Missing

Don’t laugh, but has anyone seen E?

He seems to have completely disappeared.

He’s paid no child maintenance for four out of the last five months, and he’s not answering any of my emails asking what’s happening.

My solicitor wrote to him almost a month ago and he hasn’t replied to her.

The Child Maintenance Service have been trying to contact him to tell him he needs to continue to pay me child maintenance whilst they look into his application for a financial variation, but he’s not picking up their calls.

I’m being chased by the Secured Loan Company, for the arrears caused by E not paying the February installment.  So far I’ve paid £200 towards it, but can’t afford to pay the full amount (which is now having charges and interest added to it every day).  They’ve also tried to contact E and had no reply.

Honestly.  Where is he?  I’ve tried every method I can think of to contact him (short of smoke signals and sending up a distress flare), and there has been no answer.  In the absence of any response to anything, I can’t help but speculate as to what on earth has happened to him.

I’m guessing he’s still alive because he texted Youngest Son a couple of weeks ago to say he couldn’t see him until the end of March.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched enough Line of Duty to know that P could finally have snapped and murdered him and then prised his phone from his cold dead hands and texted Youngest Son, just to allay suspicion for a while.   For all I know his body is now stashed in a (large) freezer somewhere in Canary Wharf.  However, I’m guessing that’s not the case, because E always has a lock code on his phone – meaning that the only person that could have texted was him.

E always did have a taste for Eastern European women though – maybe this went too far and he’s in proper trouble with something like the Russian Mafia this time?  Honestly, it’s a possibility, K – the Russian woman he had an affair with back in 2007 – claimed her husband worked for the ‘Russian Diplomatic Service’.  Maybe K’s hubby has finally found out and is out for revenge?  Maybe E’s lying in a ditch somewhere having been stabbed in the backside by an umbrella containing a deadly nerve agent?

I’ve also been watching Baptiste recently, and frankly, I’m growing concerned that he might owe money to the wrong people (the Russians again?) and, as a result, is now dressed as ‘E-nita’ and, in an attempt to pay them back, is desperately flaunting himself through an Amsterdam window (whilst P counts the cash, drinks neat vodka and mutters resentful words of vague encouragement from the seedy room behind the window)?

He’s said he’s in debt, so absolutely anything is possible.  Maybe he and P are hiding from his debtors, camped out in a dank mobile home in the middle of nowhere, with no bread knife, no corkscrew and hiding under the (dismally creaky) bed every time someone knocks on their door?

Maybe he and P have had to enter Witness Protection (because of the Russian thing?) and are now living incognito in the middle of nowhere wearing wigs, hats and sunglasses when they go out, speaking in embarrassingly bad Welsh accents and known to locals as David and his pretty daughter Carys (they’ve not told anyone they’re father and daughter, but everyone just assumes they are).

Perhaps he’s cleared his debts by faking his own death-by-canoe and is now hiding in a secret room behind P’s wardrobes, living off the takeaways and wine purchased from his life insurance and waiting for the day he can emerge and sell the press his miraculous story of survival?

Of course, he could be hiding in a corner of his flat (ignoring the texts, the phone calls,  the emails and the ever increasing pile of loan and credit card bills) with his eyes closed and his hands over his ears, hoping that if he keeps ignoring everything, it will somehow go away?

Who knows?  Maybe he’s just intending to continue to renege on his financial responsibilities for as long as he can get away with it, whilst he and P enjoy the money he’s supposed to be paying towards his children?  All I know is that I have no idea where is is, what he’s doing, or if he has any intention of supporting his children financially.

Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing – and before I have to resort to putting his face on posters and fly-posting the Borough Market area (Wanted: Dead or Alive) – if you see him (He’ll probably be in The Market Porter, tapping the side of his nose saying ‘you ain’t seen me, right?’) can you mention that his children and I would be ever-so-grateful if he’d start paying child maintenance again.

Thanks.