Madeleine: The truth behind the lies

I did not buy a copy of the Sunday Times this week to read extracts of the book Madeleine by Kate McCann. Rather I bought it to read the article featuring myself exposing those hiding behind super injunctions. But it was quiet on the news front today, and I thought I would punish myself further by reading Kate McCann’s account.

The account is on the front page of a section called News Review. Whilst the McCanns have been in the news this week, publicising the book, the account itself is not news. Therefore if it was going to be published at all perhaps it should have gone in elsewhere?

It would be news if there was any evidence to support this claim: “In the weeks after Madeleine McCann was abducted…”, being written by an editor and not by Kate McCann herself. Similarly, apart from finding the content repulsive, I don’t believe the book was written by Kate McCann but is instead the work of a ghost writer.

It is obviously a work of fiction. However, as Jack Higgins appreciates, when he wrote The Eagle Has Landed, blending fact with fiction makes a more believable account. For example, Kate McCann claims to be recounting a dream: “Please, God, don’t let her go! Stay with me, Madeleine. Please stay with me. Don’t go – stay with Mummy. Please, sweetheart, hold on. I love you so much”. What if she did say these words, but 4 months earlier, as Madeleine lay dying or already dead on the evening of 3 May 2007 in Apartment 5A?

A bit later on she recounts: “Gerry was distraught now. He was on his knees, sobbing, his head hung low. “We’re finished. Our life is over,” he kept saying over and over again”. I can imagine him saying this coming back from playing tennis, and finding Madeleine dead in Apartment 5A. Then self preservation takes over and they hatch a plot in an attempt to salvage their reputations. The plot involves disposing of Madeleine’s body, staging a fake break-in, and inventing an abductor.

Tags: Kate McCann, Madeleine, The truth behind the lies