Aware that we were only an hour and a quarter’s drive from southern Spain, and beyond that lay the borderless continent of Europe – not to mention the short hop across the Strait of Gibraltar to north Africa – David was saying, ‘We need roadblocks set up. The borders to Spain, Morocco and Algiers need to be alerted.’ Russell later asked us for our digital photos of Madeleine and went off somewhere with our camera.
Gerry, meanwhile, was running from pillar to post, urging me to remain in the apartment with the twins so that I’d be on hand if Madeleine was found and brought back there. He’d asked Fiona to stay with me. I was in our bedroom, on my knees beside the bed, just praying and praying and praying, begging God and Our Lady to protect Madeleine and help us find her. They had heard many a supplication from me in the past but none so intense, nor so important, as these.
At some point, Emma Knights, the Mark Warner customer-care manager, came in and sat on the bed near me. She was very nice and tried her best to comfort me, but my grief was so agonizing and so personal that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted her there or not. I didn’t really want anyone around me but people I knew well. Another British woman, in her late forties or early fifties, turned up on our veranda at one point and kept trying to put her arm round me. She was quite drunk and smelled of cigarettes and I remember willing her to go away.
Then a lady appeared on a balcony – I’m fairly certain this was about 11pm, before the police arrived – and, in a plummy voice, inquired, ‘Can someone tell me what all the noise is about?’ I explained as clearly as I was able, given the state I was in, that my little girl had been stolen from her bed, to which she casually responded, ‘Oh, I see,’ almost as if she’d just been told that a can of beans had fallen off a kitchen shelf. I remember feeling both shocked and angry at this woefully inadequate and apparently unconcerned reaction. I recollect that in our outrage, Fiona and I shouted back something rather short and to the point.
I wandered into the children’s bedroom several times to check on Sean and Amelie. They were both lying on their fronts in a kind of crouch, with their heads turned sideways and their knees tucked under their tummies. In spite of the noise and lights and general pandemonium, they hadn’t stirred. They’d always been sound sleepers, but this seemed unnatural. Scared for them, too, I placed the palms of my hands on their backs to check for chest movement, basically, for some sign of life. Had Madeleine been given some kind of sedative to keep her quiet? Had the twins, too? It was not until about 11.10pm that two policemen arrived from the nearest town, Lagos, about five miles away. To me they seemed bewildered and out of their depth, and I couldn’t shake the images of Tweedledum and Tweedledee out of my head. I realize how unfair this might sound, but with communication hampered by the language barrier and precious time passing, their presence did not fill me with confidence at all.
We did not appreciate until later that these two officers were from the Guarda Nacional Republicana, or GNR, who are essentially military police, like the Gendarmes in France or Guardia Civil in Spain, run by the Interior Ministry. They deal with matters like highway patrol and crowd control, and are also responsible for law enforcement in more rural areas like the Algarve, but they do not handle criminal investigations. At that stage, of course, we weren’t familiar with the various tiers of the Portuguese police system. As far as we were concerned, they were simply ‘the police’.
We tried to explain what had happened. David reiterated his concerns about roadblocks and border notification and I reported my fears that all three children could have been sedated. A lady called Sílvia, who worked at the Ocean Club, had arrived to help out with translation. We learned later
Gerry, meanwhile, was running from pillar to post, urging me to remain in the apartment with the twins so that I’d be on hand if Madeleine was found and brought back there. He’d asked Fiona to stay with me. I was in our bedroom, on my knees beside the bed, just praying and praying and praying, begging God and Our Lady to protect Madeleine and help us find her. They had heard many a supplication from me in the past but none so intense, nor so important, as these.
At some point, Emma Knights, the Mark Warner customer-care manager, came in and sat on the bed near me. She was very nice and tried her best to comfort me, but my grief was so agonizing and so personal that I wasn’t sure whether I wanted her there or not. I didn’t really want anyone around me but people I knew well. Another British woman, in her late forties or early fifties, turned up on our veranda at one point and kept trying to put her arm round me. She was quite drunk and smelled of cigarettes and I remember willing her to go away.
Then a lady appeared on a balcony – I’m fairly certain this was about 11pm, before the police arrived – and, in a plummy voice, inquired, ‘Can someone tell me what all the noise is about?’ I explained as clearly as I was able, given the state I was in, that my little girl had been stolen from her bed, to which she casually responded, ‘Oh, I see,’ almost as if she’d just been told that a can of beans had fallen off a kitchen shelf. I remember feeling both shocked and angry at this woefully inadequate and apparently unconcerned reaction. I recollect that in our outrage, Fiona and I shouted back something rather short and to the point.
I wandered into the children’s bedroom several times to check on Sean and Amelie. They were both lying on their fronts in a kind of crouch, with their heads turned sideways and their knees tucked under their tummies. In spite of the noise and lights and general pandemonium, they hadn’t stirred. They’d always been sound sleepers, but this seemed unnatural. Scared for them, too, I placed the palms of my hands on their backs to check for chest movement, basically, for some sign of life. Had Madeleine been given some kind of sedative to keep her quiet? Had the twins, too? It was not until about 11.10pm that two policemen arrived from the nearest town, Lagos, about five miles away. To me they seemed bewildered and out of their depth, and I couldn’t shake the images of Tweedledum and Tweedledee out of my head. I realize how unfair this might sound, but with communication hampered by the language barrier and precious time passing, their presence did not fill me with confidence at all.
We did not appreciate until later that these two officers were from the Guarda Nacional Republicana, or GNR, who are essentially military police, like the Gendarmes in France or Guardia Civil in Spain, run by the Interior Ministry. They deal with matters like highway patrol and crowd control, and are also responsible for law enforcement in more rural areas like the Algarve, but they do not handle criminal investigations. At that stage, of course, we weren’t familiar with the various tiers of the Portuguese police system. As far as we were concerned, they were simply ‘the police’.
We tried to explain what had happened. David reiterated his concerns about roadblocks and border notification and I reported my fears that all three children could have been sedated. A lady called Sílvia, who worked at the Ocean Club, had arrived to help out with translation. We learned later
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