And on the twenty-ninth of April I took the key into a hardware shop on Stanton Street and put it on the counter and asked the man whether he could tell me what it was.

He picked it up, turned it over once, and said: “That’s a padlock key.

That’s a blank number.

Thirty-two’s the blank.”

It took him about two seconds.

And then he said, “You want me to cut you a spare?”

It is the key to the padlock on the garden shed at Oak Street.

The padlock is still on the shed.