Easy As Falling Off A Cliff.
by Angharad & Bonzi (he's in tonight).
part: 289

I stared at the bright metal of the brass screws holding down the ten inches of floor board, I looked at Simon and he looked back at me.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"Well assuming that was my mother I saw last night she seemed to think I needed to find whatever was under that."

"If you have a screwdriver, I think we can try and find out."

I rushed down the stairs and to the kitchen drawer where we kept one or two tools for fixing plugs and so on. Normally, when not rushing I can locate one in seconds, today my fingers were fumbling and it took forever, or seemed to. I grabbed at it and ran back up stairs handing it to Simon, who looked at it and shook his head.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked.

"The screws are normal ones, this is a Phillips type." He showed me the head of the screwdriver and it was designed for screwing cross cut headed screws. I groaned, snatched it off him and ran back downstairs, rummaged about for even longer in the drawer, found another screwdriver, checked the head, then ran back upstairs.

He took it, looked at it and then knelt down and began undoing the screws. I waited with bated breath as he undid all six screws, then levered up the piece of floor board. Thankfully, it wasn't tongue and groove.

"What's in there?" I practically squealed with tension.

"Nothing," he said peering into the cavity. "Maybe your dad removed it or didn't get around to inserting whatever was meant to go in here." He felt around then said, "Hang on, I've got something, feels like a small cash box."

The tension was almost palpable, and I was shaking with excitement. What could it be? Jewellery, money, a treasure map?

He managed to eventually persuade the box out into the open, it was locked. He felt about for the key, it wasn't there. I felt about, my smaller hands unable to find anything resembling a key.

"I could always force it, but somehow I don't think we're meant to, this has been put here quite deliberately in recent years if not months."

I shrugged my shoulders and picked up the box, scratched on the bottom in barely discernible writing was the word, 'Monet'. I showed it to Simon.

"French artist, wasn't he?"

"Yes, follow me." I led him into the bathroom where we had a framed poster of the 'Lily pond'. I pulled it off the wall and taped to the back of it was a key.

Back to the bedroom and I placed the key into the lock of the cash box and it fit. I turned it and throwing open the lid saw something wrapped in brown paper. That was all.

I dumped the box on the dressing table and frantically undid the paper, inside was another key. "What on earth?" I held the key for Simon to see. "What is this, some kind of treasure hunt?"

"I know what that is," said Simon smugly.

"It's a key, even I can see that."

"Yes babes, but I know what sort of key."

"Looks like a padlock or filing cabinet to me, but there isn't one in the house."

Simon smirked and shook his head. "Uh uh!" he said.

"Well come on then, tell me."

"What's it worth?"

"I don't know, until we find out what it is and what's in there, we may never bloody know, now tell me!" I was beginning to get rather wound up.

"Is it worth a kiss?"

I felt more like slapping him than kissing him. However, in the interests of my sanity and curiosity, I pecked him on the lips.

"Call that a kiss?" He smirked again, and the temptation to whack him one grew immeasurably. Instead I played the game, and kissed him more enthusiastically. "That's better, but still not good enough, I'm afraid."

"Oh sod this for a game of soldiers!" I spat and grabbed him by the short and curlies and other dangly bits. He jumped, dropped the key and squeaked.

"Okay, okay, Cathy, I'll tell you. Just let go."

"Uh uh!" I said and shook my head, "You first."

"Okay, leggo," I shook my head at his pleading and squeezed a little harder. "Okay, it's a key to a safety deposit box. Now leggo!"

I smiled and released my grip, "Now that wasn't so hard was it," I said stooping down to pick up the key, whereupon he smacked me hard on the bottom. "Ouch!" I screeched and fell onto the bed.

"Sadist!" he accused me.

"Bully!" I shouted back, rubbing my bum.

"Meee? You were the one who got up close and personal," he said loudly, while rubbing something, which made him wince a little.

I sniggered, "You shouldn't keep secrets from me."

"Yeah, so I see."

"If you'd told me immediately, I'd have kissed you for being clever."

"You can kiss something better if you like."

"On yer bike!" I dismissed his suggestion.

"Ride a bike after what you did to me, no way Jose!"

"Try riding the cobbles in Belgium, then you'll know what sore means."

"Not bloody likely, dumb I may be, stupid I ain't."

"So what bank do you reckon?"

"Could be one of hundreds."

"Oh, doesn't it say?" I held it closer to the light. All it had was a number.

"It's a British bank."

"How do you know that?" I was impressed again.

He covered his crotch with his hand, "There's a seven in the number and there's no line through it as per the continent."

"Alimentary, my dear Watson." I said beaming at him.

"Don't you mean, elementary?"

"No my tummy's rumbling and I want some breakfast." I smiled and went down stairs.

We ate and drank and a short time later after discussing where the information could be about the bank, I started taking pictures down and looking on the back of them. I almost felt like ripping the paper off the backs of them, but I knew my parents would never have done anything that required such destruction.

An hour later, we were no further advanced with our problem, in fact we were exhausted and in order to make the place tidy had to replace all the pictures. I grabbed a duster while Simon made some tea, and as I replaced them, I dusted them first, examining the frames once again for any clues. Of course there weren't any.

Simon called me to come and get my tea and I went down to the kitchen. "We're never going to find this out are we?"

"I have no idea, except it would seem pointless to have gone this far and not allow you to go any farther." He shrugged, he was good at that.

"I can't think there is anything of great value in it anyway. Daddy wasn't poor, but he wasn't rich either."

"What if he was secreting money from the tax man or something like that? We'd have to declare it."

"Yeah, I suppose, but if it's jewellery or something of sentimental value, I don't think I need to then, do I?"

"I think it depends upon the material value of it."

"Come on Mum, why did you tell me this and not finish the story?"

"What did she say exactly?"

"Something about having to work for it or search for it. Can't remember."

"The problem is, that we can't just go into any bank and ask to open a deposit box."

"They do in the films."

"Cathy, this is real life, you know where people eat and go to the toilet, have bad teeth and ingrowing toenails."

"Yeah, okay."

"Didn't your dad have somewhere he used as an office?"

"He had an office which he resigned from after the stroke wasn't going to get better. He'd have had time to remove stuff from there. There's a photo of it hanging up in the cloakroom." I got up to get it to show him, just a black and white photo of an office. "See it's just a picture of his office....and the bank next door! Oh no, I couldn't see the wood for the trees."

Simon looked at the photo, "It could be," he said. He looked it up in the phone book. It was now half past ten, "They should be open, go and see if he has any bank statements, there'll be a cost for renting it every month or two."

I went off to the dining room where Daddy kept all his personal papers in two or three box files. I picked out the 'finance' one and began to go through the bank statements.

Simon came through a little later, "Sorry, that bank doesn't do deposit boxes."

"How do you know?"

"I just called them pretending to want to rent one."

"Oh, that was clever of you." I was really impressed and wouldn't have thought to do that myself.

"Hey, what's this," this time I had found something. His ordinary bank was charging him for a deposit box, not only that, but it gave the number and it matched the one on the key. "Clever dick!" I said to Simon.

"Dunno about clever, it's decidedly sore at the minute."

"Oh dear, sorry about that, would you like me to kiss it better?" I said and winked at him.

"I think it would feel safer if you kept away from it for a little while."

"Aw!" I said and smiled innocently at him.