the same force that was present at the séance the night before. That same force that guided us towards Crown Passage in the first place. The more the pieces begin to fit into place the more I can feel this thing, this force, this presence. It's trying to tell me something. And I think that deep down in my body, somewhere in the darkest, most inaccessible parts of my soul, lies the answer to this. That's the strange thing about it. I feel like I already know the answer, or part of me does. Some secret part of me. I just don't know how to get it all out into the open.'

Ashley took a sip of her vodka cranberry and glanced self-consciously around the bar, and Kieran wondered if his empassioned speech about the mystery of it all had been too loud. Then she said. 'The thing that puzzles me now is, if this Edward Gosnell guy really is the one we've been looking for all along, and even if he isn't, why on Earth would you ask David Everett to write his name on the side of all those boxes?'

'I don't know.'

'I mean, what special hold has Edward Gosnell got over you?'

Kieran shrugged. 'Maybe he’s a… a distant relation.'

'I don't know,' said Ashley. 'We might not have the right man.'

'I'm beginning to feel that we have.' said Kieran.

'You've changed your tune.'

‘So have you.’ Kieran shook his head. 'Regardless. If this is the right Edward Gosnell, and I must say I wasn't expecting the bloke to be dead, then we've pretty much exhausted all our options, because I have no idea where to go from here.'

Ashley nodded. ‘We should continue looking for other Edward Gosnells.’

'And then we're back where we started,' said Kieran. 'Spireclaw's a dead-end right? Some lame RAF maneouvre during the Battle of Britain.'

'Not even that, just a jaunt for repairs.'

'And Edward Gosnell's a guy from Texas who got the chair nearly thirty years ago for blowing away three guys he alleged were going to rape his wife. If it’s the right guy.'

'Yep.'

'And somehow they keep turning up in my life like a couple of bad pennies.'

Ashley was nodding. 'Looks like we're still missing something important, don't you think?'

'Part of me still thinks this is a puzzle with no solution. Like the jigsaw box came with half the pieces missing, rendering it impossible to finish.'

'Well, it's definitely something to do with the war. The Second World War. You have a pile of newspapers from the war, and the word Spireclaw is a wartime term.'

'Yes but the times don't match. The Duxford repairs took place during The Battle of Britain, in July 1940. The newspaper was 1943. No correlation whatsoever.'

Ashley gazed out of the window at the empty street, thinking. 'Unless the correlation is implied.'

'Implied?'

'Yeah. You said you couldn't see any instances of the word Spireclaw in the newspaper.'

'Well, I scoured the whole thing.'

'Okay so maybe there's something in-between. Something that connects Spireclaw to something in the paper.'

Kieran was scratching his head. 'I don't see how we'd ever pin something like that down.'

Ashley placed her fists against her temples, as if such an act aided thought. 'One thing we can be sure of though. If the Edward Gosnell I found in Texas is the one we've been looking for, then the newspaper isn't going to have any articles about him.'

'True. And I did check it for his name already and found nothing.'

'After all, the guy wasn't even born then, right?'

'No. He would have been... well, if he was twenty-nine when he was executed on May 12th 1973, then on October 15th 1943 he wouldn't have been born yet.'

'Well, hang on. He could have been. His thirtieth birthday would have been sometime in the year following his execution.'

Kieran was shaking his head. 'Trying to tie these dates together is completely pointless I’m sure. Yet again we're looking for things that just aren't there.'

Ashley placed her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, her wide open eyes blinking sweetly. 'I like it though.'

'Why?'

'Because it helps me take my mind off Phillip.'

They regarded each other in silence for a moment. The collective noise of all the people in the bar filled Kieran's head, and for a moment he imagined that he was listening to the babbling voices of dead people. Each one trying to say the things they never had the time or courage to say when they were alive.

‘By the way,’ Kieran said, reaching into his pocket. ‘I received the documents from the Imperial War Museum in Duxford.’ He pulled out the two sheets of paper that Chris had sent him. He handed them to her and she unfolded them.

‘It verifies the names of the churches they flew over. But no mention of Spireclaw.’

‘It’s on the other sheet. Handwritten at the bottom.’

Ashley looked at the other sheet. ‘Oh right.’

‘I think I might get them framed actually, and give them to Ernest. I think he might like that.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ Ashley nodded. 'Oh I almost forgot.’

‘What?’

‘We're having a party for New Years tomorrow at my parents place,' she said. 'Would you like to come? That is, if you don't have any other plans.'

Kieran snapped out of his semi-trance and shook his head, 'I don't have any other plans. I'd love to come.'

 

~

 

Kieran stood on the doorstep under the welcoming beam of the porch light. He pressed the doorbell with a gloved hand and watched through the frosted glass at some bodies moving at the other end of the hall. The movement merged into the shape of Ashley, which grew in definition as she hurried to the door. When she opened the door the music from inside the house grew in definition too. Now that he could hear the treble in the sound he could tell that the song was “Labour of Love” by Hue and Cry.

Ashley smiled, and to Kieran she seemed immaculate just then. She had a new hairstyle and must have just got it done today. It was a layered bob; a style Kieran loved on women, and now she was confirming the reason why he loved it. She was wearing the black suit-trousers she wore at the funeral, high heels, and a small burgundy crop-top with tiny thin shoulder straps. A brief downward glance at her invitingly exposed navel revealed a pierced belly button. A heart-shaped necklace lay invitingly across her sternum. He wanted nothing more right then than to kiss her.

‘It’s you!’ she grabbed his hand, eyed him coquettishly and led him quickly into the house, making him almost trip on the doorstep. He removed his coat and hung it on one of the hooks by the door.

They went into the kitchen. It was one of those large sprawling kitchen and dining areas; full of people Kieran didn't know. He was surprised at the turnout given that there was still another four hours to go until midnight. Numerous plates of common-or-garden party food were laid out all over the sideboards. Ashley hurriedly loaded a paper plate with sausage rolls, crisps, peanuts and small strips of breaded chicken and planted it in Kieran’s hand. In his other hand she placed a bottle of Becks.

'Thanks Ashley.'

She led him through to the living room, where her father and about seven other people were sat on the floor, crowded round a low roulette table.

'Dad got it for Christmas,' she said.

'Hello Kieran,' said Brian. 'Nice to see you under less sombre circumstances.' He stood up and shook Kieran’s hand.

'Likewise Brian,' said Kieran. 'Good to see you, thanks for letting me come tonight.'

'Not at all. Perhaps you can help us with this damn roulette table.' He waved a piece of A4 in front of them. 'It's plain flippin’ bonkers. The instructions have been translated from Japanese to English by someone who clearly has no comprehension of the nuances of either language. And the table itself has all French writing on it. And here we are left trying to figure out the rules because none of us have ever played it before.'

Ashley said, 'I was thinking Dad. Maybe we can find some more appropriate instructions on the Internet.'

Brian turned to the others gathered round the table. 'Now why the hell didn't I think of that? It must be some sort of generational quirk.'

Ashley giggled and grabbed Kieran's hand again, giving him the distinct impression that she was playing some sort of game with him. She whisked him through the living room door and along the corridor towards the stairs.

They went up to the first floor landing, past numerous closed doors, one of which - Kieran imagined - would be Ashley's bedroom. His mind performed a somersault at the thought. At his age, the mere idea of witnessing the secrets of a woman's bedroom was wholly tantalizing. Mysterious in the way that Samantha's phone number used to be when he sometimes stared at it in the phone directory, many months before he ever had the chance to kiss her. But thoughts of Ashley's bedroom would have to wait, because she had already towed him onto the next staircase. She was whisking him up into the loft conversion.

'What exactly does your father do?' said Kieran as he looked around the huge attic office he now found himself standing in.

The place was a mess of paper, scattered over the two large desks, though a lot of it had been stacked too high and too near the edges on the desk furthest from the entrance that lots of sheets had slipped off onto the chair or the floor.

'He's a solicitor.' said Ashley as she made her way over to the desk nearest the door - which had a computer on it - and sat down.

Kieran followed her, but as there was no other chair he remained standing, albeit with his head bent forward on account of the sloping attic roof. It was instantly uncomfortable so he bent his knees and crouched beside her.

Ashley moved the mouse on the desk and the monitor clicked on. Then she opened the Internet Explorer program. The Google search page appeared.

Kieran found himself watching her face more than the screen. He could smell her now. He was getting lost in her look and her perfume. These thoughts were swimming to the surface of his mind because it had been such a long time since he'd shared a bed with a woman. And never one as beautiful as Ashley. Phillip had been such a lucky man. Being in Ashley's house heightened every emotion that Kieran felt about the situation. Jealousy over Phillips ability to even catch a girl like this. Sadness because of the whole damn shitty circumstances that brought Ashley and he together. Longing because all he wanted to do was kiss her. But kissing her was the one thing he could not do. Or was it?

He watched her type the words 'Roulette rules' and click Go. Seconds later a screen of results appeared.

'This'll do.' said Ashley as she clicked into the first result, and sent it to the printer.

'Ashley, did you ever think of typing Spireclaw into a search engine?'

She looked down at him and shook her head, letting her hair fall in front of her face. 'It never occurred to me. Good idea.'

She tucked her hair behind her ears and typed "Spireclaw" on the keyboard.

The computer replied: "No search results match your criteria. Did you mean Spire Claw?"

'What about Edward Gosnell?' said Kieran.

She typed "Edward Gosnell".

The search results came up with a number of genealogy pages that had both the words "Edward" and "Gosnell", but only as the first or last half of a different name. Edward Finch and John Gosnell for example.

Ashley uttered a noise that was half titter and half tut. 'Nothing.' she said. 'Why am I not surprised?'

She turned her head back to him, and she saw now that he was staring at her. She was slightly taken aback, showing in her look that she had been expecting him to be looking at the screen, not at her.

After a moment she said: 'Kieran, we shouldn't.'

Kieran was tempted to drop his head, but instead chose to hold it instead. 'I just think... I want you to know that I...'

Her mouth moved to his. They were kissing before he even had a chance to realise. It was a short but intense encounter, acted out with relish and a little desperation from both sides.

She moved away slightly, but kept her face very close to his.

Kieran said 'Are we mad?'

Ashley shook her head, 'Not nearly mad enough.'

After a moment she stood up, picked up the pages off the printer and took his hand once again. She led him towards the stairs. 'Come on. They'll be wondering where on Earth we got to.'

 

~

 

They were standing in the living room when the clock struck twelve, ushering in a new year of choices and possibilities, Kieran wanted so desperately to kiss Ashley again, to let their embrace traverse the boundary between one year and another. It could have served as a marker. A shared moment of grief, which slowly became an expression of feeling and mutual passion. But there was another boundary they were both aware of, and Kieran could tell from the urgency of her look that she wasn't ready for her family to see that she and Kieran might have become more than just grieving friends.

He hoped it was something they might one day become aware of, and perhaps eventually become accustomed to.

 

~

 

A light snow was spiraling out of the orange sky when Kieran walked home later that night. In his mind he was full of the joys the New Year might bring. He was excited about the kiss.

Turning the corner out of Ashley's road he wondered whether their kiss had possessed any depth and dimension for her. It certainly did for him, and he thought it probably did for her, but as he replayed her actions and reactions in his mind, he could feel the doubt creeping in.

By the time he reached home - cold and tired - half an hour later he'd convinced himself through over-thinking that she had only kissed him because it seemed like a friendly thing to do at New Year, and that he'd been foolish, selfish and thoughtless to think differently.

Once inside, he walked into the kitchen and knocked back two pints of water to stave off the effects of the evening's alcohol. Then he fell into bed - forgetting to take a sleeping tablet - he was fully clothed, and unknowingly, for the first time in a long time, he slept a full ten hours and remained exactly where he was for the whole night.