picked the wrong city to pick on

A woman places a poster on fencing at King's Cross railway station yesterday. Among the missing is Anthony Fatayi-Williams, seen in poster at right. (Peter Macdiarmid, Getty Images)

'Is he dead. Is he alive? Not knowing is dreadful'

Search for the missing

National Post
Saturday July 9, 2005
Byline: Joseph Brean
Source: The Daily Telegraph, National Post

LONDON - Like hundreds of people across London, Yvonne Nash was doing her best to remain positive yesterday even while fearing the worst.

"We are just trying to keep going," she said after her missing boyfriend's cellphone was found in the wreckage of the bus that exploded in Tavistock Square. "Is he dead? Is he alive? Not knowing is dreadful."

Jamie Gordon, 30, has not been heard from since he called his office to say he was on a bus between Euston and King's Cross.

The bomb blasts have plunged friends and relatives into a purgatory of waiting for news, any news, good or bad. To keep busy, they visit hospitals to read casualty lists and post pictures of loved ones with contact numbers at the impromptu shrines outside the stations involved in the blasts.

But clinging to the belief the missing people have somehow managed to survive is becoming increasingly difficult.

For example, Mr. Gordon called colleagues at City Asset Management at 9:42 a.m., five minutes before the blast, to let them know he was on his way. Since then, he has not responded to text messages or phone calls.

"There appears to be no other explanation but that he had been on the No. 30 bus, which was devastated by the blast," Ms. Nash said.

"We just have to find him. If he is hurt and on his own in hospital, we need to be with him. It is shocking to think he has been through something that traumatic and we cannot be with him," said the woman, who has posted Mr. Gordon's photograph in Tavistock Square near the blast site.

She added she was desperate for news, and could not sleep or eat. "I just have to find him. I have to know what happened."

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said the emergency services and the police were doing their best to help provide such information.

"I am very sorry indeed for the situation Yvonne Nash is in," he told the BBC.

Rosie Cowan, 27, is in a similarly agonizing situation.

Her fiance, Mike Matsushita, 37, who left his finance job in New York after the 9/11 attacks, caught a train on the Piccadilly Line from King's Cross yesterday morning. Since then, silence.

After leaving New York, Mr. Matsushita worked for a time as a tour guide in his native Vietnam, where he met Ms. Cowan. He had started a new job just the day before the blasts, working in the London office of the tour company, Ms. Cowan said.

"I am trying to be optimistic about what has happened. Maybe he took off his jacket with his ID in it on the Tube," she told the London Evening Standard newspaper. "I am too young to become a grieving widow."

Also missing is Anthony Fatayi-Williams, who switched to a bus after delays on his usual route to work by Underground. Friends fear he may have been on the No. 30 bus that exploded south of King's Cross station.

His best friend, Amrit Walia, said Mr. Fatayi-Williams had tried to call his cellphone at 8:39 a.m., but he had missed the call.

"He has not connected with a single one of his friends since yesterday morning and his mobile phone is constantly on voicemail," Mr. Walia said.

"He is usually very conscientious and would have called, if only to check everyone else was OK."

Desperate to find Mr. Fatayi-Williams, Mr. Walia said he and another of the man's friends had driven around London to check the casualty lists at 10 hospitals.

"We understand the police have a job, too, but it is agonizing to sit and wait, which is what they had advised us to do."

Another bus-blast victim appears to have been Neetu Jain, a 36-year-old computer analyst.

She phoned her boyfriend from Tavistock Square at 9:37 a.m., 10 minutes before the bomb exploded there. She said "she was OK and was going to catch the bus."

"I have been to every hospital they told me, but I can't find her. If she's not at the last hospital, I don't know what I'll do," said her boyfriend, Gous Ali, 33.

Relatives said they feared for the safety of another passenger who was reportedly on the bus.

Miriam Hyman, a picture researcher who is in her 20s and comes from north London, called her family at about 9:30 a.m., when she was outside King's Cross station.

"I called her on her mobile shortly after 9:30 a.m.," said her father, John, who is in his 70s and retired.

"It was a very bad line. I couldn't hear what she was saying. She was milling around outside King's Cross and that was the last I heard from her. I don't think she would have been on a train, but we are concerned that she may have been on the bus."

In the case of Phil Beer, 22, friends and colleagues of the Knightsbridge hair stylist already believe he is dead.

Mr. Beer was travelling with his friend Patrick Barnes on the Piccadilly Line train that was bombed. Mr. Barnes was injured in the blast and became separated from his friend, although he heard him cry out.

Stacy Beer, 24, Mr. Beer's elder sister, said she had driven her brother and his friend to Elstree & Borehamwood station north of London to catch a train to King's Cross early that morning.

From there, they went on to the tube, taking the Piccadilly Line toward Russell Square.

When she heard about the bombs, Ms. Beer immediately texted Mr. Barnes to make sure the pair were all right.

"At half past nine, Pat phoned me, hysterical, to say that the bombs had gone off and he couldn't find Phil," she said.

"He said he spoke to Phil after the explosion and called out to him. He said, 'Are we going to die?' and Phil said, 'No, we are not going to die,' and that was all the conversation they had."

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