for a split second, perhaps unable, as I’d been, to process this information. Then they all jumped up from their chairs and ran towards me. I remember Gerry saying, ‘She must be there!’ By now, I was hysterical. ‘She’s not! She’s gone !’
Everybody sprinted back to our apartment, except for Dianne, who remained in the Tapas area, and Jane, who was away from the table seeing to her kids. I remember feeling frustrated when David said, ‘Let’s just check the apartment.’ I’d done that, and I knew, I knew , that Madeleine had been abducted. I ran out into the car park, flying from end to end, yelling desperately, ‘Madeleine! Madeleine!’ It was so cold and so windy. I kept picturing her in her short-sleeved Marks and Spencer Eeyore pyjamas and feeling how chilled she would be. Bizarrely, I found myself thinking it would have been better if she’d been wearing her long-sleeved Barbie ones. Fear was shearing through my body.
In the children’s room, Gerry lowered the shutter at the open window. Rushing outside, he made the sickening discovery that it could be raised from this side, too, not just from inside as we’d thought. Gerry, David, Russell and Matt split into pairs and dashed around the adjacent apartment blocks, meeting back at our flat within a couple of minutes. Just after ten past ten, Gerry asked Matt to run to the Ocean Club’s twenty-four-hour reception to get the staff to call the police. All the screaming and shouting had now alerted other guests and staff that something was amiss and various people were beginning to appear outside the apartment, front and back. I vividly recall sobbing, ‘Not Madeleine, not Madeleine, not Madeleine.’ I was trying so hard to suppress the negative voice in my head tormenting me with the words, ‘She’s gone. She’s gone.’ Even now, when the dark clouds close in on me, I find myself shaking my head manically and repeating over and over again, ‘Not Madeleine, not Madeleine. Please God, not my Madeleine.’
Gerry and I were standing in the living room clutching each other, utterly distraught. I couldn’t help myself, let alone try to soothe Gerry, who was in a state too harrowing for me to bear, howling for his precious little girl. I kept blaming myself – ‘We’ve let her down! We’ve failed her!’ – which increased Fiona’s own distress. ‘You haven’t, Kate. You haven’t,’ she insisted.
By this time the Mark Warner people had rounded up as many of their colleagues as they could, off-duty staff as well as those just finishing their shifts, rousing some of them from their beds. Close to ten-thirty they activated the company’s ‘missing child search protocol’ and mobilized people to comb the complex and its environs. At 10.35 the police had still not arrived, so Gerry asked Matt if he would go back down to the twenty-four-hour reception and find out what was happening. John Hill, the Mark Warner resort manager, came up to the veranda behind our apartment. I remember screaming at him to do something. ‘Where are the police?’ I yelled at him. He tried to reassure me they’d be with us soon but I could tell that he, too, was finding the waiting difficult. Minutes felt like hours.
I was just so overwhelmed by fear, helplessness and frustration, I was hitting out at things, banging my fists on the metal railing of the veranda, trying to expel the intolerable pain inside me. Gerry had been over to the Mini Club above the twenty-four-hour reception, thinking that if Madeleine had been left somewhere, she might possibly make her way back to any place that was familiar to her. Our friends were running to and from the Tapas area, pleading with people to ring the police again from there.
Despite the horror of the situation, some sense of the necessity to approach the crisis calmly and methodically appeared to kick in among our friends as they tried to exert a modicum of control over the chaos. What could be done? What should be done?
Everybody sprinted back to our apartment, except for Dianne, who remained in the Tapas area, and Jane, who was away from the table seeing to her kids. I remember feeling frustrated when David said, ‘Let’s just check the apartment.’ I’d done that, and I knew, I knew , that Madeleine had been abducted. I ran out into the car park, flying from end to end, yelling desperately, ‘Madeleine! Madeleine!’ It was so cold and so windy. I kept picturing her in her short-sleeved Marks and Spencer Eeyore pyjamas and feeling how chilled she would be. Bizarrely, I found myself thinking it would have been better if she’d been wearing her long-sleeved Barbie ones. Fear was shearing through my body.
In the children’s room, Gerry lowered the shutter at the open window. Rushing outside, he made the sickening discovery that it could be raised from this side, too, not just from inside as we’d thought. Gerry, David, Russell and Matt split into pairs and dashed around the adjacent apartment blocks, meeting back at our flat within a couple of minutes. Just after ten past ten, Gerry asked Matt to run to the Ocean Club’s twenty-four-hour reception to get the staff to call the police. All the screaming and shouting had now alerted other guests and staff that something was amiss and various people were beginning to appear outside the apartment, front and back. I vividly recall sobbing, ‘Not Madeleine, not Madeleine, not Madeleine.’ I was trying so hard to suppress the negative voice in my head tormenting me with the words, ‘She’s gone. She’s gone.’ Even now, when the dark clouds close in on me, I find myself shaking my head manically and repeating over and over again, ‘Not Madeleine, not Madeleine. Please God, not my Madeleine.’
Gerry and I were standing in the living room clutching each other, utterly distraught. I couldn’t help myself, let alone try to soothe Gerry, who was in a state too harrowing for me to bear, howling for his precious little girl. I kept blaming myself – ‘We’ve let her down! We’ve failed her!’ – which increased Fiona’s own distress. ‘You haven’t, Kate. You haven’t,’ she insisted.
By this time the Mark Warner people had rounded up as many of their colleagues as they could, off-duty staff as well as those just finishing their shifts, rousing some of them from their beds. Close to ten-thirty they activated the company’s ‘missing child search protocol’ and mobilized people to comb the complex and its environs. At 10.35 the police had still not arrived, so Gerry asked Matt if he would go back down to the twenty-four-hour reception and find out what was happening. John Hill, the Mark Warner resort manager, came up to the veranda behind our apartment. I remember screaming at him to do something. ‘Where are the police?’ I yelled at him. He tried to reassure me they’d be with us soon but I could tell that he, too, was finding the waiting difficult. Minutes felt like hours.
I was just so overwhelmed by fear, helplessness and frustration, I was hitting out at things, banging my fists on the metal railing of the veranda, trying to expel the intolerable pain inside me. Gerry had been over to the Mini Club above the twenty-four-hour reception, thinking that if Madeleine had been left somewhere, she might possibly make her way back to any place that was familiar to her. Our friends were running to and from the Tapas area, pleading with people to ring the police again from there.
Despite the horror of the situation, some sense of the necessity to approach the crisis calmly and methodically appeared to kick in among our friends as they tried to exert a modicum of control over the chaos. What could be done? What should be done?
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