Page 28 of The Village of Lost and Found

‘Morning,’ he said, looking up from his screen. ‘How was the cake decorating last night?’

‘I think my chances of makingThe Great British Bake Offare pretty slim, to be honest,’ said Lucy, with a grin.

‘How’s Molly?’ he asked.

‘Feeling much better. She should be down any minute,’ said Lucy, glancing at the front door behind her. ‘Well, I’d better start clearing the next skyscraper of old papers.’

‘By the way, I’ll apologise now,’ he told her. ‘I always get a bit stressful on a Wednesday. I’ve got to put the paper to bed ready for going to the printers tomorrow.’

She smiled. ‘Uncle Frank used to take me to the printers when I was growing up. I loved seeing it coming off the press.’

‘If you like, I can take you along some time,’ he said.

She looked pleased. ‘That would be great! Thanks.’

He found himself watching her through the windows of his office as she walked away, her long dark hair tied up in a ponytail that morning.

At least she was a hard worker, he thought. He’d assumed that she would be one of those high-maintenance women who got upset if they ruined their manicures. But Lucy wasn’t like that. She’d carried all those newspapers out to her car and on to be either delivered or recycled without any fuss.

He looked at her long legs encased in jeans and the fitted T-shirt hugging her curves. His ex-wife Andrea had been all hard angles, on a slim frame. Lucy had a soft prettiness about her instead.

He quickly looked away and back at his screen. He had to get a grip on himself. She was Frank’s niece, after all. And he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Frank.

When Molly came through the front door, he headed out to greet her.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘You sure you’re well enough to come back to work?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Molly, smiling. ‘But I might stay off the caffeine today, just to be sure.’

‘But I can still buy us all a doughnut later?’ he asked. ‘Purely for medicinal properties, obviously.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Molly, with a little giggle as she switched on her computer.

‘Well, good luck with the emails for the letters page,’ he told her. ‘Bernie has been in touch a couple of times, from what I could tell.’

Molly sighed. ‘Poor Bernie.’

‘Who’s Bernie?’ asked Lucy who had been standing nearby.

‘He lives on Rose Lane. He’s ever so sweet,’ said Molly, as ever seeing the positive side.

‘And our resident village oddball,’ added Tom, rolling his eyes.

Lucy looked surprised. ‘We have those in Cranbridge?’ she said.

‘Not too many, thankfully,’ Tom told her. ‘And Bernie’s our number one fan, so we can’t stop him getting in touch. Especially as readers are hard to come by these days.’

‘So what’s so odd about him?’ asked Lucy.

‘Last week Bernie wanted to put in an announcement asking for people who may have had an alien experience as he thought he’d been abducted,’ said Tom.

Lucy’s green eyes widened. ‘And had he?’

Tom shook his head. ‘It’s unlikely that any aliens would choose Bernie as a prime candidate for their experiments. They’d have to get past his collection of frogs, for a start.’

‘Are the frogs alive or, you know, not alive?’ asked Lucy tentatively.

‘Do you know, I’ve never wanted to ask,’ Tom replied with a grin.