you can help me.”
“Sure, I bet I can. What do you need?”
“I’m trying to find someone. Might be a new guy, the last year or so, maybe. He’s about this tall, darkish hair, maybe in his late fifties or sixties.”
“That could be most of us, you know.”
“I know, and here’s the problem. I can’t remember his name. There were two guys I met at the same time. My building. One of them might have been a vendor or outside contract, or something. Ring any bells?”
“Not really. You got a name?”
“Tony Markham? Billy Griggs?” It was worth a shot.
“I can tell you right now, we got no one named Markham. Griggs, neither.”
“Is there any way I could look…are there photos in the personnel files?” I said, a little too quickly.
Duffy’s eyes narrowed and he pulled back; and I knew that I’d gone too far. “That’s not something I could…say, there’s no trouble is there? Because I’ll tell you missy, I can’t go giving out information like that. We got rules.”
“I know, I just…he was asking me about something…to do with the local history, and I thought I saw him coming in here, and I figured I’d tell him what I remembered, but he wasn’t here, so…”
Duffy still wasn’t happy. “Oh, I couldn’t go showing you that sort of thing. You’re sure there’s not some problem? I’d have to do it official, but we can sort out problems, you know. Thefts, breakage, it happens, and we take care of it. But we do it official.”
“No, I promise, nothing like that. I just thought I’d, you know, tell him. But it’s not that big a deal.”
He nodded, still disturbed by my incursions beyond regular bounds, but then the door opened behind me and a smile crossed his face. “Well, hang on now. What about this young fella, Ernie, behind you?”
I turned to see what he was talking about. The “young fella” was right behind me—I gasped. There was a superficial resemblance to Tony—same height, weight, general build, coloring, and age—but not more than that. Just enough to make the mistake from several floors up.
“Can I help you?” The guy’s name tag said ‘Fishbeck.’” He looked between me and Duffy, wiping his hands on a dirty rag.
I looked at him and shook my head. “No, sorry. Sorry to be such a pain.”
“And here you were, trying to do something nice.” Duffy clucked. “Well, you let me know if you find the guy, okay?”
“Something wrong?” Ernie asked.
“Nah. Missy…Fielding here was trying to find a guy who’d asked her a question, that’s all.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Not me. Sorry.”
“Thanks anyway.”
I left the maintenance office shaken. I couldn’t have been wrong, in the airport, could I?
Ernie looked like Tony, who looked like any number of men. And if he was in any kind of disguise…
But everything else? Surely it all couldn’t be coincidence?
Why was I seeing Tony everywhere? Maybe it was exactly as Brian had said, like seeing Oscar after he died and I was in a state of distress. We live on a small planet with a very shallow gene pool. There was bound to be a lot of overlapping resemblance in a given population.
I know what I saw. I know what’s been happening to me. I can’t be imagining all of this, I just know I can’t.
And yet here I am, with a double handful of nothing to prove it.
I’m starting to be scared for reasons that have nothing to do with Tony. What does it look like when you’re going out of your mind?
Maybe being a little depressed isn’t going out of your mind. And there’s something else at the root of this.
It doesn’t explain seeing things that aren’t there. It doesn’t explain conjuring nightmares in midday.
I went back up to the office and the mysterious Justine. “Can you tell me if there are any keys missing? From the office collection?”
She glanced up at me, smirked, and put down her nail file. “How would I know?”
“You wouldn’t. But you and I will look at the cupboard together. I’ll see if there’s anything missing.”
Justine got out her key; I held out my hand, which she studiously ignored, then she went to the cupboard where the departmental keys were kept. Everyone of them was accounted for, or had been appropriately signed out. No luck there.
“Done?” Justine stood waiting for me, not quite tapping her foot.
“Not by a long shot. But I’m through here.” She locked up, and without a word returned to her desk.
Okay, I thought as