Vanished by Danny Collins

Author:Danny Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781843582373
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2011-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

FORENSICS AND CUDDLE CAT

Since the declaration by Portuguese investigators of the McCanns’ probable involvement in their daughter’s disappearance, public mood towards the couple changed to that of untutored suspicion. British police advised both parents to show no emotion before press cameras because a show of grief might well satisfy an abductor’s warped psychological needs. Subsequently, while Kate McCann’s face displayed the suppressed grief of desolate loss, probably the best expression she could manage, Gerry McCann often appeared cold and without emotion. It was Gerry whose firm clipped voice spoke for them both; it was he who steered his wife through the now-silent crowds as the couple made their way to Padre Pacheco’s Church of Light to pray. And, always, clasped in Kate McCann’s hands or clipped to her bag was Cuddle Cat, the soft toy so loved by her missing daughter.

The couple had made an emotional plea to the supposed abductor or kidnapper just four days after Madeleine vanished but few now seemed to recall the original sympathy they felt for the grieving parents when they heard those words spoken by Kate McCann on 7 May 2007:

‘Madeleine is a beautiful, bright, sunny and caring little girl. She is so special. Please, please, do not hurt her. Please do not scare her, please let us know where to find Madeleine or put her in a place of safety and tell someone where. We beg you to let Madeleine come home. We need our Madeleine. Sean and Amelie need Madeleine and she needs us. Please give our little girl back. Por favor, devolva a nossa menina.’

As previously mentioned, Padre Pacheco, the priest of Praia da Luz’s tiny Church of Light, felt so much sympathy for the desolate McCanns that he gave them a set of keys to his church to allow them to enter and pray in private as the couple, both known as committed Catholics, sought to avoid the glare of publicity that tragedy so often brings. On 11 August, just a month before Gerry and Kate McCann were declared official suspects by the Portuguese investigators, the priest conducted a prayer service for Madeleine at his church near the sea at the end of the cobbled promenade of the Avenida dos Pescadores.

The public mood-swing concerning the McCanns was a direct result of leaks to the local press from the Judicial Police HQ in Portimão concerning the results of forensic tests carried out by British police conducting their own missing-person inquiry and at the request of the Portuguese. These ‘significant’ results led to the couple becoming official police suspects yet the revelations at that time spoke only of a ‘key piece of DNA’ found in an ‘area where it should not have been’. Based on the statements of British forensic officers to date, who constantly warned of the possible inaccuracy of results due to degraded test samples, this could only have been the spots of blood found in the apartment, which would have meant very little and hardly qualified for a

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