Chapter Twenty-Nine
Wednesday arrives and I’m at the pastelaria nice and early to save our spot by the window, not that the place has got any busier, just that I’m a creature of habit.
‘Viviane! Did you get my email?’ Tiago slides into the seat opposite and leans all the way over the table as if he’s going to grab my hands but he stops at the last moment.
It’s only been a couple of days since I’ve seen his sunny, smiley face, and one look at him, my mood brightens.
He changes the energy in a room, uplifts it and makes even difficult spaces more tolerable for me, and how can that be?
I rummage in my handbag for my book, we must keep up appearances, and I’m secretly hoping we do manage a bit of silent reading time today. ‘Which email?’
‘The email I sent this morning.’ Tiago bounces in his chair, as if he can’t sit still. I make a mental note not to order any coffee while he’s so jumpy.
‘Well, I woke up to a few of them from you. Was it the one where you asked: If you were a salad, what salad would you be? Or: What if our dreams are an algorithm and we just need to figure out the code? I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee at that stage, Tiago.
’ I don’t usually check my email first thing, either, because I don’t want to be a slave to technology, but I haven’t been able to resist checking in case there’s one from Tiago.
This is the road to ruin, I’m sure of it.
‘You didn’t catch Porto News today?’ After taking book five of The Quill Chronicles from his rucksack, he shoves the bag under the table.
I fear Tiago is not listening, not entirely. He’s too wired, it’s possible he might have overdosed on caffeine if his edginess is anything to go by.
‘No, Tiago, I did not. On workdays I wake at 6 a.m. and turn on my computer at precisely 7 a.m. before finishing at 3 p.m. I am being paid an adequate sum to copyedit, so copyedit is what I do.’
Perhaps I need to rethink this rule while we’re in the middle of a case, so I don’t miss any updates.
The Morse code blinks make a return. ‘Right. You’re an asset to your, erm, publisher.’
‘Thank you. I like to think so too.’ There’s a clattering in the kitchen, and the clink of metal soon followed by a Portuguese curse word. ‘What did they drop?’ A squabble breaks out, it sounds exactly the way it does in my family, loud, fast and full of pepper.
‘Viviane, what I’m trying to say is, Porto News shared an online article early this morning, a local man has gone missing and they are appealing to the public for information.’
I gasp. This is a huge development.
‘Why didn’t you lead with that, Tiago? We’ve just spent the better part of five minutes discussing my daily schedule!’
‘Sorry, my fault. Let’s not get off track.’
‘Who is the man?’
‘They haven’t released a photo or a name yet due to privacy reasons. All they said was he’s a sixty-two-year-old man missing from the Cordoaria area.’
‘Near the gardens where we held the sting?’
Tiago lifts his palms in the air. ‘Yes. Family have raised concerns but so far Polícia haven’t released a statement as to whether they’re investigating it as a missing person’s case or not. Do we think The Man in the Blue Beret is sixty-two?’
I contemplate it. ‘Hard to gauge, but he very well could be. How can anyone help to find a man with nothing to go on though, no name and no picture?’ The Mysterious Case of the Man with No Name. Porto is practically humming with mysteries! ‘It’s virtually impossible.’
Tiago exhales a long breath and scrubs his face. ‘Totally impossible. It could be anyone. Could be our guy, could be Lucinda’s husband. How can we tell?’
‘And Zephyr and Albert followed The Man in the Blue Beret after the sting but lost sight of him when he got into an Uber.’ An Uber. It doesn’t exactly scream nefarious underworld figure.
‘Right, so we still have no idea who he is either? He could be the missing man, right?’
It’s my turn to lift my palms. ‘Could be.’
‘What’s up?’ Zephyr throws herself into the chair next to mine as old Albert shuffles in slowly, grumbling about the hilly climb and why he chose to retire to a place with such uneven cobblestoned ground. ‘Did you guys see the news?’ Zephyr says. ‘Some old dude is missing.’
‘Old!’ Albert barks. ‘Reports said he’s sixty-two, not exactly ancient.’
Zephyr guffaws. ‘Prehistoric!’
Thomas takes a chair next to Zephyr. ‘Afternoon, how are the Thursday Murder Club doing?’
‘Very funny, Thomas.’ I’m tickled at his joke. I take out my notebook of mysteries and add this pertinent information.
Porto man missing. Sixty-two years old. Hails from the Cordoaria area.
‘Maybe I’ve spent too long listening to true crime podcasts but is anyone else shook right now?
’ Zephyr asks as her rainbow bangles clink together.
‘Thomas, to catch you up on everything, we followed The Man in the Blue Beret for an hour after the sting and he did the most regular things before he got into an Uber and we lost him.’
‘Like what?’ Thomas asks.
Zephyr takes her well-thumbed copy of Notes from Underground from her bag. ‘Picked up a suit from the dry cleaners. Bought a bottle of wine, some fruit, a suitcase and then he stepped off the kerb into a car and that was that.’
This is news to me! ‘Wait. He bought a suitcase? What size suitcase?’ Suitcases are good for only two things:
1. Clothes
2. Dead bodies
Zephyr gulps as realisation hits. ‘An extra-large one on wheels. He wants to ditch a dead body? But whose?’
‘That is the million-dollar question.’ Even though she neglected to share the suitcase information our young friend is in possession of a sharp forensic intellect.
I slide my gaze Tiago’s way, expecting he’ll be making notes or considering the facts, but he’s busy stirring his coffee, gazing wistfully outside, as if his mind is on other things.
Zephyr’s eyes are at risk of falling out of her head, and I’m not prone to exaggeration. She lowers her voice but it comes out like a hiss, ‘So what … do we think that he’s some kind of hitman?’
Old Albert taps his chin. ‘Wouldn’t hitmen have better methods to dispose of a body than carting it away in a suitcase?’
‘It’s kind of old school,’ Zephyr agrees.
‘Yeah,’ Tiago pipes up. ‘Everyone knows you just need a huge vat of hydrofluoric acid to dissolve everything, even the teeth.’
Detective Amber Quill, quietly educating the masses. And the murderers …
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘Lucinda has read The Quill Chronicles. She’d know about the hydrofluoric acid too.’
‘Maybe her hitman doesn’t.’ Zephyr lifts her brows. ‘Men, some men …’ she gives old Albert an accusatory stare ‘… do things the hard way because they won’t be told.’
‘Hmm, maybe,’ I say, pondering it all. As always, the case remains murky. The answers just out of reach.
‘Or, you could all be seeing a crime where there isn’t one,’ Thomas unhelpfully adds.
Tiago is busy jotting on Post-it notes, paying not a lick of attention to the conversation.
I lean forward to peek, just in case he’s writing a bullet-point kill list. All I can make out is: you make every day special.
Is he writing himself affirmations? If so, I admire a man in touch with his feelings. You don’t see that every day.
‘Thomas, do you really think after having been presented with all the facts that we’re wrong?
’ The sceptic in a whodunnit is there to challenge assumptions and spot inconsistencies, so I’m waiting for Thomas to offer us a substantial direction to follow that we may not have considered.
That’s his role in this mystery, whether he’s aware of it or not.
Thomas shifts his weight as he heaves his Crimean War hardback to the table. ‘The mystery is Lucinda owns the café and probably didn’t want us to find out,’ he says in a tone that implies such a thing is obvious.
‘How did you find out Lucinda owns the café?’
‘Zephyr told me.’ So, he is keeping up with developments! There’s hope for him yet.
‘What’s your theory as to why Lucinda wants to keep that a secret?’ I probe, hoping for something, anything, to guide us.
He gives me a one shoulder shrug. ‘Because she’s an introvert? You of all people should understand, Viviane. You don’t like sharing personal details.’
Dammit. ‘You don’t think any of this is odd? And that Lucinda isn’t hiding a bigger secret, not with all the clues we’ve been privy to?’ I push the notebook of mysteries in his direction, hoping he’ll take an interest in my latest theories. He does not.
‘Everyone has secrets. But I’m sure Lucinda doesn’t have a dead husband being dragged around Porto in a suitcase.
’ The waitress strides to our table, balancing a tray of coffees.
We fall silent and as I look around, each of our expressions is one of guilt.
This won’t do. How to make legitimate book club small talk?
‘Ending on a cliffhanger when the next book isn’t even written should be outlawed, discuss. ’
‘Hear, hear!’ old Albert says.
‘For real,’ Zephyr says. ‘That’s almost a trigger warning right there. Like I lowkey fell into a screaming heap of despair when that romantasy series was left on a cliffhanger and then the author went off and wrote a romance book, a romance book, like cool and all but finish what you start, lady!’
‘I don’t mind them,’ Tiago says. ‘Gives me something to look forward to.’ He sends a wink my way, and then bumps the table, sending our coffees flying.
‘Votes to kick Tiago out of book club?’ Thomas says with a cheeky grin, provoking a laugh from Tiago.
‘Yes,’ I concur. ‘I’m paying full price for a cup of coffee but I’m only ever able to drink half when Tiago is here.’ I wink back at him. Look at me go, joking around like I do this kind of malarkey every day.
We thank the waitress and when she’s safely behind the counter we get back to the matter at hand.
Tiago leans close to Thomas and resumes the chat.
‘What makes you so sure Lucinda’s husband isn’t being dragged around Porto in a suitcase?
Because that’s the thing for me, we just don’t know for sure either way.
It’s the kill list that concerns me. Yes, it could have been a kiss list, but that seems unlikely.
’ Around the table there are nods from everyone except Thomas.
‘Everything else we could possibly explain away, but not that list.’
‘The fact that there have been no murders is one,’ Thomas says, radiating calm when the rest of us have our shoulders up around our ears, eyes out on stalks for eavesdroppers, and ears pricked.
It’s nice that Thomas is talking, interacting, even if just to disagree. There’s a subtle change in his complexion, as if he’s caught the sun. He’s not as hunched over, haunted. It gives me hope that he’s working through whatever’s troubling him.
‘There is a missing man,’ Zephyr says, as she takes a noisy sip of her coffee.
‘Yes, there’s that.’ Thomas casts his gaze about like he’s looking for escape. ‘That could be anyone. He could turn up.’
I sense Thomas has had enough of this for one day.
‘Well,’ I say, Detective Amber Quill doesn’t mention the toll that getting precisely nowhere takes, ‘all we can do now is wait and see if the missing man is identified. Or we try and identify him ourselves. Tiago, get onto the world wide web, see what you can find.’
‘The … world … You want me to google it?’
‘Google? Any fool can google, Tiago. No, I want you to plumb the depths. Go deep. Use your particular set of skills. Find out who this missing man is.’ How hard can it be? Surely he can hack into a database or two?
‘Right. On it.’ He takes his phone from his pocket while his lips twitch with a smile.
The waitress casts a curious glance our way. Zephyr and old Albert swear she won’t share any further details about her aunt but surely there’s a way to pry it from her? Is she not worried about her missing aunt because there’s family tension about the way the pastelaria is run? Hard to tell.
She soon comes over, cloth in hand to wipe down a table nearby. Suspicious, if you ask me, I’d hazard a guess she’s eavesdropping. And if she won’t give up any further information about Lucinda, we won’t give her any either.
‘We better get started,’ I say, making my voice bright.
The book club members clock the waitress and murmur in agreeance and pick up their books. ‘I thought you might like this, Thomas.’ Old Albert brandishes an espionage paperback. ‘Might be a bit easier to hold.’
Thomas smiles weakly, but it’s obvious he’s touched by the gift. ‘Thank you. I’m almost done with this one.’ With herculean effort, he shakes the Crimean War hardback. ‘And then I’ll give this a go.’
‘Good man.’
The waitress hovers, cleaning an already clean table.
Old Albert shoots me a wink as if to say, leave this with me.
‘Did you know, the writer TS Eliot once wrote an entire poetry book about cats? It was called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and this inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Cats.
Interesting, eh? I once owned a tabby, myself, Whiskers, rascal of a thing, she was.
Would pounce on my head in the dark of night, screeching and carrying on.
Rescued the feline, oh gosh, must have been in 1987, or was it 1988?
It was summer, that I’m certain about … wait, maybe it was 1978?
The years, they’ve got a way of getting muddled … ’
The waitress soon grows bored of Albert’s story and dashes back behind the counter. I go to give him a thumbs-up, but he’s still talking about Whiskers, and all the tricks the tabby got up to. Tiago and I exchange a grin, he shrugs, so I pick up my book.
We spend the next little while reading, and I find myself enjoying the drama on the page, but mentally edit it as I go, knowing now as I do that real-life investigations are much harder than they look.
The rest of the book club read silently, old Albert’s voice becomes like ASMR, as he waxes lyrical about his cat, and her exploits, of which there appears to have been many.
The reading spell is broken occasionally as I meet Tiago’s steady gaze and we both quickly look away with shy smiles.