The Agatha Christie Book Club

by Larmer, C. A.

  *****

  Perry was having a fabulous time. It was 1:22 p.m. and he had found his way to the only jewellery store in the inner-city luxury shopping strip called The Strand Arcade. He was leaning across the glass counter playing the part of Barbara Parlour’s Personal Assistant and, for now, the young shop assistant, a well-dressed lad with bad skin and beady eyes, was buying it.

  “I am sorry, sir, but that piece of jewellery has already been repaired and left the shop.”

  Perry mocked surprise and outrage. “What? No! You have to be kidding me, please tell me you’re kidding me?!”

  “Er, no, sorry. Left on Tuesday.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Perry fanned himself with a brochure from the counter as if he was about to pass out. “This is unbelievable... I had strict instructions from Ms Parlour herself to collect it.”

  “Must be a crossed wire?”

  “More than a crossed wire, young man, I think the whole bloody phone line’s down!”

  The jeweller looked distraught and reached for a book under the bench, scrambling through it as he whimpered, “But I remember really clearly, sir, she was very firm about the address I can assure you...”

  “And you spoke to her yourself?”

  “Yes I did.” He paused, looked jubilant. “Here it is! The Hydro as requested. That’s where she wanted it to go, that’s where we sent it.”

  Perry committed this to memory as he shook his head. “Really? The hydro? What else does it say?”

  “Just that sir.”

  “Who was it addressed to?”

  The shop assistant went to read it aloud but something made him reconsider. His beady eyes squinted suddenly. “Who did you say you were again?”

  “I told you, man! I’m Barbara’s PA. Bruno Myers. I run all her errands. In fact I was supposed to drop the jewellery in for her last Saturday, but she was coming into the city anyway so...”

  “That was just before she disappeared, you know?” Now the eyes were wide, reaching for gossip.

  “Yes, yes, sadly it was. I expect the police have spoken to you?”

  “Yes, Mr Myers, they have.”

  “Good, good, but I can tell you, I expect her to show up very soon and when she does I want to have all her affairs in order. Including retrieving her missing jewels.”

  “Well it was just the one, sir.”

  “What? Oh, yes of course it was. Can I see the, er, receipt?”

  The eyes squinted again. He closed the book firmly. “Have you got some ID? A letter of authority?”

  His about-face was quite unexpected and Perry pretended to be outraged. “No I do not and nor should I! Our previous jeweller, Henri at Tiffany’s would never have asked me such an impertinent question! I told Barbs we should have stuck with them. Really can’t imagine why she chose to come to this dreary little shop in the first place.”

  He was making this up of course and began looking around the small store disdainfully. Several customers wandered in at that point and the jeweller held one hand up to placate him.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve put you out,” he was saying, his voice lowered. “But we’ve had a few reporters in here nosing about and my boss tells me I have to, you know, check all ID before offering information.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “One reporter even pretended to be a policeman. Can you believe someone would do such a thing?!”

  Perry gasped. “No, that is outrageous, impersonating someone else. Outrageous!”

  “So you can see, sir, why my boss says I mustn’t hand over any personal information. But I can assure you, it’s all above board here. I followed Mrs Parlour’s specific instructions, I haven’t done anything wrong. You could always call the Hydro and enquire with them further?”

  Perry sighed loudly and nodded. “Fine, fine, I’ll clean up this mess for you.”

  He strode out, waited until he was clear of the arcade then gave a little whoop. Playing the cranky PA, Bruno, had been a lot of fun, but now he was left with more questions than answers. Like what the hell was ‘the Hydro’? And why did Barbara send a piece of jewellery there just before she disappeared?

  Chapter 22

  The Agatha Christie Book Club was settled in for Sunday brunch around the Finlay’s tea chest enjoying Lynette’s spicy cinnamon pancakes, but no one more so than Missy. She was on to her third helping, long before most people had finished their first.

  “You are the luckiest woman alive, Alicia,” she said through a bulging mouth, “to have a budding chef under the same roof! Wish my Mum could cook a half-decent pancake.”

  Perry choked suddenly, spluttering freshly brewed coffee in all directions. “Tell me you’re not still living at home?!” Lynette tossed him a serviette and he began dabbing at the coffee stains down his tight, white sleeveless T-shirt. “You kept that one quiet.”

  “No I didn’t,” she said defensively. “Just never came up. Besides, it’s all I can afford right now. You know what pittance they pay at the library? Mum says I’d be lucky to meet the annual power bill with that. I’m saving up.”

  “Good on you,” said Claire who was actually dressed casually today in a pair of dark blue jeans, a red and blue cowboy shirt tied in a knot in front and her hair in low ponytails. She looked like she’d just stepped out of an old Western flick. “I couldn’t wait to move out of home when I was your age but it was an expensive exercise.”

  “Yeah and try doing it on your own. At least you’ve got your fiancé to pay half the bills.”

  “Oh Charlie and I don’t live together,” said Claire and this roused Perry’s interest.

  He stopped dabbing and said, “Really, why not?”

  She shrugged. “Never seemed necessary I suppose. We’re getting married, we’ll live together then.”

  If you get married, Perry was about to say but the frown on Alicia’s face shut him up. He simply smacked his lips together and raised his eyebrows knowingly. Alicia hadn’t had the chance to ask Perry any more about his relationship with Claire’s fiancé and the very thought of what he might say, sent shudders down her spine. Now, however, was not the time to ask, so she tried changing the subject instead.

  “How’d we all go, then? Any good news to report?”

  The book club members each took turns to get the others up to speed. Lynette described their visit on Thursday night to the Just Beachy Café and how Niles was now so broke he was homeless.

  “At least I’m not holed up on the floor of a café,” said Missy, glaring at Perry. “That’s totally depressing. I’m not sure how I’d handle that. And eviction, too, soooo demoralising! An ex-colleague of mine from the library got evicted once. Oh she was shattered, they threw all her stuff out on the pavement out the front, would you believe? And—”

  “How did Niles look?” interrupted Anders, keen to keep on track today.

  Alicia noticed that Missy looked upset by this and clamped her lips shut as though trying to keep herself in check.

  “Exhausted and stressed, as you would,” said Lynette. “How’d you go, Claire, with the tennis sleazebag?”

  She winced. “It turned rather nasty in the end, I don’t think he’ll be sleazing on to me in future.”

  “Well Charlie will be relieved to hear that,” Perry said drolly, and Alicia sighed.

  She didn’t know what he was playing at, but sensed it was a game where Claire would come out the loser. She liked Claire, enjoyed having her in the club. She had a sharp mind and was not averse to playing the devil’s advocate, which both she and Perry desperately needed from time to time to keep them on track and their imaginations in check. She was damned if she was going to let Perry scare her away. He could keep his sordid innuendoes to himself.

  “So tell everyone what happened, Claire,” she prompted, ignoring Perry this time.

  Claire proceeded to describe her meeting with Jake at the tennis club and the way he turned surly very quickly.

  “So he didn’t buy your student charade then?” asked Lynette.


  “Not for one second. Although acting was never my forte.”

  “Well, I think I earned myself an Oscar yesterday,” said Perry. “I fooled the jeweller outright.”

  He launched into an exaggerated account of his time at the inner-city jewellery shop.

  “So what’s this hydro business?” Anders asked.

  “Gee it rings a bell...” said Alicia.

  “Well there’s the Snowy Hydro,” said Missy. “Isn’t that something to do with electricity generation?”

  “I’m one step ahead of you, sweetie,” Perry said. “I have a theory, wanna hear?”

  They all nodded except for Claire who rolled her eyes and said, “You and your theories.”

  “Okay, so, I think our Barbs had a piece of jewellery engraved for her lover who—get this—happens to work for a hydro electricity company! She sent it to him at his office as a gift. Maybe that’s where she is now, hiding out with him! If only we knew which company. I Googled it, of course, and there are loads. We don’t even know if it’s in the same state.”

  “Hang on, what lover?” asked Anders, also good for proverbial buckets of cold water occasionally. Perry shrugged. “And didn’t you say she got something repaired, not engraved?”

  “Well, maybe it all comes under the same banner. Zit face jeweller wasn’t giving too much away, kind of clamped up on me at the end, if truth be told, but we do know it was one piece. And, I mean, why would she have it sent there?”

  “I’ve heard of the Hydro,” Alicia said again, dropping a piece of her pancake into Max’s waiting mouth.

  “Yes, we’ve just been told, it’s to do with electricity and water—” said Lynette, scowling at her sister and then at Max.

  “No, no, I mean, I saw an ad for it somewhere recently. If only I could recall.”

  “If only you hadn’t drunk so much vino in your youth your ‘leetle grey cells’ would be working just fine,” her sister said, then ducked as Alicia tossed a cushion at her.

  “So, Perry, the jeweller wouldn’t tell you who the package was addressed to?” asked Anders.

  “Not from want of trying, I can tell you that. No, leave it with me, I’m going to look into it further. Okay, who’s next? Oh, Alicia how did you go with Wanda?”

  “No luck, I’m afraid. I haven’t been able to get through to her, which is why I went to the police but they weren’t much use. I have a feeling Wanda’s avoiding my calls so I might just have to show up at her house and barge my way in. Might even head over there after this.”

  “Be sure to take someone with you,” Anders said. “Now, if no one else has anything to report I want to show you all something I discovered.”

  He looked very pleased with himself as he produced a crumpled newspaper clipping from his back pocket, straightened it out and placed it on the coffee table for them to see.

  “It’s from Tuesday’s Herald,” he explained. “I only spotted it when I was helping my receptionist clear away the old papers from the reception area at work. It’s from the classifieds section.”

  “What is it?” asked Claire.

  He began to read: “Friends and relatives of Rosa Lopez, late of the Philippines—”

  “Rosa? That has to be Barbara’s housekeeper, surely?” said Missy.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, starting again. “‘Friends and relatives of Rosa Lopez, late of the Philippines, please communicate. Write P.O. Box 268, Sydney 2001.’”

  You could have heard a pin drop. Even Max, who had enjoyed all this unexpected company, looked stunned, glancing from Alicia to Lynette and back again.

  Eventually, Alicia said, “This case is just too weird for words. I wonder why Rosa would put an ad in the Herald?”

  “Exactly my thoughts,” said Anders. “Very strange. It’s like we keep finding all these little clues that don’t seem to mean anything or amount to much and yet...”

  “And yet maybe they do!” said Missy. “Maybe they will all add up in the end. Like an Agatha Christie novel. You need to show the police this.”

  Anders scoffed. “What’s the point? I mean, I just can’t see what it’s got to do with anything.”

  “What I can’t understand,” said Lynette, picking the newspaper clipping up and studying it closely, “is why Rosa would use the Herald classies and some postal box. I mean, she seems like a pretty modern chick to me. Didn’t you say she was checking her emails and listening to an iPod when you were last there, Missy?”

  “So, doesn’t mean she can’t put an ad in a broadsheet,” retorted Alicia. “I can traverse both worlds. It is physically possible.”

  “Yeah but you’re a weirdo,” said Lynette and Alicia went to throw another cushion at her.

  Anders grabbed it off her before she could do any damage and gave her a stern, school principal look that made her blush. She wasn’t going to win the dashing doctor over with this behaviour, she thought, glancing away sheepishly.

  He turned to Lynette. “What would you do then?”

  “Jump online of course! Facebook is so much faster—you can find all your friends there in about five seconds flat. Or tweet or Google them. You don’t need to place a newspaper ad to find people these days. It’s so slow and old-fashioned.”

  “It’s so Agatha Christie!” said Missy again.

  Alicia grabbed the letter from her sister. “Why don’t we just ask Rosa? Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe she’s having a family reunion and the oldies don’t read tweets.” She directed that last comment to Anders, hoping he’d be charmed by her logic. “Can I keep this for my files?” He nodded. “Now, moving things along, I have a little task for you, Anders, if you’re up for it.”

  This time he smiled warmly at her. “Anything. You name it.”

  “Ooh, there’s a proposition,” said Perry and Alicia blushed again.

  “Shut up, Perry. Now, Anders, it’d be great to find out more about Arthur’s murder. The papers haven’t got very much and the police clearly aren’t saying. I was wondering whether you’d have any access, you know, to the medical files, that sort of thing?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not really, I mean, I might be a doctor, but this sort of stuff is always confidential and it’s not like I can just access his files... although,” he stopped, paused for a few seconds. “Now I think about it, I may have a way in. Yes, yes, I know exactly who to ask. She’s an appalling gossip so if anyone has the scoop, Gorgeous Georgie will.”

  “Oh, great,” said Alicia wondering why the sound of ‘Gorgeous Georgie’ made her want to rip someone’s heart out.

  He glanced at his watch and jumped up as though his pants were on fire. “But I’ve got to be quick, she’s always down at Bondi on Sunday mornings, having a swim.”

  Of course she is, thought Alicia, probably in a tiny little string bikini, just waiting for you to show up.

  “If I run now I can catch her,” Anders was saying. “I’ll pretend to run into her, that’ll be less obvious.”

  “Pretend, pretend! Run, run!” said Perry, jumping up to shoo him out.

  “Just let us know how you go!” Alicia called out after him. She turned back to the room where at least two people were sniggering at her. She ignored both Lynette and Perry and said, “Okay, that’s him sorted. Now, what else do we need to discuss?”

  “Actually, I have something to say,” said Missy. “I think we need to go back to Agatha Christie herself.”

  Claire groaned. “Just because we’re the Agatha Christie Book Club, Missy, doesn’t mean we have to be fixated with her.”

  “You want us to have séance?” suggested Perry facetiously. “Wake Agatha from the dead and ask her who done it?”

  “No, silly! I mean learn from her. Don’t you see, that’s why I went back to Barbara’s house the other day? It’s like in Hallowe’en Party...”

  They were all looking at her wearily again but she was used to those kinds of looks and pressed on. “You know, the Christie novel? It’s been a lo
ng time since I read it but if my own ‘leetle grey cells’ serve me correctly, I recall a line in there where Poirot says that to solve a crime, it’s important to reveal who the victim really is, warts and all. ‘You have to return to the victim’—something like that. Don’t you see? I think we need to work out who exactly Barbara Parlour was.”

  They were still staring, mutely, so she pushed her zebra print spectacles in place and said, “Think about it, possums, who the hell is she? On the one hand we met a really sweet, gracious but clearly depressed woman who looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly, on the other hand her friends and family seem to depict her as a total drama queen who’s about as deep as a puddle.” She paused, blushed slightly. “Sorry, I know I ramble on but—”

  “No, you’re absolutely right,” said Alicia. “The truth is probably somewhere in between, people are rarely such extremes, but it would be good to find out more about Barbara. It just might help.”

  It made sense to Claire, too. “But how do we do that? Apart from foraging through her house again.”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” said Missy. “But that’s the reason I went to her house, and why I was looking up the book that was found in her car. What does it tell us about the real Barbara Parlour?”

  The group stared at Missy, still not sure how to respond. Eventually, Perry suggested, “Maybe we should talk to her friends again.”

  “Except who are they?” said Claire. “We thought Wanda was her BFF but she wasn’t having a bar of it.”

  “What about the brother?” said Lynette. “He seems to be the closest person to her, or at least that’s what he says. Maybe I should pay him another visit, get the real story on his sister, the dirt this time.”

  “A least you won’t have any trouble tracking him down,” said Alicia.

  “True, but it’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow. I have some recipes I want to work on today.”

  “Fair enough!” said Claire, stretching out. “In fact, it mightn’t hurt all of us to stop thinking about this so much and get back to our own lives; do what Poirot used to do and let the brain cells stew on it for awhile.”