Madeleine (18 page)

It was after one of the IFLG meetings that Hugh asked me whether I was keeping a diary. Quite apart from the fact that I was an emotional wreck and hadn’t had time to blink for the past week, the idea had never crossed my mind. I hadn’t kept a diary since my early teens, and the accounts of my life then were mind-numbingly boring: what time I got up, what I ate for each meal and which lesson I’d enjoyed most that day.

‘You should,’ he said. He didn’t elaborate on why. The barrister handed me a spare A4 notebook he happened to have with him.

When I thought about it, I realized it would be a good way of remembering these dark and confusing days; of filling in the gaps for Madeleine on her return. It would also be a record of our story that might help all three children to understand what had happened when they were older. Setting aside some blank pages in the notebook I’d been given for the days that had already passed, I wrote a few paragraphs on a couple of occasions the following week, though I didn’t begin in earnest until 23 May, twenty days after Madeleine was taken. From then on, I kept my journal consistently, and when I had a spare moment I went back and filled in the blank pages with notes of our activities and my recollections of every day since 3 May 2007.

Though my main purpose was to keep a proper account for the children of everything that had happened, I found writing it down very therapeutic. It gave me an outlet for my thoughts and emotions, and a means of communicating with Madeleine.
I could
talk
to
her!
I could also talk to God, and even to the abductor, if I wanted to. Whatever Hugh’s intention was, I am very grateful to him for his suggestion. It might just have saved my life.

So many people were supporting us in so many different ways, from the high-profile donations of the reward consortium to the quiet prayers and unsung practical acts of friends and strangers alike. On the day of our first meeting with IFLG, I had gone over to the Tapas area to meet up with Paddy, the husband of Bridget, a good friend of mine in Leicester. Paddy is, as Bridget puts it, ‘a man of God’. He’s also six foot three, a big fella generally, with very dark hair and eyes – not someone you’d miss in a crowd. I was so touched that, even though we didn’t know each other all that well then, he had decided, completely off his own bat, to come out to Praia da Luz and join the search parties that were being organized locally. He’d texted me to say, ‘If you want me to call and see you while I’m there, I’ll come. Otherwise I’ll just get on with the search.’ I had asked Paddy if he had a Bible with him I could borrow. He brought me one that had been a Christmas present from him to Bridget several years earlier. That Bible is still sitting next to my bed. I must get round to returning it one day!

Saturday, 12 May 2007. Madeleine’s fourth birthday. Until it was upon us, we hadn’t been able to think about it: we simply couldn’t countenance the idea that by the time it arrived she wouldn’t be back with us to mark it. Not being with her today, loving her, pleasing her, enjoying her delight, was unbearable. We should have been at home, where we’d arranged a joint party in Leicester for Madeleine and two of her classmates at nursery, her best friend Sofia, who had been born on the same day, and a little boy called Sam whose birthday was within a few days of theirs. They had been going to have their first disco. I’d bought a couple of girl-band CDs a few weeks earlier and we’d been having singalongs in the car to warm up for it. The memory of Madeleine, sitting in the back seat, singing her heart out along with the Pussycat Dolls still makes me laugh. And cry.

John Hill had arranged for us all – Gerry, Sean, Amelie and myself, Trish and Sandy, and Fiona, David, Dianne, Jane, Russell, Matt and Rachael and their kids – to spend the day at a private villa. (Nicky left that weekend, and Michael had popped home for a couple of days.) We didn’t know what to do, really. We couldn’t let the occasion go unmarked and we wanted to celebrate Madeleine on her birthday whether she was with us or not, but
nothing
we did felt right. It was good to be away from the Ocean Club and the media circus, and the kids enjoyed themselves, playing in and around the pool with floats and toys. But Madeleine’s absence hung heavily over everyone else.

The Mark Warner staff had brought over stacks of food for us. The men organized a barbecue and there was wine and beer. We ate mostly in silence, concentrating on the kids. I couldn’t eat much, and alcohol was completely off my agenda. Fiona recalls that Gerry and I were completely shut down that day, barely able to talk, and although our friends tried to remain cheerful and behave normally to get us through it, they all felt awkward about being at this lovely villa, in the sunshine, in these circumstances. There was no cake. Gerry did attempt a toast but he was visibly upset and couldn’t manage much more than ‘I can’t even say happy birthday to my daughter . . .’ before choking up. The physical loss was more intense than ever. I ached for Madeleine.

After attending a special Mass for her at the church early in the evening we were visited in the apartment by Cat, Madeleine’s nanny at Mini Club. She had some news for us: she and some of her colleagues were being sent to another Mark Warner resort in Greece. None of them wanted to leave, and to this day we do not fully understand this decision. We think it might have been made for logistical reasons – after Madeleine’s abduction, guests with bookings at the Ocean Club for the next few weeks were being offered alternative destinations, and perhaps the company needed to adjust their staffing levels accordingly. But from our point of view, it meant the removal of key witnesses from Praia da Luz.

Having spent much of the previous four days cooped up, first with the police and then with the lawyers, by the Sunday afternoon Gerry and I felt the need to escape into the open air. We decided to go for a walk along the beach. Perhaps ‘escape’ isn’t the right word, since we were soon tailed by a posse of journalists, and there could be little escape in any case from the hell engulfing us. Thankfully, we were left alone when we reached the shore, and were able to stroll along the sand in relative solitude.

I remember this walk well. It had been a chaotic and confusing ten days, shot through with unremitting cold dread and dark thoughts that were hard to push away when we had nothing else with which to replace them. That is the anguish of the ‘not knowing’.

I asked Gerry apprehensively if he’d had any really horrible thoughts or visions of Madeleine. He nodded. Haltingly, I told him about the awful pictures that scrolled through my head of her body, her perfect little genitals torn apart. Although I knew I had to share this burden, just raising the subject out loud to someone else, even Gerry, was excruciating. Admitting the existence of these images somehow confirmed them as a real possibility, and with that confirmation came renewed waves of fear.

So many of the emotions and physical sensations I’ve experienced over the past few years will be beyond the scope of most people’s comprehension, thank God. I felt as if I’d embarked on a slow, painful death. Just imagining your child, any child, like this is agonizing and unless such thoughts have any basis in reality, it is normal and understandable to banish them from your mind. Everybody has their own mechanisms for self-protection and surrounding yourself only with ‘nice thoughts’ is one of many. I wished I could do that. The pictures I saw of our Madeleine no sane human being would want in her head, but they were in mine. I simply couldn’t rid myself of these evil scenes in the early days and weeks.

That walk with Gerry was, however, a small watershed. The mutual acknowledgement of such delicate and deeply upsetting responses drew us even closer together.

It would be some time before we could get far enough past the terrible scenes seared into our minds to think logically about that night. Once we did begin to function within what felt like an endless bad dream, we started to comb through our memories, searching for something significant.

Had Madeleine been specifically targeted, either for herself or because someone knew that apartment 5A would be a breeze to raid? Not only did its corner position allow for easy access and escape, but, unlike many other residences, it had no protective wrought-iron bars at the windows and no security light.

Could Madeleine’s apparently excessive tiredness on that last Thursday afternoon have been caused by some kind of tranquillizer administered earlier in the day, or even the night before? It had been noticeable, but then we’d been approaching the end of our break and the children had all been extremely active for almost a week. It might simply have been, as we’d thought at the time, the holiday catching up with her. Inevitably, though, since we cannot yet know for sure, a little nugget of doubt remains.

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. Perhaps he’d either come in or gone out via the window, not both; perhaps he hadn’t been through it at all, but had opened it to prepare an emergency escape route if needed, or merely to throw investigators off the scent. He could have been in and out of the apartment more than once between our visits.

That would explain the movement of the door to the children’s bedroom. At 9.05pm, when Gerry had found it further ajar than it should have been, he had pulled it back to its original position. On his arrival half an hour later, Matt hadn’t gone into the room, he had simply listened at the door, which he hadn’t adjusted. And yet when I returned at 10pm it was open wider once again. How had that happened? Had there been somebody inside the room, behind the door, when Gerry looked in, just waiting for him to leave? Gerry feels that’s unlikely, but again, we can’t know for sure. What we do now believe is that the abductor had very probably been into the room before Gerry’s check.

Whatever the case, it may have helped if I had made the nine-thirty visit instead of Matt. I would have noticed that the door was not how we’d left it – something that nobody could have expected to be apparent to Matt – and raised the alarm sooner. Of course, I will always feel bad that I didn’t. I know it’s nobody’s fault that I didn’t. I know nobody could have foreseen how it could possibly matter. I know that it might well not have made the slightest difference in any case.
But it
might
have.

So many little things had and would continue to come to light, so many chance incidents and minor decisions made in all innocence, which on their own would not have driven events to such a disastrous conclusion. Together, though, they seem to have accumulated into a monstrous mountain of bad luck.

9

NO STONE UNTURNED

Monday 14 May. Today I went for my first run since Madeleine was taken. Anyone who doesn’t run or exercise generally might wonder why, and more to the point, how I could possibly do this in the circumstances. Why is easy. Exercise, and running in particular, is good for the mind as well as the body. It can induce a sense of well-being, lifting your mood, and aids the relief of stress, anxiety and sleeplessness. I needed all the help I could get there. As to how, well, I suppose I made myself do it in the same mechanical way as I made myself wash my face in the morning, brush my teeth and acknowledge another day.

However, I was also driven by additional and more complicated motives. One was that somehow I knew running would help numb the torment, albeit temporarily. Even more bizarrely, I felt I needed to do it to bring Madeleine back. I can see now that this makes no rational sense, but at the time it was as if I had to push myself to the limit in every way in order to achieve my heart’s desire. My child had suffered and therefore so must I.

I remember speeding along the beach, concentrating totally on Madeleine. I had a picture of her in my hand which I would squeeze when I felt tired to spur me on, especially going up the sharply rising Rua da Praia. I could not have entertained stopping. Simultaneously I was saying a decade of the rosary in my head. When I returned to the apartment block, I sat on the steps at the bottom and cried like a baby. Either the run or the crying, or both, seemed to induce a sense of calm.

That first weekend I’d felt a burning desire to run up the Rocha Negra, and Gerry and I would in fact do so many times over the next few months. In places it was just too steep and I had to slow down to walking speed, but if I dared to stop (interpreted by my brain as failure) I would mentally beat myself up. It still felt as if every challenge had to be met on Madeleine’s behalf. I wouldn’t recommend such mind games: they certainly don’t make life any easier. But as Gerry will readily confirm, I can be quite stubborn, though I’d prefer to call it determined.

We gave another statement to the media outside the apartment that Monday and on this occasion answered a few questions. Then, early in the evening, we heard that Robert Murat, our erstwhile translator, had been taken in by the police for questioning. We had no prior warning of this from the police. The first we knew of it was when we happened to catch the ‘breaking news’ on television, the same as everybody else. We stood there, paralysed, watching live pictures of the police going in and out of Murat’s home, removing computer equipment and boxloads of other stuff. We were terrified that the next thing we were going to see was an officer carrying out a little body bag.

Was it really too much to ask to be spared this harrowing experience? Whether the police were simply being completely thoughtless or whether this was something to do with the judicial secrecy law I cannot say. Sandy and Michael walked up to the Murat family home, Casa Liliana – which was only 100 yards from our Ocean Club apartment – to try to find out what was happening. A
Sunday Times
journalist filled them in on a few more details. A little later, one of the British FLOs popped up to our apartment to apologize for the lack of warning. It wasn’t his fault, of course, but the damage had already been done.