Page 46 of The Little Porto Book Club

‘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.’