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PROLOGUE
Last December
The Holly Cross Christmas Fayre was in full swing and Blythe was enjoying a chat with Murray, one of the older village residents, when the two elderly sisters from Rock Cottage approached the stall he was manning.
‘Murray, we’re after a hook-up,’ said one, as the other nodded her agreement.
Blythe almost spat out her hot chocolate. ‘A hook-up?’ she asked.
‘For our front door,’ the lady explained.
‘Is this what you’re after?’ asked Murray, holding up a plastic hook.
Blythe was still giggling to herself as the sisters moved on and Murray adjusted the many ivy- and moss-covered wreaths in front of him.
‘At least that’s one sale,’ said Murray. ‘Leonora has spent hours making these wreaths and nobody is interested.’
‘Maybe people will buy one as they leave, save carrying it around all evening,’ said Blythe, hopefully. Murray didn’t look convinced.
Holly Cross was a picture of twinkling lights and happy faces. Blythe watched the other local residents all happily chatting, some jangling charity collection buckets, others buying presents and some petting the live reindeer that were part of this year’s Christmas display. Every year Holly Cross was turned into a winter wonderland and folk travelled from all over to see it and, in the process, the village raised money for charity and had a lot of fun at the same time.
Murray gave her a nudge. ‘Next ones to get married – you mark my words,’ he said, nodding in the direction of Norman, the local baker, and his friend Phyllis who were sharing a joke.
‘No way. Norman and Phyllis?’
‘You heard it here first,’ he said.
The jolly scene was interrupted by a massive bang as an old white van backfired. Everyone turned. Phyllis squealed and two reindeer leapt so high Blythe thought they were taking flight. The Brownies gasped as the reindeer cleared the temporary fencing and ran amok around the fayre. Their shocked handler was fully occupied with hanging on to the other two reindeer who seemed keen to join their mates who were charging in between stalls creating havoc.
‘Baubles!’ shouted Murray.
‘On it!’ replied Blythe dashing off to try to save some as they tumbled to the ground.
Twenty minutes of madness followed as everyone tried to corral the creatures until Murray had the idea to get everyone onto the other side of the green and let the animals calm down. It worked because the reindeer then became distracted by what was on the stalls. One was happily munching on a stick of sprouts while the other was busy eating its way through something else.
‘My wreaths!’ hollered Leonora, pointing at the reindeer who was happily chewing on his second one.
There really was nothing quite like a Holly Cross Christmas,thought Blythe.
1
29thMay
Blythe watched Amir stick his aubergine to the wall. In actual fact she’d fantasised about doing something similar, although that had involved a staple gun and quite a bit of screaming on Amir’s part. This was an even bigger nightmare, even though the aubergine in question was only on a sticker. It meant Amir had broken Blythe’s almost record-breaking sales run at Happy Homes Estate Agency. In the Warwickshire company’s thirty-four-year history no single sales representative had achieved the most sales every month for a whole year. But this month Blythe had been on track to achieve just that until Amir had set out to ruin things.
He adjusted his sticker on the wall chart. It was so appropriate he’d chosen aubergines to record his sales. She looked at her row of unicorn stickers, one short of Amir’s eggplants. She now needed just one more to tie for first for this month, keep her crown and go down in history. It wasn’t up there with walking on the moon or even the first mooning (incidentally recorded by a Roman soldier in 66ADwho mooned and caused a riot where thousands died). But it was notable in the history of Happy Homes estate agents or at least it would be if bloody Amir hadn’t made it his mission to derail her plans.
‘No hard feelings, eh?’ said Amir, giving her shoulder an unwelcome squeeze.
Blythe tried to slap on a smile but instead she bared her teeth and Amir retracted his arm to a safe distance. ‘It’s not the end of May,’ she said, her voice coming out as a low grumble.
Amir huffed a derisory laugh. ‘It is the lastworkingday of May. Face it, Blythe. I won.’
‘But it’s not just this month. It’s the year. I was about to—’
‘Yeah. Sorry about that,’ he said, sounding about as sincere as an MP apologising for having an affair.
