Madeleine (47 page)

During a break in the proceedings, I was going down the big stone staircase to the ladies’ as Gonçalo Amaral was coming up. Thoughts of what I ought to say or do to him flashed through my mind but I stayed strong and passed him without comment, our shoulders briefly coming within a foot of each other.

By the time the court session ended nine hours later, I was relieved in more ways than one. Skinny bums aren’t made for wooden benches. The press were poised outside like vultures. Gerry and I had decided not to say anything to them, on the basis that it would be best not to interfere with the legal proceedings in any way. In retrospect, it was the wrong decision. Amaral and his followers showed no such restraint, spouting off unopposed, with the result that the reporting of the case that night and the next day was extremely one-sided.

The following morning, Gerry gave a few pertinent statements to the media assembled outside the court in an attempt to redress the balance of their coverage of the previous day’s proceedings. I had to laugh when I saw the front-page headline for the next day’s
Daily
Express
: the arrestingly original ‘McCANN FURY’. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been driving along, seen that headline on a newsagent’s board and wondered to myself what we were furious about now. I suppose it just fits the page nicely.

Gerry had to leave towards the end of the second day because of work commitments, and Fiona kindly agreed to fly out and join me. The first two days had highlighted the injustices heaped on Madeleine, provoking a lot of anger, exasperation and hurt, and Gerry was worried about leaving me to face more of the same on my own. I’m sure I’d have been fine, but it was good to have Fiona there all the same. We had hoped 13 January would be the last day of the trial but it was adjourned again, this time until February. The journey home was a difficult one. As soon as Fiona and I sat down on the plane, everything hit me full in the face: Madeleine, who she is, what I miss; the pain, the injustice, our life. I started to cry and couldn’t stop. I was just exhausted by it all.

The final session of the injunction trial took place on 10 February 2010. I travelled to Portugal on my own to meet Gerry, who was flying in from a work trip to the Netherlands, at Lisbon airport. On the plane I sat next to a nice gentleman from Porto, and we spent a lot of the flight talking. After all that has happened and everything that has been said, Gerry and I worry about what ordinary people in Portugal, people like us, think of us and whether they believe what they read in the papers. We completely understand that they are proud of their country and want to trust their police force. Everybody needs to feel safe. I’ve wished so often I could plead with them face to face: ‘Don’t believe what has been written about us; please don’t listen to gossip and reckless speculation. We are good people and we love our children dearly. Please give us a chance and help us find our daughter.’

As this kind, intelligent and humorous man chatted away to me on the plane, I felt a huge sense of relief. Maybe there were others like him who cared about what had happened to Madeleine and to our family. Maybe others could also see the injustices. ‘I wish you well and I hope you succeed tomorrow,’ he said as we disembarked. ‘Good luck!’

In the course of the appeal trial we heard from representatives of Amaral’s publishers, the producers of his documentary and the TV channel that had aired it. A university professor of criminology and several PJ officers were also called. The two final witnesses the following morning were the general manager of the documentary production company and a journalist from
Correio
da Manhã
, a pro-Amaral tabloid that gave house room to his claims on a regular basis.

After lunch, we returned to the courtroom for the summing-up of each of the lawyers. This was a horrible experience and one which, stupidly, I wasn’t prepared for. The summaries of the defence appeared to be focused more on attacking Gerry and me personally than on what we were actually here to resolve: the damage wreaked by Amaral’s book and DVD. Amaral’s lawyer also seemed intent on turning it into a UK-versus-Portugal battle, suggesting that we acted as if we owned their country. Clearly the defence were trying to incite the Portuguese people and keep public opinion on their side. It was ridiculous and unfair.

I was totally drained by the time we boarded the plane and, unusually, fell asleep within minutes of taking my seat. We arrived back in Rothley just before 2am. It was good to be home.

I love you, Madeleine. We will keep fighting, regardless of how many battles we have to face. Please God, good will overcome this evil. Love you, honeypie. We all do – so much. xxxxx

On 18 February, after an unsettling morning of waiting, we received the judge’s decision. We had won. Amaral’s appeal was rejected (decision 4) and the injunction against his book and DVD stood. Thank goodness for some sanity and thank goodness for Isabel.

On 1 March, we heard from a Portuguese friend that Amaral had been interviewed on television by Miguel Sousa Tavares, a celebrated journalist and writer. Our friend was delighted. Finally, an interviewer had asked Amaral the questions crying out to be asked of him for two and a half years. The interview was apparently quite aggressive, and Tavares had given Amaral a rough ride, but the points made were all pertinent and justified. It had been a long time coming. If only there were more people brave enough to challenge individuals like this.

Devastatingly, however, by the autumn everything had flipped again. On 19 October 2010, we were hit with a bolt from the blue. Clarence was told by a
Sun
reporter that yet another decision from the Appeal Court had reversed the injunction and lifted the ban on the sale of Amaral’s book and DVD (decision 5). We hadn’t even been aware that another judgement was about to be made, and neither was our lawyer. This broadside just came from nowhere. How many appeals was Amaral going to be allowed? How could other judges come along and overturn a decision made by three courts before them?

The latest verdict was that Amaral’s poisonous allegations did not damage our investigation in any way and nor did they affect our human rights. Common sense tells us otherwise. How could spreading the word that a child is dead
not
damage the search for her? There was more waffle about the injunction contradicting the constitution of Portugal and undermining democracy by prohibiting free speech. Does this mean that a person could go out and start accusing their next-door neighbour of being a serial killer? As I understand freedom of speech, it does not equate to freedom to slander and libel someone with impunity.

It was impossible to comprehend. I felt utterly beaten. In a sixth decision in 2011, our appeal against the reversal of the injunction was rejected. We are at a loss to understand why, but we struggle on. We plan to appeal against this latest decision and a libel case against Amaral is pending.

We were still reeling from this when along came Wikileaks. At the end of 2010, the
Guardian
published details selected from thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables leaked by the controversial whistle-blowing Wikileaks website. Among them was one of two messages that concerned Madeleine. It was a note of a meeting on 21 September 2007 – two weeks after Gerry and I were named as
arguidos
– between Alex Ellis, the British ambassador in Portugal, and Alfred Hoffman Jr, the outgoing US ambassador, in which Ellis tells Hoffman that the British police ‘developed the current evidence against Madeleine’s parents’.

The cable was three years old and what it contained didn’t amount to much, either. It related to the British police sniffer dogs that barked in our holiday apartment and near our car. In the sense that this work was carried out by the UK police, then yes, their actions did lead to us being declared
arguidos
by the PJ, but the British officers did not actually develop evidence as such, because there was no evidence to develop.

So this was old news: we didn’t pay it much attention and in the UK it created no more than a ripple for a day or so. To our dismay, however, the Portuguese press, galvanized by Gonçalo Amaral, lapped it up. Off he went on another round of the interview circuit – he even held a press conference on the matter – seizing this opportunity to air his allegations once again. It was absolutely soul-destroying.

What probably galls me the most about Amaral’s interviews is the way he presents himself as a person who, perhaps above all others, really wants to find Madeleine and get to the bottom of her fate. I cannot begin to express how much this outrages me. His conduct in relation to the search for our daughter has led us to believe otherwise. There is nobody in the world more desperate than Gerry and me to find our daughter and to discover the truth – the whole truth – about what happened to her. What does he think has been the focus of our existence since 3 May 2007?

At that point it was almost two and a half years since the prosecutor had closed the file and removed our
arguido
status. How many more times will we have these disgraceful slurs thrown at us? How many more times will they be pushed down the throats of the Portuguese public?

Gonçalo Amaral has been convicted of falsifying statements and has coordinated investigations into the disappearance of two little girls, neither of whom has been found. Why is this man being allowed a platform from which to peddle his absurd and offensive ideas? They say what goes around comes around. For Madeleine’s sake, I certainly hope so.

23

ADAPTING TO OUR NEW LIFE

On 4 May 2007, I became Kate McCann. According to my passport, driving licence and bank account I was Kate Healy. I hadn’t kept my maiden name for any particular reason – it was just who I was and who I’d always been. But when Madeleine was taken, the press automatically referred to me as Kate McCann, and Kate McCann I have been ever since. Overnight our old life had gone and I’d become a different person.

So, it seemed, had our daughter. Madeleine would be the first person to correct anyone who makes the mistake of shortening her name. ‘I’m not Maddie, I’m Madeleine!’ And quite right, too. It’s often done inadvertently, or in a good-natured attempt to sound more familiar and friendly, but the press know what her name is and yet to this day they insist on calling her Maddie or Maddy. I find it quite disrespectful. Unfortunately it’s what happens when your name is too long to suit their headlines – and there have been plenty of those.

We have all changed from the people we were. Gerry’s family miss their fun and gregarious ‘baby’ brother. What they have now is a much more serious sibling who is always busy and usually exhausted. I’m certainly not as laid-back as I was. I have less time for niceties and, sadly, I’ve become more cynical – though not without justification, I hope. I am wearier and I know a little spark that used to be within me is missing. There have been positive changes, too, though. We rarely grumble about little inconveniences or disappointments any more: we know how unimportant they are in the grand scheme of things. We recognize how we have been blessed by so much goodness and kindness and we certainly appreciate just how precious life is.

I don’t think there can be a single aspect of our old life that has not been altered or influenced in some way by Madeleine’s abduction. I look back now and wonder how on earth we have made it this far. If it weren’t for the solid relationship between Gerry and me, I’m not sure we would have done. Before our world was shattered, my dad commented to me more than once how lucky Gerry and I were to have found each other. Most couples, he told me, don’t have what you have. I can’t speak for other marriages but I do feel lucky, especially given what has happened to us, that we have such mutual love and respect. The fact that we’re still together and still doing OK is in itself quite an achievement (as the column writers and psychologists keep reminding us). The statistics show that most marriages subjected to such traumatic experiences break down.

It would be a lie to claim that everything has been plain sailing. No relationship, however strong, can emerge unscathed from what is probably the most painful and terrifying ordeal any parent could suffer. Inevitably, we sometimes reach certain stages, or go through phases, at different times and find different ways of coping with our anguish. Gerry was functioning much sooner than I was. I felt a tinge of resentment that he was managing to operate and I wasn’t; sometimes I found it almost offensive, as if somehow he wasn’t grieving enough. On other days I would feel I was a failure for not being capable of doing as much for Madeleine as he was. It was equally difficult for Gerry. He needed my help and support and I was so consumed by my own grief that I simply couldn’t give
anything
.

When I finally reached the next rung of the ‘coping ladder’, I could see that my husband’s ability to drag himself up from the hell into which we’d been catapulted was a godsend. Without it, the campaign to find Madeleine would never have got going in the way it did.

Gerry has tried, quite successfully, to compartmentalize his life, his thoughts and his focus. I have no doubt this ensures a more efficient and less stressful existence, but I can’t do it. Madeleine is there in my head all the time. Either I am consciously thinking about her or some reflex brings her into my mind, whatever I am talking about or doing. This doesn’t make me a more loving or caring parent. I think it’s just that fathers and mothers are different; that carrying and bringing a child into the world possibly creates a uniquely visceral connection. All the same, I know being this preoccupied and consumed isn’t helpful, either to her or to me.