By Cara Sulieman
FRIENDS of a nightclub manager who has been missing for a week after leaving for work have set up a Facebook page to try and track him down.
Martin Gordon left for work at Edinburgh club Cabaret Voltaire last Wednesday (March 24) but never turned up.
His flatmate and friend Richard Duff has now set up a group on the social networking site in a bid to track down the 33-year-old, who is originally from Glasgow.
Mr Gordon – who was known to his friends as Tartan – was last seen leaving his flat in the Grassmarket for work at 7.40pm on Wednesday March 24.
“Didn’t think it was odd”
It wasn’t until staff at Cabaret Voltaire called his flatmate to see why he hadn’t shown for work that his friends realised he was missing.
Richard set up the Facebook site on Saturday to try and spread the word as far as he could – last night there were 23,000 members of the group with numbers growing fast.
Richard said: “He just said he was off to work, and I never thought any more about it.
“His shift wasn’t due to start till 10pm so he may have decided to go somewhere else first.
“His shift patterns are pretty erratic so I didn’t think it odd that he was leaving at that time until the following day when I heard he hadn’t arrived at work.
“We’re getting a lot of support online which is good and it’s really nice to know that so many people care.
“Friendly”
“Obviously, I’m also very sad for his family, who are just as concerned as I am about where he is.
“To the best of my knowledge, he’s never done anything like this. We have a lot of mutual friends and normally, if he’s out, I’d know some of the people he was with.
“But I’ve not heard anything and I would have thought that anyone who had seen or heard from him since Wednesday would have been in touch by now.
“I’ve been in touch with everyone I know, and with some people I know he is friends with that I don’t know as well, and nobody has heard anything.
“He’s a friendly guy. He can be quite quiet at times, but he’s fun, has a dry sense of humour.
“I don’t have a bad word to say about him. He is always there for his friends if they need anything and we’re obviously all just hoping he turns up safely.”
Staff at Cabaret Voltaire were surprised that their usually reliable boss didn’t come to work, but weren’t concerned until they spoke to Richard on Thursday morning.
Sarah David, the club’s owner, said: “He’s a great guy and really well liked by the staff. He’s got a really dry sense of humour, and this is totally out of character.
“The assistant manager also DJs at the club and he came in a bit earlier to set things up, and we were a bit concerned when Martin hadn’t turned up for work by 11 o’clock but we just pressed on.
“He works erratic shifts and he takes sleeping pills for insomnia, which he suffers from quite badly, so we just thought that he’d slept in and it wasn’t until we called his flatmate the following day and discovered that he hadn’t returned home that we started to worry.
“He’s never done anything like this before.”
Martin’s family have also been unable to get in touch with him as his mobile has been switched off.
“Having a laugh”
Brother Chris, 37, an IT consultant who lives in Hampshire, said: “His phone isn’t connecting. There’s no reason that we’re aware of for him to just disappear like that.
“I spoke to him on March 14 and he was fine, and we were having a laugh. He had just come back from holiday in Canada and he was on a bit of a high from that.
“His flatmate says he was fine when he went out, so there’s nothing to suggest he was in a spiral of depression or despair.
“I know he wasn’t happy in his job and he was looking for a new one, but not to the extent that he would do anything desperate.”
A Lothian and Borders Police spokesman said: “He is white, 5ft 10ins tall with a slim build, short black receding hair and a fair complexion.
“He is believed to be wearing a blue hooded top. Anyone with information that can help us trace Mr Gordon is asked to contact police immediately.
“Similarly, we would appeal to Mr Gordon to get in touch, either with officers or relatives to confirm he is safe and well.”
“Really worried”
Richard added: “If Martin sees this is he can get in touch with me or his family or one of his friends just to let us know he’s okay. We don’t need him to talk to us if he doesn’t want to just now, we just need to know that he is alright really.
“His family are really worried – it’s been a week now and we don’t know where he is.
“There was nothing to indicate a trigger – he’s not had any problems with girlfriends or money or anything. And there’s nothing to suggest he’s in trouble either.
“It’s really heart-warming to see everyone joining the group on Facebook, even though it’s not come up with any positive leads so far. The more people know about it the better chance we have of finding him.”
Anyone who has any information is urged to contact Lothian and Borders Police or Richard through the Facebook page.
