The Little Village Christmas: The #1 Christmas bestseller returns with the most heartwarming romance of 2018

Alexia had typed back – You’ll have to give me till Christmas to get The Angel up and running, then, hopefully, in the New Year – as Jodie trailed into the kitchen wrapped in a past-its-best blue-striped bathrobe. Flopping down at the table she propped her head in her hands. ‘Bleurgh,’ she groaned piteously. ‘Have you seen Shane?’

Regarding her friend’s waxy pallor with sympathy, Alexia shook her head. ‘I assumed he’d be with you. He’s not working at The Angel today, is he?’

Jodie gave a tiny shrug, palms dragging her cheeks down. ‘Dunno. I’m dying, I feel horrible. Can you make me feel better?’

Sportingly, Alexia closed her laptop and picked up the kettle. ‘I’m surprised to see you quite so hungover. I know you had several beers but—’

‘I only had one beer!’ Jodie protested. ‘But it did go to my head. Shane had some lovely lemon stuff his auntie had brought him back from Sorrento and he said it would set me right. We took it up to bed.’

Alexia’s hand tightened on the tap. ‘Limoncello?’ Seriously? Shane had poured liqueur down Jodie when she was already drunk? His brain must have begun to rust from spending too much time outdoors.

‘Yes, that was it. I loved the limoncello,’ Jodie added, fairly. ‘But it didn’t make me better. I started to be sick so Shane got me a bucket.’

‘And cleared off?’ Alexia felt anger bubble up that Shane wasn’t responsible enough to stay and ensure his girlfriend was OK when he’d quite obviously encouraged her to get drunk. What kind of shitty boyfriend did that? She set a mug of coffee before Jodie. ‘Don’t you mind that he didn’t stick around?’

Groaning, Jodie slowly collapsed until her arms pillowed her head. ‘He stayed till I went to sleep. Will you make me some toast?’

Deciding today wasn’t the day to demand the magic word, Alexia did so, scraping only the thinnest coat of butter across the warm surface so as not to upset Jodie’s stomach. She set the plate alongside the coffee beside Jodie’s head and settled back down to her work.

She’d just reread Elton’s email and decided she’d been right to step up her preparations for an exciting move down south when her phone began to burble.

‘Urrghhhh,’ groaned Jodie as if the noise had given her physical pain.

Alexia read the screen and answered, ‘Hi Gabe,’ scrolling to the foot of the email with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone. She wondered suddenly whether Ben was with Gabe. He could easily have had plans with his uncle. The thought made her feel better about waking up alone this morning.

Gabe’s precise voice came loud in her ear, sounding puzzled. ‘I didn’t think there was any work going on today.’

Alexia clicked ‘reply’ on the email ready for when the call was over. ‘Is Shane at The Angel? Jodie was just wondering where he was.’

Jodie lifted her head from her arms, face already shaping itself into its ‘Jodie loves Shane’ expression.

‘No, Shane’s not here. But neither’s the roof.’

Alexia laughed. ‘Have you looked on top of the building?’

But humour was sadly lacking from Gabe’s voice. ‘The front of the building’s perfectly normal. But at the back? Fresh air where there used to be slates. If Shane has stripped the roof then why hasn’t he put a tarpaulin over the timbers? It’s already spitting with rain. We’ll have the damned place down around our ears with damp.’

Slowly, Alexia’s hand fell away from her laptop. Unless Gabe had been eating strange mushrooms, there was something going on. ‘There’s no reason for the slates to be stripped. The roof’s sound.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

Alexia’s unease grew. ‘I’d better come down to the site. Be there in five minutes.’

‘What’s up?’ Jodie managed to prop her chin on her hands as Alexia ended the call.

‘Gabe says the slates have gone off the rear aspect of the building.’

Jodie eased her head back down onto the table saying, ‘Can’t have,’ before once again closing her eyes.

After dragging on a jacket, Alexia strode along the uneven pavement to The Angel, casting about for an explanation that would account for Gabe’s astounding revelation. Leaving Main Road, she broke into a jog along Cross Street, passing the row of cottages known as Rotten Row before turning in to Port Road where many of the village’s redbrick Victorians were grouped together as if the rest of the village wasn’t quite good enough for them.

Where Shane’s truck had been outside The Angel last night was now an empty space. Gabe paced up and down the drive, silver ponytail flirting with the breeze. With his usual smile absent there was more resemblance between him and Ben than Alexia had hitherto noticed.

Wordlessly, Gabe led her to the back of the building.

She didn’t have to go far down the overgrown garden to see the naked roof timbers and daylight where the slates should have butted up snugly to the bricks of the gable end. ‘What the hell?’

She gazed around the jungle of the garden. No sign of stacked slates. Nor were they tucked between the skips in front of the property.

Fishing out her keys she hurried towards the building. And jerked to a stop when she rounded the porch.

Gabe did exactly the same. ‘Where’s the door?’

A long snake of fear began to uncoil itself in Alexia’s tummy. She ran through the gap where the door ought to have been, into the Bar Parlour and then the Public. Having checked every room downstairs with a mounting feeling of doom, she raced across the foyer and through the doorway to the stairs.

It seemed more like a mountain than a staircase but she made it up to what had once been the living quarters of the pub, darting from bedrooms to bathroom to sitting room. When she could no longer dispute the evidence of her eyes she ground to a halt. Over the pounding of her heart she could hear the slates at the front of the building shifting uneasily as the wind prodded their unprotected undersides.

The noise receded and then flooded sharply back, mixing with the sound of men’s voices floating up from downstairs. She held her breath, hoping to hear Shane explaining why he was busy with unplanned work.

She did recognise the voice. But it wasn’t Shane’s.

On jelly legs she trudged back downstairs to find Ben standing in the foyer beside Gabe.

Absently she noted that he didn’t smile. He didn’t step forward to greet her or express concern about what was going on. There was no air of awareness of last night or this morning.

In fact, it seemed to Alexia that his eyes were unfocused as if he weren’t quite looking at her.

That was the least of her worries right now though. She turned to Gabe. ‘Everything Shane stowed upstairs is missing.’ She slumped down on the bottom step. ‘And everything of any value. Every original feature – doors, radiators, even the cast iron toilet cisterns. Someone’s stripped the place. I presume the only reason they left the roof slates on the front was to disguise what they’d done for as long as possible.’

‘Someone?’ asked Ben. ‘Like who?’

Alexia shook her head. ‘I’ll try and ring Shane.’ Her voice seemed to echo in her ears.

Gabe began to speak but was interrupted by the ringing of his phone, which he answered with a ‘tsk’ of irritation. With fumbling fingers Alexia pulled up Shane’s name in her contacts list and pressed ‘call’. It went straight to voicemail. Trembling, she tried his mate Tim’s number too. Same result.

‘But how the hell …?’ she heard Gabe demand of his caller.

She paused to raise her eyebrows hopefully and mouth ‘Shane?’ at him. Gabe gave an abrupt shake of his head and held up a hand to indicate he needed to listen to the person on the other end of his line.

Desperately, she tried Jodie who did, at least, answer.

Alexia took a steadying breath. ‘Has Shane turned up?’

‘Not yet. I tried to ring him but—’

‘You got his voicemail,’ Alexia finished for her. ‘Does he have a landline number because—’

Then she dropped her phone, ending the call hastily as Gabe made a strangled noise and reached out to steady himself against the wall. Ben got to his uncle before Alexia could even begin to move and in an instant he’d lowered Gabe down to sit on the steps beside her.

Gabe was grey, clutching his phone with a shaking hand. ‘That was the bank. The money’s gone.’

The room seemed to do a huge swoop around Alexia’s head. She couldn’t force words past the lump of fear that had jumped into her throat at Gabe’s words.

‘What money?’ Ben crouched before his uncle, his expression granite-grim.

‘The money in the community account and the business account. It’s been moved out of the accounts in a series of transactions, raising a red flag with the bank.’ Gabe passed a shaking hand over his face. ‘It’s the money the village raised and the start-up money Jodie and I put into the partnership.’

Ben swung a grey gaze on Alexia before returning his attention to his uncle, his voice hard and rapid. ‘Who has access to the bank accounts?’

Gabe pressed his forehead as if forcing himself to think. ‘For the community account Alexia, Jodie, and Christopher Carlysle and me. Jodie and I for the business account.’

‘But it takes two of us to sign to get money out of the community account,’ Alexia croaked.

‘Not on Internet banking. We all signed that it was OK, if you remember.’

Ben’s face was a mask as he studied the evidence on Gabe’s phone. ‘The accounts are showing nil balances. And my uncle’s property has been stripped out and devalued with no means of refurbishing it.’ Slowly, he raised his gaze. ‘Can you shine any light on this?’

‘Me?’ Alexia’s eyes felt ready to pop out on stalks as she gazed at Ben in fresh horror. ‘Me?’

‘Well …’ Ben hesitated at the shock in her dark eyes, conscious that his thoughts hadn’t translated into quite the right words.

He’d been so angry at the grief and shock on Gabe’s face, this good and genuine man who’d always been on Ben’s side, that only half his thoughts had been on the current situation. The other half had been a shame-filled reflection on what Alexia must be thinking of him after his middle-of-the-night desertion. All day he’d been plagued with images of her in his arms. But they’d warred with images of Imogen until he wasn’t certain where he should lay guilt and over whom he felt regret. He tried to explain. ‘You have the knowledge of how much the original features are worth and where someone might sell them. You were telling me last night about your contacts.’

‘Ben!’ Gabe protested sharply. ‘You sound as if you’re accusing Alexia!’

Ben groped for better words. ‘No, I was asking for insight—’

But Alexia was already climbing to her feet, turning on Ben a look of dazed repugnance, lifting a shaking hand as if to keep him at a distance. ‘We’ll have to come back to that discussion. I have to ring one of my contacts and get a tarpaulin on that roof.’

Gabe clambered to his feet too, pulling her into a comforting, avuncular hug. He looked to have aged ten years in ten minutes but at least the torpor of shock seemed to be fading. ‘Are you OK to handle that? I’ve got to ring the police.’

Over Gabe’s shoulder Ben watched Alexia close her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to have to look in his direction. ‘I can do it. You report what’s happened.’

Then Ben ceased to exist – at least so far as Alexia was concerned, anyway. Her gaze didn’t rest on him once. She moved into the Bar Parlour to make her call while Gabe remained in the foyer to make his.

Ben found himself hovering between the two, unable to contribute and with plenty of opportunity to wish his words to Alexia unsaid. He cringed at what she must think of him – the man who last night had savoured her body and today sounded as if he were accusing her of wrongdoing.

Through the doorway he watched Alexia slide down the wall as if her legs wouldn’t hold her, pinching the bridge of her nose as she spoke into her phone. ‘Dion, I know it’s a huge favour –’

‘I’m afraid I have to report some thefts –’ Gabe said into his own phone from Ben’s other side.

‘– it’s not my property but it’s my project –’

‘– it seems like a finely calculated scam. Much of the property was removed last night under the guise of –’

‘– I’ll really owe you if you can get it tarped tonight. I hate to ask you on a Sunday evening but you can invoice me, obviously –’

‘– I know what was in the bank accounts but fixing a value on the rest at this moment is difficult –’

‘– and I need someone to put a temporary door on, too. Oh, would you? That would be fantastic.’

Gabe finished first. He came to stand silently with Ben while Alexia began another call.

‘Jake, a project I’m on has been done over.’ She hunched a shoulder as if feeling Ben’s gaze on her. ‘Can I list some of the stuff that’s been stripped out? Then if you could let me know if any of it’s offered to you … It’s all mid-Victorian. A load of roof slates, mahogany doors and screens with etched glass, two mahogany pub bars – probably dismantled – Victorian mosaic floor tiles, black and white with a border tile …’ She pushed herself up and began travelling from room to room, slowly listing what she could remember of what had been in them. She remembered a lot. Her voice went on and on, growing fainter as she progressed.

Gabe turned a steely gaze on Ben. ‘You must apologise to her.’

Ben felt slightly sick. ‘I will. I didn’t mean it the way it came out.’

‘Then you need to control the way things come out. She must think you’re a shit.’

Gabe almost never swore. In fact, Ben couldn’t remember seeing him angry before, but now his bushy brows were meeting over a sharp crease between his eyes. Like a naughty child, Ben squirmed through the only lecture, in fact the only criticism, he’d ever received from Gabe, who wound up with, ‘I know you’ve had a bad year, Benedict, but to say I’m mortified is understating the case. Alexia’s not only a dear friend, she’s donated all her work to this project.’

‘It honestly wasn’t meant to sound that way.’ Ben was unable to summon a better explanation or admit that he’d had only half a night’s sleep, again. ‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he muttered in the end, which had the virtue of being true.

Before Gabe could reply Alexia returned to the room, white and shocked but otherwise composed.

Ben lost no time in trying to put things right. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded as if I was accusing you, Alexia. I was angry on Gabe’s behalf and I was just trying to get information. I offer an unreserved apology.’

Alexia’s gaze remained on Gabe. ‘A roofer, Dion, is coming to tarp the roof and he says he’ll hang a temporary door while he’s here. What did the police say?’

Gabe glanced at his watch. ‘They’re sending someone.’

‘OK. I’ll stay and see them with you.’

‘Alexia,’ Ben tried again.

Alexia turned her back.

Ben spent the rest of the evening fermenting in a mix of shame and irritation as Alexia continued to elaborately ignore him but bestow fervent thanks on Dion when he turned up with rolls of blue plastic sheeting and the scaffold tower he needed to protect the roof from the worst of the weather.

When black-clad Police Constable Arron Harris arrived, Alexia gave a factual outline of her part in things and agreed to make a full statement at a later time, nodding along as Gabe and the police officer discussed how best to proceed with the bank. The same bank of which Gabe had once managed a branch.

‘So the contractors, Shane Edmunds and Tim O’Neill, you don’t think they could have simply put in extra hours?’ asked PC Harris, reviewing his notes.

Alexia shook her head. ‘Not to remove items we’d agreed to store, and there’s no valid reason I know of for them to strip the slate from the back of the building. Neither Shane nor Tim are answering their phones and Shane’s not with my housemate, though they’re in a relationship.’

PC Harris nodded, making new notes. ‘Any other contact details? An address, maybe?’

Alexia felt sick. ‘My friend should know. I’ll ask her.’

‘No rush for the moment. Let’s deal with what we’ve got. You’re clear that the money should be in the bank accounts?’

‘Crystal clear.’ Gabe began to detail the access arrangements on each account.

Finally, PC Harris arranged that a detective constable would ring Gabe on Monday then departed to knock on the doors of the neighbouring houses in case the occupants had seen anything useful.

‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions.’ Gabe’s face was furrowed with worry as he watched the police officer leave.

‘No. But I’d feel a lot more comfortable if Shane hadn’t disappeared.’ Alexia paced nervously.

Gabe nodded. ‘Especially as we have to accept that the money and the materials are likely to have been taken by the same person. It would take a massive coincidence for it to be otherwise. And experience in banking tells me that when money vanishes from accounts there’s usually someone involved who’s connected to the account holders.’

Alexia couldn’t have looked much more miserable without bursting into tears. ‘Do you mean you know how it happened?’

Gabe blew out his lips. ‘I have a few ideas but fraudsters have a lot of weapons in their armoury. We’ll have to see what the police turn up.’

Alexia passed a shaking hand over her eyes. ‘Why didn’t I just stick to one of my normal contractors?’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Gabe’s gaze flicked to Ben, though he continued to address Alexia. ‘Shane was Jodie’s boyfriend so we took her personal recommendation. I had no misgivings about it and she’s a partner in the business side.’

Alexia hugged her arms around herself. ‘When Dion’s finished, I’ve got to go home and talk to Jodie.’

‘I think we ought to go together. I’ll ring Christopher and advise him of the situation while we’re hanging about.’

As Gabe stepped away to make his call, Ben cleared his throat. ‘Alexia, please let me apologise—’

Alexia didn’t even look at him as she turned and strode into the Public. If her nose had tipped any further in the air she would have given herself a crick in her neck.

Then Gabe ended his call and returned. Ben turned to him. ‘She won’t let me apologise.’

The older man sighed. ‘She probably isn’t too bothered about your feelings right now because she’s facing the prospect of confronting her best friend about the boyfriend going missing at the same time as money and valuables. And when bad things happen to Jodie she can find it hard to cope.’ After a pause for this to be digested he added more gently, ‘You get off home, Ben. Give her time to calm down.’

Dismissed, Ben had little choice but to trail off in the direction of Woodward Cottage, zipping up his hoodie against the evening wind that had an edge on it for September, crossing Port Road and entering the quietness of the bridleway under the familiar weight of negative emotions.

But this time he knew exactly where his guilt and regret lay.

Chapter Four

Alexia’s feet felt like lead weights, heavier with every step she took towards home.

Gabe seemed in no more of a hurry, scuffing gloomily through drifts of golden leaves. Alexia tried to rehearse what to say to Jodie but her thoughts kept flying back to the rage on Ben’s face as he’d questioned her. Though he’d tried to back up, her anger and disappointment had refused to let her listen.

When they reached the cottage she silently unlocked the glossy blue door, finding Jodie, still in her dressing gown but looking less hungover, lying on the sofa, tucking into what she always termed her ‘poorly food’ – salty crackers and Pepsi. She looked up from the TV as Alexia trailed into the room, Gabe on her heels. ‘So what’s going on with the roof?’ She was grinning, obviously ready to be told some funny story about why Gabe had phoned Alexia with news of missing roof slates.

Falling into a chair, Alexia was no nearer knowing how best to approach Jodie than when she’d left The Angel.

Thankfully, Gabe took the lead. In his deep, precise tones he explained to Jodie what had happened at The Angel.

Slowly, Jodie sat up, belting her dressing gown more tightly, frowning. ‘So someone’s broken in and stolen the old radiators and tiles? They’ve taken the slates off the roof?’

‘We can’t tell if they broke in, or whether they had a key, as the door’s gone.’ Gabe’s voice held the cautious note of someone pussyfooting about a subject.

Jodie’s gaze flicked between Gabe and Alexia. ‘What do Shane and Tim say? Have they seen anyone lurking around?’

Gabe fidgeted. ‘We haven’t been able to contact them. Have you heard from Shane?’

Jodie shook her head, but slowly, as if moving it too decisively might disturb something delicate.

Gabe glanced at Alexia but Alexia felt frozen, as if she were watching an oncoming car speeding towards them and was unable to suggest they jump out of the way.

Gabe turned back to Jodie. ‘I’m afraid there’s worse to come,’ he said gently. And he told her about the missing money. ‘I take it you have no knowledge of these transactions?’

Jodie gasped, clutching at the neck of her dressing gown as if holding herself together. ‘I haven’t had any reason to look at the accounts for days. How can the money have gone? Who’s taken it? It’s nearly £30,000 altogether. It can’t be gone!’ She scrabbled in her pocket for her phone and began to stab wildly at it.

Slumping more deeply in her chair, Alexia watched hopelessly, letting Jodie have her moment of denial but miserably aware that no amount of checking the bank balance was going to make the money miraculously reappear. She felt exhausted. It wasn’t until Jodie lurched into a high, keening sobbing as she tried fruitlessly to ring Shane once more that Alexia dragged herself over to the sofa to slide her arm around Jodie’s quaking shoulders.

‘What are we going to do? How can it have happened?’ Jodie wailed.

Alexia felt hot tears ooze from her own eyes. Whether they were for Jodie, Gabe or herself, she couldn’t have said. But, used to Jodie’s emotional reactions, Alexia patted her back while Gabe made hot drinks and fetched tissues. There was nothing to do when Jodie was locked in grief but to allow her to cry it out.

Eventually, when the storm had lessened, Gabe accessed the recent bank account transactions to show them that the money had disappeared in a series of withdrawals – cheques on Friday, when they’d all been preoccupied with preparing for the wrecking party, and the rest via Internet banking either side of midnight Saturday/Sunday.

‘You can see the name of the payees!’ crowed Jodie, hope dawning on her red and blotchy face. ‘Look, this one’s a company called Oatwood 2k Ltd. And this one’s —’

But Gabe was already shaking his head. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. Whoever did this is clever. They’ll have hidden their tracks. It will lead to a dead end.’

‘But how can it?’ Jodie demanded, expression bewildered. ‘It’s there, the name of the company—’

Gabe’s lips thinned. ‘If my experience is anything to go by the money will have been transferred out already and will have disappeared into a network of companies and individuals. The addresses of some will be rental properties and the current tenants will never have heard of Oatwood 2k or any of the others. Some will be legitimate entities, often blissfully unaware that their identities have been stolen and used to open bank accounts. Somewhere along the line the money will be drawn out in cash.’ Jumping up, he started to pace around the room. ‘There’s a very practised hand on the tiller during this voyage of deception, let me tell you. They knew precisely which gambles were worth taking. I, for one, was kept very busy on Friday and Saturday and had no reason to check the accounts.’

‘Same,’ said Alexia, picturing Shane ‘marshalling the troops’ as he called it while they’d all helped to get ready for the wrecking party. She curled up on the sofa as Jodie tried over and again to ring Shane. Alexia might not have Gabe’s banking experience but she was shrewd enough to know that whoever took the money must have had an in. ‘Jodie,’ she began gently. ‘Do you have an address for Shane?’