8 DEC 2010
Husband haunted by the mystery of his wife's disappearance eight years ago
GEORGE DUNCAN sees his missing wife Patricia in so many places. She is the commuter at the railway station, the face in the crowd, the driver in the car behind him. She is the shopper in the supermarket with a familiar walk and hair, a particular hue of grey.
George said: "It never goes away. Everywhere I go, I think I see her. It's the same routine. If it's someone in front, I have to try to catch them up and get a better look. If it's a driver behind, I slow down until they pass.
"I found myself face to face with a woman one day and I could see in her eyes that she thought I was mad. So I had to explain that my wife was missing. It can get pretty embarrassing.
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Sometime between midnight and 7am, on November 15, 2002, Patricia, then a 51-year-old mother-of-seven, walked out of her home in Buckie, Banffshire, and into the wind and rain.
She was wearing a sheepskin jacket - and she took a pack of cigarettes and her lighter.
Patricia is 5ft 4ins, slim with brown eyes. Sometimes George, 66, feels this description is his only certainty about his wife of 30 years. He said: "I didn't know her the way I thought I did. That's obvious. Never, ever would I have imagined she would have left like that."
"I wish the constant looking could stop but it won't until I know she is safe."
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Patricia was full of fun, travelled to America with him and helped build a mini-Western town in the garden because they were both fascinated by cowboys.
She also loved amateur dramatics. They went out together and they loved their big family - sons Sandy, 44, William, 42, and Andrew, 41, and the girls Louise, 39, Joanne, 32, Fiona, 29 and Sarah, 26.
George said: "I thought we had a good marriage. I thought we were close. That's why I miss her. She was a good, nice person - one of the best.
"She was a great mother and a lovely wife. I thought she was happy.
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The night before she left, Louise was staying at the family house. She watched a movie with her parents and they stayed on to watch a second, while she went to bed.
The last words Louise said to her mum were that she would see her in the morning.
When the family discovered she was gone, they called police straight away. Their pleas were taken seriously because Patricia's disappearance was so clearly out of character.
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Louise said: "There was no clue that there was anything wrong. No matter how much time passes, I just can't get my head around the fact that she has gone. It makes no sense to me."
Patricia did have a lot on her plate.
George's parents lived in a granny flat attached to the house and Patricia helped look after his mother, who had Alzheimer's disease.
She also looked after two of her grandchildren during the day and she did the books for her husband who was a selfemployed steel worker.
But if it had all become too much, she certainly didn't say and she had no history of depression. Louise said: "I like to think she would have come to us. It is hard to think she had some kind of breakdown.
"If you ask any of us, we will say she was more than a mother. She was a best friend.
"If we had a problem, she told us not to sit and dwell but to come to her. If something was wrong, she would always put a positive spin on things."
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There was a lot of laughter in the Duncan household, plenty of noise and no shortage of love. It is that bond that has kept the family sane.
Louise said: "We are close. We were lucky that we had each other. We really pulled together. I am sure there are smaller families out there who don't have that ready-made network of support and that must be hard."
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She said: "The police didn't seem to know what to do with us. We were offered bereavement counselling but that wasn't appropriate. In the end, we got details of Missing People from a magazine and they have been absolutely brilliant. I think there needs to be more emotional support out there for people."
The charity helped publicise Patricia's disappearance and they regularly call to check on the family.
Husband haunted by the mystery of his wife's disappearance eight years ago
