Missing People

All towns have something going on beneath the surface... It's just a matter of time before something floats to the top.

Social media had a big impact on the way people choose to live their lives. In a small town like ours, it was hard not to avoid the odd hate campaign or mud-slinging. The local paper’s social media was full of naming and shaming, aggressive confrontations, libel and intrigue.  But it wasn’t all harmless fun.

Outwardly, captivating the collective resources of a community was a positive step. But people with malicious intent had always found a way of infiltrating a cause or manipulating the public’s good will. It wasn’t always easy. They say the way to hell is paved with good intentions. If someone can highjack those intentions you can get sucked right into hell. That would be the case of Gerry Stevens, a factory worker on the industrial estate.

He kept himself to himself, and socialised only at low key events. He just seemed a bit quiet. He didn’t have any idea about what would soon happen to him. He trusted the advice of those who had contributed to his decision to lead such a low key life. He’d always been good like that.

Several  years before he had lived in Scunthorpe. It was the area he grew up in. One particularly cold winter, the snow covered the ground. It was one of those days when breathing made you look like a smoker. Walking to the sixth form college he was taking his A2s at, he saw a red Citroen van, the kind handymen have. It cut a conspicuous figure in the great white expanse of the Morrisons car park.

Walking over the crunchy pavements, Gerry looked at the registration number. He’d been thinking about being a police man, funny how life drinks your ambitions. He recalled the reg as a mental training exercise. He took a pen out, wrote it on his hand with his back turned, then he turned around, and it was right. F53 8GF.

A man exited the driver’s door of the van with a scarf around his face. He opened the back door and pulled out some bin liners containing what looked to Gerry like unwanted clothes. Bit odd, he thought. But stranger was the driver closing the door, getting back into the van and driving off. Fly tipping, what a nuisance thought Gerry.

The driver hadn’t seen him, it was pretty dark and he clearly had other things on his mind. Gerry wrote down the licence plate on his hand then went to college. He’d tell the police about it.

“Bob.” Said a man.

“Yes?” said Gerry in a Cotswolds accent. It was one of the office workers at the factory.

“There’s some people who rang up about you Bob, not sure exactly what they wanted but they asked if you could ring them back.”

“Alright, you got their number?”

“I do yeh, wrote it down here. There you go.”

Nigel was sitting in the office of Blue’s Bar. He was hiding away from people he was avoiding. He went onto Blue’s Facebook profile and on the news feed the first thing that popped up was a shared image. “Missing Person: Have you seen Gerry? He is believed to have got into some difficulties due to stress from studying his A levels in 2012 when living in Scunthorpe. He disappeared and hasn’t spoken to his family since May 2012. He is much missed and much loved, any information please call our helpline. Thank you for your support!”

Nigel was always interested in missing people. Having the ability to find people was something Nigel prided himself on. It helped that his social engineering ability had been enhanced by training from his mentor. His mentor had a background as ropey as sin, but he knew his heart was in the right place.

Nigel clicked on the link, why was someone from Scunthorpe being shared in Cirencester. It was a source of constant fascination for Nigel how seemingly unrelated things were connected. The last comment on the picture said simply, “Thts not Gerry, thts Bob he works at my factory lol sm1s pulling yer leg Bob”. Nigel found that odd, so he clicked on the hyperlinked profile of Bob. A few years had gone by, but the profile picture certainly resembled a filled out Gerry. Nigel looked into the provenance of the original post. It fed back to a page calling itself “Missing People Volunteers UK”. It had a few other shares but had been opened quite recently.

Gerry had gone into the office to use a phone. He rang the number and waited. It had an odd ringtone. It was a UK mobile number so this confused him. Maybe it was engaged. Unexpectedly it picked up. “Hello, who’s speaking?” said a man in a R.P accent, he seemed a little flustered.

“Hello, my name is Bob, I was told there was a call for me.”

The accent suddenly changed to Irish. “Gerry, we know where you are now. It’s simple. Change the fucking statement. You were mistaken, you got the number plate wrong. You were young and day dreaming. Simple as.”

Gerry felt sick and the ground beneath his feet sank into a hole. "Tell us you’re going to play the game.”

Gerry put the phone down. He looked bizarre to his colleagues. One of his co-workers came up to him, “You alright? I didn’t know a ginger could get any whiter.”

“Some bad news. It’ll be ok.” He picked up the phone again, then called the number he’d been given in emergencies. He wanted it to pick up so much. It went to answer machine. “It’s me, they got my place of work. How did this happen?” He said it in a whisper so no one else could hear.

Nigel sat back on his office chair. Some things were just odd. No reason to get involved.

His phone rang. It was his mobile only a few people had the number for. 

“Hello?”

“It’s me.” Said a welsh accent.

“Howdy.”

“I need £60,000.”

“Fuck off.” Nigel put the phone down. It rang again almost instantly.

“Look you jumped up little cunt, if it wasn’t for me you’d have nothing so stop being so greedy. I need the money and you’ll get it back.”

“What happened to all that money you said you had?”

“I lost it.”

“What do you mean you lost it?”

“I mean, I dug a hole in the woods and I lost the map I made of where I put it. Not a fucking thing for you to snigger at you little bastard. Give me the money you’ll get it back in a month.”

“Why do you think I have £60,000 lying around? This is going to cause me a lot of problems.”

“Not as many problems as the one’s I’ll be in if I don’t get that money. I’ll be fucking dead.”

“You’ve got away with it this long though haven’t you, that’s why you’re called Merlin because you always find a bit of magic at the last minute.”

“Abracadabra, can I have £60,000 please?”

“It’ll take me a while to get it together.”

“It’ll take you signing into your online banking and making a transfer.”

“What’s mine is yours...” Nigel felt a bit sick at the idea of giving away such a large amount of money. But at the same time, it wasn’t really his in the first place. Merlin was right, he’d be nothing without him.

Gerry was leaving work after finishing his shift. On his way home he drove through Chesterton. A car came out of nowhere on a junction and bumped into another car in front of him. Gerry applied the breaks quickly. The people in the cars in front got out to start a confrontation. A car pulled up behind Gerry and basically blocked him in. He had thought about reversing away and turning around. The driver of the car in front came to his window and knocked on it. “You saw what happened right? You’ve got to witness for me, it was his fault.”

Gerry unwound the window. “It was his fault yeh.”

“Can you give me your details then to back me up? I’ve got a pen in my car if you’d come over.”

Gerry didn’t want to be there. He just wanted to get home to call his emergency number again. Gerry got out of the car and went over to the man’s vehicle. The driver opened his front door to get a pen. He picked it up. As that happened the other driver came over shouting expletives.

“How could you fucking do that?” said the man. He had something in his hand. He looked very angry. “How could you do that?” he then looked at Gerry. He had a knife in his hand. “Get in the car Gerry and keep your mouth shut.”

The driver he was going to witness for calmly opened the back door and patted the seat. “Get in.”

People got out of the car behind and one went over to Gerry’s car, the key still in the ignition. One of them came to the car Gerry was in and got in the other side of the back. The driver closed the door on Gerry and put the central locking on. “We’ll have a good talk won’t we Gerry.”