The Tag With Your Name On It

"No," Desmond said, before Priya had even asked the question properly. "They never come back for them. That's not what this place is for." It was her second shift in the lost property office under Platform 9, a narrow room that smelled of wet umbrellas and the dust off old suitcases. Desmond was training her up before he retired in three weeks. He had a habit of answering questions before you'd finished asking them, like he'd heard the same one a hundred times from a hundred other new starters and got tired of waiting for the end of the sentence. The shelving ran floor to ceiling, grey steel, each item in a clear bag with a paper tag wired to the handle. Name of the finder, date, item description. Standard railway procedure, Desmond said, same as it had been since before he started in '91. Or '92, he corrected himself. He always got the year wro