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life-size inflatable doll, a deep red hole for a mouth, which no one had yet dared to claim. Turning the corner, she stood at the original Victorian counter, its shutter still closed, and studied one of the ledgers to remind herself what had been brought in the previous day. As well as the usual several dozen umbrellas and bestselling novels, some with a bookmark tragically near the end, the yield included one lawnmower, a Russian typewriter, and sixteen jars of preserved ginger. The last item brought in was yet another abandoned wheelchair, increasing the office’s hoard to the spectacular figure of thirty-nine. It was proof, if only to the staff, that London Underground could perform miracles.
    She switched on the kettle on top of the safe that no onehad been able to open since its discovery on the Circle Line five years ago. Opening the fridge, currently the subject of a standoff about whose turn it was to clean, she took out a carton of milk and raised it to her nose. Satisfied that the boisterous odour came from something no longer recognisable on the lower shelf, she poured some into a teacup. As she waited for the water to boil, Hebe Jones, who felt the weight of loss more acutely than most, gazed with regret at the graveyard of forgotten belongings on metal shelves stretching far into the distance, covered in a shroud of dust.
    Passing the long, black magician’s box used to imprison glamorous assistants while sawing them in half, she took her tea to her desk. It was scattered with a number of recent items whose owners she was still trying to trace: a stuffed hummingbird in a little glass dome; a false eye; a pair of tiny pointed Chinese slippers with lotus leaf embroidery; a gigolo’s diary which she hoped wouldn’t be claimed before she had finished reading it; and a small box found in the Albert Hall purporting to contain a testicle belonging to an A. Hitler. Standing on a shelf above the desk was a line of faded thank-you cards kept as proof of the more considerate side of human nature, one that was easily forgotten when dealing with the general public.
    Opening a drawer, she pulled out her notebook, hoping that the deeply satisfying task of reuniting a possession with its absent-minded owner would take her mind off her troubles. She read the notes she had made during her search for the manufacturer of the false eye. But her thoughts kept finding their way back to her husband.
    She smelt the arrival of her colleague before seeing her. The still-warm bacon sandwich in greaseproof paper tossedonto the neighbouring desk knocked over an Oscar statuette, which had been waiting for collection for two years, eight months, and twenty-seven days. Despite the fact that Hebe Jones had repeatedly told her that it was a fake, borne out by all the letters sent to the actor’s agent remaining unanswered, Valerie Jennings was of the utter conviction that one day Dustin Hoffman would arrive in person to reclaim it.
    Years of frustration, made bearable by the odd spectacular triumph, had bonded the two women like prisoners sharing the same cell. While they rejoiced in one another’s successes as keenly as their own, they were equally susceptible to feeling the dead weight of each other’s failures. It was a job of highs and lows. As a result, neither woman could bear the shafts of boredom that would eventually shine their way into the working day, often with the handing in of the morning’s thirty-ninth set of door keys. It was then that they would long for the arrival of something either exotic, edible, or, if luck would have it, both. And while during particularly intense periods of stress Hebe Jones was able to escape to the sanctuary of the magician’s box, where she would remain entombed with her eyes closed, Valerie Jennings, whose marvellous girth thwarted such pleasure, resorted to trying on the contents of an abandoned box-set of theatrical beards and mustaches, and admiring the many splendid permutations in the