Stolen Bike- response from Kath Kelly

Thanks to Kath Kelly- regular reader, who sent me this extract from a book she's working on about living on £1 a day in Bristol. It's a sad bike story, but with a happy ending:

The cable lay like a dead snake, chopped in half. It was still twisted, as if it had put up a fight in its death throes, but its mortal blow had come from something very strong and sharp. I picked it up and saw the fibres neatly severed under the rubber exterior, the lock untouched. No sign of its best friend the D-lock. or their inseparable companion, my mountain bike.

What crime of passion had occurred out here while I was pottering innocently in the library? The love triangle between my three possessions had been violently broken. The snake's hold had been strong, but ultimately not strong enough. Were the D-lock and bike still locked close together, hitching a ride on some mysterious journey in the back of a van, or had they too split up? Perhaps even now someone else was having a free ride on that feckless bike.

I turned up my collar and set off on foot to work. What a pain. Bikes got stolen every day in Bristol of course, but outside the library, in broad daylight with two locks attached, I thought it would be safe. Up the hill, through the university, marching so as not to be too late, the implications began to set in. No bike to go to Bath at the weekend, no way of carrying heavy stuff back from the cheaper supermarkets on the edge of town, no safe and swift way home late at night when drunks prowled the streets looking for trouble.

I couldn't get taxis instead, or buses, or another bike, on a pound a day. Belatedly I felt anger against whoever it was who had ruined my day, if not the rest of the year. I was only a few weeks into my spending challenge and stuffed already! I undid my coat and stomped hot and bothered into work to report the theft to the police.

A couple of weeks later someone from the police station phoned me, just to let me know they hadn't found my bike. Nice of them to bother I suppose. By then I my friend Heather had lent me a very expensive replacement, which I didn't dare let out of my sight. It was festooned with a length of chain and a very chunky padlock, as well as the locks it came with, and watched through shop windows as anxiously as a mother checks her baby sleeping in its stroller. Still, it was great to be able to get around as before, though I sometimes left it at home at night to keep it safe, and took my chances out there with the drunks.

One of those nights, I was padding through Clifton after a night out at a friend's place. I still caught myself clocking bikes being ridden by or chained to racks, just hoping that one day I'd spot my own sadly missed steed. It wasn't expensive or anything- £60 in Halford's sale- but it was mine to trash or get nicked as I pleased.

I was taking a short cut down a leafy footpath. Not an ideal safety measure but I hadn't been home since morning and I was shattered. The street lamp halfway down had been smashed again too. Sugary crystals of glass crunched underfoot and I hoped there was no dog mess to tread in.

Against the railing leaned a bike. Silvery, like mine had been, with front suspension. Surely it wasn't... No, as I looked closer I saw it was a different, superior make. But what a stupid place to lock it up at night!

With a jolt of surprise I saw it wasn't locked at all. Two flat tyres, but nothing else seemed wrong with it. They'll be lucky if it's still there tomorrow, I thought, turning for home.

But it was there that morning, and in the evening too. I knocked on the door of the house it was nearest to, and asked if anyone knew whose it was. "They're always dumping stuff down there," said the woman of the house. "Probably stolen."

So the next day I dragged it into town, to the central police station, which had inexplicably closed down. Great. On then to the even more distant new police station, where I spent a tedious hour queueing, explaining myself and form-filling. "...And if no-one claims it within six weeks, you can claim it if you want," the desk officer added as she ripped apart the triplicate carbon copies.

"If I want! Of course I do!" I put a capitalised entry into my diary and hurried off on the long walk back to work.

So there was a happy ending after all; the bike duly became mine, a nice bloke I know helped me fix it, my friend got her un-stolen expensive bike back and I got a better mode of transport than I started with. But as for my old bike and the D-lock, they were never seen again. I hope you're happy together, wherever you are. And as for the cable, it's still really cut up.

(all material copyright Kath Kelly 2007)