Woolfall had spoken of how he had been working ‘from 5am to 1am, fending 200 calls a day from journalists as far away as Norway and South Africa’.

He’d told ‘The Times’: “Gerry said to me: ‘I’ve spoken to the Consulate and said ‘Can you help us?’ Because there is a lot of media interest and we cannot manage’”.

Gerry pondered. Was it him who had approached Woolfall? Perhaps it was. But by now Gerry seemed to have forgotten that it was he who had stimulated the vast media coverage in the first place.

‘The Times’ article had finished with another quote from Woolfall: “You could not pick another couple on the planet that would have had that many cameras trained on them”. How odd, thought Gerry, that having been the most photographed couple in the world, they now wished to avoid encountering anyone – except, of course, TV interviewers with chequebooks and organisations concerned with missing and abducted children who wanted his endorsement. That usually came with free flights and generous hospitality allowances – and quite right too, given what an invaluable asset he and Kate now were to the myriad organisations concerned with missing and abducted children who were by now clamouring for their support.

The McCanns had photographs of Madeleine on their digital camera, which Mr Woolfall had begun transferring to a laptop computer. According to Woolfall’s article in ‘the Times’, Woolfall had said to Kate: “Let’s try to identify pictures where her face is visible”. Downloading the images had been a very difficult process for them Gerry recalled. It was upsetting.

A perceptible light breeze now started to cause the bougainvillea flowers to sway ever so slightly. The clouds seemed to be growing in number. There was still no sign of Kate. In the middle distance, Gerry could see a man with a long pole harvesting walnuts, while somewhat nearer a group of women were amongst an orchard of olive trees – though they seemed to be talking rather than working. Perhaps they were having a tea-break, he mused.

He returned in his thoughts to that very important – but puzzling – Woolfall article. It had continued like this:

“They were trying to do two things at once: one, emotionally deal with what was actually, really happening to them; two, operate in some sort of logical way to help get her back.”

Mr Woolfall transmitted the photographs to the Press Association in London, from where they were distributed to the media. The portfolio included the now famous image of Madeleine wearing a hat on a tennis court.

There has even been a suggestion that Mrs McCann carried her daughter’s Cuddle Cat soft toy because it would look good on TV. “For that to have in any way validity, it would cancel out the fact that these two people hadn’t got a clue about PR or the media,” Mr Woolfall said. “[It would be impossible] to suddenly be that sophisticated. I noticed Kate often had this toy with her. It was Madeleine’s favourite toy and she would go to bed with it. Kate had it with her when she went to church. She had it in the apartment”.

Yes, Gerry had received many reports from the Internet-monitors, employed first by Control Risks Group and then by Metodo 3, that a lot of people on those hate-filled, witch-hunting forums – his face momentarily contorted as if in pain – had questioned why Kate always seemed to have Cuddle Cat in exactly the right place for the cameras. He recalled a couple of occasions when Kate had had Cuddle Cat with her in her bag and only just remembered at the last minute to pluck it out and have its unshapely pink head poking out of the bag so that the cameras could record its presence.

People had been so unkind to suggest that this was some kind of prop, designed to elicit public sympathy. Why, it was tantamount to suggesting that they were putting on an act. Gerry had his answer ready in case he and Kate were asked about Cuddle Cat in one of their upcoming TV interviews. He prided himself on always being able to cover all angles.

The answer, of course, was that Cuddle Cat had always been produced for the cameras in case Madeleine might see her favourite cuddly toy on the T.V. screen of her abductor and be comforted by seeing it.

People had not realised, Gerry reflected, just how hard he and Kate had worked during those early weeks. They simply did not realise that to get a good photo shoot of themselves, looking suitably agonised and tear-stained for the camera, took a heck of a lot of preparation. Especially as the Portuguese police and their growing team of media advisers had strongly advised them not to look too agonised and tear-stained in case the abductor took vicarious satisfaction by watching them looking distressed on TV.

People had no idea just how finely balanced an exercise it was to combine, on the one hand, the message that they really were very very upset and distraught, with, on the other hand, the advice they had received from the Portuguese police and their media advisers not to show too much emotion, in case it would gratify the wicked abductors who had seized Madeleine. ‘You need to show just the right amount of emotion’, a Portuguese police officer had barked rather brusquely. ‘Too much, and you place Madeleine’s life at risk’, he had advised. They had not been very empathetic characters from the word go, Gerry remembered.

Gerry reflected on this issue with not a little pride. Yes, all things considered, he and Kate had got it just about right. They had looked quite agonised – but had been careful not to reveal just how agonised they were. They had adamantly refused to break down on camera despite both of them being utterly distraught.

by ‘Montmorillonite’ – COPYRIGHT