Missing

By Derek Earls

When several million people suddenly go missing, the ensuing world, both locally in Cornwall and worldwide, struggles to come to terms with the inept and comical attempts to put a sensible lid on the happening.
We follow the mishaps of a rogue Cornish vicar alongside those of world leaders; both, in their own way, trying to balance a return to normality whilst seeking the truth or otherwise.
When the local, national and international come into contact, via the UK Prime Ministers wife, the wiles of politicians and the mistrust of such wiles produce a comical mayhem that nevertheless still ends in a simple sadness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524637132

Derek Earls

Dr Derek Earls has written a number of novels since his early retirement from a scientific career. He lives in Newton Abbot, close to the sea and he writes for the pleasure of writing per se and hopes to share the pleasure with his readers. Ideas accumulated over the years tumble out into his works as fresh as the day they were seeded in his mind.

Book preview

CHAPTER

1

M artin Aspen was annoyed, very annoyed. Sunday was a busy day, very busy.

It was six o’clock a.m. and there was no milk on the vicarage doorstep. He had purposely chosen Berryman’s Dairy, since they alone provided milk at the door on the Lord’s Day, and the Lord’s Day was a maximum milk demand day for the Church of England.

Although Cornwall was mainly Baptist and Methodist territory for the Christian world in the UK, Martin had a large flock who required weekly reassurance that they remained part of God’s plan.

The tea, coffee and biscuits, following the services, remained for many a more important ritual than the Liturgical responses and the formal communion with the Almighty, through the bread and wine.

Martin himself was as much concerned with his personal need to raise his caffeine level, to assist in meeting the demands of the day, as he was in meeting the spiritual and bodily expectations of his congregation.

Deciding that black coffee was better than no coffee, he filled the kettle, plugged it in, flicked the switch and decided to telephone Courtney Lister, his verger, to beg an offering of milk to meet the day’s needs.

The phone rang, and it rang, and it rang. Martin checked the calendar above the phone and confirmed that it was indeed Sunday. He checked the clock, it still showed six. Had he felt the kettle side he would have noted that it remained cold. Had it been other than summer, and sunrise been later, he would have noted that a flick of any light switch did not produce light.

He put down the phone, glanced again at the motionless clock and his subconscious told his conscious being that the power went off at around the time he crawled from his bed, a while earlier. A quick check of his wristwatch revealed a time of six forty and promoted immediate panic. Martin may never have truly believed what he taught, but he had always been prompt in producing the comforting words to formally set timetables, or at other times not controlled by the Church calendar.

Thirty minutes later, having made do with tap water and un-toasted bread and marmalade, he pedaled his mountain bike through the church lichgate and up the cobbled path to the vestry door. The bike had been a leaving present from his last parish. As a relatively young vicar, with a keen interest in keeping his figure trim, the gift had seemed appropriate. The fact that he remained unmarried, at the age of thirty-three, had led some to conjecture on the gender that the body was trimmed to impress. Certainly all approaches from the man-seeking spinsters of his former and current parishes had fallen on stony ground.

The vestry door was locked, indicating that the church warden, Tom Uren, had yet to arrive. Martin glanced at his watch again; it showed nearly seven-fifteen and Tom had arrived on every past Sunday at seven. As an ex-postman, Tom prided himself on his ability to come to life from the deepest slumber, when other mortals were still dreaming in subconscious worlds more exciting than their own. His Sunday, Godly timekeeping was helped by living just one minutes’ gentle stroll from the church; a strong CV entry for any aspiring warden.

Martin pedaled the one minute stroll in a few seconds and gave the brass door knocker a dozen resounding workouts. Almost immediately, Tom’s wife, Mary, opened the door. Mary, a ruddy cheeked, rotund Cornish woman was not her usual endearingly-brusque self. She looked unsure of her surroundings and her eyes were reddened from recent tears.

Oh vicar, my Lord, Oh God, my Tom! she blurted out, on the verge of hysterics.

What’s wrong Martin interjected, is Tom ill, where is he?

Oh vicar, my Tom has vanished in front of me. Putting on his trousers he was. Then he reaches for his belt he does. Then his belt’s still there and he isn’t. And I think he’s lying on the floor having fallen over, daft bugger. She paused for a second, thinking of an apology for a minor swear word, but continued, and I get out of bed and he’s not on the floor and he’s not anywhere, and I’ve searched all over, and all the doors are locked, so he hasn’t gone out, and, and…..

Taking advantage of the loss of flow, Martin put a hopefully calming hand on Mary’s, now quivering shoulder. Mary, I’m sure everything is alright. Tom’s probably just taking a walk.

But the doors were locked and bolted and his trousers don’t stay up without his belt and his shoes are here and, and oh my Lord.

Realizing that the time for the Matins service was fast approaching, people would be arriving at a locked church and he could not provide immediate answers to quell Mary’s concerns, Martin, somewhat guiltily, said Look, I must open the church. Get Tom’s keys for me, you follow on in a few minutes and I’m sure Tom will turn up at the church.

Grateful for something to occupy her confused mind, Mary found the keys, passed them to Martin and hurried into the house to ready herself for church.

On returning to the church, Martin was surprised to find no one waiting. Perhaps this morning’s power cut has put people behind he mused, as he unlocked the vestry door and then the main door.

Despite the disruptions of the morning, Martin’s ‘Superman swirl’ into his robed other self was completed with one minute to spare before the seven-thirty Matins. He left the vestry and, as he walked slowly into the aisle, he was greeted by a totally empty church. He stood there silently, empty minded, until Mary burst in some minutes later. In good Church of England tradition the show went on. Had it been sung Matins, the surreal atmosphere would have been even more pronounced. As it was, Mary was calmer by the end and Martin remained empty minded, having free wheeled through the liturgy in an even more automatic mode than usual.

The church safely locked, Martin pushed his bike at Mary’s side at the slow gait commensurate with her sixty odd years and arthritic hips, a prize of living all her life in the damp Cornish air. Both were aware that Tom did not turn up at the church and neither did any one of the ten or so souls who usually made up the early morning gathering. Words did not come. Both were perhaps simply hoping that Tom would be at home and that normal life would quickly resume.

By the end of the day they, along with the rest of a now far from normal world, would know that life would not, and could not, ever be the same again.

Tom was not at home and Martin’s attempted comforting words rang hollow through the chasm of uncertainty and concern that was building through the unanswerable questions in his own mind. He left Mary with the advice of staying at home to await Tom’s return and to ring him that evening at the vicarage. His short ride to that old and empty home allowed little time for further thought, but he did notice that the newsagents was still closed and the streets seemed even quieter than a normal, early Sunday morning.

‘Usually’, a word that would preface many a thought or sentence over the coming weeks, usually Martin would prepare his thoughts for the sermon in the ten thirty service, over a quickly fried breakfast and a reviving coffee. But the power was still off, so a glass of orange squash and a few biscuits sufficed, as he gathered his thoughts around Matthew 24.

The phone rang. At least something is working Martin thought, as he answered. St Peter’s vicarage.

Is that you Martin? a familiar voice asked.

Bishop Michael, what can I do for you? Martin replied, in his most subservient tone.

Just checking that you’re em em there, I’ll perhaps ring again later came the terse response, before the receiver went down.

Martin felt ……..something. It was difficult to decide what the something was. Apprehension, panic, bewilderment ……unusual!

CHAPTER

2

S ince the early hours of Sunday morning, the special line between the USA President and the UK Prime Minister had carried conversations confirming that the special relationship was still alive. In this case the relationship was perhaps one of a mutual mistrust, a step lower than the mutual mistrust of other potential allies.

The first call had been prompted by the apparent simultaneous disappearance of key team members at the early warning centres of both countries. The reports had been accompanied by very similar stories of staff being at their consoles one minute, and not there the next.

Both Prime Minister, James Pool and President, Brad Mason, were in the middle of difficult terms of office and the year was leading to accelerated graying of what were still voluminous heads of hair.

James Pool, a gaunt 38 year old modernist in his Labour Party, had spent the last six months excusing the recession hitting the UK; a task requiring a haze of spin that relied upon blaming the world in general, whilst maintaining an aura of being in control of day to day events and the ultimate destiny of the country.

Brad Mason, a 62 year old Republican, still had the luxury of blaming the US recession on recent Democrat predecessors.

By mid-day UK time, and the third conversation between the two, an undertone of panic was evident in their trans-Atlantic correspondence.

Look James, I don’t know what the f– is going on. The Russians are giving us the same story; missing people, everyone rushing around looking for answers, military on full alert…I’m…I’m…I’ve put our Armageddon guys on get ready.

Get ready was US euphemism for ‘consider pressing more buttons than the other bastards, before they pressed too many of their own buttons’.

Military strategy was still based upon fathomed lessons from the American War Of Independence and distilled to…‘depending upon prevailing circumstances, a first strike or retaliatory strike stance will be determined by the President following advice from…’ The ‘from’ read like a Who’s Who of the great and the good in the US. It did not include the President’s wife, but it could have done. In any event, a conservative estimate of the time to take all suggested advice would be a week, assuming that one of the dozen or so national holidays did not coincide with the emergency. Perhaps a better strategy would have invoked…‘discuss it with the wife and, should further clarification be required, pick a card from the Happy World Families pack…’

Brad, have you got any feedback from the Chinese? James queried, hoping to move the president a step away from another call to the ‘Armageddon guys.’

I reckon the Duke was right, those slanty eyed…

Brad, James butted in, not wanting to explore further whether the Duke was John Wayne, in some 2nd World War film, or someone closer to home. I’ve just received an update from my people. The police are calling in extra people. Their switchboards are jamming with reports of accidents, missing children, missing …. Hang on, it’s going to take me some time to take this in. I…I can’t work it out…I can’t see what the Chinese …. Look give me fifteen minutes, keep the line open…I’ll get back.

James studied the report in front of him. His wife, Cheryl wandered bleary eyed into the number 10 communications room, tightened her dressing gown in deference to the presence of Tony Unsold, the PM’s private secretary, and reminded her husband that today was the one set aside for visiting the in-laws in Devon; to include a stroll over footpaths and disturbed only by bird song.

Too often, since James’ elevation to PM, had ‘matters of state’ intervened, to thwart plans to spend promised time with Cheryl’s aged creators and his wife had come to believe that this trump card was beginning to become cracked and tatty around the edges.

The taut, Can you leave us Cheryl, we’re dealing with a major problem here from James, was a definite red rag to a bull; or in this case a cow, and a cow Cheryl could certainly portray, and any colour of rag, Labour red, Tory blue, Lib Dem yellow or rainbow life could make a disturbed bull appear as a flustered cockerel in comparison.

What is it this time? Cheryl asked, through clenched teeth. Three points down in the opinion polls? Foreign Secretary caught with his trousers down again? Another outbreak of mad-cow disease? If it was the latter, then she was about to exhibit a few symptoms.

I don’t know what it is came an already resigned and tired approach from James, who was starting to wonder whether potential Armageddon was slightly less hassle than the now expected tirade from his wife. It may have been that the early hour on a Sunday morning was blocking the necessary surge of adrenalin, or the residual affect of the previous night’s sleeping pills, washed down with a late glass of undiluted Gordan’s Gin; whatever, Cheryl simply turned on her heel at a speed providing sufficient force to open her dressing gown and make Tony Unsold’s week. Tony was one of a dwindling band of ‘straights’ found in the hallowed corridors of 10 and 11 Downing Street. The last four of his 51 years had been spent in mutually agreed separation from his wife and, disappointingly, separation from any comforts from new females this may have afforded. Sleaze was a definite no no, if a decent pension was to be achieved. He started a quick calculation. ‘How much would the tabloids give to report that the PM’s wife had rapidly graying pubic hair belying her youthful 37 years? Would the money be sufficient to supplement early retirement and a therefore lower pension?’

Tony, get me the Home Secretary, James’ voice bellowed, breaking the calculating stream of thought. By the time Victoria Patel, recently elevated to Home Secretary, had decided to leave her Swindon flat and head for London, Cheryl had discovered that her 11year old twins were missing.

CHAPTER

3

B ishops Michael was considering the last resort. The three hours since rising on this usual Sunday morning had been…unusual. Following three early calls from concerned parishioners in the county, he had made a number of calls to his vicars after Matins. Most calls had elicited no reply. The considered last resort was prayer. Not the standard, programmed, liturgical prayer that kicked in on the inbuilt time clock, but off the cuff communication with the Almighty. Difficult when it had been some time and it wasn’t on the timetable and committed to memory. So difficult that he didn’t bother.

Instead, he focused again on his sermon for the 10.30 service in the cathedral. Since coming to Trevu, he had delegated the early morning and evening services, always poorly attended, to his lay clergy. This Sunday’s Matins, he would find out, was particularly poorly attended. Indeed since there were no clergy and no faithful few, for the first time in over a century the cathedral doors remained firmly closed. At 10 o’clock, power was restored to the Bishop’s Palace, when the power company had called in sufficient people, with knowledge of which buttons to press, to restore adequate amps and volts to most of the UK. Bishop Michael was only aware of this when the Archers’ signature tune blared out from the radio, already tuned to radio 4 to catch the broadcast morning service. He habitually listened to the broadcast since it often provided the opportunity to poach a half decent sermon for future use, when inspiration avoided him, as it frequently did nowadays. The sound of the radio instilled an element of normality to the day that, unrealized by him, simply reflected the limited impact of the unusual day on broadcasting corridors.

His housekeeper Molly walked in to clear away the breakfast tray.

Sorry about the cold fair this morning Bishop Michael she offered, blinking power would come back now. At least you will have a nice roast.

The Bishop was fond of the trappings of hierarchy and Sunday was a favourite day, since breakfast kippers were a regular Sabbath treat. Molly was sworn to secrecy on his early Sunday intake, since many of his faithful flock still held to the tradition, and Church expectation, of not eating before Sunday communion.

Not wishing to ‘cause any brother to stumble’, the Bishop had a routine of sucking an extra strong mint before communion and ensuring that sufficient incense fumes were wafted in the direction of the altar, to mask any lingering kipper odours. Today he simply had to ensure that any marmalade, trapped in his snow-white beard, was disposed of.

His beard, although some distance from the classical Achilles heel, had caused problems in the past. His increasing fondness for good cigars, partaken out of public view, had previously led to a ginger halo developing on the hair surrounding his mouth; giving the impression, from a distance, of a negative image of a black and white minstrel.

Early efforts to hide his often-preached-against vice had proved less than helpful. He had soon discovered that there was a wealth of cosmetic products to turn white and gray to black, for those unable to grow old gracefully; but there was limited call for products that turned ginger to white.

An early experiment with Snowpake, following a particularly good Saturday evening and several good cigars, had proved somewhat embarrassing. The soothing fumes took effect during an Easter Day sermon. Luckily, the congregation assumed that the muffled giggles from the Bishop, during his description of his Lord’s rising from the dead, reflected his joy in the triumph. He remained eternally grateful that the experiment had not been pursued on the Good Friday.

A trial with domestic bleach, secreted from Molly’s kitchen cupboard, was equally problematic. To this day, the rumours persisted that he had been in collision with a substantial cathedral door, pillar or step, following an ill-timed and overlong - timed intake of communion wine. These rumours were based upon his grossly enlarged lips and consequent slurred speech for several days following the bleach’s actions. He had settled on a strawberry blond dye which had no obvious side effects but required an invented wife at the chemists’ shop in the city of York, where stocks were replenished during an annual ecclesiastic conference. The assumption that the purchase distance from Trevu was sufficient to avoid discovery was incorrect. The shopkeepers of York could spot clergy as easily as city criminals could spot the old bill; the absence of a collar being no better than the absence of a uniform, in any subterfuge.

Consequently, rumours of a strawberry blond on the side, emanating from York, had spread sufficiently within the C of E, to ensure that this was the highest on the ecclesiastical ladder that Bishop Michael would reach.

Ted Johnson, the cathedral choirmaster, paced the fifty yards from the altar to the cathedral main door. It’s locked his voice echoed back to the Bishop. This explained the missing congregation but not the missing choir, who accessed their robing room through the side door, opened by the key entrusted to Ted.

A few minutes later, the Bishop faced the three people Ted had found waiting outside the main door and ushered to the pews via the side door. After he had asked them to move a little nearer the front, Bishop Michael nodded to Ted, seated at the organ, and the first bum note of many that morning, disturbed a flock of pigeons on the cathedral roof.

It had been some time since Ted had played the organ and his performance, over the next hour, rivaled Les Dawson at his best.

Having bid the three parishioners to go in the name of the Lord, Bishop Michael bid Ted to go and find out where the hell the choir, and the usual competent organist, were that morning.

He returned to his office in the palace, made several telephone calls and finally rang again Martin Aspen, who had experienced a similar morning to the Bishop. Having swapped their tales of woe they decided to meet that evening. The Bishop neglected to inform Martin that most of his fellow vicars in the county were still not answering their phones.

CHAPTER

4

T he overnight sleeper from London hit the buffers at Glasgow Central at 143 kilometres per hour, reared into the station concourse, disturbed the slumber of a tramp propped against the cafeteria door, picked up a taxi on the forecourt and came to rest in the road, some 40 metres beyond its normal stopping place.

Five minutes later, the BA transatlantic flight from New York passed over the scene at 5000 feet