And the inspector Gonçalo Amaral didn't arrive at all !
Sorry Anne and DCI. I got that wrong. I should have said the PJ arrived at around midnight. Amaral stayed in bed.
Sorry, Angelo, but you got the bed wrong as well. GA didn't sleep a wink ! A little lost girl, nobody in Portugal, knowing that, goes to bed.
That rather depends on how you read his book, but why would he tell us that his wife pulled the daughter to herself to leave his place in the bed free if he was not going to use it?
Contei-lhe e instinitivamente colocou a mao no peito pequeno e quente de Ines, sem no entanto a puxar para junto de si de forma a deixar o meu lugar livre...
Your claim that nobody knowing that goes to bed is quite silly really. Most Portuguese people, even in PDL did go to bed. Why people make such wild exaggerated statements as that about nobody going to bed is quite beyond me.
Tut! Tut!
ANNOUNCEMENT OF A DISAPPEARANCE: THE FIRST SEVENTY-TWO HOURS
On this evening, May 3rd 2007, I decide to dine at the Carvi Brasserie, in the centre of Portimão, before going home. I have been living for a year in this town, where I lead the Department of Criminal Investigation of the police judiciaire. In 1982, when I was 23 and I had just taken up this career, I had already gone there. There, I had made the acquaintance of someone who was to become my friend, Manuel João. Former local official and sporty, a charismatic person. He always lent a hand to members of the police judiciaire who went to the town for the purposes of an investigation. As an elected local official, he originated the creation of a police judiciaire department in Portimão. Thus, that evening, while savouring fruits de mer, we discuss the problems of Portuguese society.
It is midnight when I receive the news about the disappearance of a little four-year-old English girl. The police officer on call was informed about it by the National Guard of The Republic (GNR) At the time of her disappearance, the little girl was supposed to have been sleeping in an apartment while her parents were dining a hundred metres away. An inspector is sent to the scene immediately to establish the initial facts. A forensic expert assigned to security of the premises will join him. All precautions are taken to preserve possible clues and elements of evidence. I demand to be informed very regularly and,
before going home, I call on the police on duty to check that all urgent measures are underway. The head of the Guard has already alerted the police authorities at Faro airport and the control post set up on the Guadiana* bridge.
(*The river on the frontier between Portugal and Spain.)
THE REPORTS LEAVE A LOT TO BE DESIRED
The examination of the premises by the investigator and the representative of the forensic police just after the announcement of the disappearance turns out to be quite unproductive. A concise report, where their observations are written up, is accompanied by numerous photographs taken inside and outside apartment 5A - which don't give an account of, according to us, everything they could have observed. This error is explained by the absence of procedures in case of a child's disappearance, notably concerning the actions to be taken when examining the scene.
Lots of people were already in place; however, nobody appeared in the photos. We don't know, for example, how they were dressed. Such observations can turn out to be important later on.
The report mentions that the twins were asleep in their bed, but there is no proof to confirm it; on the contrary, in the photographs, you can see empty cots, where only the mattresses remain - the sheets and blankets having been removed. Why have their beds been stripped? If the sheets had not been removed, traces of their presence could have been found there.That evening, on arriving home, I see Inès, my younger daughter, who is sleeping close to my wife, Sofia. In silence, in the dim light of the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed. Outside, far from her mother's warmth, a child of the same age is lost.
Sofia wakes up and asks me what is happening. I tell her about Madeleine's disappearance and instinctively, she holds our daughter tightly in her arms and makes room for me.
