Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell Page A

as he handed items forwards. At least this restrained his frustration, so that he didn't slam cans into place. Long before he'd finished, the whole of him was as hot as the girls had made his face, not to mention as prickly as the pear Tamara had accused him of resembling. It took him most of an hour to restore the shelves to their earlier state. He stood back at last and closed his eyes, and thought he'd done so for at most a few moments when Justin said 'Do you know what you're doing now?'
    Hugh opened his eyes to find he didn't know which side of the aisle he had been working. The discordant colours of the tins seemed to clamour in his head. He felt as if his stomach had given way, or the ground beneath him had. Perhaps his confusion was evident, unless Justin lost all patience. 'Clear this,' he said, snatching a can of spaghetti off a shelf behind Hugh and planting it on the floor, 'and bring everything round from the back.'
    That couldn't go wrong, Hugh vowed, and set about emptying the shelf. He didn't notice when he was left alone, perhaps because he still felt watched. Surely that was only a symptom of his fear of making another mistake. The girls had confused him, and then Ellen had distracted him – some aspect of her call had. He mustn't think about that now; he had to concentrate on his task. All that mattered was not to forget which shelves he was turning back to front. There was no room for anything else, especially imagination, in his mind. Just now the job was his life.

NINE
    As the doors of the lift drew shut a hand stayed them. It was Glen's. 'More coming,' he said as he stepped in. 'Make room.'
    He wasn't speaking to Charlotte. He seemed not to have noticed her at the back. She would have thought the lift was full, despite the notice claiming that it held twelve people. Two secretaries dutifully retreated, backing her into a corner, and a pair of editors joined the crowd. The lift was unquestionably packed now; what was it waiting for? If it was overloaded she wouldn't mind taking the next one. Then the doors lumbered together, so sluggishly that they could have been admitting someone else.
    Of course they hadn't. There were just eleven people – no, twelve including Charlotte. It cost her some seconds to count the immobile backs of heads and the equally inexpressive profiles beside her, but apparently that wasn't long enough to stir the lift. Was it stuck? Should she ask, since everybody else seemed to be ignoring its paralysis? No, it was sinking at last, and in a few seconds – more precisely, twenty or so – she would be out of the windowless cage, out of the surreptitious light as grey as the walls. Meanwhile she was reduced to watching the secretive heads, which she could have fancied were determined to overlook some intruder, staring resolutely forwards while he wormed across the floor. The notion was so grotesque that she refused to look down, to establish that no face was grimacing up at her. Nobody was there, either in the lift or under it – nobody was dragging it downwards so lethargically that the air befogged by the light would be used up before they ever reached the basement. Her companions hadn't stopped moving because they were unable to breathe; they weren't about to topple against her, pinning her in the corner. They were swaying only because the lift had shuddered to a halt, although the doors weren't opening. Was it between the floors? Charlotte took a shallow effortful breath so as to wonder aloud, and then the doors crept apart, revealing the underground corridor. The foremost rank of passengers stepped forwards, and as she succeeded in drawing more breath the people in front of her gave her some room. By the time they reached the doors she was almost treading on their heels.
    She had never been so conscious of how much the lockers narrowed the corridor. Even the extensive office felt pressed smaller by the ceiling, and once she was seated the partitions that surrounded the desks