4. The Deposition of Ghosts

The Commonwealth Circuit Court in Kellsburg occupied a granite block of a building on Justice Square, its facade carved with allegorical figures that had weathered a century of rain into blind and shapeless forms. Felix had walked past this building a thousand times in his former life, on his way to the Municipal Archive three streets away. He had never once entered it. Now he climbed the steps with Victor Aldridge's stride, wearing Victor Aldridge's grey suit, carrying Victor Aldridge's leather briefcase, and the weight of all that borrowed identity pressed down on him like a hand between his shoulder blades.

The deposition was scheduled for ten o'clock in a conference room on the fourth floor. Felix had arrived early, as Dunlevy had instructed, and now he sat in a leather chair in a wood-paneled corridor, waiting to be called. Beside him, Arthur Dunlevy shuffled papers and murmured last-minute instructions that Felix had already memorized from the briefing memorandum. Across the corridor, the plaintiff's legal team had assembled: a woman in a severe navy suit who Felix recognized from the case files as Miranda Harcourt, lead counsel for Evelyn Green, and two junior associates who carried boxes of documents and expressions of nervous anticipation.

And beside Miranda Harcourt sat Evelyn Green herself.

Felix had not expected her to attend the deposition. The files had described her as a former accountant, a woman of fifty-three with twelve years of service at Aldridge Industrial and a wrongful termination claim that had consumed two years of her life. But the files had not conveyed the reality of her presence: the careful composure, the hands folded in her lap, the eyes that lifted when Felix entered the corridor and did not look away.

She was studying him. He could feel her gaze like a searchlight, sweeping across his face and his posture and his expensive suit. He arranged his features into Victor's expression of mild impatience, the look of a man who had better places to be. But Evelyn Green's stare did not waver, and after a moment Felix realized that she was not looking at Victor Aldridge the wealthy industrialist. She was looking at someone she had known for twelve years, someone she had worked beside and trusted and then accused of wrongdoing. She was looking for something in his face, and Felix did not know whether she found it.

"Mr. Aldridge." Miranda Harcourt's voice cut through the silence. "We're ready to begin."

The conference room was long and narrow, dominated by a mahogany table that reflected the overhead lights in dull amber pools. A court reporter sat at one end, her stenography machine clicking softly as she prepared her equipment. Felix took the seat indicated by Dunlevy, facing the window so that the pale November light fell across his features. The plaintiff's team had chosen the opposite side, perhaps deliberately, so that the light would be in his eyes.

Miranda Harcourt began with preliminaries: name, address, occupation. Felix answered each question in Victor's voice, keeping his responses brief and his tone bored. He had practiced these answers for three weeks, repeating them in the study at Greyfen Hall until they felt like his own memories. But the deposition was not a recitation. It was a conversation, and conversations had a way of veering into unexpected territory.

"Mr. Aldridge," Harcourt said, consulting her notes, "you stated in your written responses that you had no personal involvement in the termination of Mrs. Green's employment. Is that correct?"

"It is. Personnel decisions at that level were handled by the human resources department."

"But you were the chief executive of Aldridge Industrial. Surely a termination at the senior accounting level would have come to your attention."

Felix felt the trap before he saw it. Harcourt was testing his story, probing for inconsistencies. If Victor had been a hands-on executive, he would have known about Evelyn Green's termination. If he had been hands-off, the question of pension fund irregularities might have escaped his notice entirely. Which kind of executive was Victor Aldridge?

"Mrs. Green's termination was brought to my attention after the fact," Felix said carefully. "The decision itself was made by the HR director, with input from the chief financial officer. I was informed, but I did not participate."

"And did you inquire into the reasons for her termination?"

"I was told it was performance-related. I had no reason to question that assessment."

Harcourt made a note. Felix could not tell if his answer had satisfied her or if he had just walked into a trap that would spring later. The deposition continued for another hour, questions about corporate structure and reporting lines and the pension fund's investment strategy. Felix answered each one, drawing on the briefing memorandum and the files he had studied. His responses were precise, confident, the answers of a man who knew his business.

But beneath the performance, something else was happening. A sensation he could not name or control, rising up from the depths of his mind like the dream of falling through ice. He knew things he should not know. He knew, without having read it in any file, that Aldridge Industrial's pension fund had been restructured in the autumn of two years ago, and that the restructuring had been controversial among the senior staff. He knew that the chief financial officer, a man named Terrence Malloy, had opposed the restructuring and had been overruled by Victor Aldridge personally. He knew that Evelyn Green's internal memorandum had landed on Victor's desk on a Thursday morning, and that Victor had read it and then placed it in a drawer and never mentioned it again.

These were not things the files had told him. These were things Victor Aldridge had known, and that Felix now knew, as if the knowledge had been transferred through some medium he could not comprehend.

The break came at noon. Dunlevy escorted Felix to a private room down the corridor, where sandwiches and coffee had been laid out. Felix ate mechanically, tasting nothing, while Dunlevy reviewed the morning's testimony in a low, anxious murmur.

"You're doing well," Dunlevy said. "Harcourt hasn't landed anything significant. But she's building toward something. The pension fund restructuring. She keeps returning to it."

"I noticed," Felix said.

"There are documents she may introduce this afternoon. Internal memoranda that we haven't seen. If she has them, it means someone inside the company has been talking to her."

Felix set down his sandwich. The knowledge that was not his own stirred again, and he found himself speaking before he could consider the words. "Terrence Malloy. The former CFO. He left the company six months after the restructuring. He would have had access to the internal memoranda."

Dunlevy stared at him. "How do you know that? Malloy's departure was confidential. There's nothing in the files about the circumstances."

Felix opened his mouth to answer, but no answer came. He did not know how he knew. He simply knew, the way he knew that the war memorial in Thornhaven carried three Aldridge names, the way he knew that the pub on Church Lane served heather ale. The knowledge was there, complete and certain, and its source was a dead man at the bottom of the sea.

"I must have read it somewhere," he said finally. "In the files. Perhaps I'm remembering wrong."

Dunlevy nodded slowly, but his expression had changed. The anxiety was still there, but beneath it was something new: a flicker of doubt, a question that had not existed before. Felix looked away, and the afternoon session began.

Miranda Harcourt was ready for him. She had a stack of documents now, photocopies of internal memoranda that she spread across the table like a poker hand. Felix recognized them without having seen them before: the pension fund restructuring proposal, the CFO's dissenting opinion, the minutes of the board meeting where Victor had overruled all objections. And at the bottom of the stack, the document that changed everything: a memorandum from Evelyn Green, dated two years ago, addressed to Victor Aldridge personally.

"Mr. Aldridge," Harcourt said, "I'm showing you a document that has been marked as Plaintiff's Exhibit 23. Do you recognize it?"

Felix looked at the memorandum. He knew it. He had never seen it before in his life, and he knew it completely. The subject line read: "Irregularities in Pension Fund Account 47-B." The body of the memorandum detailed discrepancies in the fund's accounting, transfers that had been recorded but not authorized, beneficiaries whose names did not match any employee records. It was a document that should have triggered an immediate investigation. It was a document that, according to the files, Victor Aldridge had placed in a drawer and ignored.

"I recognize it," Felix said, and his voice sounded distant to his own ears.

"And did you take any action in response to this memorandum?"

The question hung in the air. Felix could feel Dunlevy tensing beside him, preparing to object on some procedural ground. He could feel Evelyn Green's eyes on his face, waiting for an answer she had waited two years to hear. And he could feel the knowledge rising, Victor's knowledge, filling his mind with details that belonged to someone else.

"I did not," Felix said.

"No further investigation was conducted?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"And Mrs. Green was terminated from her position approximately three weeks after she submitted this memorandum to you. Is that correct?"

The trap was fully sprung now, and Felix could see it clearly. Harcourt was building a narrative of retaliation, of a CEO who had ignored evidence of wrongdoing and then fired the employee who had brought it to his attention. It was a narrative that could destroy Aldridge Industrial's defense, that could cost the company millions in damages, that could make Victor Aldridge a symbol of corporate malfeasance.

And yet Felix found that he did not care. The company was not his. The reputation was not his. He was wearing Victor Aldridge's identity like a coat, and the coat was beginning to feel very thin.

"The timing is as you describe," Felix said.

Harcourt paused, as if she had expected more resistance. "Mr. Aldridge, did you fire Evelyn Green because she discovered the pension fund irregularities?"

Dunlevy was on his feet now, objecting, his large ears red with indignation. But Felix raised a hand, and the solicitor fell silent.

"I don't know," Felix said.

The words came out before he could stop them. They were not Victor's words. Victor would have denied, deflected, deployed the careful language his lawyers had prepared. But Felix was no longer certain who was speaking. The boundaries between Felix Voss and Victor Aldridge had grown porous in the weeks at Greyfen Hall, and now, in this wood-paneled room with Evelyn Green watching him, he could not say whose voice was answering the question.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Harcourt asked, her voice sharp with surprise.

"I mean I don't remember." Felix was improvising now, trying to recover, but the words had their own momentum. "The period in question was very busy. There were many decisions, many memoranda. I cannot say with certainty what my thinking was at that time."

The deposition continued for another forty-five minutes, but the momentum had shifted. Harcourt pressed her advantage, asking question after question about the pension fund and the restructuring and the circumstances of Evelyn Green's termination. Felix answered as best he could, drawing on the files and the briefing memorandum and the knowledge that kept surfacing unbidden. But the damage was done. He had admitted, in front of a court reporter, that he could not explain his own actions.

When the deposition ended, Dunlevy was pale and silent. He gathered his papers without speaking and led Felix out of the conference room and down the corridor. Evelyn Green was still sitting at the table, her hands still folded in her lap, and as Felix passed she looked up at him with an expression that was neither triumph nor satisfaction. It was something closer to confusion, as if the man she had confronted today was not the man she had expected to meet.

"I need to speak with you," Dunlevy said when they reached the street. "Privately. There's a club near here where we can talk."

The Foundry. Felix knew it before Dunlevy named it: the private club whose membership card he had found in Victor's wallet. It was a five-minute walk from the courthouse, a discreet building with a brass plaque and a doorman who recognized Victor Aldridge and admitted them without question. The interior was dark wood and leather and the smell of old cigars, the kind of place where wealthy men conducted business they did not wish to conduct in public.

Dunlevy ordered whiskey for both of them and did not speak until it arrived. Then he leaned forward, his large ears still flushed, his voice low and urgent.

"Mr. Aldridge, I must ask you something, and I must ask you to be entirely honest with me."

Felix waited.

"Did you fire Evelyn Green because of that memorandum?"

The question was the same one Miranda Harcourt had asked, but the context was different. This was not cross-examination. This was the plea of a solicitor who had staked his reputation on a client he was no longer certain he believed.

Felix looked at his whiskey. The Glendalough seventeen-year reserve, Victor's preferred vintage. He could taste it without drinking, the peat and the honey and the long slow burn.

"I don't know," he said again, and this time he meant it completely. "I honestly don't know what I was thinking when that decision was made."

Dunlevy stared at him for a long moment. Then he sat back in his chair and drank his whiskey in a single swallow.

"Then we have a problem," he said. "Because Miranda Harcourt is going to use your testimony today to argue that you acted with conscious disregard for the law. And if she succeeds, the damages in this case could be substantial. Very substantial indeed."

Felix listened to Dunlevy outline the legal implications, the settlement negotiations that had been ongoing for months, the offers that had been made and rejected. But his attention kept drifting to the other patrons in the club, the men in dark suits who nodded to each other across the room, the low murmur of conversations about money and power and the quiet exercise of influence.

And then his attention fixed on a man sitting alone in a corner booth, a man with a lean face and watchful eyes who was looking directly at Felix.

Cormac Sheehan. The private investigator. The man whose files filled the locked room at Greyfen Hall.

Sheehan rose from his booth and walked toward Felix with the easy stride of a man who had spent his life approaching people who did not wish to be approached. He was older than Felix had expected, perhaps sixty, with silver hair cropped short and a face that had been weathered by years of waiting in cars and watching doorways.

"Mr. Aldridge," Sheehan said, and his voice was soft, carrying an accent Felix could not place. "I've been hoping to run into you."

Dunlevy looked up, his expression shifting from confusion to wariness. "Mr. Sheehan. I wasn't aware you were in Kellsburg."

"I go where the work takes me, Mr. Dunlevy." Sheehan's eyes had not left Felix's face. "I wonder if I might have a word with my client. In private."

Dunlevy hesitated, then gathered his papers and rose. "I'll be at my office if you need me, Mr. Aldridge. We should discuss the settlement strategy before you return to Thornhaven."

He left, and Sheehan slid into the booth across from Felix. The private investigator studied him for a long moment without speaking, his expression unreadable.

"I sent you a letter," Sheehan said finally. "Several weeks ago. I never received a reply."

"I've been busy."

"I'm sure you have. The purchase of Greyfen Hall. The deposition. The responsibilities of a new identity." Sheehan's emphasis on the last word was subtle but unmistakable. "I've been doing this work for thirty years, Mr. Aldridge. Or should I call you Mr. Voss?"

Felix felt the blood drain from his face. His hand tightened around his whiskey glass, but he did not raise it. The club seemed to contract around him, the conversations fading to a distant murmur, the light dimming at the edges of his vision.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Felix said.

"Yes, you do." Sheehan leaned forward, his voice dropping even lower. "Victor Aldridge hired me to find his twin brother. I found you, Felix Voss. I provided Victor with your photograph, your address, your history. And then Victor disappeared, and you appeared in his place, wearing his clothes and spending his money and living in his house. So you'll understand why I might have some questions."

The accusation hung in the air between them. Felix could feel the weight of it, the years of investigation and the professional instinct and the moral calculus that was happening behind Sheehan's unreadable eyes.

"What do you want?" Felix asked.

"That depends entirely on you," Sheehan said. "I could go to the police. I have enough evidence to raise questions, even if I don't have enough to prove anything. But I'm not interested in the police. I'm interested in the truth. I spent three years finding you for Victor Aldridge, and I want to know what happened to my client."

Felix looked at the man across from him, this private investigator who had assembled the fragments of his life into a file and handed it to his brother. Sheehan was not a threat he could eliminate with money or lies. He was the one person in the world who knew both identities, who had seen both faces, who understood the connection that Felix himself had only begun to grasp.

"If I told you the truth," Felix said slowly, "you would have no reason to believe it."

"Try me," said Sheehan.