I take it that the extract below is the bit you refer to as balderdash Brie?
Goncalo Amaral - Chapter 7 - Truth of the lie.
JANE TANNER FORMALLY RECOGNISES ROBERT MURAT
Before the search, we want to assure ourselves that Jane Tanner recognises him as the
individual she saw on the night of the disappearance. She is sitting inside an unmarked
car, whose tinted windows allow her to see out without being spotted. The vehicle is
parked at the exact spot where she was on the night of May 3rd. Robert Murat,
anonymous amongst plain clothes police officers, goes up the road in the same way as
the alleged abductor. Jane Tanner is adamant: it certainly is Robert Murat that she saw
that night. She definitely recognises his way of walking. But does he resemble the
description she painted previously?
Has Jane Tanner ever denied this version of events?
Is there any reason why this version of events is false?
I don't know about false, but it's certainly peculiar. It begins with Bob Small ringing Jane, who he'd never met before;
‘I need to pick you up and take you to see the Spanish Police but you can’t tell anybody not even Russell’
Jane panics; is it the press, is it the abductor? So she does tell Russell in case someone wants to kidnap her. I think it's strange for a senior policeman to ring someone without properly identifying and explaining himself and getting his story wrong. Why didn't Jane ask him what he was talking about, Spanish police? I would have.
Despite her fears and suspicions, however, Jane agrees to meet this stranger in a car park. Where that is she doesn't say, but her route takes her past Murat's house. I can't see any car parks jumping out at me near there, but that's what she says. Murat speaks to them but she isn't interested because she's 'worried sick' about being abducted. I have to say that in her shoes I wouldn't have gone anywhere near this potential abductor without further checks on his identity.
She meets Bob Small (with Russell for protection) and Russell writes down the number plate of the car they drive off in. So this stranger drives away with your partner but it's OK because you've got the registration of his car. How long was Russell going to wait before reporting her kidnapped I wonder? One hour, two hours, all night? Would a kidnapper still be in that car? Would his victim?
Jane is driven to where the 'rest of the team' are with a van which is pretending to be refrigerated. Not an unmarked car, which is what Amaral thinks she's in, so he wasn't there. Who the rest of the team were no-one says. Spanish, Portuguese, British? We don't know.
Jane never denies identifying Murat. She splutters and waffles but she never categorically denies it. Interestingly, the interviewer doesn't ask the question either. At the end the question is;
4078 “You don’t feel it was the same person?”
Reply “No, I don’t, no”.
Later in her interview though;
I’m not trying to push anything onto Robert MURAT’s door, cos as I say I don’t think it was him that I saw”.
4078 “No”.
Reply
“But I just thought it was”. http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/JANE_TANNER_RIGATORY.htm