They say that Spring is never Spring unless it comes early. Well, Spring was definitely Spring that year. By mid-February crocuses had clustered in patches on the lawns in front of people’s houses and the yellowest of happy daffodils helped the drab departing winter on its way by introducing some much-needed colour to the frame.

  The sunshine that month was making promises of being warm, and as it traversed the sky at such an acute late-winter angle it pierced the world rather than just illuminate it.

  Over this time Ashley and Kieran spent more and more time together. They occasionally slept in Kieran’s bed. They often held hands in the street. She would sometimes steal his clothes to wear to work. She cooked for him. He gave her a set of keys.

  Was it right? This was a question Kieran posed to himself several times during the first two months since they kissed at New Year. He was never able to fully resolve it in his mind, and he was never entirely sure about how Ashley had chosen to deal with it. But one thing he had noticed was that after New Year, she seemed to have banished some clouds from her life. Whether it was caused by their kiss and subsequent encounters, or whether it was just a New Years resolution for her to brush away the cobwebs of her terrible previous year, Kieran couldn’t be sure. Regardless of the reasons and their causes, he knew he was happy, and she seemed happy too.

  It didn’t stop them thinking about Phillip though. They talked about him sometimes and would always be ready to raise a glass to their absent friend. Kieran even wondered if Phillip’s death was part of the universe’s grand machinations to bring Ashley and him together, though he never articulated that particular thought to her.

  The fourth day of March was Ashley’s birthday, and Kieran booked a table at his favourite Thai restaurant, the Blue Elephant in Fulham Broadway. He had raved about it enough times and she had always wanted to go. It was going to be expensive, but Ashley was special and the food was nothing short of fabulous.

  Up until the coffee, all they had talked about was the food and how good it was, but once all the plates had been taken away, the conversation turned to other things.

‘It’s been a while since we talked about Spireclaw,’ Ashley said, sipping her coffee and putting it back down because it was too hot.

Kieran nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s like we’ve moved on from all that.’

‘I think it’s because we ran out of ideas. We lost our direction with it.’

‘It was a healthy diversion.’

‘It was a surreal diversion.’

‘And a healthy diversion, to take our minds off Phillip.’

‘Did we exhaust all our options?’

‘Yes I think we did.’

Ashley tried her coffee again, taking a bigger sip this time. ‘What about the churches?’

‘What about the churches?’

‘The Spireclaw waypoint churches. It occurred to me that we never went to see them.’

Kieran smirked. ‘Why would they even… Do you think we should? What would we be looking for?’

‘We didn’t know what we were looking for when we went to Crown Passage, but it paid off didn’t it? Maybe we need to try a leap of faith with the churches too. If you connect up all the dots, it’s the next logical… dot! The séance led us to Crown Passage, where Ernest gave us that clue.’

‘Do you think so? Ashley, why didn’t you mention this earlier? It’s been months since we went to Crown Passage. I’d practically forgotten all about Spireclaw.’

‘I didn’t realize it was up to me to mention it. Besides, it didn’t even occur to me till now.’

 

~

 

It was a humid Sunday, and scattered clouds above threatened rain, but the patches of blue promised a finer day ahead. Looking at the sky Kieran saw that it could go either way. He decided to take his raincoat just in case the heavens opened. Into the pocket of the raincoat he placed the Duxford Museum documents, which contained the names of the waypoint churches, just in case he might need them.

Ashley had borrowed her father’s silver Ford Mondeo and picked him up at ten in the morning. He jumped into the passenger seat and threw his coat on the back seat. It landed on top of a picnic cooler.

Kieran looked at Ashley. She was smiling broadly. ‘You’re perfect Ashley.’

‘Thanks babe.’

Ashley had printed out maps and directions off the Internet and they drove for about forty minutes to get to Buckhurst Hill, listening to Radio One the whole way. Thankfully the Sunday traffic wasn’t too bad.

St John’s Church stood atop the hill next to a school on the main road. It was a pretty building made of irregular grey stone bricks, and beautiful ornate stained-glass windows arranged in sets of three. At the base of each of the walls were blossoming flowerbeds that fuelled the fresh springtime feeling, and young trees in the grounds were starting to turn green and lose their bony winter look.

Ashley swung the Mondeo into a parking space just outside the gate and they got out.

Kieran looked up at the church’s pointed spire and tried to imagine what it would be like to see Spitfires flying overhead. It was a difficult picture to conjure, being so far removed from anything he’d ever know. He found it helped if he pretended he was looking at the world in black-and-white. That idea brought a smile to his lips.

They went through the gate into the grounds. A cluster of people were hanging around the main door to the church. Children were running around on the grass. It seemed that a morning service had just ended.

‘Ashley, I can’t really imagine what we’re looking for now. I mean. We know what Spireclaw is. We know how it relates to these churches. What are we looking for?’

Ashley, who was wearing her sunglasses in her hair, dropped them over her eyes and shielded her eyes from the sun. She was scanning the grounds. ‘Do you reckon Edward Gosnell is buried here?’

‘Eh? I thought Edward Gosnell was the yank who…’

‘But we’re not sure about that are we? There may be other Edward Gosnells that once lived around here, and the one we’re looking for could be buried right here, or at one of the other churches.’

Around the back of the church, in the cold shade cast by the tall spire, they looked at gravestones. Grey slabs of angular overgrown and mossy old stone that marked the passing of life after life through the parish. Holding hands they regarded name after name, carved into the stone along with dates and the names of surviving relatives.

None of the names they saw meant anything to either of them.

‘Shall we go on to the next church?’ said Kieran.

‘Okay.’

 

~

 

The Essendon Church spire was short and stubby. It sat atop the square main building, and Kieran wondered if it had changed much over the last sixty or so years since Ernest’s plane swooped over it on its way to Duxford.

  ‘I can’t imagine that this was a particularly good waypoint,’ said Kieran squinting up at the spire as they walked along the concrete paths that weaved in and out of the Hatfield gravestones.

  ‘It worked though, didn’t it.’

  ‘Ernest Clarke must have been an exceptional pilot.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that for a minute. He’d been flying a long time before the war started, and they must have known he was good enough, otherwise they wouldn’t have let him fly.’

  Kieran nodded. ‘I’m not feeling anything though.’

  Ashley weaved her arm around his waist. ‘Feeling what?’

  Kieran put his arm around her too, touching the top of her arm where her little blue t-shirt became soft fair skin. ‘At Crown Passage I felt this vibe. I told you about it. Like a magnetic, electric force. I can’t really describe it. It was a just a sensation. But I just don’t feel it here.’

  ‘Did you feel it at the last church?’

  Kieran stopped and turned to face her, his arm slipping across her warm back and down her arm to rest at her waist. She dug her hands into the pockets of his jeans.

‘No I didn’t,’ he said. ‘It all sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?’

  Ashley averted his gaze a moment. Then she said, ‘Yes it does sound totally ridiculous,’ and giggled. ‘I think we should have you locked up.’

  ‘Hang on, this was your idea!’ laughing also.

  She rested her head against his chest. ‘Shall we have our picnic now, or go on to Saffron Walden and have it there?’

  ‘Well that depends,’ said Kieran, smiling broadly.

  She looked up and answered with mock exasperation. ‘On what exactly?’

  ‘On whether you give me a kiss or not.’

 

~

 

Saffron Walden was only a stone’s throw from Duxford, and St Mary’s Church was the most beautiful of all the waypoint churches

  ‘I could live in a place like this,’ said Ashley as they carried the picnic cooler past the tudor buildings on the main street that led up to the church.

  ‘I bet a house in this village would cost a bit though.’

  ‘Well it’s impossible to afford a place anywhere in this country.’

  ‘I’m not ready for all that stuff yet.’

  ‘Me neither.’

 

~

 

Ashley Henderson was standing on the path looking at a gravestone that bore the name Mary Henderson. Next to the Mary Henderson gravestone was a stone bearing the name Drummond Appleby.

Kieran caught up with her on the path, put his arm around her waist and looked at what she was looking at.

Mary Henderson’s gravestone had been placed on top of her lifeless bones in the year 1912. Ninety or so years of English weathering had battered the stone into submission, so it leaned back at an angle, as though it hoped in the future to let any more wind and rain brush lightly over it, rather than hit it head on.

Drummond Appleby’s stone by comparison was much newer, and bore the glossy shine of the more recent type of headstone. Drummond Appleby - the stone said – died suddenly in 1967 and left no surviving relatives.

  ‘What do you think that means?’ she said.

  Kieran ran his free hand through his hair. ‘I think it means that there are a lot of Appleby’s in the world, just like there are a lot of Henderson’s in the world too.’

  She looked up at him. ‘And Gosnell’s.’

  He nodded. ‘Not so many Gosnell’s I think. I don’t see any Gosnell gravestones.’

‘I know, I was just saying that it’s not easy to know what we’re looking for.’

‘I think the solutions are more obvious.’

  ‘What? More obvious than this?’ said Ashley waving her arm at the stones. ‘They’re next to each other, in this church. An Appleby, buried next to a Henderson, in a Spireclaw waypoint church?’

  Kieran shrugged. ‘Just a coincidence. Besides. Since when did this become about your surname?’

  ‘Everything else has been a coincidence Kieran. We discussed this when I found that Gosnell article in the US.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think that if you look hard enough, you’ll find coincidences anywhere. It’s not so strange is it?’

  ‘Then what did we come out here for if we weren’t looking for coincidences.’

  ‘I thought we were looking for answers.’

  ‘And we’ve found nothing.’

  ‘Except this,’ Ashley said, pointing again at the gravestones.

  Kieran looked across the cemetery. Sunlight was slicing its way through the trees that bordered the area. The harsh springtime beams landed in angular rhombuses on the stones, creating a cacophony of light and dark.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave this thing be,’ he said. ‘We’re beginning to differ about it, and I’d hate for us to get annoyed with each other about something so…’

  Ashley grinned. ‘Something so silly?’

  Kieran smiled too. ‘I was going to say… intangible.’

  Ashley nodded and dug her hands into her pockets. ‘I’m getting hungry now. How about you?’

  ‘I’m positively starving! Let’s eat, and maybe we can find somewhere to have tea.’