Free Mr Toppit by Charles Elton Page A

on the glass. It wasn’t the same man who had been there when I had first arrived. This one looked more like a security guard: he was dressed in a blue uniform with a cap. He slid open a panel.
    “I’m trying to find out about my father,” I said breathlessly. “They told me to wait and—”
    He cut in: “You shouldn’t be walking around unaccompanied. How old are you?”
    “Thirteen.”
    “Where are your parents?”
    “That’s who I’m trying to find. I’m Luke Hayman. My father’s Arthur Hayman. He’s the one who’s ill, who’s a patient. My mother’s called Martha Hayman.”
    He tilted his head in the direction of the far corner. “She’s been sitting over there.” I turned. There was a row of empty chairs.
    “Who?”
    “Your mother. The American lady.”
    “No, she’s—”
    “Black dress?”
    “Well—”
    “Dark hair?”
    “Sort of brownish but—”
    “She’s been sitting over there. She was here a second ago, asked if there was any news about Mr. Hayman.”
    “But my mother’s in the ward with my father. And she isn’t American.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s her bag on the chair. Maybe she’s gone to the toilet.” I was really beginning to dislike him. I went over to the chairs and looked at the bag. It was made of black canvas and it said on the front in white lettering, KCIF MODESTO—A SMOOTHER SOUND .
    “This isn’t my mother’s bag,” I said, over my shoulder, but his chair had swiveled round and he had his back to me.
    I had no idea what to do next. Short of locking myself in a lavatory and screaming with frustration, I had run out of options. I sat down and stared into space. After I had been there afew minutes, my gaze tilted to the bag on the chair next to me. The top was bulging open and, without moving, I tipped my head sideways to see inside it. Glancing to check that the man wasn’t looking, I put my hand inside and felt around. It was like one of those games you play in the dark when you pass along a peeled grape and say it’s someone’s eyeball. There was a small box near the top of the bag, rectangular with a shiny surface. My hand pushed further in, passing what felt like damp tissues, a pen, and a thin book before it hit something at the bottom. It felt a bit sticky and I snatched my hand out fast. My fingertips were brown. Cautiously, I raised them to my nose and sniffed. It was chocolate.
    Saliva flooded into my mouth. It seemed like hours since I’d had anything to eat. The man was turned away from me and had his feet up on a table in front of him so I felt justified in raising the bottom of the bag and shaking it so that things slid out onto the chair. The rectangular box turned out to be Tampax, and I pushed it back in as I pulled out what had been a giant bar of chocolate. At one end, the paper and silver wrapping had been torn off. I got out a couple of chunks and ate them.
    Then I shoved everything back into the bag. As the chocolate went in, it pushed out the corner of what looked like a notebook. I was about to press it back when I noticed “Hayman” written on it in blue ink. I was so amazed that I stopped breathing for a second or two. I opened the book. Page after page—line after line, down the side, in the corner, upside down—was filled with two words: Arthur Hayman.
    The lettering was in different sizes and styles, sometimes in capitals, sometimes in both upper and lower case. In places, the words were surrounded by boxes with ornate curlicues and flourishes. I didn’t even care whether the man in the glass boxsaw me or not. I just dumped everything from the bag onto the chair and searched through it all. Apart from the Tampax, the chocolate, and the notebook, there were some pens, a nail file, a key attached to a metal ring with the number
14
on it, a map of the Underground and—I pulled away my hand—a lot of scrunched-up pieces of tissue paper stained with blood.
    I picked up the notebook again. The pages before the