Translated by Astro


A Estrela de Madeleine
«Madeleine's Star»


by Paulo Pereira Cristovão, Former PJ inspector, president of the Portuguese Missing Children Association [APCD]




Foreword from the Author


* this is not a summary, but a complete translation *


"The Challenge"

So much has been written and said about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which happened on the 3rd of May 2007 at the Ocean Club Resort, in Aldeia da Luz near Portimão. Probably even too much. What is certain is that this is maybe one of the most media-exposed missing persons cases of our days, and therefore has raised in everyone a great anxiety and the desire to know the truth. The popular imagination has produced a thousand and one solutions for the case, but the natural lack of knowledge of the people about all the facts of the investigation, along with their common precipitation, induces them into obvious error. And the truth is that it is not yet known what happened to Madeleine.

Every writer should be aware of the people that he belongs for and for whom he writes for, of its sensibilities and its capacities. In this particular case, I must state, as an author, my trust in the famous 'popular wisdom' of this people, who has already passed through nine centuries of history, with its successive economical, identity or community crises, and which never quit being the "Portuguese people" in Europe: integrated but self-determined, orderly but not sheepish.

This book intends to launch a challenge to those who read it: to be able to distinguish what is fact from what is fiction. It is necessary and important to state, both legally and ethically, that there is no intention here of accusing or pointing at guilty people, but only to report a fact, or a set of facts, that are of public interest, as well as the contradictions that led to the formation of certain popular theories.

Due to legal issues, it cannot be me, the author, to tell you what the truth, the truth of the case, is; but I can assure you that you can find it here, among the lines of this book.

I do not intend to dwell over matters that are already widely known by the public. Everyone knows who Gerry and Kate McCann, Russell and Jane Tanner are; Matthew, Rachel and Diane Webster, Clarence Mitchell and Gordon Brown. Everyone knows where the Ocean Club is located, its layout, the location of the Tapas Bar, the church, the beach of Luz, the village with the same name, the Priest and the twins. In spite of this, there are not many who know what prompted the disappearance of this little girl, who was responsible for it, how and why.

We will skip a pure, hard chronology of the events, as it has been made public and analysed so often already. The steps forward and back in the formation of suspects; the hundreds of false leads... We consciently forget about the concept of 'personalization' of the acts that were carried out by the policemen. So much has been written about what has been happening in Faro, in Praia da Luz, in Portimão and in London.

This book represents the opportunity to say the things that have not been written yet, and, essentially, what nobody has thought yet, or did not have the courage to reveal. Hence the challenge that is proposed to you, that of finding what is real in between the absurd of true facts and of fiction.

The truth tends, sometimes, to loose its characteristical clarity and simplicity only to become, herself, a factor that is as doubtful and obscure as the society that it refers to. It is a paradox that, in so many investigations, the intense search for the desired truth, in order to succeed, has to walk paths that are distanced from the core point. It is necessary to go far, to reach for what is near.

The reader can imagine a library, where, after a hurricane has left all the books spread out on the floor, a person who cannot see is asked to place all the volumes back on the shelves. The person can fulfill the task using only the hands, but only an incredible luck would assure that the books are placed on the correct shelves.

This is how this mystery started out. Everything was out of place. Fiction and reality are so intertwined, that the most rational and objective being would feel completely lost.

Buying a book does not give us the power to "know" the truth, as if it was a chip that is implanted in us, right after we pass the checkout and pay for a heap of leaves and a binder. Buying a book means that we have the key to open the door into something that will make us think. After that, then, will come Knowledge.

Here and now. Please do think.

To the men and women at the Criminal Investigation Department in Portimão, at the Faro Directory and at the Central Directory for the Combat against Banditism of the Policia Judiciária. To those who carry on their shoulders the difficult mission of answering the questions of WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WHO, WHAT and WHY.

Paulo Pereira Cristóvão

Chapter 1 - The phonecall of a lifetime

Francisco Meireles, a PJ inspector who is working at the Criminal Investigation Department in Portimao, receives a call after half past 11 p.m. He is summoned to the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz, where an English girl has gone missing.

When Meireles arrives at the OC, he sees two GNR vehicles on location, as well as the car that belongs to his chief, João Tavares. Several dozens of people were gathered near apartment 5A, which was completely lit, just like the ones above it. People are at the windows, and walking in and out of the apartment.

Meireles' chief, Joao Tavares, calls out to him. They enter the apartment, while Tavares explains the situation to Meireles. The main door to the easily accessible ground floor apartment had been left unlocked, with three children inside, while their parents had been dining at the Tapas Bar. Meireles notices that the apartment has not been isolated to preserve the traces of a possible presence of one or more abductors.

The furniture is impeccably aligned against the walls, as if someone had tried to make as much room as possible, in the center of the living room. In the bedroom, the bed where the child was sleeping is on the opposite side of the window. Under the window, there is another bed that had not been in use. Whomever entered through the window, would have left foot marks on the bed, which in that position resembled a trap. But that had not happened.

Joao Tavares phones Goncalo Amaral, the coordinator of the CID in Portimao. His presence on the scene indicates that the situation is serious, as this is not common procedure.

Meireles goes to speak with Mrs McCann. Her eyes do not meet his all the time, and she seems to be somewhat distanced from the situation, but the inspector does not make judgements, as his experience tells him that people have very different reactions under stressful situations. He remains intrigued by Kate.

Tavares and Meireles collect informal statements from the other members of the group - the Paynes, O'Brien and Tanner, the Oldfields and Mrs Webster.

They all initially transmit the notion that during the meal, they got up from the table at several occasions, to check upon the children. Meireles notices some discrepancies: while some members of the group say they checked on their own children and on the other children as well, others said each checked on their own.

Gerry, the child's father, looked more disoriented than the mother. Gerry seemed to be electrical, organising search parties to look for the child that might have walked out of the apartment on her own.

Throughout the entire scene, the twins slept undisturbed. They were eventually carried away into another apartment, and never woke up.

Tavares reappears, now in the company of Amaral and Guilhermino Encarnacao, the head of the Directory in Faro.

Francisco Meireles discovers that the child's parents have already phoned to England, asking for the intervention of friends, both within the government and the media. Guilhermino had been informed of the situation by the National Director, who had been called by the British ambassador in Portugal.

Meireles cannot help but wonder about the priorities, given the fact that those who are closer to the scene can help more rapidly than those who are far away, in the United Kingdom.

Chapter 2 - Abduction?


As the hours pass, the groups of volunteers continue to search the area. The resort is unprotected from strangers; apart from the central leisure area, which is gated, the buildings have no porter or security that guard it from strangers. As time goes on, the possibility of an abduction grows stronger over the possibility that the child could have wandered away on her own and suffered an accident.

In the early morning, the PJ inspectors call in reinforcements from GNR, with sniffer dogs.

Meireles is now convinced that this is an abduction, and that only a request for a ransom would yield more information. If the abductor didn't make contact soon, the outcome of the case looked grim.

In the CID in Portimao, data is being collected and processed. Meanwhile, Luis Neves, the director of the Central Combat of Banditism Directory in Lisbon, joins the core group of investigators.

On the same day, the policemen were confronted with the will of the parents to publicise their daughter's face as much as possible, which is usual in their own country. They were completely convinced that Madeleine had been abducted, and would not move an inch away from that theory.

Meireles thinks their theory makes as much sense as any other. What does not make sense is that they left their children in an apartment out of sight, out of their control, to go out and dine with friends.

In the meantime, the inspector had been at the Tapas Bar; he had been sitting at the table where the group had also been, and he had talked to the waiters. They had told him that the group usually drank significant amounts of alcohol. On the night that Madeleine disappeared, they had consumed twelve bottles of wine, and some appetizers.

The investigators have gathered informal statements, and they start to compare them. They soon realise that something is wrong. The couple's friends stated that they got up several times to check on the children, while the waiters from the Tapas bar say they did not get up that often at all. But even within the group of friends, there are contradictions.

As time passes, Francisco almost definitely abandons the theory that the child could have left the apartment on her own. Two possibilities remain - a kidnapping for ransom, or an abduction for paedophilia. The third possibility was that someone inside the group could have been involved in the disappearance. Francisco did not want to bet on that theory yet.

The media wave that has invaded Praia da Luz in the meantime, looks like a bad prediction for the destiny of the child, Meireles thinks. The excessive publicity could lead to her death, as the abductor could be prompted into acting, by eliminating the only person that could lead to his identification, if he were to be caught. The coordinator of the CID tries to convince the parents not to launch a massive media campaign, but the parents remain unmoved. Two different approaches to a criminal investigation have their first clash.

Two English people, one of them Jane Tanner, say that they saw a man carrying a child that could be the missing infant. The description given by Jane is very vague and carries a factor of doubt, as Gerry and a friend whom he was talking to, standing on the same location as Jane when she passed, saw nobody. The friend confirmed this.

At the time that Jane says she saw the man, Gerry had just left the apartment. Francisco cannot conceive that an abductor would have been waiting for this 'visitor' in order to enter through the door or the window, right under the father's nose, to carry out the child and to walk around with her in his arms, down the streets.

Francisco can only conclude that this was not how it happened. A criminal would not risk taking the child under such circumstances, so many variables out of his control. He would need five or six accomplices to control the situation, which is simply too much trouble to abduct a small girl.

Chapter 3 - The most simple hypotheses

Francisco Meireles reflects upon the material that he has compiled about the case, so far. He knows that the most simple explanations have to be exhausted, before the more complicated theories can be considered. He looks at the possibility that the explanation for the disappearance of the child lies within that group of people.

The contradictions in their statements about the events of that late afternoon and evening, could be due to the stress of the situation, but they could also indicate something else.

Francisco tries to keep it simple.

What if... the child was involved in a domestic accident? Something went wrong... here in this third world country... nobody would believe it was just an accident... we would spend years and years in jail... what about our reputation? The children? Our families? It is done now, let's live with it and adapt to the situation.

For Francisco, everything fits, but all other possibilities have to be discarded first. This should be the last one, as it is the most difficult and the most hideous one: the participation of the parents in the disappearance of their daughter. As a father, he finds it hard to believe, but statistics support the possibility.

While it seems the most simple hypothesis to him, Francisco knows it will be the one that may become the most difficult to investigate and to prove.

Francisco returns to the location, at 3.30 a.m., when the reporters are not around.

He stands on the street where Jane Tanner was walking that night. He tries to imagine Gerry talking to his friend, near the little gate. Where would an abductor park his car? It is possible to park close to the window of the bedroom. But the area is completely visible from the balconies of other apartments. 'I don't think so'.

Paedophiles have a huge 'market' in the eastern European countries, where they can buy children without major hassles. The sexual predator does not like to take chances. He carefully studies the situation, and here, there was not enough time for that. Less than a week, with people who were enjoying themselves, free of schedules and routines. And how would someone know when there would be checks on the children? How lucky that person would have to be, not to be caught by the comings and goings, and to enter and leave that apartment unseen? So many factors out of control, just do not seem to fit the profile of a cold, calculating paedophile, no matter how excited he was about his prey.

Even if it was a paedophile who had acted without a plan, this would be precisely the type of situation that would have left traces, yet absolutely nothing had been found.

It makes no sense at all. The twins would have been taken if this was a case of illegal adoption. The parents' past offers no clues to a crime of vengeance.

Francisco tries to think about all the aspects. He cannot understand the relationship between Malinka and Murat, and the phonecall between them that night. What if something happened, late that afternoon, that only the family knows about? The twins sleeping like champions, yet nobody takes them. A guy took advantage of the intervals between the checks, and risked taking the child away, who could have woken and started crying for her parents? It makes no sense.

Chapter 4 - A madman in Lisbon

More than a month has gone by since Madeleine disappeared. The media pressure on the investigators is stronger than ever. The British government stands firmly beside the McCanns, like it has since the first moment, just like the British media. Lots of information was coming in from all sides, but one received special attention from the investigators at one point.

Chief João Tavares rings up Francisco Meireles, telling him that a Dutch newspaper has received a map that supposedly shows the location of the child's body, and the lead is being taken seriously.

Francisco meets his chief, and two Dutch journalists, who have been in Portugal for three days, trying to find out the location of the place that is marked on the map. They even hired sniffer dogs. Francisco and João Tavares feel like arresting them on the spot, for endangering the investigation.

But the lead has to be verified. The journalists take an envelope out of their bag, and they produce a document that they say had been received together with the map. It's a spermogram, a document that is issued when someone has his sperm analysed in a lab.

João Tavares notices that there is no identification of the subject on the document, but he also notices a sequence of numbers on the lower right hand corner. He contacts a doctor who informs him that the sequence identifies the lab, the number of the test and the individual that was subject to the analysis.

Therefore, while other colleagues go to Odiaxere, followed by a trail of journalists, João Tavares and Francisco Meireles go to Lisbon, where they identify the individual, who turns out to be a public servant, divorced and with evident problems of self-assurance and self-regulation. The man confesses that all he wanted to do was to help keep the case in the media spotlight, and that he will seek psychiatric help.

João Tavares calls into the Algarve and informs his chiefs of the results from Lisbon, which prompts the diligences in Odiaxere to be stopped. The journalists who are on location don't understand why the searches lasted only two hours; the area is so vast that they expected to have news and live reports going for days. They are wrong, basing themselves on the judgement of those who have no competence in the investigation, and do not comprehend its development.

Chapter 5 - The inversion of things

On the 13th of July, Madeleine's father attended a ceremony where prizes were delivered to the most brave police officers of his country. During that ceremony, Gerry sent two types of sentence into two directions which, while diverging, were targeted at the same profession. He praised the "precious effort" of the English policemen who were participating in the investigation into the disappearance of his daughter, and thanked the "commitment and cooperation" of the Portuguese policemen.

Presuming that the investigation was a responsibility of the Portuguese police and the Public Ministery, which directed the process, and that the English policemen were in Portugal because they had been authorized by their Portuguese colleagues, then it is only fair to suggest that the "precious effort" should have been applied to the Portuguese. And "commitment" and "cooperation" are words that should have been used to refer to their British counterparts.

Gerry McCann's words illustrate what so many Portuguese, especially those who live and work in the South of the country, feel: that the Algarve has become a Little England, where the offices of GNR might as well replace the picture of the President that hangs on the wall of the Chief's office, with one of Queen Elizabeth II.

But the fact is that it is those "cooperating" and "committed" investigators from the PJ that are trying to solve this case. They do not obey the British Crown. It was not only the words, but rather other actions from the McCanns, who since the beginning were surrounded by media advisors, spokespeople, an ambassador and a prime minister who were available 24 hours per day and a favourable press, that offended the Portuguese.

The notion susbsisted that the McCanns felt like the Portuguse who go to the Dominican Republic for their holidays: everything is fine, unless there is a problem.

Chapter 6 - "Death" said Krugel, Eddie and Keela

The month of July marks a turnaround in the case.

A former South-African policeman, Daniel Krugel, offers to help the investigation at no cost. He is an investigator at a SA university, and claims to have invented an equipment that is able to detect the presence of DNA from a specific person. The PJ welcomes his help, as the investigation is facing an imminent standstill.

Krugel stays in Praia da Luz for almost a week and writes a report that demolishes the abduction theory. Madeleine had been killed. Her body had been, or still is, at Praia da Luz. He informs the police and the McCanns about the results, and returns to his country, refusing to discuss his findings.

This is how it is decided to send for two dogs from England. Eddie is trained to detect traces of the presence of a cadaver at any location, while Keela is trained to detect minuscule traces of blood. They have solved over two hundred homicide cases together, and their credibility has never been questioned.

On the last day of July, the intuition of the investigators and the results from Krugel find two powerful allies that confirmed the scenario that had begun to form: the death of Madeleine McCann, on the evening of May 3.

Eddie's handler opens the door to apartment 5A, and lets the dog in, to walk freely as usual. The dog sniffs around, followed by his handler, the policemen, experts from the scientific police, and a video technician, who registers the procedure on tape. At a given moment, in the living room, Eddie signals the presence of a cadaver to his handler. According to the laws of forensics, it's a cadaver that has been in that condition for at least two hours.

Francisco feels like he has been betrayed. It simply does not seem possible for a stranger to have killed the child inside the apartment, remaining on location for one-and-a-half to two hours, at least.

But while his mind is swirling with thoughts, his heart is filled with sadness, as it becomes evident that Madeleine will never be recovered alive.

On the next day, it is Keela who is put into action. After several minutes sniffing around the house, she detains herself next to a sofa in the living room. The investigators move the sofa aside, and Keela shows them two tiny spots of dry blood: one on the floor, the other one on the wall. The material is collected, and a decision is made, against the opinion of Francisco, and João Tavares. The samples are sent into a lab in Birmingham.

On the next day, early in the morning, Eddie is called back to service, to investigate the surroundings of the apartment. The dog stops here and there, marking a path that is referenced by apartment 5A and the beach of Luz. Without knowing, Eddie has just confirmed Krugel's findings.

The only problem with these 'witnesses', is that they cannot testify in court, and none of the work that any of the three - Krugel, Eddie and Keela - had done, could be used in a trial in Portugal.

If those methods are valid in other developed countries, why can't they be admissible in Portugal? Francisco questions.

The same dogs whose effectiveness and training had been decisive in the past to confirm the condemnation of dozens of criminals abroad, would soon be questioned because they had allegedly been "prompted" to make up results that contradicted the theory of an abduction by a stranger.

Chapter 7 - Keela and Eddie versus McCann

* full translation of this chapter *

Francisco is in his office, still trying to set some ideas into order when, in mid-August, he does a rewind of the last two weeks of the investigation: These two canines, without knowing it, were at the core of a volcano, when in three separate moments, they "accused" Madeleine's parents of, at least, not saying the whole truth about what happened to their daughter.

First, when they were given plenty of time and space to sniff through Robert Murat's house and all of his belongings, and did not discover anything that could minimally incriminate him.

Second, when they detected the odour of death on the key of the car that they used, which was rented more than twenty days after the little girl went missing. In the same car where they found traces of blood and hair under the spare tire.

Third, when, already in the new house where the couple was staying, Eddie once again smelled the characteristic odour of death on a pair of jeans and on a blouse that belong to Kate. The soft toy that the mother carried with her every time they went out, also presented a smell of death that was detected by the same dog. What the heck do we have here, then? - he thought, intrigued. - Did the parents stage this entire circus to hide the truth?

Were they, or only one of them, responsible for the death of the child, whose cadaver they readily concealed? If the dogs are never wrong, I think that the result stands at 3-0 for the dogs. Now, all we need is to transform the team of dogs into PJ Inspectors - he joked to himself.

The truth was that the dogs had supplied precious elemnts to work upon, but which were not enough to build a formal accusation against anyone, on their own. It was important information on which a theory should be built, something that was not looking easy at all for the investigators.

The McCanns had set a propaganda machine into motion, unlike any other that had ever been seen worldwide. In spite of the fact that they had assembled the best and most expensive experts within every area of communication, it looked like not even the couple expected such a result: this case had reached planetary dimensions, and hundreds of credulous people stated daily that they had seen Madeleine, now in Malta, then in Morocco, in Spain, Italy, Belgium and all over the world.

A popular saying tells us that "the higher the rise, the bigger the fall", and the disaster was proportional to the size that the phenomenon had acquired in the meantime. That was seen when, on the 6th of September, the investigators decided to confront the couple with what they had discovered in the meantime. Those who applauded, started jeering. Those who supported, turned their backs. Mass psychology explains what is behind these abrupt changes in opinion: in reality, this happens not because those opinions are properly structured or based on secure foundations, but rather on feelings that invade those who felt the disappearance of Madeleine as if it was a close relative. Therefore, it is only natural that the sense of popular opinion changes according to the dominating feeling of the moment; and when it is like this, one cannot demand rationalism where it never existed in the first place.

Chapter 8 - Accused

Shortly after 2 p.m., Kate sits down on a chair in a room that has been specially prepared at the PJ's department in Portimao. João Tavares sits down in front of her. The strategy is to work in a crescendo: starting out calmly, working towards an emotional peak, hoping for the witness to explode and confess. For the umpteenth time, the events of that late afternoon are remembered, more precisely the time lapse between 6.30 and 8.30 p.m.

Madeleine's mother insists on the same usual reply.

- We arrived, I played with the children in the apartment's living room, I prepared them to go to bed and by 7.30 they were actually asleep. We dressed up and went to dinner with our friends...

- Actually - João Tavares says, in a calm and pondered tone -, we think that some domestic accident happened in that house, which was covered up for fear of the consequences of wrong interpretations by the police or by the people, about your life. You ended up staging this entire abduction situation. You wanted to maintain your reputation of perfect medical couple at all costs, didn't you?

- Then prove it - Kate throws in a dry manner.

- We detected blood traces in the living room, madam.

- That could have been from the day that my daughter bled from her nose.

- We found blood in your rented car...

- That could have come from a piece of the girl's clothing, that could have been dirty with her blood, and then transported in the car.

- It certainly could. Let's have a look at this video, then...

On the tv monitor, Eddie can be seen sniffing over Kate's clothing and marking that it had been in contact with a cadaver. The reactions of the dogs in the vehicle that had been used by Madeleine's parents can also be seen.

- At the medical center where I work, in England, before we came on holidays, people died whom I had been in contact with... you must be forgetting that I am a doctor...

- Yes you are - João Tavared replies - and the death rate at the medical center where you work twice a week is extremely high...

- It's true - the arguida replies.

- Did you ever give your children any medicine to make them sleep?

- No, never - she replies with indignation.

This was a rhetorical question, as it was known that Kate's father had stated that it was usual for them to give the children Calpol to sleep.

For hours, the questions followed one another, and Kate reached emotional peaks several times. A confession is proposed to her, with the explanation that the penal context is more favourable in such cases. This is done to ensure that an exit is offered to a person who is feeling trapped.

The entire situation is explained, so the potential criminal does not feel that there are still secrets in store that could compromise him or her.

Madeleine's mother is confronted with everything that there is, for eight hours. All the inconsistencies in the witness statements, the timings of the alleged checks on the apartments, the drinks that were consumed at dinner. She did not give in. She was even indignant about certain questions. She never broke or recognized any guilt, except for the one that she felt about leaving her children alone in the apartment while she went to dinner.

At this point João Tavares thinks she is either a great actress, or she is completely innocent.

Kate leaves the PJ department in Portimao as an arguida. Pinto de Abreu, who is well aware of the crucial role of the media, makes a statement about his cleints' status in the process: Kate and Gerry had been made arguidos, and the latter shows himself a lot less available to reply to any questions.

The investigators are well aware of what they say and of the choices that they were making, but destiny did not leave them any other options.

Until here, all the questions that had been asked from the McCanns could find an appropriate reply and a plausible explanation, which gave the couple complete innocence. Everything was circumstantial, and there was nothing definitive against them.

A few hours later, the Policia Judiciaria is informed that the McCanns will return to their home in England, to be reunited with the rest of their family. They know that by doing so, public opinion can only conclude, in their ingenuity, that they were escaping a possible detention, out of fear.

Chapter 9 – The science and the cunning

Francisco is working in the room that is dedicated to the Madeleine McCann case.

His chief, João Tavares, enters the room and asks whether there have been any results about the forensics tests from Britain. There has not been a word, and they both realize that the case will drag on for months. Tavares adds that it is better to wait for months for the results from England, because if the tests had been done in Portugal, there would be accusations of ruining the material, or even worse, of manipulation of the test results.

At the moment, all they have is a partially positive DNA match – meaning it could belong either to Madeleine or to her siblings, or to her mother…

They decide to drive into Luz one more time. On the way, they discuss the dismissal of Gonçalo Amaral from the case.

João Tavares notes that the police is starting to rely too much on lab test results, CSI-style, and that they risk forgetting what made the PJ one of the most respected police forces in the world: their cunning ways, the manner in which they manage to improvise, and trust their intuition. He says they have to take the best from both worlds – to use the advances of science that can help them, but that they should never be transformed into pure scientists. And that they should never give up their way of life, eating and drinking well, just because the ‘Brits’ think it is not appropriate.

Francisco noticed that his chief was upset about what had happened to Gonçalo Amaral, who had been targeted by the British media, with the sole purpose of getting him removed from the case.

It seemed like the Portuguese way of investigating had become old-fashioned, and that now they were supposed to adopt the British style. Francisco felt uncomfortable with the pressures that they had suffered lately, to apadt to the ways of the British. It was not that they were better or worse, it was that they were different. But as a young policeman, Francisco knew that it was better for him to open his ears and close his mouth, unlike his superior.

The last few months had been complicated. The case had slowed down, and the colleagues from Lisbon who had been called in as reinforcements had returned home. All the available leads had been explored with no results, and the British media mocked the Portuguese police, with insults and humiliation, but the Police itself never defended their men by adopting a strong stance.

The Public Ministry refused to take any chances, contrary to the style of the Police, who knew that calculated risk and boldness had to be used in the appropriate measures. The best moments of Portuguese history had been due to those who were not afraid of taking their chances.

Francisco had learned from his older colleagues that science and cunning can coexist within criminal investigation. He knew that not always the best decisions had been made. One of the most serious mistakes, to him, was that apartment 5A had not been immediately isolated.

Meanwhile, the child’s parents had returned home. Francisco saw two possible explanations for the fact: they either saw that their position within the process could become more serious soon, or they thought that they could defend themselves better from their home country.

Although Francisco tried not to read what the papers wrote about the case, the truth was that he had noticed the support movement that the Portuguese people had formed around that couple. Those people, he thought, must have felt somewhat betrayed by the McCanns leaving the country so suddenly.

Talking with his friends, Francisco had seen confirmation of his own thoughts: that the excess of advisors, the staged exits of the couple from their house, the walks on the beach, the soft toy in the mother’s hands, all that had maybe been done with the best of intentions. But it conveyed the notion that it was actually a marketing operation that had been promoted to whitewash any guilt of the parents in their daughter’s disappearance.

Francisco had yet to form a definite idea about what had really happened on the evening of May 3, in Praia da Luz. Time was not helping to clarify what had happened to the little girl.

Absorbed into his thoughts, Francisco had not noticed that his chief rambled on.

- … can you see that, Francisco? We will reach the end of this story and we will be seen as incompetents. And maybe there are guys who are right when they say we spent too much time going over the abduction theory, but what were we supposed to do? Was there a reason to suspect a group of doctors on holidays in the Algarve? With their children and everything? This sh*t is in a state where it is impossible that they are all telling the truth” Someone is lying! This is from the books, boy… If about a certain reality, there are different versions, then at least one of them is failing the truth… We have yet to find out which one, and whether it is being done on purpose, or simply because someone is mistaken.

Francisco knows that his chief is talking about the inconsistencies in the witness statements. They do not match – the actions, the timings, the times do not fit. Everything is wrong! It may not be realistic to ask someone to remember the exact times at which one has performed one’s actions, but one should surely be able to remember how often a certain action has been performed, especially when it is asked the very next day.

Can science clarify everything?

Francisco takes his chances and risks sharing with his chief that he thinks the police has spent too much time on a theory that had been imposed on them from the outside in, instead of relying on their own work. The abduction theory had been instituted from the beginning, and only when it had been explored a million times, until not the tiniest possibility remained, had the police allowed themselves to look at other hypotheses. The case should have been worked their way, no matter how many tv cameras and journalists surrounded them.

João Tavares has to agree. The investigation had only advanced when they had finally followed their own way of working. While they were searching for paedophile abductors, they had not advanced a single step. They had wasted precious time, looking for ghosts that lasted only two days, like the case of the sailor. The newspapers were running wild, covering the story of a mysterious sailor who had left the marina with the child in his boat, and the police had already searched the man’s boat over a week earlier, in Vila Real de Santo Antonio. There had also been those poor people who had stopped at a gas station with their niece. The media were all over the issue, while the actual persons had been interviewed several days earlier.

Abstaining from judging the parents of the missing child, Tavares can’t help but to state that, on the day that the police had stopped following the theory that had been imposed on them, all the clues pointed at the same group of persons. Advisors or no advisors. More Gordon Brown or less, the truth was that they had been directed.

Francisco proposes that they set science aside for a moment, then, and look once more at the scene, while he drives the car along the road that connects the house of Robert Murat to the Apartment 5A.