Madeleine (33 page)

To my astonishment, the interpreter became quite angry and suddenly interrupted, ‘What are you saying? That we interpreters can’t do our job? The interpreter will only have translated what you told her!’ I was staggered. Quite apart from the fact that in this instance she was wrong – this definitely wasn’t what I’d said – surely an interpreter is there to interpret, not to interfere in the process? My trust in her took a dive.

At 5pm, we had a fifteen-minute break, which I spent standing in the corridor outside the interrogation room. Carlos came over and told me not to be so definite in some of my answers. He was referring, apparently, to a couple of claims by witnesses put to me by the questioning officer: allegations that they had seen Gerry or me doing this or that. As these claims were untrue, I had said so. I couldn’t understand why, as long as I was certain a statement was wrong, I shouldn’t refute it. Although Carlos’s stance bothered me, I tried to take his guidance on board. But it did rather undermine my confidence.

When the interview resumed, the atmosphere still seemed quite amenable. I didn’t feel intimidated or threatened and I remained eager to give the police as many details as I could, especially as I was aware that a lot of what I had to tell them should have been sought in the immediate hours and days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The more information there was available to the police, I reasoned, the more complete the jigsaw would be and the greater the chance of us finding Madeleine.

We stopped again at 7.50pm, supposedly for five minutes. I was getting tired by now and hoping it would all be finished fairly soon. No such luck. Those five minutes stretched into two and a quarter hours. Carlos had disappeared into a meeting with several of the PJ officers and I was starting to feel upset and frustrated. It had been a long day and I just wanted to be back at the villa with my family. Trisha had been patiently waiting all this time too, sitting in the reception area in a fug of cigarette smoke.

Meanwhile, in Praia da Luz, Gerry was becoming increasingly worried. I heard later that he’d twice come back to Portimão in the hope of collecting Trisha and me. At midnight he was sent home. Our lawyer would bring us back, he was told.

At last Carlos reappeared. He was shaking his head and looked anxious. I had no idea what had been going on but it was rapidly becoming clear that things were not as straightforward as I’d hoped.

It was 12.40am by the time the interview – and the attendant rigmarole of having it translated into Portuguese and then read back to me in English by the interpreter – was over. I was told I would have to return at ten o’clock in the morning. Outside the room, Paulo Ferreira stopped me in the corridor and said in a portentous tone, ‘You must go back now and listen very carefully to your lawyer. He has something important to say to you.’

I left the station with Trish, Carlos and Sofia a little after 1am. The lateness of the hour had not deterred the hundreds of cameramen and spectators waiting to gawp at me as I emerged, exhausted, from the main door to the now familiar rapid clicking and whirring of the cameras, squinting into the dark against the incandescent flashbulbs. Was this real? Was this actually my life? Carlos gave a statement to the crowd. It was in Portuguese, so I cannot tell you what he said, except that my status remained that of witness.

As we pulled away in Carlos’s car, I remember catching the eye of a young British photographer we’d got to know over the previous few months. Like the rest, he’d been desperately trying to get a few ‘good’ pictures of me climbing into the car. ‘Just doing his job . . .’ He held my gaze for an uncomfortable few seconds before suddenly lowering his eyes to the ground. His body language signalled shame and embarrassment. He was a nice lad.

Back at the villa, Carlos informed me, as Ferreira had indicated, that he needed to speak to Gerry and me in private. We sat down in the sitting room with Carlos, and Sofia, Eileen and Trisha left us to it. Carlos still looked very concerned. There was a great deal we needed to discuss, he told us. He reiterated that the situation was not good. The PJ had a lot of ‘evidence’ against us, and I was certain to be made an
arguida
in the morning.

First he cited video footage the police had shot of the reactions of the blood and cadaver dogs in apartment 5A and also around our hire car. I would be shown this on my return to the police station, he said. Presumably repeating what he had been told by the PJ, he explained how samples from both these sites had revealed Madeleine’s blood and one of them indicated a 15 out of 19 match with her DNA.

I was totally perplexed. Although this news, if true, seemed to add weight to the possibility that Madeleine had at the very least been physically harmed, unusually I didn’t dwell too much on the frightening implications. I can only assume this was because what we were being told didn’t make sense. If, as the PJ alleged, Madeleine’s blood was in the boot of our car, which we had not rented until 27 May, how on earth had it got there? Did this mean someone had planted it? I could see no other explanation. The police theory, it seemed, was that we had hidden Madeleine’s body, then moved it later, in the car, and buried it elsewhere.

Next came the matter of a crumpled page the police said they had discovered in my borrowed Bible. It seemed this was felt to be highly significant because the passage on that page, in II Samuel 12, dealt with the death of a child. I knew nothing about any pages being crumpled, let alone in which part of the Bible. The fact that I had asked to see a priest on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance was also seen as evidence of guilt.
What?
I was beginning to find my credulity stretched to breaking point. ‘Don’t people in Portugal talk to priests in times of need?’ I asked Carlos. Apparently not. They only called for a priest when they wanted their sins to be forgiven. Good grief. This was definitely not the faith with which I was familiar.

A witness claimed to have seen Gerry and me carrying a big black bag and acting suspiciously. This was absolute nonsense, but ‘evidence’ of this kind came down to one person’s word against another. And it appeared that, as far as the PJ were concerned, our word counted for little.

‘If you were Portuguese,’ Carlos said with an air of resignation, ‘this would be enough to put you in prison.’

The only conclusion I could draw was that we’d been framed, though this seemed completely implausible. Faced with something like this, way beyond the sphere of your experience, it is natural to dismiss it as impossible, but that doesn’t mean it is. When I thought about all that had happened so far, maybe anything was possible. In any event, it seemed we’d underestimated the magnitude of the fight we had on our hands. Even our own lawyer appeared to think, based on what he’d been told, that the police had a good case against us. I could see by this time that Gerry was starting to crack.

Then came the best bit. Carlos announced what the police had proposed. If we, or rather I, admitted that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment, and confessed to having hidden and disposed of her body, the sentence I’d receive would be much more lenient: only two years, he said, as opposed to what I’d be looking at if I ended up being charged with homicide.

Pardon? I really wasn’t sure if I could possibly have heard him correctly. My incredulity turned to rage. How dare they suggest I lie? How dare they expect me to live with such a charge against my name? And even more importantly, did they really expect me to confess to a crime they had made up, to falsely claim to the whole world that my daughter was dead, when the result would be that
the
whole
world
stopped looking
for her
? This police tactic might have worked successfully in the past but it certainly wasn’t going to work with me. Over my dead body. ‘You need to think about it,’ Carlos insisted. ‘It would only be one of you. Gerry could go back to work.’

I was speechless.

The incentive to accept this ‘offer’ seemed to be that if we didn’t agree to it, the authorities could or would go after us for murder, and if we were found guilty, we might both receive life sentences. Was this what it came down to? Confess to this lesser charge or risk something much worse?

Gerry was distraught now. He was on his knees, sobbing, his head hung low. ‘We’re finished. Our life is over,’ he kept saying over and over again. The realization that we were at the mercy of an incomprehensible criminal justice system had hit him hard. It was excruciating to see him like this. I love him so much and he is usually so strong. I was very conscious that my response was different. Maybe I should have been on my knees, too. Why wasn’t I crying? Was my behaviour making me look cold or guilty? Again, my only explanation is that it was beyond comprehension. I might as well have been a character in a soap opera. Any time now the director would call ‘Cut!’ and this scene would be over. Even today, I struggle to believe it actually took place.

There was a phrase Carlos must have used about twenty times: ‘This is the point of no return.’ I could feel myself shaking. He was a man with three daughters of his own. ‘Do you want me to
lie
? What would you do, Carlos? If one of your daughters was missing, and this happened to you, what would you do? Would you confess to a crime you hadn’t committed, knowing full well it would mean everyone would stop searching for her?’

‘I’d consider it, yes.’

Heaven help us. My confidence in Carlos was evaporating almost as quickly as my faith in Portuguese justice. I couldn’t tell if he believed us, which, given that his job was to defend us, was a major worry, to put it mildly. Even if he did, I was no longer sure he had the backbone to stand up for us.

It was one thing to make us aware of the PJ’s proposal, and perhaps Carlos was duty bound to do that; it was quite another, however, to suggest we accept it. I was horrified, and told him so in no uncertain terms.

My anger and ferocious maternal instinct began to permeate Gerry’s despair. He was regaining his composure, his powers of reason and his fighting spirit.

‘They’ve got nothing!’ he fired at Carlos. He began pointing out the many flaws in the PJ’s ‘evidence’ and the complete absence of any logic. ‘This should be your job, not ours!’ he said. He asked Carlos whether he felt he was up to the job. Carlos thought so. Did he need assistance? Not at the moment, but he would if the case came to trial.

Trisha and Eileen, disturbed by the noise, appeared from their room. Keeping a lid on my anger for long enough to enable me to communicate clearly, I brought them up to speed. Within seconds there were three raging lionesses pacing the villa.

Recognizing the need to switch into crisis-management mode, we calmed each other down. Gerry and I made it very clear to Trisha and Eileen that if we didn’t return from the police station the next day, they should take the children out of the country as soon as possible.

It must have been close to 4am when Carlos and Sofia left, saying they would see me at the police station later that morning. On her way out, Sofia came over and gave me a hug. She told me she believed in us, that she was ‘with’ us, and tried to allay my concerns about Carlos. I should trust him, she said. He was ‘very good’. It was a relief to know that somebody in Portugal was on our side.

Gerry and I just looked at each other, not knowing quite what to do or what was to become of us. We’d experienced many periods of despair since our beloved daughter had been taken away, but this one would take some beating. Our lives, our family, our whole future hung in the balance. We couldn’t just go to bed. We had to do something. Despite the time, Gerry rang Bob Small and, in a voice laced with panic, explained what was going on. Bob was shocked. He wasn’t aware of any forensic results, he told us, and certainly none suggesting what had just been shared with us. He tried his best to reassure Gerry. ‘Just tell them the truth. It’ll be OK,’ he insisted. Perhaps he was trying to convince himself.

It was almost 5am when we finally got to bed. Extra prayers tonight.

Madeleine, sweetheart, please don’t forget how much we all love you. We will keep fighting, darling, and we will keep searching for you. Hang in there, Madeleine.

17

AR
GUID
OS

Friday 7 September. After a measly two hours’ sleep we got up and braced ourselves for the day ahead. I remained calm. For a good couple of hours we were on the phone, calling family and friends to make them aware of the situation and to give them the green light to voice their outrage and despair if they wanted to. Nobody needed a second invitation. They’d all been struggling to contain their concerns for a long time.

Justine arrived to help. While Gerry talked again to Bob Small, she was ringing selected newspaper editors in the UK. We knew only too well how we would be portrayed in Portugal that morning, and Justine wanted to give the British media a broad outline of what was really going on so that they wouldn’t resort to simply repeating whatever wild nonsense the Portuguese press decided to publish.

It was time to go. I vividly remember standing quietly for a few minutes in the sitting room. There were several thoughts scrolling through my mind. There’s going to be a riot when news of all this reaches people back in the UK . . . There’s no way our government will stand for this. (Four months down the line and still so naive!) The PJ can beat me up and throw me in a prison cell but I will not lie . . . I will do everything I can to help Madeleine and to preserve our family . . . I know the truth and God knows the truth. Nothing else matters. It’ll be OK.