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back at me and demanded a water pistol. I put the magnifier into the Hospital box and told him to push off. He told me to make him. At that point Brian started to amble over and this had the desired effect.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You know, there’s no such thing as a truly bad kid in my opinion. Just that some need a firmer hand than others,’ he replied. And I guess he should know, being the father of four strapping lads, all now proud members of the Fire Brigade.

  Two more children – nothing remarkable.

  It was Eleven fifteen and I had to contact Rowena. I padded over to the phone on the wall near where Brian was standing cleaning under his finger nails with a matchstick. I asked him if he knew the number for men’s toiletries. He placed a friendly, but firm hand over mine as I went to lift the receiver.

  ‘Sorry, sir’ he said, ‘but casual staff are not allowed to use the internal phones.’

  ‘But why ever not?’

  ‘Regulations, sir.’

  ‘But I only want to…’

  ‘Sorry, but it’s a security issue. More than my job’s worth, sir.’

  Thanks a bunch, Mr Jobsworth, I wanted to say. Obedience is deaf to the appeals of true love, but I appreciated his position. I didn’t want him to lose his job on my account, particularly as he had promised me the boots.

  The radio-controlled tank was being demonstrated at the other side of the toy department when it ran out of control. I estimate it to have been doing about eighty miles an hour when it ran into my leg and buried its gun barrel in my ankle. Mr Jobsworth was very comforting and helped me back to the throne. Having nothing else to hand, I staunched the blood flow with a nappy from one of the dolls. If only I’d been wearing the boots.

  Moments later a charming little girl arrived and saw that I was in pain.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ I said.

  Her mother looked at the rill of blood on my foot. ‘I’m with St John Ambulance, would you like me to take a look at it for you?’

  As I was still in a fair amount of pain I said, ‘Thank you, that would be very kind.’

  ‘What exactly happened?’ she asked as she gently raised the bottom of the trouser leg to reveal the mini nappy taped to my ankle. She glanced up at me briefly.

  ‘I got hit by a tank. Doing about eighty miles an hour. Or at least that’s what it felt like.’ Slowly she lowered the white fur rimmed hem.

  ‘And where did this happen?’ she enquired as she backed her daughter a step away from me.

  ‘Just over there, in toys,’ I replied, pointing. And then I noticed the bloodstains on the white cotton gloves I was wearing. She backed further away.

  ‘Daddy was wounded in the ankle once,’ the little girl informed me. Poor kid, I thought, father in the services, away all the time fighting for Queen and Country, family never knowing when, if, he would return.

  ‘Iraq? Afghanistan? Kosovo?’ I enquired.

  ‘No, Hampstead’

  ‘Hampstead?’

  ‘Yes, a big dog bit him,’ she said over her shoulder as mummy led her away. Happens a lot to postmen apparently.

  The radio at Mr Jobsworth’s shoulder crackled and he answered it. He looked over at me and nodded a couple of times.

  ‘Roger that. Out,’ he said eventually as he ambled over to me

  ‘Message for you, sir.’

  At last! Rowena had got through! ‘What did she say?’ I asked eagerly. Mr Jobsworth simply shook his head.

  ‘Mr Flowers would like a word, sir.’

  ‘Mr Flowers?’

  ‘Head of security, sir.’

  ‘The Bull! Called Flowers!?’ I nearly broke into hysterical laughter, then saw the look on Mr Jobsworth’s face and chose a different form of hysteria. As I limped painfully away Mr Jobsworth placed the ‘Closed’ sign at the entrance to the grotto. It looked very ominous. By the ghost of Sheridan, what now?

  With a sickening feeling I rapped lightly on the Bull’s door. Uniformed guard #1 opened it from the inside.

  ‘Claus, S., sir,’ she announced and then closed the door and stood in front of it, immovable. The Bull was behind his desk flanked by two more guards. Harry was also there and another man whom I did not know. Nobody said a word.

  ‘How can I help?’ I ventured, unable to stand the brooding silence any longer.

  ‘Shut up!’ bellowed the Bull. ‘As we all know each other I don’t think we need the introductions, do we?’ I said I didn’t know who the other fellow was. Oh, I didn’t, didn’t I? I was introduced to Sam White, Chalky to his friends. Short, but broad across the shoulders, with a shaven head, long black beard, dark eyes and multiple tattoos, he looked for all the world like a refugee from the battlefields of Lord of the Rings. I had a sinking feeling as I offered him my hand. He gave me a dismissive sneer in return.

  ‘How long have you been the leader of this criminal gang?’ the Bull inquired.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I replied.

  ‘Oh you will be,’ came the riposte and he went into the bit about the Guards, and so on, again.

  It seems that Chalky had been caught, red-handed, loading a pallet full of Christmas gifts intended for Santa’s Gifte Shoppe onto the back of an Avis Luton van. The driver had legged it. I shrugged. I knew from past experience that explanations were not welcome, so remained silent. Wrong again.

  ‘Well, lad?’ the Bull snapped.

  I explained precisely what had happened that morning and told him that I’d ended up sweeping the floor.

  ‘Oh, I’ll do more than that with you,’ the Bull snarled. ‘Did you, or did you not sign out the boxes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied confidently, ‘but Harry signed them back in again.’

  ‘Like I said, Mr Flowers,’ Harry began, ‘like, I meant to, but after I’d asked Chalky, ‘ere to put it all back, I come over all funny, didn’ I?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I asked, almost wishing I hadn’t.

  ‘Had to go to the shitter, didn’ I?’

  ‘The shitter,’ I said, glancing up at the ceiling in search of inspiration.

  ‘Got no idea what Chalky was up to, ‘ad I?’ he said in a hurt sort of way.

  ‘Why you!’ Chalky lunged at him, but was ably restrained by the Security Guard.

  ‘So you didn’t sign the goods back in,’ I stated flatly.

  ‘Look, I meant to sign the clobber back in, Mr Flowers,’ Harry appealed, ‘honest I did. It was just a mistake. It won’t happen again. And anyway,’ he continued, ‘Faver Christmas ’ere’s told you exactly what I told you.’ Then he added, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder in Chalky’s direction, ‘Chalky’s a right villain trying to nick Christmas presents off of little children, bless their hearts.’

  Chalky launched himself again at Harry saying he’d been fitted right up and that he had mates in Parkhurst what were going to fix Harry and me.

  The Bull considered for a while, his eyes darting from me to Harry, then to the struggling, restrained Chalky and back to me. Eventually he ordered Chalky to be taken next door to wait for the police and told Harry and me to get out of his sight. There were three shoplifters in the corridor waiting to be interviewed. God help them, I thought.

  ‘That was a bit fucking close,’ Harry said as we walked away. ‘Fucking Chalky! I mean how can you screw up something as simple as that, eh?’

  ‘He does seem to have made a bit of a mess…’ I began, but Harry interrupted.

  ‘But ’ere, you did alright, old son.’ He punched me playfully on the shoulder and swaggered off chuckling.

  Back at the grotto Mr Jobsworth told me that no one had expected me to return and that Mrs J had gone to lunch, so I might as well go, too. But it was only midday and Rowena had gone to a lot of trouble to change her lunch break to one o’clock to coincide with mine. A little sadly I went down to men’s toiletries to explain and apologise. But Rowena had left just a couple of minutes earlier. She hadn�
��t said anything about swapping lunchtimes with anybody. I knew she wouldn’t have gone to the canteen, but to one of the myriad wine bars nearby, too many to search in half an hour. Depressed, I took myself to the damned canteen.

  Lunch was crap, but cheap. After the top flew off the bottle which was being shaken by Mr Garcia from menswear on the table opposite, I was able to sponge most of the tomato sauce out of the beard. Looking at the beard reminded me I still had a nappy stuffed down my sock.

  The grotto re-opened at twelve forty-three and I replaced the heavily bloodstained nappy on the doll before settling back into my throne. My contentment was short-lived and there was quite a rush of visitors for an hour or so. I doled out four disposable cameras, five incontinent dolls, three sets of coloured pencils and three cheap digital watches. Nothing for the hospital.

  The wearing of the continually damp beard was beginning to affect my skin and a slight itching had started. I was scratching my chin rather hard when she appeared.

  ‘Oh look, mummy, he must have ringworm.’ She pointed to the bald patches in the beard. She knew all about ringworm as she had caught it once down at the pony club, probably from that nasty Fiona Lush’s old nag. ‘It’s easily cured these days,’ she reassured me, ’but you must go and see a doctor, and do stop scratching.’ I noticed Mr Jobsworth grinning. ‘D’you think you caught it from the reindeer? I expect they’re a bit like horses.’

  ‘Reindeer have horns,’ I interrupted in an effort to shut her up.

  ‘Antlers, silly and anyway I know that, I was talking about your ringworm.’ Two customers glanced in my direction and hurried away. I began to feel embarrassed

  ‘Which present would you like, my dear?’ I asked in an effort to deflect her thoughts. She pointed to the incontinent dolls and then noticed the one with the bloodstained nappy.

  ‘Ooh look mummy, that one’s menstruating,’ she announced loudly. I didn’t know where to put myself. ‘That’s a bit precocious, isn’t it?’At this point mummy stepped into the breach.

  ‘Andrew, that’s my husband, and I are doctors.’ I looked at her quizzically. ‘We try not to hide things from her,’ she explained.

  ‘What about Christmas presents?’ I snarled, scratching at the beard again. More bits fell out.

  ‘I’d have the menstruating one, but I think the blood might actually be yours,’ she stated perceptively, gazing now at my bloodied gloves. I nodded. ‘Well you might have hepatitis, or aids or something. You really should double bag that and have it destroyed,’ the junior Gynaecologist, (or was she headed for Forensics?) insisted. She then informed me that she was starting her own collection of medical curiosities, just like mummy’s and daddy’s and that she had a specimen jar at home just waiting for something like that. Yep, Forensics.

  I thought of her dissecting the bloody thing on the kitchen table with the bread knife until I realised it was a ludicrous idea. She probably had her own fully equipped operating theatre replete with all the necessary scalpels and bone saws, just like mummy’s and daddy’s. I gave her a doll and she went away discussing ectopic pregnancies with mummy. How can a child who knows so much still believe in Father Christmas?

  There was one more visitor, a weedy-looking boy, before the traditional Christmas bomb scare. Whatever my personal feelings toward the man, I must confess an unqualified respect for the way the Bull handled it.

  The drill to evacuate the store went like clockwork. On every floor staff and customers, under the expert gaze of the professionally drilled security personnel, poured through the emergency exits. They swarmed onto the street like commandos disembarking landing craft to storm a beach. And not a single note of panic. Within five minutes the entire store had been cleared and the staff marshalled along the nearby pavements. It all happened so fast that I completely forgot to put my shoes on and my feet, in thin cotton socks, were soon freezing.

  The Bull, or his