Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto. Liz Fielding

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.