THE MISSING

THE IDEA :

'But the almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman, and hath slain him. For their mighty one did not fall by young men, neither did the sons of Titan strike him, nor tall giants oppose themselves to him, but Judith weakened him with the beauty of her face.’ Book of Judith, Ch 16:7-8

THE DUST JACKET :

A lawyer disappears from his family home in Notting Hill Gate. A City of London banker is missing from his Chiswick home. Their distraught families and colleagues ask the experts to end the nightmare of their sudden and mysterious loss.

There are 210,000 reports of missing people every year in the UK. But the Police do not search for missing people unless there’s been a crime or the missing are vulnerable.

Rachel Tyler works at the Missing Persons charity. She finds people. ‘Found’ means found alive. ‘Located’ means found dead. She knows the pain of a missing loved one and she is the first to make a connection with the missing married middle-aged men. Matt Harley is a corporate risk consultant. He arrives at a top City investment bank to see what damage the missing star banker has left in his wake.

The two join forces to follow an intricate web of clues as they reveal the lives of those who go missing, and of those who have killed before and who will do so again.

Rachel Tyler commutes from her Balham flat to her job at the National Missing Persons Helpline in Mortlake. She’s low-paid but recognises her work brings hope to those with missing partners, siblings and relations. Eleven years ago her father walked out of their Croydon home and he hasn't been home since. Most of the missing are runaway children and lonely youths but she sees a new surprising pattern of late. There are married men with great jobs and successful lives who have no reason to suddenly disappear. Her dread-locked boyfriend Webster updates the charities web site but is unconvinced of her suspicions. Then she gets a telephone call to attend the home of another missing husband and father.

Matt Harley leaves his Kensington Church Street bachelor pad in his BMW Z4 open-top, with wraparound sunglasses and R&B music on max, heading out on the Hammersmith flyover on a bank holiday weekend to meet Katarina who’s flying in from a modeling assignment in Milan. Matt works for Geitz Associates & Co. Inc., the leading global corporate security and risk firm. He finds the Missing. Plus the millions they take with them. His reputation as the sharpest hired hand who bills by the hour remains intact. Roll on the next missing money man.

Richard Fenwick arrives to work in the wealth management division of Mitchell Leonberg & Co. Inc in the City but is stunned to learn of another huge overnight corporate collapse in the States. A multi-billion dollar NYSE IT stock is suddenly a worthless shell, having been pillaged for years by a board of directors. Richard's discretionary clients had millions invested in the formerly top-rated stock. He makes the apologetic telephone calls to irate clients. Some seek him in person to seek retribution of sorts. One of his high net worth clients will go much further.

Constanze Scheffler logs onto the world wide web from the safety of an anonymous Easyinternetcafe PC. She reads the active message board where those with names like subzero and city_guy anonymously post their inner thoughts. Sometimes she replies to them privately, enjoying the frustration she causes, wondering whom she can tempt next, maybe dreaming of her next  conquest. The unfortunate poolside death of her husband is a distant memory. She has killed twice since then. Both died in the sunken brick cellar of her Marbella villa and are buried beneath her rustic citrus orchard. Both were a challenge of sorts until the very last drops of fatal Rioja passed their parched lips.

PROLOGUE EXTRACT :  (Copyright 2009)

Prologue - Two Years Ago

The Examination was made at : Central Mortuary, Cuidad del Malaga on Sunday 16 June at 10.10 am.

Officials Present : Inspector L. Torres

Detective R. Perez

J. Vasquez - Police Photographer

Officer H. Nacos #4831

Assistants : R. Tavares - Senior Mortuary Technician

L. Diaz - Mortuary Technician

Circumstances : From the notes of Officer Nacos, he was called to a villa in El Rosario, Marbella, owned by the deceased. Officer Nacos advises when he arrived at the scene at 11pm the deceased was floating face down in the adjacent swimming pool, his head hanging forward. The deceased wore only a pair of swimming shorts.

The deceased’s wife later gave a statement to Nacos that the couple had swum after dinner and that the deceased had got into difficulty. She stated that the couple had drunk a significant quantity of wine during the evening. The deceased was taken to Malaga General Hospital on Saturday 15 June at 11.45 pm. He was pronounced dead on arrival by Dr. G. Alvarez.

...Nacos tells me that the wife is good-looking … very good-looking, he says ... says he spoke to her for a while and that he couldn’t stop looking at her … says he was distracted by her … not English … German

Identification : The formal identification of the body of Oliver Robert Vickers was made to me by Officer Nacos at 10.10 am on 16 June at the Central Mortuary.

External Examination : The body is that of a short, well-nourished and overweight middle-aged man. Height 5 ft 9 in. Weight 114 kg (16 ½ stone).

A fine white frothy foam is visible exuding from the mouth and nostrils. The foam is tinged with blood producing a pinkish colour. When the foam is wiped away, pressure on the chest wall causes more to exude from the nostrils and mouth. It is persistent and it resists submersion.

The foam is a mixture of water, air, mucus and surfactant whipped up by respiratory efforts. The foam is also found in the trachea and main bronchi. This indicates to me that the deceased was alive at the time of submersion in water.

… this corpse has lived life to excess, he is flabby and overweight … I wonder what she ever saw in him

Internal Examination : The lungs are voluminous, bulky and ballooned. The pleural surface have a marbled appearance with grey-blue to dark red areas interspersed with pink and yellow-grey zones of more aerated tissue. They are doughy under pressure. Upon sectioning, there is a flow of watery material. The appearance reflects active inspiration of air and water rather than passive flooding of the lungs with water.

The lung weight is approx 700 gr. I note tears in the alveolar walls which explain the blood tinging of foam in the airways. I perform a detailed histological study of one central and one peripheral section from each lobe and the microscopic examination is indicative of drowning, primarily with overdistension.

I find no sand, silt, weed or other foreign matter in the airways, lungs, stomach and duodenum of the body. The absence of significant volumes of liquid in the stomach suggest a rapid death.

I observe venous congestion and blood volume expansion from the absorption of fresh water, further evidenced by the engorgement of the right side of the heart and large veins. As a result of heamodilution the blood is fluid and thin and it lacks a normal sticky consistency.

There are very minor immersion artefacts, primarily goose-skin or anserina cutis, with a roughening and pimpling of the skin, combined with skin maceration, and a swelling and wrinkling of the skin.

I observe above average levels of blood alcohol concentrations. I perform corroborative measurements on vitreous humour, urine and bile which confirm these very abnormally high levels.

I note some evidence of minor bruising and rupturing to muscles in the shoulder girdle, neck and chest area including the scaleni and pectoralis major. The haemorrhages are bilateral and follow the lines of muscle bundles. This is strongly indicative of the deceased having been alive prior to struggling in water.

Conclusion : The deceased exhibits typical pathological evidence of drowning. Submersion was followed by a struggle which subsided with exhaustion and drowning began. Breath holding continued until carbon dioxide accumulation stimulated respiration resulting in inhalation of water. This was rapidly followed by a loss of consciousness. Convulsions and aspiration followed. Respiratory failure was coincident with heart failure.

It is my opinion that death occurred within two to three minutes of submersion. The deceased was alive before submersion. There is no evidence of any natural, traumatic or toxicological causes of death. Intoxication of the deceased is a significant contributing factor

Nothing as yet!