13 - Jan/Aoû - Dr Martin Roberts 8a

@mccannfiles.com

Forward Thinking
Opening Gambit 
Not In My Children's Lifetimes... 
Are We Being Double-Helixed? 
Time And Tide 
The X Factor 
Believe It Or Not 
In The Eye Of The Beholder 
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner 
The Lull Before the Storm

No Way Out
No Way Out (at all) 
Reasons to be Cheerful 
You Have Been Warned 
Porkies 
The Longest Day 
Santa's Little Helpers 

Forward Thinking – 27.01.201

'Ice-berg dead ahead!' Too late.

Of course, knowing there are ice-bergs in the area one might, as an act of prudence, advance more cautiously than at record-breaking speed. That's what hindsight would tell us. But in the on-going saga of Kate and Gerry McCann (as in the all-encompassing book, Madeleine is written out of the story early on) anticipation was always very much the name of the game; like making sure you get the clothes washed before the forensic team arrives, or getting your information into the investigation at the appropriate time. It's what you do. So, years later, and the leopard being as spotty as heretofore, one might wonder exactly why Dr Gerry McCann should have publicly urged prime minister David Cameron to 'do the right thing' in the face of the Leveson report on press conduct, and enact the recommendations therein.

First off, where is the evidence from either of the McCanns' own track records that their evaluation of the 'right thing' should be respected? 'Clamming up' before an investigation into the whereabouts of a missing daughter can hardly be seen as doing the right thing, by the child at any rate. And as for frittering away other peoples' money on a world-wide 'search' conducted by one man and his dog, with only the dog on station...

But let's not be unduly harsh. The McCanns seem to have a certain moral compass, even though it might appear to open with some difficulty.

In the summer of 2011 the pair were interviewed for Australian TV programme Seven on Sunday, during which interview Gerry McCann stated, with reference to Madeleine: 

And if she died, while we were in the apartment, or fell injured, why would we... why would we cover that up?

It is a moot point whether, in the above construct, Madeleine's 'falling injured' is to be considered alongside the parents' presence in the apartment or not. Be that as it may, there is one thing for sure that we are allowed to conclude from this statement: Madeleine did not sustain an accidental injury. Had she done so the McCanns, according to husband Gerry, would have done the right thing and reported it. They didn't. So she didn't (have an accident). Of course one could introduce the caveat that Gerry McCann is referring expressly and solely to such an eventuality occurring while the parents were present, which does not preclude its happening during their absence, foreseen or otherwise. But then there's Kate's much earlier contribution to consider. In an Interview for Flash! Magazine she is reported as saying, "What happened is not due to our leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances."

Whatever it was, therefore, happened when the children were not left asleep. Yet no accident was reported. So no accident occurred.

'It was an abduction wot happened!' they cry.

Not in the hour between 9.00 and 10.00 p.m. that Thursday it didn't (see Crystal Clear/Another Story – McCannfiles 19/25.3.2012).

But to return to the Leveson moment, why should Dr Gerry McCann have come out in public support of press controls supported by legislation?

According to record, the McCanns, having been abused by the press in the past, have been richly reimbursed for their suffering. The press, for their part, having experienced the nature of the McCann Rottweiler, are unlikely to repeat their error. Once bitten, twice shy. The newspapers have ever since been noticeably coy in their coverage of the pair and events surrounding them.

So why should the McCanns themselves be overly concerned about press behaviour in the wake of the Leveson inquiry; an investigation to which they contributed as witnesses to what they claim was an historical abuse of privilege? Altruism is not in their game plan.

Such concern is revealing. It reveals Dr Gerry McCann up in the crow's nest, keen to pre-empt another press onslaught in the future. Why? The risk of a future media attack can only exist if the potential is there.

Journalists are free to publish information emerging from court proceedings and, as we know, a rather significant court case was on the horizon. Whether enacted in London or Lisbon, a libel trial would inevitably bring information freely onto breakfast tables that the McCanns had already spent large sums trying to suppress. In addition, a fully reported libel trial, of Dr Amaral in this instance, would represent an advertisement for his book; the very book the McCanns would rather the UK public at large knew nothing about.

And who is to say what information may or may not emerge in the course of such proceedings. Remember the filibustering on the steps of the Lisbon courthouse following the revelation of Kate McCann's dream, when cardiologist (not neuro-surgeon) Dr Gerry McCann placed himself in the absurd position of denying his wife's mental activity? Dr Amaral's 'purported' thesis being multi-faceted, about the only way the McCanns might discredit it in its entirety would be if they were to turn up at court with Madeleine in tow.

There is currently some indication that the McCanns are seeking 'vindication' from Dr. Amaral. Whether that might take the form of a million or so euros is unclear, but should the McCanns vs. Amaral proceed to trial, and the McCanns lose, then it will be the author who is vindicated. And what a can of worms that would open up! It would not take a 'first' in classics to unite a validated proposition of no abduction with the McCanns own denial of any accident.

The media have made considerable capital of late from Lance Armstrong, who abused his own body in order to enrich himself at the expense of other cyclists, none of whom were physically injured as a consequence. What lies in wait for the McCanns I wonder?

Opening Gambit – 08.02.2013

Chess is an intriguing game. Like the stylised warfare it is often said to represent, a player's success rather depends upon his or her ability to play two roles concurrently, their own and the opponent's, the tactics of both becoming increasingly complex as the game progresses. Broadly speaking, victory is gained when one party overlooks or misreads the other's intentions.

If there is one anomaly which stands out above all others in the McCann case, it is the matter of the bedroom window. For never mind its being an 'open or shut' case, once the pros and cons of that more obvious aspect are addressed, it becomes something of a puzzle as to why it should ever have been introduced into the story in the first instance.

A naïve, dismissive answer might be that the aperture was brought into play by an intruder into the McCanns' apartment. But we do not know that. Kate McCann may lay claim to knowing that, on the basis of having been there, but however proximal she was, in time or space, to events on the evening of May 3, 2007, such an explanation can be based on nothing more than surmise, there being no residual evidence to confirm it one way or another.

Perhaps the most important thing about the window in question is not whether it was open or closed, its shutters raised or lowered, or its curtains drawn, but where it was exactly, i.e. on the elevation furthest from the Tapas Bar dining area and out of sight of patrons; the same elevation as the front door in fact.

Anyone who enjoyed the recent Channel 4 documentary, The King in the Car Park, would have understood the closing analogy regarding alternative interpretations of history, and the significance of evidence which disambiguates a given situation. If a topic should sit squarely between diametrically opposed positions, then clearly both views cannot be correct. Like it or not, one of them must be wrong. Who can forget the look of disbelief on the face of ricardian Philippa Langley, when her lady colleague in the trench pointed to skeletal remains that displayed visible signs of spinal curvature, a supposedly mythological characteristic of Richard III and one which many a ricardian would previously have dismissed as merely Tudor propaganda?

I digress. But only in order to set up the contrast between an abductor's view of the circumstances surrounding the McCanns' dormant children and the McCanns' (particularly Kate's) understanding of the same, both perspectives governed by the same set of constraints; Kate playing white, the abductor black, as it were.

In her book, Madeleine, Kate confesses not to know, exactly, why the supposed abductor should have opened the bedroom window to apartment 5A. Whether to gain access to her children, export one of them, or simply to confuse the issue, she offers no definitive answer. She also entertains several other speculative possibilities concerning the behaviour of Madeleine's aggressor: that he/she had previously stalked the family for several days, that they gleaned information from a cursory glance at a staff note book kept at the Tapas Bar, and that they may well have paid a reconnaissance visit to the McCanns' apartment prior to the night of May 3, causing the children to wake prematurely.

Let's suppose he/she did all of those things, made all of those moves if you will.

Familiarity with the McCanns' pattern of behaviour in the evenings, especially if gleaned from an overlooking balcony by a 'spotter' smoking themselves to death, would have confirmed which door the parents typically used at night, as well as the schedule of their return visits from the nearby Tapas bar (i.e., every 10, 20, 30, 60 minutes). Since no visible signs of intrusion were reported by the family on either the Wednesday night or Thursday morning, any preparatory exploration of the 5A interior by an intending abductor must have been carried out without breaking and entering, using either the patio door or, given Gerry's assertion to police that it was 'unlikely' the parents had locked it, the front door even. Hence the window would not afterwards have entered into consideration, at least by the intruder. And while lounging in cognito at the Tapas Bar, casually flicking over the pages of the revealing staff note book, this Portuguese speaker would most certainly have taken note of the fact that the rear entrance to apartment 5A was not visible through the restaurant's Perspex screen (and distant shrubbery), despite any and all subsequent protestations to the contrary.

It is this last point which is perhaps of most significance when it comes to deciding upon the origins of the window's contribution to events, for whatever the chosen means of entrance into, or exit from the McCanns' apartment, being witnessed in the act by the carousing family was arguably the least of any criminal's concerns. Front door or patio door, the window will have had no part whatsoever to play in proceedings.

Black's strategy is as good as sorted then. And it's black's move. But what does white have in mind?

Contrary to expectation, and despite having their backs to it while at the restaurant, the McCanns could 'see the apartment from where they were sitting.' And since no self-respecting intruder is deliberately going to place himself in jeopardy, he would most likely opt for being out of sight when making his entrance. So he'd prefer to go in through the front somehow.

Of course the McCann position is that an abductor's access to daughter Madeleine was via the rear patio doors. But that position was adopted only after it was firmly established that neither the bedroom window nor the shutters had been tampered with; from outside at any rate.

The abductor had therefore to force open the bedroom window (because the front door must have been locked). Otherwise he would simply have walked straight in; something he appeared at first not to have done.

So, armed with sufficient information about white's disposition to allow 'mate in three,' is that not what black would do? Are we to expect that he would instead delay the agony unnecessarily, making a pawn sacrifice to no purpose whatsoever (the 'red herring' proposal)? Clearly that is white's interpretation of black's strategy. But that is what white imagines, and not what black actually does.

Not In My Children's Lifetimes... - 13.02.2013

...would I wish to see Dr Gerry McCann's, or for that matter his wife's voice influence the legislation of this land. And no, I am not just an envious forker. I'm forking angry. Angry that anyone should attempt to gain social or other advantage at the expense of a child's life (see Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 4 Scene 7). Let it not be forgotten that Gerry McCann the orator is one and the same person as he who, since early May 2007, has done more to ensure that his missing daughter stays missing than he has ever done to repatriate her.

For the benefit of those who might need reminding:

Etcetera, etcetera.

 

Gerry McCann has, it seems, spoken of his fears that David Cameron might be prepared to water down the proposals of the Leveson enquiry. "If our testimony was in vain it would be a permanent stain on the reputation of this government," he said.

As permanent a stain, no doubt, as once appeared on a pair of child's pyjamas six years ago. Almost. Still, it would be on this government's reputation. Unlike the previous administration of arrivistes, who have the McCanns personally to thank for the stain on theirs; not one but two Labour prime ministers saluted the McCann flag. Small wonder then that the campaigning doctor is tilting at the other side. He obviously knows on which side his bread has been buttered.

Apparently Dr Gerry McCann and his wife Kate have been harassed by newspapers which made "profit from misery." Unlike Kate McCann's novel, Madeleine, which, as much a work of fiction as anything else, largely excludes the subject it purports to discuss and proudly announces via a 'flash' on the book's jacket, 'All royalties donated to Madeleine's fund.' (That's the fund which has been paying for those two 'searchers' long since given their P45s). Strange, but there appears to be no itemisation of 'author's royalties' within the company (i.e., the fund) accounts. As others have pointed out, 'book income' (after publication) doesn't seem quite the appropriate definition. Perhaps someone should break it gently to Transworld publishers that, should any or all of these royalties have actually gone elsewhere, then they could find themselves to have been party to mis-representation, since the inducement to purchase was clearly printed by them and not affixed to the product subsequently.

But we are considering profit from misery are we not? Would anyone care to weigh the misery of the McCanns against that of their missing daughter, who benefits not one iota from book sales, who never got to tour Europe, holiday in Canada, visit the USA or Scandinavia? And never will.

He said: "To keep his promises all he (Prime Minster David Cameron) has to do is follow what Leveson said and put the Leveson recommendations into law through parliament without meddling in back door dealing and without checking that the press is happy with it."

All he has to do? Sounds a tad more complicated than posting a letter to the Portuguese Justice department requesting they re-open the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance. Whatever happened to 'We would be more than happy for the case to be reopened?' 'More than happy' is clearly not happy enough for some. And what’s all this about 'back door dealing?' Is Dr McCann speaking from experience here?

Referring to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the media (2010) Dr Gerry, who believes his 'phone has never been hacked, told his audience at the Hacked Off Conference:

"Three years later, I see little remorse, no contrition. Sections of the press are still in denial. The sick culture has not changed, and they can't be trusted to change it of their own accord.

"If you look at the reporting of the Leveson Inquiry and the behaviour of some newspapers since then, it's clear that they aren't sorry and they still think they should not have to answer to anyone when they publish harmful lies and distortions."

This coming from someone who clearly took the hypocritic oath.

Six years after the McCanns as good as admitted child abandonment, but nothing else, there is little remorse, no contrition. It's clear that they aren't sorry and they still think they should not have to answer to anyone when they publish harmful lies and distortions (such as resulted from their joint performance before the Leveson inquiry - see 'Digging Beneath the Surface,' McCannFiles 28.11. 2011, and that poor excuse for a 'tear jerker' written by Kate).

Are We Being Double-Helixed? - 18.02.2013

Last Summer Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe commented publicly upon the status of Scotland Yard's costly, on-going review of the original Madeleine McCann investigation thus: "There will be a point at which we and the Government will want to make a decision about what the likely outcome is."

Not, you will notice, what the likely outcome might be, but what it is. And what it is will, ipso facto, wear a political complexion, otherwise the Government need not, indeed should not, be involved in the decision making process at all.

In this context, recent reports of DNA being sent from New Zealand in order simply to verify that the donor is not Madeleine McCann might be interpreted as reflecting, if not a hint of desperation, a long-term strategy; the same strategy in fact that would be embodied in the Portuguese being encouraged to pursue the 190 odd 'lines of inquiry' so far thrown up by the review.

And what is that?

Well one can't fail to be intrigued by archaeology of serious historical significance – Howard Carter and Tutankhamun, Philippa Langley and Richard III, and so on. Burials and cover ups galore! Imagine though, in the latter case, what might conceivably have ensued had the indefatigable Ms Langley, an ardent ricardian, not been prepared to face up to the newly excavated evidence before her. I refer specifically to the revelation of a distorted skeleton very early in the dig. Might she not have felt just a little tempted to say, 'leave it for now. Let's wait until more of the trench has been exposed, in case we find a straight one.' (skeleton that is).

Perhaps you can already see where this is going, but just in case, let us remind ourselves of Dr Gerry McCann's self-confessed enthusiasm for the 'rule out method' of medical diagnosis. It is of course a perfectly sensible procedural strategy; one which goes hand in glove with a limited number of ailments allied to a limited number of symptoms. It does not take forever to arrive at the correct diagnosis. If it did the patient would be more likely to die in hospital than emerge cured. Now, without repeating others' allegations, or inappropriately citing indices as evidence, it is still rather more than a reasonable assumption that ruling out Maddie claimants would be an open-ended, i.e. never ending process.

Are the Metropolitan Police being scrupulously thorough therefore, leaving no stone unturned? Or is this latest 'requirement' of a DNA sample potentially the first of many? If so, then despite their apparent rigor in ruling out cases of mistaken identity, it may just be the case that they are applying the right methodology to the wrong questions, setting aside the questions they should be asking, but would rather not (or dare not, perhaps), in favour of more politically correct propositions.

It comes down to this: If her very existence is a given, then 'will the real Madeleine McCann please stand up?' becomes a game that will run and run. Otherwise Scotland Yard should be asking questions of a completely different nature and applying the 'rule out method' to parties other than unsuspecting holiday makers in Ibiza or residents of the distant antipodes. Everyone has a double somewhere. Very young children have them in spades (and Madeleine is still only ten, possibly).

It's time therefore for Scotland Yard, the government, the press and the wider public to face up to the fact that the backbone of the Madeleine McCann investigation is crooked.

Time And Tide – 25.02.2013

Gerry McCann announced before the recent Leveson enquiry, "I strongly believe in Freedom of Speech...I don't have a problem with somebody purporting a theory..." Perhaps then it is time, at last, to do a little, perfectly admissible 'purporting.' Time, the 'grim reaper,' takes its inevitable toll in many ways, not the least of which being of one's memory. And, in that particular context, it does not take weeks, months, or years over doing so.

'Mini Club - Lobsters' schedule for the week of Madeleine's stay: Processo Volume IV, page 873

Lobsters' schedule for the week of Madeleine's stay

The McCanns have, not infrequently, been cavalier with time itself, their various accounts of seemingly unimportant incidents during their week in Praia da Luz dragging events, in a largely forward direction, away from their actual point of occurrence. To give but one example, Kate McCann, in her only book to date, makes wholly unequivocal reference to her own photography of daughter Madeleine during a mini-tennis session on the Tuesday morning, when it is perfectly clear from the Ocean Club's printed schedule that said mini-tennis took place on the Monday morning. Were it an isolated case one might be prepared to accept this as a one-off error in recall. Unfortunately it is neither.

KM (Statement to police, 6.9.07):

'When asked about the fact her daughter had been crying on Tuesday night for one hour and 15 minutes, between 10:30 and 11:45 p.m., she says that is not true. She says that on that night, after midnight, Madeleine went to their room and said that her sister Amelie was crying, so she stayed to sleep with her and Gerry in their bedroom. She says that before Madeleine appeared in her bedroom, she had already heard Amelie crying, however she did not go to the room, as Madeleine came into the room almost at the same time she heard the crying. She does not remember if afterwards she, or Gerry, went to the children's room, however she asserts that Amelie cried for a short time.'

KM (in 'Madeleine,' p.59):

"...some time in the early hours Madeleine came through to our bedroom, complaining that Amelie was crying and had woken her up. Gerry checked on Amelie, who settled quickly, and we let Madeleine jump into bed with us."

After four months Kate McCann was unable to recall whether either of the parents (both present) looked in on their younger daughter. After four years, she writes, without hesitation, that Gerry did so. That in itself is an impossible cognitive development. But then one has to take husband Gerry's account of the incident into consideration, an account which he gave to police on 10 May, i.e. no more than a week after the pair announced their daughter was missing. From Gerry's re-telling one gets the impression he was not even there:

"He cannot say exactly, but he thinks that on Monday or Tuesday MADELEINE had slept for some time in his bedroom, with KATE, as she had told him that one or both twins were crying, making much noise."

Kate McCann's experience of her husband's presence and behaviour that Tuesday night appears to have been illusory. But it would seem that the McCanns were not alone in not knowing whether they were coming or going.

Anomalies in the creche records, extending back in time from May 3, 2007, have previously been examined (see: Seventeen Come Sunday/It Never Rains, McCannFiles October 2012). They include one R. O'Brien being somewhat uncertain of their apartment's location. From May 2nd he/they would appear to have made up their mind(s), but, judging from their earlier indications, the decision cannot have been an easy one to make.

Processo Volume I, page106

Lobsters' attendance record, Monday 30 April 2007

On the Sunday afternoon Ella O'Brien was staying in apartment G5D. The very next morning (30th April) she was staying in 5B, while, in the afternoon, none other than R. O'Brien himself attended the creche, though normally resident in 5D. The following morning (Tuesday 1 May) Emma (afterwards amended to Ella) O'Brien was back in 5B. She must really have liked it there, because it was her given address that afternoon also. And it would have been again on the Wednesday morning (2 May) had someone not altered it to read G5D where she remains for the afternoon and throughout Thursday.

How very odd.

Equally strange, and with particular reference to timing, is a pair of entries made in the creche register for May 2.

Judging from the various scripts used to write down the children's names, this aspect (the role, if you will) was not pre-recorded by the nanny or nannies on duty that day. Rather the complete entry, i.e. name, room number, parent's location, time and signature would have been the responsibility of the parent/guardian in question. Like completing a visitor's book really. Adopting just that analogy, if we think of entry number five being made on a given date, and at a given time, then entry number six, which follows it, cannot usually be made any earlier. Uness we are considering attendance at the Ocean Club creche where, on the morning of Tuesday May 2, the registration of Jessica Berry and Ella O'Brien at 9.30 a.m. is followed by that of Elizabeth Naylor and Madeleine McCann – ten minutes earlier, at 9.20. (All other arrivals recorded that week are perfectly sequential).

And so to theorizing.

Pursuant upon earlier discussion (2012), one might reasonably conclude that Madeleine may not in fact have attended the 'Lobsters' creche between Tuesday 1 and Thursday 3 May at all, despite written entries in the register to the contrary, apparently. Such a line of reasoning must however provoke the question of why anyone should elect to falsify such a record, if not to conceal the fact. Well (and here's where a little 'left field' purporting comes in), the answer might well reside in why that same register was possibly in error even on the afternoon of Monday 30th.

Despite the McCanns accent on routine, at the time and since, they seem no sooner to have established one on the Sunday than they deviated from it the very next day. Whereas all of the children were re-submitted to their specific clubs after lunch on the Sunday, Madeleine rejoining the Lobsters at 2.45 p.m. (accompanied by Gerry, whilst Kate delivered the twins elsewhere ten minutes earlier), on the Monday afternoon Madeleine arrived fully half-an-hour later at the Lobsters, in the company of her mother, who, after proceeding to drop off the twins once more, returned to extract Madeleine again barely fifteen minutes after her arrival (in at 3.15 p.m. out at 3.30 p.m.). That's what the register tells us.

There can be only two perspectives on the movement of children into and out of a playgroup, that of the parents on the one hand and the facility on the other. If Madeleine were required for some significant purpose shortly after 3.30 p.m. that Monday, then why deposit her at the creche at all? For the sake of fifteen minutes she could more easily have remained with one or other parent or temporary minder, as the kids' club was not exactly en route to the younger group's location. If however staff at the kids' club thought it expedient to request Madeleine's urgent removal for whatever reason, then this eventuality would later have been reflected, surely, in one or other statement given by those staff concerned. It is not.

The only two sensible explanations for Madeleine McCann's extraordinarily brief sojourn at the Mark Warner kids' club that Monday afternoon can therefore be discounted.

Which means that the true explanation is an unusual one.

Did not Kate McCann once intone, "I know that what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances."?

Meaning, indubitably, that something happened at a time when the children were not asleep, i.e. in the daytime (and they didn't do afternoon naps but played instead).

So what might have happened that Monday lunchtime to make Madeleine and her twin siblings unexpectedly late for their afternoon playgroup sessions, when Gerry was clearly unable to share in their delivery (it fell to Kate to go in both directions)? And did Madeleine really make the journey? Or was her name simply entered, first for appearances sake, and then, very shortly afterwards, to avoid a noticeable absence?

As Gerry McCann told the Irish Independent on 10 June, 2007, "Early on I had said to Kate I wonder how long it will be before someone says 'I wonder if he had anything to do with this?' The circumstances are such that physically it is impossible that I was involved."

Well he doesn't appear to have helped out with the children that Monday afternoon, that's for sure.

The X Factor – 28.02.2013

The concern here is not with that talent contest, nor the instantly forgettable 'celebrities' it spawns. The X in question is that enshrined by one of the most iconic images in all science: The X-ray photograph of the DNA molecule taken by Rosalind Franklin, that confirmed the suspicions of those locked in the race to formulate the structure of the 'life' molecule and led directly to the announcement by Crick and Watson (for the second time), that they had figured it out. And this time they had. Some eight years later both they and Maurice Wilkins, a co-worker of Franklins and himself an expert in X-ray crystallography, were awarded the Nobel Prize. Tragically, Rosalind Franklin was not nominated. The prize is never given posthumously.

Crick and Watson were unabashed opportunists, who profited mightily from the investigative work of others, that of Wilkins and Franklin especially, provoking resentment of their 'discovery' in scientific circles, amid the feeling that the Cambridge duo had simply rounded off the spade work done elsewhere. But since the study of DNA dated back almost a century before the pace quickened post-war, it would have been all the more remarkable had Crick and Watson not exploited others' work; the less than contemporary endeavours at least. No doubt they did. But they also succeeded in 'ripping the rushes off the press,' so to speak, before relevant current news was broadcast to a wider audience.

And yet the Nobel Prize laureates genuinely brought something of their own to the table; an ingredient no less essential to the process of discovery than the dogged pursuit of observational data - constructive imagination. You see, it does not matter how much data you gather, if you cannot interpret it successfully it remains simply that, and the old cliché about letting the data speak for itself becomes something of a futile exhortation if, in the event, no-one is listening. One need be in no doubt however that Crick and Watson were listening; to everyone else as it turned out.

But this is not an essay on the conduct of science. It has really to do with the explanatory power of hypotheses. Crick and Watsons' postulate, in particular, was revealed in all its three-dimensional glory via a model, the full implications of which were obscured to those who had confined themselves to pencil and paper analyses. The beauty of the thing can be appreciated by a child. Not so its formulaic counterparts. Significantly, Crick and Watson proposed a unique molecular structure; one which took account of a number of pertinent coincidences, i.e. that the four chemical bases comprised two of one type plus two of another, that the quantities of these substances within the molecule were consistently balanced across species, suggesting these DNA components might be paired together somehow, and that the crucial Franklin X-ray photograph, the clearest achieved at the time, was suggestive of a helix. Their three-dimensional representation was unquestionably the right one and has proven itself to be the mainspring of genetic research ever since.

But what on earth does all this have to do with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann?

Simply this: That whatever the explanation for her apparently unexpected departure from the holiday complex where she was lodged in May 2007, it must, if correct, be able to account for each and every 'pertinent coincidence' one might identify. Despite protestations of the 'I know because' variety, until more definitive evidence becomes public, no-one is in a position to be categorical. Whether inclining toward 'abduction' or something else, one's theory (and that includes the McCanns' own), can be no more than hypothetical. Which gives us a level playing field and the opportunity to ask the following question: Which of two opposing views better accommodates a number of identifiable coincidences pertaining to events in Praia da Luz during the period 1-3 May 2007?

On the one hand we have the postulate of abduction on the night of Thursday May 3. On the other, the possibility that something rather serious happened to Madeleine as early as Monday.

And the coincidences in question are?

In a nutshell, a variety of odd occurrences in the period before Madeleine McCann's alleged abduction.

A previous discussion (the Cerberus Problem, McCannFiles, 13.8.11) examined the possibility that Thursday 3 May was, in very many respects, an addition to the narrative of the holiday, and logically unconnected to prior events. One might straightforwardly question therefore whether an altogether unexpected abduction that Thursday night can provide any sensible explanation whatsoever for earlier, otherwise coincidental, eventualities; eventualities such as Kate McCann's sudden retirement from photography that very afternoon, the seemingly bizarre anomalies contained within the Ocean Club crèche registers, and the synchronised deletion of call records from the mobile phones of two individuals, to mention but three. There are others.

If we address these facets one at a time, it quickly becomes apparent that Madeleine's 'abduction' on the Thursday night is in no way contingent upon any of them and, across the board, has no explanatory power in that regard whatsoever. But what if we now test these coincidental events against the alternative hypothesis, that of a much earlier drama of some kind? Are they any better explained?

Taking them in the order as above, Kate McCann's 'I haven't been able to use the camera since I took that last photograph (of her)' would, given the alternative view of events, necessarily apply to a photograph taken much earlier than the Thursday afternoon. (If for some reason Madeleine were indisposed on the Monday, she would not have emerged brimming with smiles on the Thursday, simply in order to have her photograph taken). The observation makes rather more sense in the context of the aftermath of a contemporaneous traumatic event, one that Kate McCann would rather not refer to specifically, than it does in the wake of a subsequent, sudden abduction. Unless Kate McCann's actions represent anticipatory behaviour, one might expect her to have said: 'I haven't been able to use the camera since Madeleine's abduction,' there being no 'taboo' attaching to mention of the principal event. Fixing the onset of 'down-time' with the photography itself however, suggests that something else (occluded) detracted from its pursuance in the meantime.

Turning to those apparently coincidental anomalies within the crèche registers, their pertinence in the context of an 'early exit' hypothesis is clear. 'Keeping up appearances' would have been an essential part of any alternative explanation to be advanced in the immediate future. Again, such activity ahead of an altogether unexpected abduction would be quite inexplicable.

Similar considerations apply to the selective deletion of recent communications histories. Unless they were the victims of some internecine power struggle, what possible bearing could the recent prior contacts of parents have on the unanticipated abduction of their child? None at all. So they should be concerned to erase them? However, whilst conversations concerning 'what we did back then' may not be of relevance, those of a 'what on earth do we do now' nature most certainly would be. And these would of course follow a significant occurrence of some kind, not precede one.

Three at least, then, of the peculiar coincidences surrounding the supposed abduction of Madeleine McCann would be better explained in the context of a prior event than in the singular context of a later abduction, which offers no explanation for them at all. We may continue in this fashion with a fourth item on the agenda: The sudden return to Portugal of Robert Murat.

Murat's arrival in Praia da Luz on May 1st was prompted, so we are told, by his need to attend to business at short notice. But who made the 'phone call to England, and what exactly was the nature of the business? (Property. O.k. Whose property?) Well Murat's arrival on the scene had nothing whatever to do with Madeleine's abduction on May 3rd. His intervention as translator was clearly after the event and Gerry McCann almost hadn't heard of him before then. So the two events remain unconnected and the one cannot even begin to explain the other. But in the case of an 'incident' on Monday 30th there will have been 24 hours at least in which someone could have invited Robert Murat to lend assistance. That is not to say they did so, but merely to point up the greater feasibility of his coincidental return's being associated, in some way, with an unforeseen eventuality on the Monday than the Thursday.

At the risk of seeming over-confident, one could go on in this fashion, evaluating the coincidences against each hypothesis and invariably finding a better fit with the time flag shifted left rather than right. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that Bet 365.com would happily lay it off. But no doubt those of a different persuasion would throw a flare or two onto the pitch in an attempt to obscure the game. And the smoke screen would probably look like this:

What about all those coincidences Kate and Gerry mention? And Jane Tanner? And...?

The blanket dismissal, put in its simplest form, is that we are here concerned with coincidental fact, not fiction. Without exception, the contingent observations of the McCanns, and others associated with them, are entirely speculative. They are all of the 'what if' or 'may be' varieties, lacking in evidential confirmation entirely. The abductor 'casing the joint' beforehand, reading the staff notebook, climbing in or out of the bedroom window, carrying a little girl dressed in pink pyjamas, etc., are all suppositions, nothing more. As such they are worthless. The 'coincidences' we are concerned with however are entirely factual. Kate McCann herself admitted to the sudden onset of photophobia. The crèche records contain glaring anomalies (confirmed, again by Kate McCann, in her book Madeleine). The McCanns' mobile 'phone memories were 'adjusted' prior to their examination by police in Portugal and Robert Murat undoubtedly returned to Portugal prior to May 3, 2007. The $64,000 dollar question in each case has to be 'Why?'

Although this discussion is not in itself an attempt to put forward an answer, it remains the case that these rather strange goings on in the days immediately preceding the announcement of Madeleine McCann's disappearance are a better fit with her absence, for want of a better word, on the Monday than the Thursday. It is this hypothesis which reveals itself therefore as potentially able to accommodate all of these known data; something the claim of abduction on the Thursday night simply cannot do at all.

Believe It Or Not – 13.03.2013

Ripley's collection of facts from around the world has for decades been presented together with the invitation extended by the title – a cornucopia of extraordinary things that have happened/existed, whether the reader is prepared to 'believe it or not.' One is of course at liberty to not believe, but such disbelief, as others would be quick to acknowledge, is wholly independent of the actualities Ripley's publication describes. It's rather hard to argue with photographs of Flo Jo's fingernails, eye witness accounts of 'out of the blue' events, and museums containing bizarre relics of all sorts. So belief and truth may happily exist as one, or co-exist as quite different from each other. We either believe in the truth, or in the face of the truth, as it were.

When actuality and belief coincide, the one encapsulates the other in our understanding. To give a very simple example, if we happen to be caught out in an unexpected shower in the morning we would feel perfectly comfortable telling a friend later that afternoon, 'it rained this morning,' whereas the friend (who had remained dry, having been elsewhere all day) might ask, 'I believe it rained this morning?' One knows, the other believes. And since knowledge is paramount we are not usually so guarded about it as to articulate only the belief, unless of course we are trying to be extremely diplomatic for some reason.

The mildly inquisitive are constantly reminded by those busily searching for Madeleine McCann that 'there is nothing to suggest that Madeleine has been seriously harmed,' and while they might just as easily subscribe to a pragmatic view, there can be no doubting the official line's promotion of the more optimistic outcome, given the apparent absence of evidence to the contrary. Belief in Madeleine McCann's survival of her own ordeal is therefore perfectly admissible. Her parents no doubt share that very belief, just as they shared the (very strong) belief that Madeleine was alive when she was taken. Belief 1 is nearly as good as belief 2 therefore, even if perhaps not quite so strongly held. And yet, as an equation, the two are peculiarly imbalanced.

There is no 'evidence' that, subsequent to having been taken, Madeleine McCann has come to serious harm. Equally there is no 'evidence' of her enjoying perfect health. So belief in option 1 has to be seen as independent of the facts, which, at the present time, remain unknown. In the case of option 2 however...

Madeleine McCann's abduction is assumed by some, her father included, to have occurred shortly after he visited the family's holiday apartment – within fifteen minutes if other 'witness' statements are taken into account. For the duration of his stay inside, all three children were said to have been asleep (as well as being recognisably beautiful). This is not something the proud father supposed, but something he claimed to have witnessed. An incontrovertible fact therefore. And yet we have ever since been treated to the 'strong belief' that Madeleine was alive prior to being taken. Whereas such belief may have become weakened with Madeleine's removal from the apartment, it is no less a belief for that. And whilst belief in the child's later situation is understandable, the other, rather more significant act of faith, is less so.

Why should the McCanns hold to a belief, not in the truth but in the face of truth? It's akin to being a member of the flat earth society. Nor can it be argued that this particular belief of theirs is justified on the grounds that Madeleine might have been killed just prior to being removed. The days of the 'resurrectionists' being long gone, there is currently no international traffic in infant corpses as far I'm aware.

The McCanns' strongly held 'belief' that Madeleine was alive before being taken from the apartment is not therefore a reflection of the facts, but wholly independent of them. Furthermore, coming as it does from the lips of the father, it calls into question the very circumstance he himself had earlier defined as fact by virtue of his own description of it. Madeleine was asleep. Therefore she was alive. If Gerry McCann only believed her to have been alive at that time, then he clearly harboured some sort of doubt and, as a trained doctor, might have been expected to do something to allay his own doubt, fear or suspicion, as Kate herself did with her laying on of hands (or was it fingers beneath nostrils? The story differs with the teller). But he did no such thing. Instead, and confident that Madeleine was asleep (therefore alive), he left the apartment without further ado. And yet he could afterwards only muster the belief that Madeleine McCann was alive all the while.

Once again, instead of telling it like it was, Gerry McCann has told it like it wasn't. Whilst a lie is, as we know, a flagrant contradiction, alternative interpretations of the truth must at least be consistent in one or other crucial respect or mutual understanding would be seriously jeopardised. If we genuinely believe in something, then we typically articulate the fact itself, which subsumes our belief in it. Stating one's belief on the other hand is an expression of doubt; one of self-doubt In Gerry McCann's case. And if he cannot trust what he says to be true then why on earth should anyone else?

And whilst on the subject of trusting in the statements of others, there are, as we know, two slightly divergent attempts at a 'timeline' in existence; a moment-by-moment account of the actions and whereabouts of the McCanns and their friends on the night of Thursday May 3, 2007. How very helpful. It's the sort of thing that Miss Marple or Poirot would be interested in reading were they to be pondering the apparent suicide of a corpse with a knife in its back. But Madeleine McCann had been abducted, had she not? And criminal abduction, as commonly understood, implies that something or someone is taken away. Yet the McCanns and their friends were still there. Self-evidently they can have had nothing to do with the urgent and distant relocation of a child when they were all still eating less than an hour later. So why were they so concerned to collaborate in providing themselves with alibis for fractions of the intervening period, when they would have been much better served searching for the missing child?

In The Eye Of The Beholder – 15.03.2013

The other evening, while watching TV, my daughter, who is fast approaching the age at which I first met her mother, unwittingly struck a pose that reminded me of that much earlier, pre-nuptial encounter. In the intervening period Miss R. has, from time to time, been described as sharing a resemblance with one or other of her several aunts (all on her mother's side) but not, at least as far as I can recall, with her elder brother (well they're boy and girl, right?).

So much for our family history which, strange to relate, is not uniquely reminiscent of our family history.

Toward the end of the film 'Madeleine Was Here' (from the 40' mark), the McCanns are pictured being entertained at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Washington, where founder and President Ernie Allen, describing the centre’s purpose and imaging techniques, alludes to genetic considerations in the reconstruction of photographs. He draws attention to those specific facial characteristics of Madeleine McCann that were taken into account in the process of rendering her infant image into that of a six-year-old. Most of the traits (e.g., jaw-line, mouth and dimples) originate with her mother. But she has 'Gerry's nose.'

NCMEC generated, as we know, a variety of photographic templates, including one distinctly darker in both skin tone and hair colour, and with striking green eyes. They were generally considered a good stab at what would have been Madeleine's altered facial appearance. Nowadays of course Madeleine is nearer ten. Children can change dramatically in so little time that a more up-to-date impression of the missing youngster, as produced by Scotland Yard, was no doubt not only welcomed by the family but approved by them as, by all accounts, the Met. liaised with them over its production at the time, and Kate at least was prepared for her satisfaction with the image to be made public. As The Guardian (25.4.2012) explained:

'Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, worked closely with the Met to produce the new image of their daughter.'

'"Kate says she can see Madeleine's brother and sister Sean and Amelie in it as well as something of herself," said the family's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.'

Well now. I look at my daughter and see echoes, primarily of her mother. (For the record, the balance of resemblance between my son and myself is greater, although he also bears some facial hallmarks that are his mother's). Kate McCann looks at a contrived photographic likeness of her daughter and sees something of herself, plus something of each of her other two children – Madeleine's brother and sister. But nothing of Gerry. Not even his nose (you know, the one she'd previously been told about by Ernie Allen).

Still, never mind Daddy's nose. Daddy still knows best.

'Daddy, what's the difference between a grass snake and a snake in the grass?'

'You'll discover that when it bites you, son.'

According to today's redtops:

A "historic opportunity" for press reform could be "squandered" following the end of cross-party talks into regulation, the father of missing Madeleine McCann said.

Gerry McCann said David Cameron was faced with a "binary choice" between newspaper barons or the victims of press intrusion.

Apparently the Prime Minister intends to 'bring the matter to a head by forcing a vote in the House of Commons on Monday,' a move which has 'prompted campaigners to accuse Mr Cameron of a "shameless betrayal of victims of press abuse."'

For Gerry McCann the recommendations of Lord Justice Leveson didn't go far enough. Nevertheless, he and other victims of gross press misconduct were 'prepared to regard them as the minimum acceptable compromise.'

"We want our politicians to protect us (he wails), to stand up for the ordinary victims instead of siding with the wealthy and powerful. On Monday, it comes down to a binary choice: the newspaper barons or the people they abused in search of profit."

Here we have the celebrated father (correction: father of a much talked about child) advising the citizenry at large, including the Prime Minister, exactly how the latter should proceed. (Thank you Mr McCann. Next).

Rather more interestingly his monologue identifies a series of what, for him and no doubt others of his campaigning associates, are reprehensible behaviours:

Squandering an opportunity. The shameless betrayal of victims. Siding with the wealthy and powerful. The abuse of people in search of profit.

There seems to be more than a modest projection of self involved here. Just what class of snake might we be looking at?

As we are reminded, 'when the Leveson report was published in November, Mr McCann said if its recommendations on press regulation were not implemented, giving evidence to the inquiry would have been "almost useless."'

Almost, but not quite. Which begs the question of what useful purpose was fulfilled? The chance to lie under oath was not it exactly, although it doubtless contributed to the overall result. It was certainly not an opportunity squandered.

For politicians to "do the right thing" according to Mr McCann, whose authority stems from nothing but being the unapologetically negligent parent of a missing child, who courted the press in the first instance and whose mobile 'phone was not 'hacked' (unless it was an overly inquisitive 'journo' who deleted a clutch of McCanns' stored messages in error) they should accept in full the suggestions for a new regulatory system.

Mick Philpott probably feels the same way, except no-one's bothered to ask him. Perhaps because he has not personally experienced the effects of siding with the wealthy and powerful (like Tony and Gordon, for instance). Should the Philpotts be found guilty of the crime with which they are charged then the world will doubtless view this as a shameless betrayal of the victims. They are not unique in that. Nor in the abuse of people in search of profit; a bigger house in their case. But what do you do if you're living in a big house already? Turn to politicians for protection (again), I suppose.

Meanwhile Mr McCann's equally unapologetic wife has said she 'hoped it (the Leveson Inquiry) would mark the start of a new era for the press, urging Mr Cameron to "embrace the report and act swiftly".' (Edited to add, 'in case that other f***ing Portuguese tosser succeeds in getting us inside a courtroom').

A recent comment on Twitter points up the issue of concern:

The Sun reporter @sunnewsreporter

@glitter_brain just because something is in a police file does not allow us to use it without fear of being sued, unlike things said in court.

Where are those politicians when you really need them? Just like the Banks – offer you an umbrella while the sun's shining – take it back inside when it rains.

Now And Then – 17.03.2013

What used to be a back street game between the Charlton brothers and their Mancunian playmates has evolved over time into one of the most powerful outfits in world football. What was once an exhaustive schedule of legal dogfights between the McCanns and their various perceived accusers (representatives of the UK press, one Tony Bennett, and a certain Portuguese police investigator) has now metamorphosed into something else entirely.
Life is a strange assemblage of coincidence is it not? Andrew Wiles, the outstandingly rigorous mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem (by proving something inordinately more complex) was drawn to his result by what was, for him and his fellow academics, another's establishment of a connection between seemingly unrelated geometric forms. Now, hands up anyone who might previously have guessed that there could be a very meaningful connection between Lord Justice Leveson's Inquiry into press standards of behaviour and a Metropolitan Police review of the Portuguese/British investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? And don't all shout, 'Me! Me! Me!' because two persons called to give evidence at the inquiry are at the epicentre of the Met.'s review and we know that the world's press have frequently reported on the case, at the time and since. Newspaper stories do not constitute 'evidence.' No, the connection is more subtle and potentially more profound than that.
Whilst the Leveson Inquiry was not convened as a court of law, witnesses for the prosecution, metaphorically speaking, included an array of celebrity types and others denouncing the practice of 'phone hacking,' something, by the way, the McCanns had previously claimed not to have endured. Notwithstanding which, the press had long since made fiscal amends toward the McCanns for their over exuberance. Case closed then. However, someone, either in or close to the Leveson team, thought it expedient to include the duo among the witnesses to some of Fleet Street's most dire misdemeanours. So they were invited to chip in their 'tuppence worth' and, before you could say 'Madeleine' the missing child's parents turned an examination of the press into a critique of the original police investigation, Kate McCann perjuring her way to absolution by categorically denying the whereabouts of certain biological material, including of course that which she had earlier claimed to have introduced herself!
Thus did the innocent McCanns (the press had made it all up) become additional public affiliates of the pressure group Hacked Off.
What happened next?
Leveson levitated, his scribes scribbled, and a trolley load of volumes, akin to that dumped on Tony Bennett by Carter Ruck, was delivered up to government, in order that they might consider the Lord Justice's nominally impartial recommendations; recommendations which, of course, carry neither legal weight nor obligation.
Politics being the 'art of the possible,' the back catalogue of public inquiries, evidence heard and recommendations ignored is extensive. History is a graveyard of 'what if's,' and it doesn't take long for the deceased to be forgotten. Except, in the case of Leveson, we have a group of voices reluctant to stop singing at the bar despite the wake's being over, loudest among them 'New Labour' acolyte Gerry McCann, who believes that politicians should be offering him protection, as though that were something he'd become rather used to.
There's a card game going on in the corner and it's not 'snap.'
We have witnessed one McCann challenge to David Cameron already, in the form of 'Do the right thing and authorise a police review of our case.' Now we have another. 'Do the right thing and enact the Leveson proposals – in their entirety and quickly would be good. Just like your opposite number David Miliband (Labour) believes you should in fact.' And with dissention in the House comes dissention in the ranks, the Blair/Brown protégés wondering whether they can get a knife in-between the incumbent coalition's shoulder blades (any part of Achilles will do, be it heel or otherwise).
Is that all there is to it then? 'The review' and 'The Inquiry' being distributed acts of political pressure aimed at undermining the present administration?
No, it is not.
Whilst Plan B is obvious, the Cameron authorised 'review' is, as yet, an unbound molecule. Both it and the Leveson farrago may be linked with David Cameron's perceived security of tenure however.
It will be recalled that Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has already intimated that Scotland Yard and the government will, between them, decide what the likely outcome of the review is. Such a decision had obviously not been reached on that occasion and, procrastination being the thief of time, has probably yet to be arrived at even now. Even so, decisions, including those made in the political arena, are not usually irrevocable (declarations of war notwithstanding). Which leaves David Cameron holding the 'court cards.'
Unless the McCann influence extends across party lines, Mr Cameron, if push came to shove, could see to it that Labour remained in opposition for a very long time to come, simply by allowing the McCann-New Labour relationship to mature publicly, like a piece of Stilton, then revealing it as the source of the stench by eventually deciding on the most advantageous outcome (to himself) of the Scotland Yard review. Although 'spattered' in the process, he could be the last man standing.
Whilst the fate of Kate and Gerry McCann may be of little concern and much less consequence to many, the possibility that they might become instrumental in either the enactment of legislation or a forced change of government is something for us all to ponder. Tony Bennett was recently upbraided in court by Judge Tugendhat for soliciting information to which, as a member of the public with no particular responsibility for law enforcement, the learned judge felt he was not entitled. In the event that David Cameron should avoid or resist having to torpedo the McCanns whilst they are still at large (sorry, anchor) then they would remain at sea, in open water and, in the court of public opinion, where the rules of engagement are somewhat less proscriptive, they are just as vulnerable to unauthorised attack.
Forum commentators may well find amusement in the McCanns' behaviour currently, but there is seldom smoke without fire. Laugh now, lament later perhaps.
If only I could see the funny side.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – 17.04.2013

It's no fun being a 'Billy no mates,' especially on holiday. Much better to be sociable and go jogging in company, if that's your thing. It wasn't really Matthew Oldfield's thing though:

"I don't like it, but I quite like it on holiday when it's a bit warmer and it's not so bad on your joints and I quite like running on the beach, because it feels quite sort of Bay Watch and it's kind of Californian." He said, to the interviewing police officer.

Unfortunately for Matthew he drew the short straw. Instead of having Pamela Anderson for company that Wednesday, 2 May, he got Kate McCann:

"Today it rained. The children went to their clubs, but our tennis lessons were postponed. Instead we joined Fiona, David and Dianne at the Millennium restaurant for coffee. We then returned to our apartment and a little while later I left again, to go for a run with Matt." (Kate McCann, in 'Madeleine')

Whose idea was it anyway? Matthew's, the reluctant athlete, who doesn't even like running, much less on the roads and in the rain, or the enthusiastic Kate McCann's? Matthew could not so much as remember who took the initiative:

"...I think Kate might have run most days, because she was quite a keen runner, and it may just be that either I thought I'd go for a run and she was already changed, or I was changed and, or Gerry might have said that, erm, I'm speculating, it may just have been coincidence that we both got into running gear and then decided to run together."

Somehow a 'your guess is as good as mine' answer during a police interview doesn't seem terribly convincing, and even though it appears perfectly reasonable to suppose Kate took the lead on this occasion, there must have been more than an element of chance in their running together. They didn't just bump into each other outside at the Ocean club, both coincidentally changed into running gear. If, as Kate tells us, she returned to her apartment and a little while later left again, to go for a run with Matt, the expedition must have been pre-arranged.

So there is Matthew Oldfield in his running strip, prepared to do something he's not desperately keen on, unless it's on the beach and in the sunshine, about to pound the roads that lunchtime:

"I remember I went running with Kate at lunchtime, she's quite a good runner, and we went out on the road all the way up to the main junc... erm, the sort of main road where you access Praia da Luz from and then back."

It wasn't a comfortable experience for our Matthew (4078 "But you went on this route and are saying you found it quite hard to keep up?") but Kate must have revelled in it, having already softened the glare from her new girly pink trainers with several outings in the PDL sand.

Raised paving stones and pot-holes are like snipers lying in wait for a victim when you're training out on the road. Kate was hit by an anti-personnel device in the form of a dog, apparently.

"As we ran along the promenade, a small dog jumped out from under a bench and attacked my right calf. It was pretty sore and I was a bit shaken, but I carried on as coolly as I could manage."

Funny how Matthew did not recollect this incident during his rogatory interview, Kate having been 'a bit shaken' by it after all. Might that be because he and Kate went running in different directions, and at different times of the day, Kate along the promenade in the morning, before lunch, Matthew away from PDL and back at lunchtime, three to four miles each way? Matthew could of course have kicked off with the beach leg of the route, but then he'd surely have remembered their joint encounter with the dog, even if only by being grateful that it was Kate's leg that was sore after the 'attack' and not his own!

Hospital patients of Matthew Oldfield should breathe a sigh of relief that medical histories/charts are available at the foot of their beds. Trusting in Dr Oldfield's memory could prove disastrous otherwise. He appears not to have one:

4078 "Okay. Right. So, I mean, having said that you had struggled to remember what you did each day, you have done pretty well really so far, you have remembered, for example, that Rachael was unwell all day on the Wednesday, so therefore you had gone for a run with Kate. I am guessing, would that have been when Grace was asleep or?"

Reply "I think that was lunchtime."

4078 "Yeah. Do you remember what you did after your run with Kate?"

Reply "No, because I'd have been on, I'd have been on Grace duty I think that afternoon... (waffle, waffle).

Well we know doctors are accustomed to schedules, but Matthew Oldfield's readiness to keep pace with Kate McCann in this instance is seriously impressive. Three to four miles each way, squeezed into a lunchtime outing on account of a sick wife and a child needing care and supervision back home. ("Grace had loose nappies nearly every day, but until after Madeleine went, erm, disappeared, she was never sick." Is that 'went on her abduction,' Matthew?).

A total of some seven miles, say, plus the time it will have taken for Oldfield to change into, and afterwards out of, his athletic strip. Roger Bannister was himself a medic but I don't think that can be taken to imply that non-runner Dr Matthew Oldfield could get remotely close to the four minute mile, then or now.

And that dog he remembered nothing about. The one that attacked poor Kate from beneath a public bench. Did it leave a mark of any kind? It's hard to see quite why Kate should have been shaken by the experience, and sore, otherwise. It was only a small dog after all. A small creature with teeth and claws that, from a prone position, launched an assault on Kate's anatomy, just a foot or so from the floor. Perhaps, seeing the flailing legs, the dog took it to be an act of self-defence.

The Lull Before the Storm – 04.05.2013
Whether portrayed by Hollywood or enacted in real life, contemporary military engagements are typically preceded by strict radio silence, as part of the plan of action. Self-evidently the plan comes first, the action follows. Previous commentaries have pointed up the impression given by diverse indices that significant events in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann transpired before the announcement of any abduction (see, for example, The X Factor, Time and Tide, The Cerberus Problem: McCannFiles), prompting one to question whether Kate's raising the alarm on the night of Thursday May 3 was indeed a spontaneous act, or the commencement of a planned action.
Little if anything has been revealed by the McCanns in respect of either the Wednesday or the Monday of that week in May (see: Thirty Days). But radio silence? Well, if communication is inevitable, at least one could ensure it wasn't recorded, even if only in retrospect. And have we not long since learned of the McCanns' selective deletion of text messages pertaining to Wednesday 2 May? The timings remained even if the content did not (see: Chapter and Verse). For Gerry McCann on-going contact with a third party throughout that day was clearly essential. Intriguingly, Jane Tanner, alone among the remainder of the Tapas clique, also found it necessary to communicate that day. Coincidentally, one of her contacts occurred at precisely the same time as one of Gerry McCann's (13.59 exactly). Jane Tanner's was an incoming signal (no more than a 'blip'), from Exeter apparently. And Gerry's?
But the synchronous activity in this instance is altogether less startling than the synchronous silence. The coincidence of Gerry McCann's and Robert Murat's mobile phones both falling silent over exactly the same period (from 15.45 on 2 May to 23.15, after the "abduction", on 3 May) has been highlighted elsewhere (see forum: The Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann - The Concise Phone Thread).
In addition, and with the sole exception of Jane Tanner's Wednesday calls, referred to above, and perhaps Fiona Payne, not one of the Tapas 7's mobile phones was called into action during the 48 hours of 1 – 2 May.
Those concerned early on to seek out communications links between disparate players in this melodrama were perhaps misled into looking for 'positives', when the meaningful connections were not that straightforward. One is reminded of the broad brush artwork of Rolf Harris for children's television, where the resultant image is brought about by seemingly unrelated 'dabs' and splashes, and scarcely recognisable until completed. In this instance the significance resides, not so much in the communications that occurred but in those that did not. Taking that general silence together with the catalogue of coincidence already established brings us that much closer to a clearer understanding of the overall picture.

No Way Out – 08.07.2013

With Scotland Yard in hot pursuit of thirty-eight 'persons of interest', all of whom were in Portugal on the night of May 3, 2007, apparently, one must assume that there is some plausible connection between one or more of these individuals and the sequestration of a minor from her bed in Praia da Luz that night. In point of fact there were rather more than thirty-eight people in Portugal at the time, any one of whom might have some, as yet unrecognised connection to, or knowledge of, dark deeds in the Algarve.

But all of this rather pre-supposes that a crime of abduction was committed in the first instance. Whilst there are 'experts' walking among us, who are only too happy to write books, give media interviews etc., covering subjects for which the supposedly known photographic evidence is demonstrably fake, i.e. a hoax (e.g., the nephilim giants), it cannot be difficult to appreciate that the interrogation of thirty-eight (give or take as many as you like) over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, can only serve a true purpose if the child was actually abducted in the first place.

Unless money is no object, the most cost-effective way for Metropolitan Police to narrow the scope of their review-turned-investigation into Madeleine's disappearance must be to consolidate their position as to the nature of any crime committed against her. That was the approach taken by the Portuguese (surprise, surprise) in their original investigation, encouraged not just by the indications of trained sniffer dogs, but by the earlier input of UK based expertise, in the form of the NPIA's National Search Adviser, Mark Harrison MBE. Surely his voice must count for something, even in the face of absolute refusal to entertain interpretation of the dogs' behaviour subsequently.

"There is no evidence Madeleine is dead".

But that, as both the McCanns and DCI Redwood should know, does not constitute evidence she is alive. Equally, there is no evidence that she was abducted, which, likewise, is insufficient to prove she was not. But what, therefore, should one make of evidence that abduction, under the circumstances understood and at the very specific time alluded to by the only possible witnesses in the vicinity, could not have occurred? Such evidence clearly does not exist in the PJ files under the discrete heading 'evidence against', but it can be adduced. What is more, an evidence based argument, however persuasive, carries only the weight of probability. A logical proof, on the other hand, confers absolute certainty.

Earlier essays (Crystal Clear, Another Story) examined the circumstances in question, arriving at the conclusion that the putative abductor's biggest challenge was not getting into apartment 5A, but getting out again. And if they failed to do so by the time they were 'spotted' in the street by Jane Tanner then that incident itself could not have occurred. Crucial to any such conclusion is not the status of the patio door to the apartment but that of the front door, which various statements (e.g., those of Russell O'Brien, Matthew Oldfield and, importantly, Gerry McCann) inform us was locked, in which case a key would have been required in order to enter or exit the apartment that way.

Ah, but Gerry changed his mind. From: 'The deponent entered the club, using his key, the door being locked', to: 'Concerning the front door, although he is certain that it was closed, it is unlikely that it was locked, because they left through the back door'. Not exactly a categorical volte face you will notice. Nor is there a genuine causal relationship between synchronously unlocked doors.

'But this is all uncertainty, not evidence! Whe... Whe... Where is the evidence'?

It exists in the form of a book, and a statement therein which confirms that the front door to apartment 5A was locked on the night of May 3, 2007. That being the case, our hypothetical abductor of Madeleine McCann could not have exited the apartment without being seen by the two gentlemen conversing at the foot of the back stairs or, for that matter, in order to be seen by Jane Tanner. Basically he could not get out. And if he did not get out, then he did not get in either.

The book in question is 'Madeleine' by Kate McCann and the crucial statement is as follows:

"For a long while we would assume that the abductor had entered and exited through the window of the children's bedroom, but it is equally possible that he used the patio doors or even had a key to the front door."

The equation of possibilities here is perfectly clear. Any of three access points may have been utilised, including the front door, provided the intruder had a key. But why should he have needed a key to enter through an unlocked door? The implication is unmistakable. The front door was locked. But that would not have deterred anyone in possession of a key. Unfortunately for the McCanns' belief in abduction, it is not equally possible that he had a key to the front door.

As David Payne explains in his rogatory interview:

"...essentially you needed the key you know, to use, if I remember to gain access into the, err into the apartment, and you know generally it was difficult because there was, you know we'd ask about more than one key, there was the only one key to the apartment."

There was only one key to the apartment and the abductor did not have it.

He could not, therefore did not, exit the apartment with a child in his arms in the two or three minutes between Gerry McCann's last 'check' on the children and Jane Tanner's 'sighting'. Nor did he leave the apartment afterwards, carrying Madeleine past the Smiths. The child they witnessed was wearing the wrong pyjamas. And since the intending abductor was not discovered inside the apartment subsequently then he was not there at all.

Without an abductor there can have been no abduction, but thirty-eight people, at least, were in Portugal that night.

No Way Out (at all) – 11.07.2013
According to the Irish Independent, an Irish couple 'could hold the key to solving Madeleine McCann case.'That would be the Smiths, would it not? Martin Smith described a man carrying a child with their head against his left shoulder and arms hanging down alongside the body. The child was wearing light coloured or pink pyjamas. Aiofe Smith described a man carrying a child in light trousers, white or light-pink, that may have been pyjamas. She also had a light top, with long sleeves. Peter Daniel Smith does not remember her clothing very well but believes it was light summer clothing, light in colour. As the whole world knows, Jane Tanner also saw a man carrying a child dressed in pyjamas that night - 'the pyjamas had a pinky aspect to them so you presume a girl.'
Pink pyjamas to left and right. Was Madeleine wearing one pair, or both? Or neither? She certainly was not dressed in the clothes described by Aiofe Smith, having been 'taken' whilst wearing her short-sleeved Disney patterned 'Eeyore' Pyjamas. With two pairs of Marks and Spencer Eeyore pyjamas at liberty to meander about the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz, that week, if one wished to choose between the Smiths' or Jane Tanner's sighting being genuine, the non-matching aspect of the description given by Aiofe Smith would suggest Tanner's was the more likely. There again, a description based largely, if not entirely, upon a view of the child's feet is hardly likely to be definitive. Perhaps Madeleine was nowhere on the streets that night after all, in the arms of a stranger or otherwise. She most certainly was not wandering the streets unattended. "There's no way she... she could have got out on her own." Said Gerry McCann. And he was absolutely right about that. Kate McCann has since indirectly confirmed (Madeleine, p.130) that the front door to their apartment was locked that night, whilst Rachael Oldfield (nee Mampilly) has given a police statement (15.5.2007) in which she points out that the patio door, locked or unlocked, was screened by its own shutters - in the lowered position:'The window shutters of the McCann's apartment were closed. The patio door that they used to enter the apartment also had its shutter closed. In order to enter they had to raise the shutter.'
An observation given support by the Tapas Group's two hand-written timelines, which state, 'all shutters down', the second time in underlined capitals for emphasis, no less. All of which casts a very dubious light on a statement to camera made by Gerry McCann during the May 2009 documentary, 'Madeleine Was Here':
GM: "Part of the reason we ended up coming through the back was the noise coming through the front door. We didn't want to disturb them. Stupid, now, isn't it."
Even accepting that it was only 'part of the reason', one has to wonder how unlocking and/or opening an apartment door could be considered a noisy pursuit; especially when compared to the clatter which would necessarily result from having to raise a metal shutter some two metres from the floor, simply in order to access said apartment from the opposite end. Stupid now? Stupid then.
It seems that there was indeed no way she (Madeleine) could have got out on her own.
And if that's one remark that does not now require explanation, the following sworn statements by both parents of the missing child could definitely benefit from clarification:
GM (4.5.07) - The window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains drawn open.
KM (4.5.07) - At around 10pm, the witness...noticed that the door to her children's bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open, while she was certain of having closed them all as she always did.
GM (15.5.07) - He is certain that, before leaving home, the children's bedroom was totally dark, with the window closed, but he does not know it was locked, the shutters closed but with some slats open, and the curtains also drawn closed.
KM (6.9.07) - The window to Madeleine's bedroom remained closed, but she doesn't know if it was locked, shutters and curtains drawn, and that was how it remained since the first day, night and day. She never opened it.
And so the story continues:
KM (Madeleine Was Here – Channel 4) - the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn,... were closed, ... whoosh ... It was like a gust of wind, kinda, just blew them open..."
KM (Madeleine) – "On our arrival we had lowered the blind-style shutters on the outside of the windows, which were controlled from the inside, and closed the curtains. We left them that way all week."
"As I ran back into the children's room the closed curtains flew up in a gust of wind."
Self-evidently a lone abductor fleeing the scene of the crime via the window, and with both hands full, cannot have closed the curtains behind him. He must therefore have drawn them back, before handing Madeleine to a confederate waiting outside, then closed them again before making his own escape via the front door he couldn't unlock, or the patio within earshot of the conversationalists beneath. At least he did not have to contend with those shutters, which Gerry himself will have raised on entering the apartment earlier, and probably left up in case Matthew Oldfield or Russell O'Brien should stop by afterwards. But would someone so security conscious as to close ALL the shutters on exiting their apartment, leave them in the 'up' position following a return visit in the interim? Perhaps Gerry lowered them again after all, giving the abductor another obstacle to overcome. Or perhaps, and more likely, apartment 5A was as secure as Fort Knox from the outset that night, as it would have been on previous nights, and as Rachael Oldfield implied. Small wonder that nothing of value was taken.

Reasons to be Cheerful – 27.07.2013

John Twomey (writing in the Daily Express, 26 July 2013):

GM: "It's taken a tremendous amount of pressure off us as a family to have that support now and to know people are now actively looking."

So why didn't the McCanns do exactly that, at the time and afterwards? Tia Sharp's father couldn't wait to look for his missing daughter, and he was nowhere near the vicinity when she disappeared. And what were Messrs. Edward and Cowley doing to earn their salaries exactly.

At last people are 'actively looking.' But for whom? And for what?

Timesonline (Steve Bird and David Brown in Praia da Luz and Adam Fresco, May 24, 2007) was among a number of newspapers to carry a report of what has become known as the 'last photo':

"The picture was taken at 2.29pm on May 3 - Mrs McCann's camera clock is one hour out so the display reads 1.29pm."

Precise EXIF data derived from the exposure include:

'Date/Time Digitized 2007:05:03 13:29:51+01:00'

On Sept. 6, 2007, Kate McCann made a lengthy statement to police which included the following observations:

"... they went to the apartment for lunch .... This would be around 12:35/12:40 .... Lunch lasted around 20 minutes. After finishing lunch they stayed for a while at the apartment, then they went to the recreation area .... They remained at this area for about an hour, maybe more, then they left the twins at the crèche next to the Tapas and both of them took Madeleine to the other crèche.

"After leaving Madeleine at around 2:50 p.m., they both had, once more, a tennis lesson."

In her more recent book (Madeleine, p.66) she claims: "Together we took Sean and Amelie back to the Toddler Club at around 2.40 p.m. and dropped Madeleine off with the Minis ten minutes later." (The times entered in the two crèche registers are 2.45 p.m. and 2.50 p.m. respectively).

Ten minutes, during which to dry and dress five pairs of feet ("We then sat round the toddler pool for a while, dipping our feet in, and I took what has turned out to be my last photograph to date of Madeleine"), leaving six minutes to reach the crèche. Not impossible. But is it likely?

Kate McCann (again in 'Madeleine'): "Some images are etched for all time on my brain. Madeleine that lunchtime is one of them. She was wearing an outfit I'd bought especially for her holiday: a peach-coloured smock top from Gap and some white broderie-anglaise shorts from Monsoon – a small extravagance, perhaps, but I'd pictured how lovely she would look in them and I'd been right. She was striding ahead of Fiona and me, swinging her bare arms to and fro. The weather was a little on the cool side and I remember thinking I should have brought a cardigan for her, although she seemed oblivious of the temperature, just happy and carefree."

How curious? Kate thought Madeleine might have benefitted from a cardigan that afternoon, but not so Amelie, who was sitting immediately alongside her elder sister at the pool and likewise dressed in a short-sleeved top. Gerry too seemed oblivious to the temperature, although dressed only in his t-shirt (the one he is seen wearing aboard the airport transfer bus on the day of arrival) and shorts. Gerry was impervious to both hot and cold it appears, as the body that had just spent five days playing tennis in the sun had just about as much colour as one might expect to get from a Sunday spent dining out in the back garden.

Anyway, a proud mother allows herself a 'small extravagance' over her daughter's holiday wardrobe - then waits five days before she reveals it, barely 48 hrs. before the family are due to return home?

No, no. Madeleine must have worn her special holiday outfit prior to May 3. But then Kate ought not to have been pleasantly surprised by the confirmation of her own fashion sense that afternoon at the pool, where she describes herself as having previously 'pictured' Madeleine in her new outfit. Surely by Thursday she would already have seen Madeleine in her Gap-Monsoon ensemble at least once? (She'd been wearing her Disney pyjamas all week after all). And if Madeleine looked so lovely in her designer outfit on Thursday, she would have looked no less lovely when wearing it beforehand, and no less photographically tempting. Yet it took Kate until Thursday to seize the moment, despite being prepared to run back to their apartment to fetch her camera in order to take a snap of Madeleine holding some tennis balls ("She looked so gorgeous in her little T-shirt and shorts, pink hat, ankle socks and new holiday sandals that I ran back to our apartment for my camera to record the occasion").

Although Kate attributes this photograph of hers to the Tuesday (ruling out Rachel Oldfield or Jane Tanner's claim to it, whilst contradicting the Ocean Club's own timetable, which shows mini-tennis scheduled for the Monday) Madeleine's new holiday sandals were clearly unveiled at the commencement of the holiday, not nearer its conclusion. Perhaps by the Thursday Kate had already pictured Madeleine looking lovely in her designer wear after all.

You Have Been Warned – 30.07.2013

(Twice)

On two previous occasions (McCannfiles, 18.2.2010, 27.4.2012) the McCanns' 'get out of jail free' card has been identified as a stratagem aimed at super-imposing a new 'inquiry' over the original, and suspended, investigation. It is both simple and effective: Launch an altogether new investigation predicated upon new evidence, 'lines of inquiry' if you will, that can be shown to have arisen since the Portuguese saw fit to archive their process and which, ipso facto, cannot implicate the McCanns, not even in retrospect.

Having first attempted, unsuccessfully, to foist this turkey upon the Portuguese, the Metropolitan Police appear to have embarked on Plan B - the DIY approach. As ridiculous as it may seem to some, the hints are dropping thick and fast that Scotland Yard, with the not so tacet support of the UK government, intend to plant their own tree on the grave of Portuguese sovereignty. If you were in any doubt about that, just read the Evening Standard report of 30 July. It's explicit enough:

"Home Secretary Theresa May has sent an official request to Lisbon for permission for Scotland Yard to begin a new investigation in Portugal into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann."

A new investigation. 38 potential suspects.

"Last month the Met said that the review, which cost £5 million, had identified 38 'persons of interest' from four European countries, including Portugal. They will be the subject of the new probe. Twelve are Britons who were in Portugal at the time.

"Scotland Yard has said neither the McCann family nor the friends who were staying with them were among those they have identified for further inquiries."

And why should that be? Because:

"If Portuguese approval is given, the Met is expected to seek new forensic evidence in the country, and pursue hundreds of possible leads the review is understood to have uncovered."

New forensic evidence (discounting entirely the 'old' forensic evidence). Hundreds of possible leads already uncovered. But (there's always a 'but' isn't there?):

"sources caution that there remains no prime suspect and the Met's inquiries are still at an early stage."

In other words the new investigation is potentially open-ended. It rather depends on the openness of the Government's cheque book (our money, don't forget). And to camouflage this cynical reality we are offered the following weasel:

"The new Yard inquiry began partly because Portuguese authorities are unable, under their law, to reopen their probe unless compelling new evidence emerges. Met detectives will hope to uncover this, and believe it could eventually lead to the case being solved."

Oh no they don't. Hasn't DCI Redwood already informed us that 'solving' the case is a different matter altogether? It follows that Met detectives are not therefore expecting, or even hoping to uncover the class of compelling evidence that will both convince the Portuguese to re-open their investigation (it's too late for that now) and lead to the case being solved. Solution is no longer viewed as within the Met's current remit, if indeed it ever was.

"The Home Office ... confirmed that Mrs May remained determined to offer every assistance to Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry as they seek to find their daughter.

"The Home Office remains committed to supporting the search for Madeleine McCann, and we have always said we would provide the Metropolitan police with the resources they need to investigate her disappearance."

So there. The Home Office is disposed to assisting the McCanns in the search for Madeleine, i.e., their search. They may no longer have their hands on the tiller, but they remain as figureheads at the bow. And yet, despite the best efforts of the political classes, there remains the possibility that theirs is an unenviable impression of Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet spearheading the Titanic disaster.

How so?

As much as either the Met or the McCanns might attempt to close the lid on the preceding Portuguese diligencies, the escape of toxic fumes through the gap is unavoidable. The files are a repository, as much of facts as 'evidence.' Since admissibility before a court of law is not a question of immediate relevance, it is both unnecessary and misleading to speak of certain information as 'evidence', when it more properly represents those indices that drive an investigation – any investigation. As far as the search for Madeleine McCann is concerned, either one identifies the individual who died in the McCanns' apartment before they used it, or one is obliged to suppose the worst. Such a consideration should colour the nature of any inquiry, as indeed it did at the time. This is not evidence that can reasonably be consigned to the irrelevance basket simply on account of its residing among the determinations of the earlier inquiry. However, even if such factors are so consigned, unreasonably or not, the ship is still destined to sink.

In the world of Mathematics there exists a very significant theorem (no, not Einstein's). Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem was directly responsible for scuppering a decade or more of prior endeavour on the part of Bertrand Russell. Grossly simplified, Gödel's was a logical proof that no formal system of Mathematics could ever be 'complete' in terms of its ability to describe/explain any and every postulate or contingency. There will always be some aspect or circumstance beyond the explanatory scope of any system considered complete as such. It's analogous to the limitless nature of infinity. Just when you think you've reached it – add 1.

And the Met's new investigation?

Let's say the new investigation proceeds on the basis of 'new evidence' exclusively, bagging up the 'old' evidence (all of it) and tossing it over the cliff. No doubt those inspectors believing in abduction will adopt the optimistic view, that somewhere in the great beyond there lurks Mr. Big the abductor, who was all the while in cahoots with one or other of those persons of interest listed in the current catalogue. It's only a matter of time (and money) before he, she or they are discovered (the closed system viewpoint). Then, like Gödel, it only remains for others to remove the horse's blinkers. Whilst the Met may consider they have new evidence, new leads, etc., etc., steering them away from the McCanns, they must also deal with any new evidence steering them straight back again! Evidence, for example, in the form of statements by Kate McCann, published well after the archiving, and which are demonstrably blatant lies.

A dog has no motive for deliberately misleading anybody. They are never that desperate for a ball or a biscuit. Likewise a person of no interest to a police investigation, unless they have a perverse interest in drawing attention to themselves, has no motive for lying. Or do they?

The McCanns, the Met, the Government even, can indulge themselves in the fantasy of a search for Madeleine as much as they like. Sooner or later someone is going to toss them a curved ball. Bails off. Innings over. So, before the government, as represented by Theresa May, commits irrevocably to the voyage, she/they would be well advised to count the lifeboats.

Porkies – 01.08.2013

"I want for your children what I want for mine: that they're safe and that their innocence is protected." – Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Is Madeleine McCann safe? She might be, according to Scotland Yard. Should that be so then the matter of her 'innocence', protested on more than one occasion by her parents, is largely beyond anyone's control, or protection for that matter. Perhaps, in her case, the intention is to protect her innocence in retrospect. Maybe that's why Kate McCann decided to deliver up an 'account of the truth' rather than a truthful account - not one and the same thing. Indeed the very title serves as an absolution from the deliberate lies the work contains, such that the perspicacious reader cannot say they weren't warned in advance.

Given the recent emphasis placed on 'new evidence' by the Met and the media, coupled with unequivocal exclusion of the McCanns and their holiday making associates from the current 'persons of interest' pool, it is important that the paradox inherent in this extraordinary situation be made clear.

How can the parents possibly be ignored, when the father claims to have been the last to see his missing daughter (subsequent 'witness' accounts describe unidentified children) and the mother has since maintained a litany of lies, to the point of perjury?

Kate McCann's book, 'Madeleine', far from being a testament to the truth is a fabricated 'account' of it. Yet it exists, having been written, published and broadcast well after the closing date of the original Portuguese instigation. The book contains statements of fact, supposedly; statements which, given the chronology of their presentation, represent new evidence. Not the 'facts', you understand, but the statements themselves, a number of which are demonstrable lies. Such statements of apparent fact as include the following:

"Our own apartment was only thirty to forty-five seconds away, and although there were some bushes in between it was largely visible from the Tapas restaurant." (p.54)

Whereas, according to Martin Brunt, for SKY News (The Mystery of Madeleine McCann, 24.12.07):

"The view from there (the tapas bar) to here is not a good one. It's partially obscured. And of course at the time, it was dark."

"The apartment is some distance away (from the Tapas Bar). It's beyond the swimming pool. There's a wall and a hedge and behind that is a path. It would be very difficult, from here, to see anybody going in and out of the apartment. Going to check on the kids wasn't easy ... eighty paces as far as the gate, the distance between the Tapas Bar and the apartment. Not quite as Gerry McCann described it."

(Tuesday) "We dropped the kids off at their clubs for the last hour and a half, meeting up with them as usual for tea." (p.59)

Creche records archived among the case files show all the children signed in at 2.30 p.m., the younger children signed out again at 5.20 p.m., nearly three hours later.

(Thursday) "I returned to our apartment before Gerry had finished his tennis lesson and washed and hung out Madeleine's pyjama top on the veranda." (p.64)

This was previously offered in a statement to police as: 'When her lesson ended at 10:15, she went to the recreation area next to the swimming pool to talk to Russell until Gerry's lesson was over. Afterwards... they went back together to the apartment.'

(Thursday) "I had finished my run by five-thirty at the Tapas area, where I found Madeleine and the twins already having their tea with Gerry." (p.66)

It is Kate McCann's own signature that appears on both sets of crèche records at the time when all three children were supposedly collected, at the close of the afternoon session – 5.30 p.m. precisely.

"Gerry left to do the first check just before 9.05 by his watch...Madeleine was lying there, on her left-hand side, her legs under the covers, in exactly the same position as we'd left her." (p.70)

In his statement to police on 10 May, 2007, Gerry McCann volunteered the following information: 'Concerning the bed where his daughter was on the night she disappeared, he says that she slept uncovered, as usual when it was hot, with the bedclothes folded down'.

"It wasn't until a year later, when I was combing through the Portuguese police files, that I discovered that the note requesting our block booking was written in a staff message book, which sat on a desk at the pool reception for most of the day. This book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too. To my horror, I saw that, no doubt in all innocence and simply to explain why she was bending the rules a bit, the receptionist had added the reason for our request: we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently." (p.56)

This was a staff message book, supposedly, the messages written by, and for, speakers of Portuguese. Kate McCann does not speak Portuguese. She would not be able to understand and translate a complex sentence in that language into an equally complex sentence in English; a sentence such as constituted the 'request', for instance.

"As we now know, the chemicals believed to create the 'odour of death', putrescence and cadaverine, last no longer than 30 days." (p.253)

The possibility exists, at least, that the 'chemicals' herein referred to evaporate, when in isolation, within thirty days. Whether or not they do so as the constituent of a compound however would be quite another matter. In any event it is the longevity of detectable odour (detectable by a trained dog at any rate) that is the salient consideration. This from a UTV news report of 8 March 2006:

"A murder trial heard today of the "distinct smell of decay" after a specialist police dog uncovered the make-shift riverbank grave of pensioner Attracta Harron four months after going missing walking home from Mass in December 2003."

"She had addressed me as Kate Healy, and although this was the name by which I was always known before Madeleine's abduction, since then I'd only ever been referred to as Mrs McCann." (p.189)

Madeleine was 'abducted', we were told, on the night of May 3, 2007. On several occasions, prior to and including May 3, Kate Healy signed the Ocean Club creche registers as K. McCann.

STOP PRESS

Kate McCann confesses to abducting her own daughter!

"I wanted to make sure that they (the children) would always have access to a written chronicle of what really happened." (p.1)

"Others have seized the opportunity to profit from our agony by writing books about our daughter, several of them claiming to reveal 'what really happened.' Which is extraordinary, given that the only person who knows this is the person who abducted her on May 3, 2007." (p.2)

What the Met and their sponsors in this 'investigation' charade apparently fail to appreciate is that 'putting a lid on it' does not eradicate, or even constrain, the problem. There is always going to be some unwelcome information outside the box, and more where that came from.

The Longest Day – 03.08.2013

On 6 June, 1944, with their comrades in the Pas de Calais on a state of alert, German defenders stationed along the Normandy coast looked complacently out to sea from their gun emplacements, the beaches littered with idle steel poles and 'porcupines', plus the occasional cigarette butt. The weather wasn't promising, and the channel waters had the mood of a man with a hangover. It was shaping up to be yet another unremarkable day by the sea-side. And then look what happened!

3 May 2007 was also D-Day in Praia da Luz, Portugal - Donnerstag. Thursday, the day of thunder, preceded immediately by Wotan's tag (in old Norse), the day of the supreme God (of battle and death). Most historians would recognise 6 June, 1944 as 'the longest day', but ask any surviving member of the landing forces and they might well qualify that opinion, having spent the previous 24 hours entombed in their landing craft, following postponement of the invasion in view of inclement weather!

By all accounts it took until 10.00 p.m. on that Thursday night in PdL for anything dramatic to occur. Otherwise it had been an unremarkable day. Well there's drama, and then there's melodrama.

Except for one overarching consideration, the day before had been equally unremarkable, as Kate McCann explains in her book (Madeleine, pp. 59-61):

"Wednesday, 2 May 2007. Our last completely happy day. Our last, to date, as a family of five. If only it was possible to rewind. Even for an hour."

So what transpired on this last happy day? Not a lot it would seem, and nothing conspicuously out of the ordinary either, apart from an isolated 'separate beds' incident. (A dog can be expected to react defensively if it thinks it's about to be stepped on):

"Today it rained. The children went to their clubs, but our tennis lessons were postponed. Instead we joined Fiona, David and Dianne at the Millennium restaurant for coffee. We then returned to our apartment and a little while later I left again, to go for a run with Matt...As we ran along the promenade, a small dog jumped out from under a bench and attacked my right calf. It was pretty sore and I was a bit shaken, but I carried on as coolly as I could manage.

"Gerry and I picked up the children, had lunch in the apartment and then took them to the play area for an hour before walking them to their clubs. The tennis group lessons were rescheduled for the afternoon...After that it was the usual routine: tea with the children, playtime, bath time, milk, stories, kids' bedtime, get ready, Tapas at 8.30pm.

"Tonight it was Rachael's turn to be feeling a bit under the weather and she gave dinner a miss...The only other difference was that after dinner we ventured into the enclosed bar area...for a liqueur. As a result we went back to our apartments a little later than normal.

"At about 11.50pm, Gerry abruptly announced, 'Right, I'm off to bed. Goodnight.' As he turned to leave, Dave said jokingly, 'She's not that bad, Gerry!' I must admit I was slightly hurt that Gerry should just go off without me, as if I was unimportant – irrelevant, even – and Dave's remark was an indication that it wasn’t just me being over-sensitive...It's just Gerry, I'm used to his foibles and generally any deficiencies in gallantry simply go over my head.

"As far as Gerry was concerned, it was late, he was tired, and he was going to bed. End of story...I followed him a few minutes later...by the time I got into the apartment, he was asleep...Still feeling a bit offended, I decided to go and sleep with the children. This was highly unusual; unprecedented, even: the only occasions when we ever slept apart were when our jobs and on-call duties dictated it. I wasn't the type to flounce off to the spare room and never would have done so at home.

"I suppose it was because there was a bed made up and ready in the other bedroom and at that moment my peaceful, slumbering babies were more attractive room-mates than my snoring husband. It was a storm in a teacup, and I'm loath even to mention it as it was such an isolated incident and not at all representative of our relationship. However, since every scrap of information was shortly to become potentially crucial, I feel it is necessary to state for the record that I was in that room that night."

Hence the McCanns enjoyed a run, tennis and tea before they put the children to bed, then dinner and liqueurs, followed by a storm in a brandy glass and, finally, separate beds for the night.

"Though it can have no bearing that I can imagine on subsequent events, the thought of Gerry and me sleeping alone on this of all nights still makes me feel sad."

I was long ago advised by a girlfriend to 'expect the unexpected', shortly before she volunteered herself for the role of ex-girlfriend. So, with nothing much happening, Irwin Rommel took a little time off – just as the allies were poised to land in France (D-Day, following immediately upon an inauspicious D-day minus one). If we consider the same pairing as it relates to the experiences of the McCanns, the experiences as outlined by Kate McCann that is, we are likewise offered a view of two inauspicious days, during which something dramatic happened – Madeleine was 'taken'. But was she abducted on the Thursday night, as we are encouraged to believe?

In an interview with Lori Campbell (published in the Sunday Mirror, 5.8.2007) Kate told how, on the evening she went missing, before she went to bed, she (Madeleine) said, 'Mummy I've had the best day ever. I'm having lots and lots of fun.'

'The evening she went missing'. Thursday.

Is it not a tad strange that Madeleine should have her 'best day' on Thursday 3 May, whereas Kate's experience of Wednesday 2nd was of the family's 'last completely happy day'; their last, to date, as a family of five? Kate and her daughter's respective best days are misaligned by 24 hours.

The story, with which we are all now overly familiar, tells of an unexpected trauma following an otherwise routine Thursday at the Ocean Club. In her 'account of the truth' Kate McCann describes an equally routine Wednesday, but goes on, in lachrymose fashion, to express a very specific regret:

"Though it can have no bearing that I can imagine on subsequent events, the thought of Gerry and me sleeping alone on this of all nights still makes me feel sad."

Had that statement appeared as an appendix to Thursday's eventualities it would make perfect sense. Here it does not. 'This of all nights'? Wednesday night. 24 hours before their daughter unexpectedly disappeared. Why 'of all nights'? That distinction surely belongs to the night yet to come. And the thought of Gerry and herself sleeping alone still makes Kate McCann feel sad, meaning it made her feel sad at the time. She is not simply reporting a sorrow in retrospect.

Kate McCann, therefore, was particularly sad on the Wednesday night, of all nights, although 'it can have no bearing (that she can imagine) on subsequent events'.

Cue 'Imagination', cue red flag.

Kate and Gerry's sleeping in separate beds on the Wednesday night could have had no material bearing whatsoever on a stranger abduction occurring the following night, much less an imaginary one. Perhaps, then, it is not this aspect which is imaginary. But something must have occurred for Wednesday to have qualified as the 'night of nights'; something other than the McCanns' temporary separation ("It was a storm in a teacup, and I'm loath even to mention it as it was such an isolated incident and not at all representative of our relationship"). That 'something' in question was probably associated with Wednesday's proving to be the McCanns' 'last completely happy day' and their last as a family of five.

As the Paynes looked complacently out to sea from their first floor balcony that Wednesday, oblivious to the real drama unfolding beneath them, the McCanns were witnessing the end of their complete happiness, causing Kate McCann's fleeting reversion to 'Healy' that evening at the creche. David Payne himself would go on to see Madeleine for the last time, twice, on the following day; and then the melodrama would ensue.

Santa's Little Helpers – 26.08.2013

So there we are in Lisbon, the court suffused with an eerie glow from the assembled journalists' lap-top computers, when Isabel Duarte, or whoever the McCanns' advocate happens to be, looks toward the judge's bench, whilst opening their hands in a melodramatic gesture of appeal: "How can anyone possibly decide that the author's conclusions are correct, whether they be based on prior police work or not, when, even at this very moment, police inquiries are continuing into the child's whereabouts? Such conclusions are clearly premature, with every chance of being wrong. As such they amount to nothing more than scandalous surmise!"

So what do you do as a team manager, when you know that, position for position, your team is the weaker? Stop the opposition from playing their game of course. And with a team of thirty-seven detectives engaged in the pursuit of thirty-eight persons of interest, Scotland Yard are busy man-for-man marking, the player-coach ready to leap from the bench with shouts of "Leave him! He's mine." once the lynch-pin of the criminal operation has been identified.

Eliminating possible abductors, given the likelihood of some other kind of crime, is akin to tracing all local gun owners in connection with the recent discovery of a corpse with a knife in its back. Rigorous yet meaningless. You have a link to the caboose when all the time it was the first carriage that sheared off, causing the train wreck. Scotland Yard are actively engaged in re-writing history just as surely as King James knowingly commissioned re-writing of the gospels. And 'knowing' is what the McCann case is all about.

In mid-August 2007, Correio da Manha published a claim that Alipio Ribeiro, then head of the Policia Judiciara in Portugal, was contacted at about 11.00 p.m. on 3 May by the British Ambassador John Buck, the ambassador being so desirous of discussing the disappearance of young Madeleine McCann that he interrupted Ribeiro at dinner that night in order to do so. Three weeks after this report the McCanns were made arguidos and, barely a week after that, on 14 September, Correio da Manha produced another, which included an observation of direct relevance to their earlier revelation:

'The first call Gerry made on the night of the crime was to Alistair Clark, a good friend from University days and a diplomat close to Gordon Brown.'

That would go some way toward explaining the extraordinary speed with which John Buck himself, resident in Lisbon, had been appraised of the situation in Praia da Luz, the police having yet to arrive.

Well it might if Gerry McCann had actually made the call in question, but he did not. In fact he did not contact anyone in the UK until he telephoned his sister Trisha, who put the phone down after ten minutes, at 11.51 p.m. Buck and Ribeiro at least were already 'on board'. So too was the Portuguese Justice Minister, apparently; another of Buck's urgent contacts. Oddly, Ribeiro seems not to have communicated with any of his PJ colleagues immediately, or at all, that night. Staff in Portimao only became aware of the incident when later contacted by the GNR.

Someone clearly set the diplomatic wheels in motion very early on and it wasn't Trisha Cameron, nor was it 'Uncle Brian' ('phoned at 11.52 p.m.), as Kate McCann (Madeleine, chapter 5) might wish us to believe. Does it really matter who did so? Maybe it was the Mark Warner management, who knows?

Correio da Manha apparently.

In the wake of the initial tsunami, in December 2007, CdM editor Manuel Catarino published a book, "La culpa de los McCann", in which he repeated his newspaper's earlier claim that, on the night of 3 May, PJ director Alipio Ribeiro was informed of the McCann abduction by Ambassador Buck. He went further however, adding that UK Prime Minister-in-waiting, Gordon Brown, himself already knew of the incident through a mutual friend of Gerry McCann's.

Gordon Brown's insistence on being kept up-to-date on developments in the McCann case has long been a matter of public record, but this little twist is of potentially greater significance.

Perhaps the original claim, of John Buck's early warning signals, is a myth. Yet neither Buck nor Ribeiro afterwards took pains to deny their late-night conversation. Rather, an explanation of sorts, appeared subsequently; an explanation which, if CdM were in possession of it beforehand, would surely have appeared in conjunction with the original story line. Instead it emerged the moment the temperature had risen, within a week of the McCanns being questioned as suspects (persons of interest if you would rather) in their own daughter's disappearance.

To judge from the 'phone records currently resident in the long-since archived PJ files, it is Gerry McCann's earliest call to Alistair Clark, who, by the way, was not a diplomat of any complexion, which is the more fictional.

Was it really Alistair Clark who 'must have immediately contacted people at the highest level – before the PJ were informed'? And was he the 'mutual friend' of both Gordon Brown and Gerry McCann? Whatever the identity of the mystery informant, there are two parameters of singular importance to be observed: He/she was UK based, and a confidante of Gerry McCann's.

If the first of these conditions is true, then the diplomatic initiative in Portugal cannot be attributed to any direct altruistic intervention on the part of a McCann affiliate or other interested party inside Portugal, with either the British embassy in Lisbon or the Algarve consulate, whose initial instructions must therefore have emanated from the Foreign Office in London. If the second is true also, then third-party intervention (Portugal via London) is ruled out completely, on account of the conduit being a personal friend of Gerry McCann's, who would obviously have made the call himself.

Neither before nor since have the McCanns offered any rationalisation of the original CdM story of August 12. They should, and for one very good reason: Whether Gerry McCann personally took ownership of the information flow at the outset, or had it gifted to him by a 'spokesperson', the fact remains that he did not communicate anything of significance 'on the night of the crime' to anyone in the UK, in time to enable John Buck to telephone Alipio Ribeiro at dinner. If the various CdM attributions are fundamentally correct however, then whoever had that information, i.e., whoever 'phoned the FCO and/or Gordon Brown from within the UK, was in possession of it prior to 10.00 p.m. on 3 May, 'the night of the crime'.