Something's Missing/Dr Roberts

Something's Missing


EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
15 September 2011

SOMETHING'S MISSING

An all-too-common discovery when opening last year's jig-saw puzzle at Christmas is that there's a piece missing. Sometimes, trying to do the same thing with the same pieces simply leads to a different outcome. Take for example this description by Kate McCann of husband Gerry's behaviour, from her bestseller, Madeleine:

"Gerry was distraught now. He was on his knees, sobbing, his head hung low."

Sounds familiar.

Compare it with this statement of Kate's from the televised documentary 'Madeleine Was Here' of two years ago:

"I think it's actually going through the scenario of that night as well, you know, errm... I mean, you know, even what I can remember of the night, you know, seeing Gerry, that distraught really, sobbing, on the floor."

Earlier this year, I asked the question, 'Which night?' (see article - Uneasy Lies The Head, McCannfiles, 3 July), there being no known circumstance in which Kate could have observed Gerry on the floor that night. Kate has, it seems, since decided that the night in question was the one on which the McCanns' Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, proffered the 'deal' that wasn't.

That's handy. Now when people are formally called to account for the truth, rather than offer loose accounts of it, Carlos could be invited to confirm his recollection of a prostrate, sobbing Gerry McCann, reacting to his offer on behalf of the PJ.

Their nomination as 'core participants' in the Leveson inquiry suggests that someone considers the McCanns have something to say for themselves. Horses for courses then. When have the McCanns not had something to say? Oh, I remember. September 7, 2007. Whatever happened to, 'All I could do was to tell the police the truth - again - and hope that was what they were actually interested in.' (p.237)? That principle very soon went AWOL, didn't it?

There is something else missing from the story of the McCanns in Portugal; a certain emotional response. And by that I do not mean the disciplined withholding of tears on the advice of third-party experts (maybe 'cuddle cat' was preferred to a handkerchief for that very reason). What should have been in evidence, and was not, stems from an observation Kate herself makes on p.242 of her 'account:'

"Faced with something...way beyond the sphere of your experience, it is natural to dismiss it as impossible, but that doesn't mean it is."

Q: What, in particular, was beyond Kate (or even Gerry's) experience?

A: Sniffer dogs.

Speaking of (or rather denigrating) Ricardo Paiva, Kate comments, "What did he know about low-copy DNA?" (obviously not as much as she herself knew about Low Copy Number DNA - LCN for short). "These dogs had never been used in Portugal before." As if their noses had been detained on entry into the country.

Deliberately misleading waffle aside ("As we now know, the chemicals believed to create the 'odour of death', putrescence and cadaverine, last no longer than thirty days.") at the time when the McCanns were first confronted with the dogs' reactions within apartment 5A and to their personal effects exclusively, their understanding of the basis for the dogs' behaviour, the EVRD in particular was - zero, i.e., it was way beyond the sphere of their experience.

So, put yourself in the position of a parent who knows their child is asleep at 9.05 and, because someone else is convinced she saw it happen, carried off at 9.15. (When asked by reporter Sandra Felgueiras which of the many sightings of Madeleine 'touched' them most, Gerry, aiming for his ear no doubt, scratches the back of his neck, then answers: "The sightings on the night.").

As Kate's narrative goes: "Supposing she had been killed - and we think this extremely unlikely - she must have been taken out of the apartment within minutes." Kate "struggled to understand how, never mind why, somebody could have killed Madeleine and removed her body within such a short time frame." "Did they (the PJ) really believe that a dog could smell the 'odour of death' three months later from a body that had been removed so swiftly?"

Well yes, they did believe that, and with good reason. The self same dog had done it many times before, and over a longer interval. But Kate's emotions are the more important here. "...to me, as Madeleine's mother, it didn't have to make sense at this point. The merest suggestion from Ricardo that it was even possible she had been killed in that flat was like a knife being twisted into my chest."

First we should indeed 'mind why' somebody would have killed Madeleine and removed her body. The mantra from the word 'go' has been paedophilia not necrophilia. Unless the ultimate trade was in body parts, as opposed to child pornography, the abduction of a corpse will not have occurred. In any case, Madeleine was alive, wasn't she? So when, out of the blue, the Portuguese police presented the McCanns with indicators of a corpse having spent sufficient time inside apartment 5A as to leave a forensic trace, what was their reaction? Did Kate, as instinctive as the next person, exclaim exactly as you or I might have done in the circumstances, knowing that our sleeping child had disappeared within minutes? Did she, or Gerry, ever declare, "That's impossible!"?

Instructively, the McCanns reaction was not one of flabbergasted disbelief. On the contrary, and despite Kate McCann's account of her scepticism as regards the dogs' capabilities, we have the pair of them tacitly acknowledging the status quo. Gerry, whilst 'researching the validity of sniffer-dog evidence' announced that 'Seany' (Kate's term) had taken an unexpected fancy to sea-bass (potentially a source of cadaverine-like chemical odour). Were the McCanns accustomed to preparing their meals on (or, like Bedouin, eating them off) the floor? And how did the mobile corpse come to sprinkle its presence throughout the apartment; everywhere except for the very bedroom from which it was 'taken'? Then of course there is the issue of the hire car, and all manner of things transported in the spare wheel well! Kate, it was suggested, moonlighted in her beach wear as a mortician during her tenure as a locum G.P.

Despite Kate's 'holier-than-thou' posture in her discussion of the 'evidence' therefore, the simple fact is that, of the two mutually exclusive postulates - Madeleine dead vs. Madeleine abducted (alive), it is the former which is given more weight by the parents. Instead of dismissing the proposition as categorically impossible, they each, in their fashion, attempted to explain away the relevant indicators, whilst at the same time calling their own 'hypothesis' into question ("We strongly believe Madeleine was alive when she was taken."). Well, if you don't know...

'Madeleine' by Kate McCann. An account of the truth. From which something is missing.

Annabel

Thank you for Dr. Martin's latest offering.

Short and sweet - but even so raises the question again of how the McCanns reacted to the video of the dogs in their apartment and car.

They always seems to have the wrong reactions, as far as their emotions are concerned, they are second-hand. Derived from films and literature.

Just one point: I thought the first time the 'sea bass' for Seany surfaced was in Gerry's blog around the 8th June? Well before the dogs but imo possibly the corpse had already been moved in the Renault. I'd like to know from which date the neighbour saw the car being aired day and night? When did Michael Wright make the statement that the car was smelly?
I've also checked the rules of observances for the dead by the Roman Catholic church.
3rd day - prayers
9th day - prayers
40th day - memorial service with family and friends
three months - visit the grave to say goodbye

3rd/4th May - Kate and Gerry ask for a priest and the church
10th/11th May - vigil in church especially requested
9th June - meeting with family and friends in Sagres (apparently sober clothing was worn and quite a few of the family flew in for that weekend)
1st/2nd August, trip to Huelva with (according to the PJ) curious detour. There's evidence they left Huelva around lunch time.

I make that a timeline starting the 30th april/1st May.

At the time I travelled with Anne-Marie on 8 June, Kate and Gerry had rented a vehicle. It had seven seats, I judged [thought] it to be a Renault Espace. Gerry suggested that I be added to the insured driver's list so that I could drive it while they were in Morocco, but I judged [thought] that to be unnecessary as they would only be gone for a few days. When I was in Portugal on 12 July I was picked up by Kate who was driving the Renault Espace.

It was on our trip to Portugal on 22 August that Gerry suggested that I was added to the contract as an additional driver and I accepted. Gerry and I went to Lagos and I was included in the contract as additional driver.

I drove the car regularly in August and September, doing the shopping at the supermarket, taking the house and garden rubbish to the recycling area in PdL and also taking the twins to creche and to the beach, and trips to the airport. I was also a passenger in the car at various times, mainly in June and July when Gerry and Sandy drove.

There are various rubbish recycling/dump areas and we used these:
- two trash bins [skips?] at the villa, one at the main entrance and the other at the top of the hill;
- one area on the cemetery road;
- one area above the Mark Warner complex, and
- one area between the villa and the church.

The visiting gardener always generated garden rubbish and this was usually leaves and grass. Gerry and I would usually take this rubbish to the bin at the top of the property.

I never observed anything strange in the vehicle at any time that I was in it.

I noted some disagreeable smells on a number of occasions which I judged to have come from the twins' nappies. Discarded nappies were collected in rubbish bags and held until thrown into the [rubbish] bins, [thereby] provoking smell.
I have no knowledge of anything spilling from any article nor of any cleaning of the car after such a hypothetical spill.

Not a specific date was mentioned but I tend to believe that it must have been august/september when he was regularly driving the car,

Bebootje wrote:At the time I travelled with Anne-Marie on 8 June, Kate and Gerry had rented a vehicle. It had seven seats, I judged [thought] it to be a Renault Espace. Gerry suggested that I be added to the insured driver's list so that I could drive it while they were in Morocco, but I judged [thought] that to be unnecessary as they would only be gone for a few days. When I was in Portugal on 12 July I was picked up by Kate who was driving the Renault Espace.

It was on our trip to Portugal on 22 August that Gerry suggested that I was added to the contract as an additional driver and I accepted. Gerry and I went to Lagos and I was included in the contract as additional driver.

I drove the car regularly in August and September, doing the shopping at the supermarket, taking the house and garden rubbish to the recycling area in PdL and also taking the twins to creche and to the beach, and trips to the airport. I was also a passenger in the car at various times, mainly in June and July when Gerry and Sandy drove.

There are various rubbish recycling/dump areas and we used these:
- two trash bins [skips?] at the villa, one at the main entrance and the other at the top of the hill;
- one area on the cemetery road;
- one area above the Mark Warner complex, and
- one area between the villa and the church.

The visiting gardener always generated garden rubbish and this was usually leaves and grass. Gerry and I would usually take this rubbish to the bin at the top of the property.

I never observed anything strange in the vehicle at any time that I was in it.

I noted some disagreeable smells on a number of occasions which I judged to have come from the twins' nappies. Discarded nappies were collected in rubbish bags and held until thrown into the [rubbish] bins, [thereby] provoking smell.
I have no knowledge of anything spilling from any article nor of any cleaning of the car after such a hypothetical spill.

Not a specific date was mentioned but I tend to believe that it must have been august/september when he was regularly driving the car,

Why would you take some rubbish to the bin 'at the top of the property' and yet find the need to store dirty nappies in the boot of the car long enough to contaminate it and hen drive this rubbish to somewhere further afield?? It does not make sense and I cannot see 2 peopple with medical backgrounds practising such filthy ways especially as they had the health of the twins to consider.

There were plenty of bins including ones for recycling glass etc in Pdl when I was there a few months before MAdeleine went missing. Maybe that's what is meant by a 'recycling area', a place with a number of bins for different rubbish? But I dont think there was a specific bin for dirty nappies!!!!! These would go in the nearest bin to your villa/apartment.

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