Page 43 of The Village of Lost and Found

As another explosion followed, everyone dived for cover.

From her position lying on the grass, Lucy saw Belle dash off to the corner of the garden to pick up two fire extinguishers.

Lucy leapt up to help carry the second one back to the table. She quickly took out the pin and aimed the hose at the fire. She and Belle then sprayed the flames with the foam and they gradually died away.

Lucy breathed a huge sigh of relief as she looked at Belle.

‘Thank you,’ said Belle, but her face dropped as she stared at Lucy. ‘Oh my God! Are you hurt?’ She dropped the fire extinguisher to look closely at Lucy. ‘Do you feel OK? Here, come and sit down.’

She led Lucy away from the fire pit to a seat nearby.

‘I’m fine,’ Lucy told her, somewhat nonplussed by Belle’s reaction.

‘You’re probably in shock,’ said Belle, as Amber rushed over to join them. She too had an appalled look on her face.

It was only when Lucy looked down at herself that she saw what they were so worried about. She appeared to be covered in red splodges.

‘It’s not blood,’ she told them, taking a drop of liquid on her arm and touching it with her finger. ‘I think it’s the strawberry liqueur.’

Belle swore and immediately straightened up. ‘Del!’ she shouted across the garden. ‘It’s your bloomin’ bottles of liqueur that exploded!’

As Lucy looked around, she could see that Belle was right. There were small shards of glass and sticky brightly coloured splodges all over the place.

Amber shook her head as she looked at Lucy. ‘Well, Del did say it would be a night to remember,’ she said with a wan smile.

‘I think he’s right,’ agreed Lucy, laughing for the first time that evening.

24

After they had made sure that the fire in the pub garden was completely out and safe, Lucy walked back across the small pedestrian bridge over the river with Josh and Amber.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ asked Amber, looking her over for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘I’m fine,’ Lucy told her, glancing down at herself. She was still covered in the splodges of the strawberry gin liqueur. ‘I look worse than I feel, honestly. And I think the headache I’ve got was only from the gin earlier. Not the explosion.’

‘Well, call me if you feel unwell,’ said Amber, looking worried. ‘OK?’

‘Thanks, I will,’ said Lucy, touched by Amber’s concern. After all, she had only been in the village for two weeks, but it was nice to have someone looking out for her.

She said goodnight to them both and glanced up at the stars as they headed into the shop, the bell above the front door tinkling as they went inside.

What an evening, she thought, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Her headache was beginning to fade, but she still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. Everyone was lucky not to have any serious injuries. She had seen that she had a couple of scratches on her arms, probably from the exploding glass, but they weren’t very big or deep, thankfully.

At least it would be quiet in the apartment when she went upstairs. Molly had gone home with Bridget a short while earlier. Lucy was pretty sure it was because she and Bridget hadn’t got along. Although Lucy wasn’t sure that anyone would get along with Bridget, apart from kind-hearted Molly.

Lucy’s gaze drifted down from the starry sky to Uncle Frank’s bungalow at the far end of the village. It was in darkness as it was almost midnight, so hopefully he was tucked up in bed. She had sent him a text earlier in the evening with a photo of the liqueurs. She wondered what he would say about how the evening had finished up.

Despite how much they might laugh about Del’s gin eventually, for Lucy the evening had been overshadowed by the conversation with Tom. It had upset her greatly and she really wasn’t sure how they were going to move on from that.

She took one more deep breath of cool night air and was just about to walk around to the back of Riverside Lane to let herself into the apartment when she saw a light suddenly come on inside the newspaper office.

Was there someone in there? She hesitated, not knowing what to do. Surely it couldn’t be burglars? Apart from Tom’s ancient computer and printer, there was nothing else of any value to steal.

She headed around to the back of the office to slowly turn her key in the back door to unlock it. Lucy crept inside as quietly as she could. She paused for a minute at the door leading into the office and then decided to go for it. She slowly drew the bolt across and tried to open the door as quietly as possible. She was now in the small area next to the kitchen and toilet. Stopping, she could hear someone blundering about in Tom’s office. Whoever it was, they were quite possibly the noisiest burglar she could ever imagine.

She finally reached the corner where the main office was spread out in front of her and the door to Tom’s office was on her left. She peered around the corner and was shocked to find it was Tom staggering around inside his own office!

Lucy was aghast. He was still pretty drunk. And Belle had told her that she had walked him back to his cottage over an hour ago. What on earth was he doing here?