Sounds like the premise of a horror movie. See, if it was me, I'd presume the catch had got loose and given way and think nothing more of it. But then I live in a detached house and there is no way into the roof except through the house and so any intruder would have had to get past me first. In Gerry's situation I'd have put the moving door down to air movement when I entered the apartment and given it no more thought unless of course one of my kids suddenly disappeared thereafter, and then I'd be wracking my brains searching for any evidence whatsoever that might suggest someone had come into the apartment and taken her and then I might remember the door.
There' more! I was in my early 20's at the time, there was no catch and what I knew about attics was nil. It was a semi-detached army house. Next door was an Irish family. He disappeared a few weeks earlier and the MP's kept driving past in case he returned coz he was AWOL. He was a violent man, we used to hear him. Earlier in the evening his wife came to my door asking to buy cigarettes. She told me he was in her house and he wouldn't let her go to the shop in case she told on him. As I knew nothing about attics I wondered if it was possible for him to cross from his to ours, and it was his escape route. It was 1968 and Ireland was just kicking off. He'd gone off to join the IRA according to his wife. The following year my husband was on standby to go at an hour's notice with the first troops. He wasn't called, which was lucky and he never did go.
As the wind was blowing from the north west it was unlikely to have moved the door as the patio door was on the south side of the building. The wind would have blown in Gerry's face as he walked up the road from the Tapas. The only reason he offered was that Madeleine may have gone into his bed, although he also insisted that she only ever did this late at night, not early evening.
