Sean smiled. “I have an idea what it might be, let me keep it for a little bit and we can do a little investigation.”
“Oh Sean, I don’t know…”
“I’ll have it back before she even realises it’s gone.”
***
The village of Avebury was a short walk from the stables and, on a lovely day like today, it was a pleasant break to get away for an hour to enjoy the sunshine. In the summer the village would be packed with tourists looking to walk around the standing stones, however, this early in the year it was peaceful, only the locals were around. I nodded greetings to those I met before stepping into the tiny post office stores, handing my envelope over for posting.
While I was there I stocked up on mints, a favourite treat for Tiny who, since I had rescued him during Christmas had become somewhat clingy, calling to me from the paddock if he saw me and whinnied every time I passed his stable. A handful of extra strong mints would usually pacify him for a while. I glanced down and saw Edwin’s face on the front of one of the newspapers, it made my blood run cold, the headline stating that he had been sent to prison for twenty-five years. I grabbed the paper dropping some money on the counter and quickly made my way back to the yard.
In the tack room, I unfurled the paper and read that he had been charged and, by all accounts would be away from me for the foreseeable future. I should have been happy, but there was a brooding dread in my mind which I tried to push aside.
I busied myself with work, grooming and exercising the final few horses before filling hay nets and settling the horses for the night. I was finally upstairs, having slid off my heavy boots and slumped on the sofa when there was a knock on the door. I groaned, standing up and opening the door for Sean and Annie. “Come in… Make yourself at home, I’m knackered so, please don’t expect too much.”
“Oh sorry, I should have helped you this afternoon.” She shot a glance to Sean who shrugged and laughed. “I’m sorry, I took something from you last night. I didn’t mean to, I sort of slipped it in my pocket.” When I looked up, my eyebrows raised. “It was the wine… Sorry!”
“What was it, there isn’t anything of value here…” I smiled.
Annie held out the small black box. “It’s this. I saw it and was playing with it as it lights up when you press the button.”
“Oh, you magpie!” I glanced at the item, a chill flooding my body
“Do you know what it is?” Annie turned the item in her hand.
“No…” I replied flatly. “It was from Edwin, he asked me to look after it.”
“It’s a hardware wallet…” Sean spoke softly.
“A what?” Both of us turned to him.
“It’s like a normal wallet, but a hardware wallet is for cryptocurrency, rather than physical money.”
“Okay Sean, I understood about three of the words in that sentence.” Annie snorted.
“It’s Bitcoin, you know, an internet currency. You can send and receive money over the web anonymously. This is a way in which you can keep a quantity of currency safe offline. It’s like a small digital safe.”
“Oh…” Annie paused. “Are you okay?”
“Sure…” I picked up the newspaper. “Edwin was sent to prison today for twenty-five years.”
“Wow!”
“So, he won’t need this for a while…” Sean smiled. He pressed a few buttons and a message scrolled across the tiny in-built screen. ‘The Key to my heart’ “Strange message, but you can’t open it without the password so unless you know that it’s useless.”
I looked as both of them started at me expectantly. “Don’t get your hopes up. He never told me anything like a password.”
Annie looked disappointed. “Anyway, it’s not mine. I’ll send it to him in prison.”
“Wow no! It would be confiscated or lost. Just keep it safe.”
They soon lost interest in the small black box once they knew I didn’t have the passcode and so we chatted about the day and horses which was always our ‘go-to’ subject.
***
I was fast asleep, dreaming of galloping across the downs with a famous, rather attractive event rider, and, as is the case in dreams he was wearing no shirt and I was sat behind him on his horse, clutching his firm, muscular chest when I felt a necklace around his neck. Strangely the thought of this stuck with me, so, when I woke I started to dig through my belongings until I found the gold necklace Edwin had given me months before.
I’d taken it off as I could not bear to wear it, but also couldn’t find it in my heart to sell it or throw it away. What had he said when he gave me the small gold key and heart pendant, it was the key to my heart. I looked closely at them but there was no passcode engraved in the gold. I dropped it back in its box and placed it on the dining table.
***
Of course, Sean and Annie would not let the matter drop and kept pestering me about possible passcodes. Sean did say that there was a risk that entering the wrong code could lock the unit out permanently. I mentioned the necklace and so, that lunchtime we all gathered around my dining room table. Sean had looked at the pendant like I had and agreed that there was nothing on it. Annie was looking somewhat sulky turning the tiny gold key in her fingers until she suddenly started squealing. I looked up and saw that she was twisting the head of the key, after a moment it popped open and there was a tiny slip of paper inside.
“Oh, God!” She pulled out the tiny fragment of paper which had a long, seemingly random series of numbers and letters printed on it. “Could this be
