Gin and Toxic Read online

  Gin and Toxic

  Murder, She Tasted 3

  Alana Ling

  Edited by

  Victoria Milne

  Copyright © 2019 by Alana Ling

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Never miss an update

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Alana Ling

  About Alana Ling

  Joanna’s Recipes

  Cranberry, Pistachio and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

  Blurb

  All suspects have secrets, but whose are deadlier?

  Events planner Joanna has another dead body in her hands and a murderer on the loose.

  Having worked tirelessly for weeks for the most demanding guests, she was looking forward to moving on to her next job.

  But the death of her client brings out the sleuth in her once more, especially when it personally affects the man she has growing feelings for, the charming pub manager Kit.

  With an international cast of suspects and a handful of threatening letters, the clock’s ticking. Joanna and her sidekick have to figure out who the murderer is before they escape the country...and justice.

  GIN AND TOXIC is a first person cozy mystery with a female sleuth, poison pen letters, apple pies, an inquisitive dog, and an enigmatic Greek mum.

  Written in British English.

  Before you start, if you’d like to tell your friends on Social Media that you’re reading this book, use the official hashtags of the series #TastingMurder and #Official Havener.

  Prologue

  Sam and I sped through the streets in my mint green beetle, with Bean Therapy coffee at hand, and very much aware of how late we were running.

  I pulled up in front of Hotel Margot. The stonework along the outside made it look cosier than your average hotel, which contributed to half its popularity with tourists and business travellers alike.

  The valet attempted to take my car keys as we came out.

  ‘We won’t be a minute, we’re picking someone up,’ I told him.

  He nodded and turned back to his post.

  We walked through the glass doors and approached the reception. A man was sitting behind it and in front of a beautiful backdrop of shelving filled with books, flowerpots and all sorts of antiques. He was talking to a tall man in a suit.

  ‘Colton!’ I exclaimed, overwhelmed with his apple pie flavour.

  No, I’m not crazy, nor am I having a stroke. My name is Joanna Christie and I really can taste people. It’s equal parts blessing and curse. I’ve lived with it my entire life. Visual gustatory synaesthesia, they call it. It’s a neurological condition where my brain sends signals to an additional sense so I end up seeing and tasting people at the same time.

  I would say it’s something you get used to, but I feel like it has got more intense since I’ve moved back to my hometown, Haven-on-Sea. It’s definitely something you learn to hide, or risk being called names, like cuckoo-tongue or wacky Jo.

  Now to the matter at hand. The tall man turned around, looked at me and flashed his white teeth.

  ‘Joanna, how lovely to see you again,’ he said. His dark eyes were glowing and his full lips were wet and irresistible as always.

  ‘You too, Colton. It’s been a long time. I’m so sorry we’re late.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, darling. I just arrived. I was about to book dinner for tonight, if you ladies care to join me?’

  ‘Of course,’ I replied and looked at Sam who was shaking her head.

  ‘It’s date night tonight, so I won’t be able to make it, but thank you for the invite.’

  ‘Uhm, Colton, this is Sam. I think you’ve spoken to her a couple of times.’

  Sam extended her hand and shook Colton’s.

  ‘Nice to finally meet you, darling,’ he said and turned back to the receptionist.

  The man confirmed the details with Colton and we exited the hotel. Colton approached my minuscule car and stood in front of it making sure to inspect every nook and cranny from an aesthetic point of view. Then, he circled around it, checking the sides and back. He ran a finger across the bonnet and rubbed his fingers together. Finally deciding it was worthy of him, he turned around and said, ’It’s cute.’

  I bit my lip and got into the driver’s seat. Sam got in the back behind me and Colton stretched out his long legs in the passenger seat, making sure to adjust it to his height. He ran a finger across the dashboard as well and brought a darkened blotch up to his nose.

  ‘I’m sorry; I only cleaned it this morning. I don’t know how it got so dirty already,’ I lied.

  It hadn’t been washed in a couple of weeks. And why should I bother? Usually no one but Sam and I ever got in the car.

  His mouth twitched to the side in a very indiscernible smile. ‘Nonsense. Don’t worry about it, dear,’ he said.

  I winced and turned the engine on. Colton was only a couple of years older than me, yet spoke like a seventy-year-old man. A fact less apparent in his emails and texts, but more so in actual conversation.

  I pulled away from the hotel entrance and drove off south, taking Sunset Boulevard that led to the waterfront. Colton’s attention was absorbed not by the scenic houses and the couture shops lining up the streets, but by his smartphone.

  I looked in the rear-view mirror and Sam grimaced, making me smile.

  I turned left on Seaside Way and we drove along the seafront.

  ‘This is the popular Haven beach and if you look down that way is the pier,’ I told Colton, who seemed far more interested in whoever he was texting than the quaint little town he was holding his event in.

  ‘Pretty,’ he said absent-mindedly.

  ‘Are you from around here?’ Sam asked him. She knew he wasn’t, but knowing my assistant, she loved a challenge and people not being sociable in the constraints of a car probably counted as one.

  He glanced at her behind him and then returned his gaze in front of him, on the road. ‘No, never been before.’

  ‘What made you want to hold your event here?’ she said. ‘Are any clients from Haven?’

  She was talking about his company, Harris Warehouse, one of Europe’s biggest growing distributors of alcohol and soft drinks in the hospitality industry. Colton’s business was renowned for supplying the best brands to the biggest catering companies. Hence why his stock list was smaller than a normal distributor’s, but all the products were top of their game. From handcrafted, natural-flavoured sodas, to rum-infused beers, there wasn’t a product that didn’t cost an arm and a leg which he didn’t sell for two arms and two legs.

  ‘No, nothing like that. I wanted to hold the event somewhere trendy and cool. Haven-on-Sea seems to be all the rage right now, so I thought I’d invite my clients here and offer a great British experience somewhere with a flair for the international.’

  Sam nodded. I turned left on Oakhill Circus then right immediately on Culpepper Mews, parking in front of my house. Sam dashed out of the backseat and opened the car door for Colton,
then strung her arm around his and led him to the Oak Tavern.

  ‘Are you sure about this place?’ He grimaced when I got closer.

  ‘The Oak is this town’s landmark, Colton. Everyone loves this pub and it’s actually one of the best places to drink and dine,’ I told him.

  I didn’t like the way he turned his nose up at our local boozer. The Oak Tavern was my town’s monument. Built in the sixties along with the rest of the town, it was the oldest thing we had in terms of historical landmarks.

  ‘And you only live across the street?’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not recommending this place because you’re lazy, darling?’ He laughed.

  I laughed too, although it felt as if I’d bitten a lemon.

  ‘Absolutely not, Colton. Don’t be silly. Wait ’til you meet the owner. He will put you at ease.’

  He shrugged and we walked into the pub. Jamie greeted us and passed me the key to the room upstairs. His baked camembert flavour made my stomach ache, realising that yet again, I was running on empty. We would have to sit for lunch after this meeting that was for sure.

  ‘Morning, Jamie. This is Mr. Colton Harris. He will be having a private dinner here next week,’ I said in my nicest voice.

  Jamie smiled a little wider and said with his own sweetest voice, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Harris.’ He ended with a little indeterminate bow.

  He knew what a pain in the butt Mr. Harris was. Jamie was one of my closest friends and head bartender at the Oak Tavern. Ever since I’d moved back to my hometown he’d been my closest confidante and one of two people who knew about my gustatory synaesthesia.

  ‘You too, dear boy,’ Colton replied with a flirty smile.

  ‘I’ll take Mr. Harris upstairs. Can you let Kit know we’re here?’ I asked Jamie and he nodded.

  Colton winced and looked at me briefly, but then Sam showed him to the stairs that led to the first floor and he followed her.

  As soon as we let him in, a big smile crept onto his face. My shoulders dropped and a silent sigh of relief washed over me. Sam and I had worked so hard over the last couple of weeks to turn the private room into a decent space that could host an array of rich, snobby people, and seeing Colton so pleased without even having said a word gave me a sense of achievement.

  ‘But this is magnificent. Who knew this space even existed over the dingy old pub?’

  I bit my tongue and smiled as much as possible, following his gaze. A large table had been laid with cutlery (in the posh way with a fork for every dish and cloth napkins, not the pub version in a cup with paper serviettes) and wine and champagne glasses. Pillar candles of all sizes decorated the middle and a rose-gold lantern filled with all sorts of autumn foliage stood tall around an array of flowers.

  The windows had all been re-draped with velvet crimson-red curtains and golden ropes to keep them open. Fairy lights circled around them. Any excess furniture was clogging up the cellar, leaving plenty of room for social chatter.

  A whiff of fresh paint filled my nose, and I hoped Colton couldn’t smell it. We had only finished painting the room three days ago and applied the wallpaper two days before. When Kit had seen the room he hadn’t believed it was the same space as before. He was even tempted to pay me a good sum to freshen up the ground floor after Christmas. I had laughed at the time, but I don’t think he was joking.

  Speaking of which, Kit opened the door and came in, dressed in a smart white shirt and blue jeans, his trademark attire. His raspberry cheesecake flavour sweetened my palate, but as soon as Colton turned around, Kit froze on the spot.

  ‘Hi, Kit,’ I said, not really knowing what had happened. ‘This is…’

  ‘Kit? Darling? What on earth are you doing here?’ Colton exclaimed.

  ‘W-what are you doing here, Colton?’ Kit stuttered.

  I looked from one man to the other, their sweet flavours juxtaposing each other, but making me all the hungrier.

  ‘Do you-do you guys know each other?’ I asked.

  Sam came to stand next to me and she stared at the men, trying to determine what was happening.

  ‘This is my pub, Colton. What do you want here?’ Kit ignored me.

  ‘Well, colour me surprised. Of course you ran off to the middle of nowhere and holed up in a pub, didn’t you?’ Colton said with a pinch of annoyance. I kept my own at him calling my town the middle of nowhere inside.

  Kit took a couple of steps forward. ‘I can do whatever I want, Colton.’ He raised his voice. ‘I don’t owe you an explanation.’

  I decided to intervene before I had to separate the two from a fist fight.

  Stepping in the middle, I stretched my hands out to both men. ‘Why don’t we all take a deep breath?’

  Kit looked at me and his face softened. ‘Sorry, Jo. He-he just knows how to wind me up is all.’

  ‘Can anyone, please, tell us how you two know each other?’ Sam shouted at the ceiling, her foot tapping on the floor impatiently and her hands crossed in front of her chest.

  ‘We used to date of course,’ Colton said.

  My eyes widened as I looked from Colton to Kit.

  ‘Dated? So three years was dating to you?’ Kit growled.

  ‘He’s your ex?’ I asked Kit.

  He lowered his head and nodded, not taking his eyes off me.

  Well, this event was going to be a lot of fun! I thought and took deep breaths to calm my heart pounding in my chest like a drum in a music show.

  ‘Isn’t this funny?’ Sam said.

  We all looked at her and she raised an eyebrow.

  One

  A week later

  ‘I want to thank you all for coming here tonight from all corners of the world,’ said the apple pie that was my latest client, Colton.

  He had been a big royal pain in the buttocks the last few weeks and so had his guests, demanding everything and anything and all consumed in their own little world.

  ‘It’s a delight to see such a diverse and talented group of people in one room joined together by our common love for, what else? Booze.’

  An awkward chuckle buzzed around the room. I looked at all the attendees and even though there were not too many of them, they made the private room in the Oak Tavern seem bigger. You would have thought a producer’s dinner would be far more extravagant. Colton had been collecting his clients, all big names in the field of alcohol, for months and months to build his up-and-coming company.

  ‘Now, the lovely manager of the Oak Tavern and our beautiful Joanna have prepared an amazing meal for us. Here’s to a great year at Harris Warehouse,’ Colton said and raised his coupe glass of gin and tonic and the guests mimicked him.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ hummed the rest.

  He looked at me and I smiled. Sam, my trusted assistant and best friend, went around the room with a platter of toad-in-the-holes and cucumber avocado rolls—fitting to her flavour—and another waiter, the newest recruit at the pub, with a tray of gin and tonics and champagne flutes.

  Mathilde Minuit was talking with Baker Moore, their boozy flavours of Côtes du Rhône and gin giving me a head rush as if I’d just had one of those disgusting shots everyone downed in their early twenties. Neither of them seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

  ‘Picture?’ asked a strawberry blonde woman, with a DSLR camera strapped around her neck, who went by the name of Harper and who owned one of Australia’s biggest vineyards, Stone Tower. Probably not so coincidentally her flavour was that of Sauvignon Blanc, the floral notes of her flavour unable to lace my palate over the overpowering taste of blue cheese that her camera gave off.

  I heard a bang and turned my heard to see Ginny Brooks, a blonde woman with blue highlights who tasted of gin and tonic staring at the group of us taking a picture.

  ’Smile!’ Harper Brown sang and I turned my attention back to the camera.

  I smiled and stood next to Colton. Her husband stood on the other side and she took a couple of pictures before I cont
inued around the room.

  Sam placed the platter at the end of the bar and I went to meet her.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked her.

  ‘Man, these people can eat,’ she said. ‘This is the second platter in five minutes. And look at them. There’s only eight of them.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, we sort of knew what we were dealing with, didn’t we?’

  It had been a long couple of months trying to get the dinner ready for tonight. Thinking about it, this had been the most stressful event I’d had to plan thus far. Each guest a bigger personality than the last. It was like a room full of Poppys. Or Arthurs. Or any of my past clients put together, dead or alive.

  The waiter, Rick, slapped his tray next to Sam’s empty platter and sighed.

  ‘These people are going to drink this place dry,’ he said.

  Sam nodded.

  ‘Thank God they’re using their own drinks then,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to call for another serving,’ Sam said, ‘but I don’t think we’ll have more after that. Plus we need to serve the mains.’

  ‘It’s fine. We can start now.’ I shook my head and stepped forward. ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Dinner is about to be served, so if you’ll please take your seats,’ I said, remembering the painstaking process of allocating the places on the long table in a room full of people that disliked almost everyone else, either because they were competitors and didn’t like being in the other’s presence, or because they looked down on those who weren’t big names yet.