1. The Drunken Horse

“Well, well, well. Alfie McAlister.”

Alfie turned to see Edith, the elderly mother of the owner of The Drunken Horse Inn, approaching the secluded booth with a glint in her eye.

“Let me give that table a wipe,” she said, wielding her cloth quite unnecessarily, since Alfie had placed the four glasses on beer mats without spilling a drop.

Her gaze flitted from Alfie, with his pint of Bunburry Brew, to Emma with her half pint, then to Sumi with her glass of white wine, and Tara with her glass of red.

“This all looks very cosy,” she remarked. “I hope you girls aren’t falling for his chat-up lines.”

“Not a line to be heard,” said Alfie. “We’re just good friends.”

“Sometimes not even that,” said Emma, raising a cackle from Edith.

“And I thought he was having a last go at playing the field before his girlfriend got back,” she said.

Emma’s glass landed awkwardly on the table, slopping some beer over the rim. “Betty’s coming back?” she asked as Edith dabbed at the spillage.

The elderly woman put her hands on her hips. “He hasn’t told you, then? That’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it?”

Alfie was still trying to process what she had said. Was it good news or bad? He had been quite composed about the prospect of Betty’s return when it was hypothetical. Now it seemed to be happening, he could feel his mouth go dry.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” he said, aware that he was talking faster than usual. “When’s she arriving?”

Edith put on a pious expression. “It’s not my place to say. She’s a smart girl, that Betty, planning to catch you unawares and see what you’re up to behind her back.”

Cackling again, she headed for the bar.

“You didn’t know anything about it?” said Emma to Alfie. She wasn’t wearing her police uniform, but her tone was well suited to interviewing a suspect. Alfie might be fifteen years older than her, but she had never shown any respect for his age.

“Not a thing,” he insisted. “I haven’t heard from her since she left.”

That wasn’t strictly true. There had been one postcard, making it clear that whatever he might have imagined, they had no future together.

Sumi and Tara, one petite and black-haired, the other a rangy blonde, were watching him with undisguised interest.

“You never said you had a girlfriend,” said Tara.

“I don’t,” said Alfie. “It’s just Edith’s little joke.”

Sumi turned to Emma. “Is this what he does, pretends to be footloose and fancy free?”

“He certainly tells everyone that Betty isn’t his girlfriend, but I’m not sure whether he’s told her,” said Emma.

“Is he blushing?” asked Tara.

“I think so,” said Sumi. “We must be embarrassing him.”

“Fun, isn’t it?” said Emma.

Alfie cleared his throat. “Enjoy your drinks,” he said. “They could be the last I buy you for a while.” He tried to maintain a stern expression but failed, largely because he could see they weren’t even pretending to take him seriously.

Sumi nudged Tara. “We’d better stop upsetting him. Heaven knows when we’ll be able to afford our own.”

Alfie laughed. “How are the bookings going?”

Tara nodded. “Good. Slow, but good. We decided not to open with a big fanfare, but we’re being strategic about where we advertise, and the first guests are about to arrive. We’ve even got a booking for the other suite.”

Alfie still hadn’t had a proper tour of the new hotel on the outskirts of Bunburry, a former mansion now transformed into the Magnolia Inn, celebrating its avenue of magnolia trees. But he knew that it included two suites: one available for bookings, and one reserved, apparently in perpetuity, for his best friend, Oscar de Linnet.

“Any word from Oscar?” he asked.

“Sorry to interrupt.” It was Emma, not sounding remotely sorry. “Do any of you remember that I actually asked you here?”

Tara and Sumi immediately switched their attention to her.

“I can’t believe we got distracted,” said Tara. “We practically ran, we were so excited. Is it a murder?”

“No,” said Emma heavily. “It’s not a murder. If it was, I would be contacting forensics, not you three.”

Alfie felt this was unfair, given that he, Tara and Sumi had managed to catch a murderer not so long ago. He felt doubly snubbed, since along with Liz Hopkins and Marge Redwood, he was a member of the Bunburry Triangle, which had solved a number of local murders.

“A stake-out, then?” asked Sumi. “We’re quite busy with the hotel opening, but I’m sure we can manage something.”

“It’s got absolutely nothing to do with crime or police work,” said Emma, and the other two women looked deflated.

“Oh,” said Sumi. “But you said you wanted our help.”

Alfie suspected that if he had made the remark, Emma would have rolled her eyes and said something sarcastic. But she gave Sumi and Tara a reassuring smile and said: “With the hotel.” Alfie decided not to ask where this left him.

“It’s for Aunt Liz and Aunt Marge,” Emma went on.

Liz was in fact Emma’s great-aunt, and Liz’s best friend Marge was no relative at all, but Emma always gave her the honorific.

“Aunt Liz has a significant birthday next Saturday. I can’t tell you how significant, or I’d have to kill you, since otherwise she’d kill me. Aunt Marge’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, and I wondered if we could do something at the Magnolia Inn.”

The two hoteliers exchanged delighted looks.

“Next Saturday?” said Tara. “Of course. What about a dinner? On the house, obviously. Our menu’s pretty exciting. The English-Korean fusion has really worked.”

“They could stay overnight if they wanted,” put in Sumi.

Alfie sensed a rare awkwardness in Emma.

“I was hoping for a bit more,” she said.

Sumi and Tara’s enthusiastic expressions didn’t falter for a second, and Alfie reflected that they were hospitality professionals.

“What were you thinking of?” asked Tara.

“I thought – with it being a significant birthday – maybe a party? You know, a sort of village event?”

It was only momentary, but Alfie saw a definite look of alarm in both women’s eyes.

Emma had seen it too. “I don’t mean for free,” she said hastily. “And I don’t mean the whole village. Obviously, you couldn’t cope with that. I thought of limiting it to close friends, say about a hundred people?”

“We’re just opening then – I’m afraid that would really be too tight,” said Tara. “What if we leave it until Marge’s birthday, in a couple of weeks?”

But Sumi, a sudden determined tilt to her chin, broke in: “We’ll do it. After all, Liz is the one with the significant birthday. It’s not fair to ask her to wait.”

“But with the first guests arriving, we really can’t-” protested Tara.

“Come on, girl, you love a challenge,” said Sumi. “We were always meaning to expand into a wedding venue at some point, and this will be good practice. And it’ll be great to showcase the place to people round here. If they like it, it might encourage them to come in for meals, and recommend us to other people. There’s nothing like word of mouth to build a business.”

Alfie knew all about building a business. His own start-up had been so successful that he had been able to sell it for a sum that meant he no longer had to work for a living. But he well remembered the initial cashflow challenges.

“How much do you think it would cost?” Emma asked. “My budget’s a bit limited, but I could always raid the station’s coffee fund.”

One hundred people at ten pounds a head would be a thousand pounds, and Alfie suspected that a venue like the Magnolia Inn would be a great deal more expensive.

As though a thought had just struck him, he said: “Emma, would you mind if I came in on this as well? I’m no good at choosing presents, and contributing to the party would be a great solution.”

He sensed an immediate relaxation in the atmosphere.

“Yes, sure,” said Emma, and he glimpsed a “thank you” in her eyes.

“And Oscar.” Alfie pressed on. “I know he’d want to mark the birthdays, and he’s getting free board and lodging, so he might as well stump up a couple of quid.” He turned to Tara and Sumi. “Could you email me some costings that I could run past him?”

“That depends on what you want,” said Sumi.

“A party,” said Emma. “With food and a bar.”

“You two are the experts,” Alfie intervened. “Why don’t you give us an idea of what you’d do for a wedding, and we’ll take it from there. Just miss out the harpist playing Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Sumi finished her glass of wine. “Come on,” she said to Tara. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“I still wish Emma had asked us here because of a murder,” said Tara.

Careful what you wish for, Alfie thought.

Emma was reaching for her jacket, preparing to follow the other women out of the pub. But he needed to talk to her.

“Do you have a minute?” he asked.

She smiled at him with such warmth that he was momentarily taken aback. She...