The McCanns were not suspects in August 2007 when they clearly were. Here's a reminder:
Wednesday 8 August 2007 - McCanns officially NOT Suspects
João Carlos returned our car at lunchtime (albeit with a piece missing from the boot). He said that Neves and Encarnação were ready to see us later that afternoon.
If we’d wondered about the change of venue for our regular informal meeting, the reason for it soon became clear: this wasn’t our regular informal meeting. We were taken to an upstairs room at the police station where we were greeted by Luís Neves and Guilhermino Encarnação. Our interpreter this time was a police officer, not Proconsul Angela Morado, as was usually the case. The whole demeanour of Neves and Encarnação was different. They looked serious and cold. There had been a ‘shift’ in the investigation, they said. They had always been optimistic that Madeleine was alive, but now things had changed.
Gerry was then asked to leave the room. Now the sirens in my head were deafening. I was on my own and afraid. Please God, let my Madeleine be OK.
Tell us about that night, they said. Tell us everything that happened after the children went to bed. I gave them every detail I could remember, as I had before, but this time they responded by just staring at me and shaking their heads.
Neves stated bluntly that they didn’t believe my version of events.
On and on it went. They tried to convince me I’d had a blackout – a ‘loss of memory episode’, I think they called it. My denials, answers and pleas fell on deaf ears. This was their theory and they wanted to shoehorn me into it, end of story. At last they seemed to decide that the interview was over. They told me I could ring them any time, day or night, to give them the information they were waiting for.
Finally, Gerry tried to establish when – and if – we would be having another meeting with them. ‘The next time we meet it will be across the table.’ The message behind this rather Delphic statement was clear: there would be no more informal meetings.
