The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1185 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Once outside I was able to examine the bag. I didn’t see anything particularly obvious as a bugging or explosive. I even opened up her mobile phone and looked inside there too.

I laid everything out on the bench in the workshop and realised she had two sets of keys, each with a fob of the infamous ‘Bunny Club’ and purporting to be ‘Bunnies’ Changing Room.’

Why did she have two key rings, the keys were quite different, one even looked like a deposit box type. I picked them up and went in search of Julie. I found her upstairs talking with Trish.

“Are these your keys?” I asked her holding up one group.

“Yeah, where did you find them?”

“Sure it’s not these ones?” I held up the other lot in my other hand.

“Oh, how come there’s two lots?”

“They were in your handbag.”

“Were they? Oh. I don’t remember picking up someone else’s keys.”

“Seeing as you can’t remember very much at present, it’s quite possible that you did pick them up thinking they were your own. The fobs are quite similar, even though the keys are very different; how many of us actually look at our keys unless we’re going to use them?”

“I do,” beamed Trish, but then she would, wouldn’t she?

“May I see?” asked Julie and I gave her both sets of keys. Her eyesight might be no better but her politeness was. “I have no idea where these came from.” She held up the second set of keys. “No idea at all.”

Trish almost snatched them from her grasp. “Hmm,” she said and I was surprised she didn’t pull out a magnifying glass and light her pipe. “What’s this for, Mummy?”

I felt gratified that I possibly still had a purpose to the Brain Box. “A deposit box, I think. They have them in banks.”

“There’s no car key,” she beamed, “So whoever owned them doesn’t have a car.”

“Not necessarily, Trish, they might keep them separately.”

“You don’t and you’re average,” she shot back and I thought about my keys, I did tend to keep all of them together–I used to, but since I changed the car I don’t.

“Sorry, Trish, but I don’t keep my car keys and house keys together on the same ring.”

“Well, you used to,” she sighed, as if I’d just caused her to have to rethink her all in one theory of everything, including proof of dark matter.

“I don’t now,” I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Besides, I wouldn’t describe Mummy as average. Being married to a millionaire makes her a bit special.” Julie having dashed to rescue my reputation from Mrs Average, turned me into Mrs Not-Average, but only because I was married to Simon. I mean does Mrs Average even go to university, let alone teach in one? Or make films, adopt every waif and stray in Portsmouth...?

“Never mind my reputation, where could you have picked up these keys and are they why people are trying to kill you and possibly have killed already?”

“I dunno, do I?” said Julie shrugging, “I can’t remember if I did pick ‘em up, like do I?”

“You musta done,” said Trish, “if they were in your bag.”

“I would suggest that it was probably in your college, as you disappeared during the lunch hour.”

“But if I’d been going for lunch, I’d have had my bag with me, wouldn’t I?”

“I’d have thought so. But then if they’d tried to knock you off your bike why didn’t they get the bag as well?”

We examined the bag. There was a buckle, which Julie said was always coming undone. So could it have done so during that lunch hour? But why didn’t Alfie Bird or whoever else was involved find it?

The mystery deepened. I mean, it could be a total red herring from the main play, a simple coincidence, but I thought it remote. So the mystery was possibly locked up with these keys–in which case it could also be unlocked by them.

The next question, do we hand them over to the police, or do we try and solve the mystery ourselves? So far we’d had very little publicity, despite the bonfire rescue and the car chase. The paper had mentioned a shooting, but then allowed it to go quiet. That’s even more curious than finding the keys.

I held out my hand and Trish gave them back to me. There were six keys, the deposit box one, a small filing cabinet type one, two Yale type front door keys, plus what looked like a mortice lock key, and a Chubb padlock key which must have fitted a very substantial padlock indeed.

“We have three keys which open a door to a building, another which looks like it could be for a filing cabinet or even a garage–some of those doors have quite flimsy locks. Then we have the padlock key, even that might be used to lock a door or a box or anything–it’s probably quite a big lock; and our deposit box key.”

Simon came up to see where Julie and I were and we discussed them with him. “Have you called the police yet?” he indicated the keys.

“The police only brought them back today,” said Trish indignantly, as if suggesting they’d had their chance, now it was ours.

“How did they know they were Julie’s?”

“Her address book was in there,” I replied.

“They’ve taken their time,” he stated.

“Perhaps they hadn’t got round to examining it–her purse has gone.”

“Any cards in it?” he asked, ever the banker.

“I cancelled those when she disappeared.” Ever the banker’s wife, I answered him.

“Good, I hate paying out to thieves.”

He picked up the key ring again, “The deposit box isn’t one of ours, pity.”

“You couldn’t have opened it anyway,” I said, “not without a court order.”

“Of course not,” he shrugged. “So you think these are what it’s all about then?”

“I can’t think of a better reason, can you?” I challenged.

“Not off hand no, so how did you get ‘em?” he asked.

“Si, I just told you we don’t actually know, but we think Julie must have picked them up because the fob is similar to one she has. I showed him the other key ring.

“Perhaps if you gave it back to them they’d leave you in peace,” he said.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“How do I bloody know?” I’m going to watch the telly,” he flounced off downstairs.

“We could put a photo on the internet asking if anyone had lost some keys,” suggested Trish.

“We could, but then it would confirm that we had them and that could be even more dangerous,” I cautioned.

“I could make up a false trail.”

“Trish, with all due respect, I suspect the people who want these back would have the wherewithal to see through that. It would also show we hadn’t given them to the police, and that we didn’t know what they opened.”

“Gosh you are clever, Mummy,” Trish declared.

I smiled in acceptance of her recognition, the old girl still had a few tricks left in her or was it just more experience than the young genius.

“So what do we do then?” asked Julie, “I don’t fancy being shot again.”

“That is the problem, Jules, I don’t really know.”