Liz Fielding - Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto

‘I’ll put the shoe in Lost Property, shall I?’

‘No!’ Realising that he’d overreacted, that she was looking at him at little oddly, he said, taking the shoe from her, ‘I’ll do it. I’ve already wasted enough of your time. Thanks for your help.’

‘No problem, Mr Hart. I’ll keep my eyes open.’

He nodded, but doubted she’d see her and, more in hope than expectation of finding some clue, he retraced his steps back down to the first floor, where he stopped to take another look out over the busy ground floor.

As the afternoon had shifted into evening and offices had emptied, it had become even more frantic, but he would have spotted that black dress amid the madness, the pale blonde swish of hair. That was a real giveaway, one that she should cover up as quickly as possible.

She’d need a scarf, he thought. Or a hat. A hat would be better. It would not only cover her hair, but throw a shadow over her face where a scarf would only draw attention to it.

And once she’d changed her appearance she could risk the shoe department. He’d wait there.

As he started down the stairs, he noticed a display slightly out of alignment, stopped to adjust it and saw a lace-trimmed handkerchief lying on the floor.

He bent to pick it up and caught again that faint, subtle scent that hadn’t come out of any bottle.

Had she dashed in from the street to take cover, bolted up the stairs, paused here for a moment to catch her breath, get her bearings?

Where was she now?

Famous last thoughts.

The minute Lucy opened the door to the staff area she was leapt upon by a flushed and harassed-looking woman wearing a security badge proclaiming her to be Pam Wootton, Human Resources.

‘At last! The agency said you’d be here an hour ago. I’d just about given up hope.’

Agency? Oh, good grief, the elf hadn’t been talking about Christmas garlands but the Garland Agency. The suppliers of the crème de la crème of secretarial staff. She’d had an interview with them when she was looking for a job but she didn’t have the kind of experience it took to be a ‘Garland Girl’.

There was a certain irony in being mistaken for one now, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from grabbing the opportunity with both hands.

‘I’m soooo sorry. The Underground…’ She didn’t have to say another word. It was the excuse that just gave and gave. ‘And it’s started to snow,’ she threw in for good measure.

‘Snow! Oh, great,’ Pam said. ‘That’s all I need. Getting home tonight is going to be a nightmare.’ And she pressed her hand to her forehead as if trying to keep her brain in.

‘Are you all right?’ Lucy asked, forgetting her own worries for a moment. The woman looked flushed and not at all well.

‘Ask me again in February,’ she replied with a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘When the January sales are over.’ Then, pulling herself together, ‘It’s just a bit of a headache. I’ll take something for it when I get back to the office. Come on, there’s no time to waste. Let’s get you changed.’

‘Changed?’

‘Into your costume,’ she said, opening a cupboard and revealing a rail of short green tunics. Then, glancing back at her, ‘Didn’t they tell you anything…’ she looked at her clipboard ‘…I don’t seem to have your name.’

‘Lu…’ Noooooo!

Pam looked up. ‘Lou? As in Louise?’

Gulp.

‘Yes! Louise.’ Whew. Pam was still waiting. ‘Louise… Braithwaite.’ It was the first name that came into her head. ‘And you have got a CRB Certificate, Louise?’ Pam asked, pen poised to tick boxes, going through the motions.

‘A CRB Certificate?’

She sighed. ‘You can’t work in the grotto without a criminal records check. I did explain the situation to Garlands. If you haven’t got one…’

Grotto?

The penny dropped.

Pam had mistaken her for an elf.

Out of the fairy tale frying pan, into the…um…fairy tale fire…

‘DIDN’T Garlands explain?’ Pam asked.

‘It was a bad connection…’ so bad it was non-existent ‘…I must have missed that bit. But I have been CRB checked,’ she said. ‘I worked in a day-care nursery before… Well, until recently.’

Oh, boy, Lucy Bright. The ability to look someone in the eye and tell a big fat lie had to be catching. His Frogginess would be proud of her.

Not that she’d lied about having a CRB Certificate. It wasn’t under the name Louise Braithwaite, of course, but it was the real deal. She’d had to have one for the day job at the nursery while she’d been studying at night school. She’d worked as a waitress in the local pizza parlour on her free evenings and at the weekends to earn the money to pay for her course.

Much good it had done her.

She’d applied for hundreds of jobs before she’d got an interview for a clerical assistant post at the Henshawe Corporation. The fact that there had been an interview panel for such a junior position had thrown her, but it had been very informal. They’d been incredibly impressed at how hard she’d worked and encouraged her to talk about her ambitions.

She still remembered the stunned silence when she’d finished telling them passionately that she wanted to prove herself. Make something of herself, be someone. And then they’d applauded her.

When, the following day, they had called her to offer her a job, she’d thought herself the luckiest woman in the world.

‘I realise that Garlands know what they’re doing, but I still have to ask,’ Pam muttered. ‘It’s been so difficult since the new laws about working with children were introduced. We normally get in drama students at Christmas but not too many of them have had the foresight to get a CRBC. I don’t suppose they see themselves doing a Christmas gig as one of Santa’s Little Helpers when they get a place at RADA. That’s why I called Garlands.’

‘They supply elves?’ she asked, which got her an odd look.

‘They place temporary nannies.’

‘Just kidding.’ Whew…

Pam stared down at her feet. ‘What happened to your shoes?’

‘I broke a heel in a grating.’ The truth, the whole truth and almost nothing but the truth…

‘Oh, bad luck.’ They shared a moment of silent mourning, then, pressing on, ‘You’re a bit buxom for an elf,’ she said, looking at her doubtfully, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers. There should be something that fits.’ She held one of the tunics up against her, then thrust it at her, piling the rest of the costume on top. ‘You’ve got small feet. These should do.’ She put a pair of soft felt bootees on top of the pile and then took a small plastic pouch out of a box and added that to the pile. ‘The elf make-up pack. Rouge for your cheeks, a pencil for freckles-you’ll find a picture of what’s required inside. And there’s a pad to remove your nail polish. You can change down here,’ she said, leading the way down a short flight of steps. ‘Find a spare locker for your clothes and be as quick as you can.’

She opened a door and Lucy found herself confronted on one side by a vast locker room that seemed to stretch to infinity and on the other by a room providing not only loos and basins, but showers, too.

She quickly crammed her coat and bag into an empty locker, stripped off her dress, tossed the shredded tights in a bin. There was no time for a shower so she dunked her feet, one at a time, in a basin of warm water to wash off the street dirt, half expecting Pam to burst in with the real elf at any minute.

She didn’t but, until she did, she was grateful for being in the warm and, more importantly, in a very neat disguise.

She dabbed circles of rouge on her cheeks, scattered a few freckles across her nose, then a few more, before removing the nail polish that had been applied at great expense just hours ago. A shame, but clearly elves didn’t have bright red nails.

Finally, she donned the costume, tucking her hair out of sight under the pointy felt hat and regarded herself in a handily placed mirror.

It wasn’t a good look.

The green and white striped tights made her legs look fat and the tunic was doing her bum no favours. Right now, she didn’t care.

Diary update: The day has gone from bad to surreal. I’ve been mistaken for an elf. Not an entirely bad thing since I’m off the streets and I’ve been supplied, free of charge, with a neat disguise. It’s just temporary, of course, like the new name. What I’m going to do when Hastings & Hart closes at eight o’clock is my next problem. But with luck I’ve got three hours breathing space to work on a plan, always assuming the real elf doesn’t turn up in the meantime.

Three hours to get my breath back after a very close encounter with Mr Tall, Dark and Dangerous.

Lucy ran her tongue over her lips to cool them, then shook her head and stuffed her phone and her locker key into the little leather pouch on her belt before presenting herself for inspection.

Pam sighed, adjusted the hat so that a little more of her hair showed. ‘You’ve been a little heavy-handed with the freckles.’ Then, frowning, ‘Is that a bruise?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Someone caught me with a bag,’ she said.

‘The Underground just gets worse… Never mind.’ She took a small camera from her pocket. ‘I’ll just take a picture for your ID. Say cheese…’

‘Cheese.’

‘Great. I’ll log you into the system later. Sort you out a swipe card.’

‘Swipe card?’

‘It’s how we keep track of staff. How we know who is working, how long they’ve worked and that they’ve left the premises at the end of the day. You’ll need it to get out and, hopefully, get in again tomorrow.’

‘Oh, right. Absolutely.’

‘Come on. I’ll take you to meet Frank Alyson, Deputy Manager of the toy department and Chief Elf, and then you can get started.’

She passed her over to a tall lugubrious man wearing a long green tunic. She sort of sympathised with him. It couldn’t be much fun being a middle-aged man with his dignity in shreds, but walking around Santa’s grotto in a suit and tie would undoubtedly compromise the illusion.

‘Louise Braithwaite,’ Pam said, her voice fading to nothing as she introduced her. She cleared her throat, gathered herself. ‘Be nice to this one. Elves don’t grow on trees, you know.’

‘Don’t they? You surprise me. Most of them appear to have sawdust for brains.’ He gave her a look that suggested he had no hopes that she had anything but wood pulp between the ears before turning back to Pam. ‘You look ghastly. Go home. You’ll be no use to anyone if you’re ill.’

‘And ho, ho, ho to you, too,’ she said as she walked away.

‘You could have handled that better,’ Lucy said without thinking. She was good at that. Saying the first thing that came into her head. According to her file-the one she wasn’t supposed to ever see-it had been her most usable asset. That and her passion. People would, apparently, “…instantly warm to her enthusiasm, her natural openness and lack of guile…”

They’d nailed that one.

It was saying the first thing that came into her head without thinking that had got her into this mess in the first place and now Frank was staring at her, clearly unused to criticism. Or maybe he was wondering where he’d seen her before.

‘So, what happened to the last elf?’ she said to distract him.

‘She asked too many questions and I fed her to a troll,’ he replied.

Sheesh…

‘Anything else you’d like to know?’

She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

‘Fast learner,’ he replied with satisfaction. ‘Keep it up and we’ll get on.’

‘Great.’ She couldn’t wait.

‘So, Louise Braithwaite, what can you do?’ Do?

Wasn’t standing about in a pointy hat and stripy tights enough?

Obviously not. Through a small window in his office, she could see an army of elves busily ‘constructing’ toys in Santa’s workshop. They were dressing teddies and dolls, test-driving remote-controlled cars and encouraging children to join in and help them while they waited their turn to see Santa.

Otherwise known, if you happened to have a cynical turn of mind-and she’d just had a crash course in cynicism from a world master-as try-before-you-buy.

‘Have you any experience?’

‘Of being an elf?’ Was he kidding? ‘No,’ she admitted quickly, ‘but I am used to working with children. They tend to throw up when they get over-excited. Just tell me where the bucket and mop are kept and I’ll cope.’

That earned her something that might have been a smile. ‘Well, I have to admit that you’re less of a fool than the last girl Pam brought me. She couldn’t see past her mascara.’

Lucy resisted the urge to bat her expensively dyed eyelashes at him, but it was harder to keep the smile from breaking out. And why not? She was safe.