Three Aircraft Asked Us What The Fourth One Was

Let me be honest at the top: I am a cleaner. I do the tower three nights a week, and when it is quiet the controllers let me finish the glass in the room rather than making me wait outside, because I have done it for nine years and they know me.

On the night in question there were three inbounds and nothing else. It was 02:40-ish. I was doing the inside of the west glass.

The first pilot asked, in that flattened, careful voice they use when they do not want to be the one who says it: "Are you painting anything at our two o'clock, same level?"

The controller said negative.

The second aircraft, a few minutes later, asked whether there was "activity" in the area. The controller said negative again, and then — and I watched him do this — he leaned forward and looked out of the window, which in nine years I had never once seen a controller do.

The third one did not ask a question. The third one said, "We're going to go around it, if that's all right with you," and the controller said, "Say again," and the pilot said, "We're going around."