By Dr Martin Roberts
CATRIONA AND THE WAVES
The
cooler waters of the Atlantic coastline with Iberia are beautifully
clear in Summer, when, at low tide, shoals of small fish can be seen
just beneath the surface. At the Portuguese corner of the peninsular
however the ambience is murkier. Things are altogether less clear there.
Clarity of understanding is fundamental to attainment of the
'helicopter view;' that ability, beloved of management scientists, to
envision the 'broader picture,' and something which is not, for good or
ill, in everyone's gift. It is an accomplishment requiring a cultivated
imagination, as the eventual construct is, when all's said and done, the
perceiver's entirely. So what is one to make of a children's nanny who,
when questioned about her recent experience in the role, exhibits such
remarkable recall and awareness as to suggest that she is (or at least
was) grossly under-employed?
As an initial 'for instance' we may
take the psychological phenomena of 'recency' in memory and failures in
recall over time, both tested scientifically (Sandra) and manifest in
common experience. When our subject nanny was asked about diurnal events
three days previously she had very little to say about them. When asked
for those same recollections a year later she was able to provide
considerably more detail. Odd that.
It appears at first blush
that this was no ordinary nanny. But like the magical chess-playing
mannequin of yore there was, in all likelihood, a measure of, shall we
say, informative intervention, for in-between her first and second
attempts at recall she paid a visit to a soothsayer, who had rather more
details of the fateful day at their disposal. 'Never mind that. Can she
think 'outside the box?' What's her 'summative overview?''
Basically this:
'On
Thursday the 3rd of May 2007, I remember Gerry having accompanied
Madeleine to the club between 9h15 and 9h20 in the morning. I do not
remember who came to pick her up for lunch but after she returned in the
afternoon for a dive/swim. These activities were realized with the
other children. On this day I remember that we sailed and I saw friends
of the McCanns on the beach, David and Jane. Around 14h45 Madeleine
returned to the Minis Club on top of the reception but I do not remember
who accompanied her. This afternoon we went swimming. Kate went to get
Madeleine from the Tapas Bar area and according to what I remember she
was wearing sporting clothes and I assumed that she was practicing some
form of athletics. It was around 15h25/18h00. I think that Gerry was
playing tennis.'
We'll come to the 'helicopter' in a while. First let's check out the launch pad.
'On
Thursday the 3rd of May 2007, I remember Gerry having accompanied
Madeleine to the club between 9h15 and 9h20 in the morning.'
The
tense is wrong. The statement is literally describing the recollection
of an activity prior to 3 May, as though what she recalls now is what
she recalled then, and on that date precisely.
'I do not remember
who came to pick her up for lunch but after she returned in the
afternoon for a dive/swim. These activities were realized with the other
children. On this day I remember that we sailed and I saw friends of
the McCanns on the beach, David and Jane.'
The order of events is
inverted. Despite serial ordered recall being the more demanding task,
most people have no difficulty in dissociating morning from afternoon,
together with associated events. Although you might not think so to read
this, the afternoon 'dive/swim' (which took place at the pool) was
preceded by the sailing and greeting at the beach, which occurred in the
morning.
'Around 14h45 Madeleine returned to the Minis Club on
top of the reception but I do not remember who accompanied her. This
afternoon we went swimming.'
To be clear, Madeleine returned to
the Minis Club from the beach and, if she were among the 'we,' went
swimming in the pool in the afternoon.
Boarding the helicopter
'Kate
went to get Madeleine from the Tapas Bar area and according to what I
remember she was wearing sporting clothes and I assumed that she was
practicing some form of athletics. It was around 15h25/18h00. I think
that Gerry was playing tennis.'
In isolation this statement
appears perfectly straightforward, apart perhaps from the
extraordinarily imprecise interval of time. But there is another
perspective viewpoint, on these details specifically, which obliges us
to examine the statement more closely. That perspective is Kate McCann's
('Madeleine,' p.66):
"Together we took Sean and Amelie back to
the Toddler Club at around 2.40 p.m. and dropped Madeleine off with the
Minis ten minutes later. Ella was already there. Gerry and I had booked
an hour-long couples' tennis lesson with the professional coach at
three-thirty, and as the courts were unoccupied, we decided to have a
knock-up for half an hour first. Near the end of our lesson, as I strove
to improve my substandard backhand, another guest appeared, and he and
Gerry decided to have a game together.
"Having arranged for Gerry
to meet the children, I opted to go for a run along the beach, where I
spotted the rest of our holiday group...I wondered whether Madeleine had
been OK about staying behind at Mini Club when Russ or Jane had
collected Ella.
"I had finished my run by five-thirty at the
Tapas area, where I found Madeleine and the twins already having their
tea with Gerry."
Now then, at some time between 3.30 and 6.00
p.m., according to super-nanny, 'Kate went to get Madeleine from the
Tapas Bar area.' So where, exactly, was our observant witness positioned
when she saw Kate, who was 'wearing sporting clothes,' make her way
toward the Tapas Bar area? The question is not quite as simple as it
appears, and the reason is this: 'Cat Nanny' signed Ella O'Brien out of
the Kids' club at 4.30 p.m., the very time when the McCanns would
conclude their tennis lesson. Kate left the court 'near the end' of the
lesson, not to 'get Madeleine from the Tapas Bar area' but to 'go for a
run along the beach.' It is highly unlikely therefore that 'Cat Nanny'
Baker was in the vicinity of the tennis courts to witness Kate's
departure therefrom. Had she been she would not have had to make any
assumptions as to the purpose of Kate's 'athletic clothes' and would
have been in no doubt as to whether or not Gerry was playing tennis.
Kate,
wearing sporting clothes, must have been seen going to get Madeleine
from the Tapas Bar area ('Kate went to get Madeleine') from somewhere
other than the tennis courts therefore. Perhaps the reference is to what
Kate did on leaving the beach at around 5.30. It is Kate's signature on
the crèche register after all (although Kate claims in her book that
all the McCann children were already with Gerry by the time she arrived
at the Tapas Bar area).
OK, what was 'Cat Nanny' doing on the
beach at 5.30? After lunch that afternoon she would have been with the
children at the pool. At 4.30 p.m. she was present at the club to sign
them out. And since Ella O'Brien's was an unusually early departure, she
will have remained to supervise those three children who had yet to
leave – Madeleine McCann among them. They must have been at the club by
then, as Kate had 'wondered whether Madeleine had been OK about staying
behind at Mini Club when Russ or Jane had collected Ella.' And 'Cat
Nanny' must have been there to 'hand them over' at 5.30, in which case
she will have been rather more aware of Kate McCann's coming than going.
If
Cat Nanny was not at the tennis courts to observe Kate's movements, she
was not at the beach an hour later to see Kate leave for the Tapas Bar
area either. So how can she describe Kate as 'going' to get Madeleine?
'Getting Madeleine' must be regarded as an assumption in any case,
unless Kate had announced her intentions to her personally. And yet 'Cat
Nanny' is perfectly at ease giving a first-person account of what she
herself apparently witnessed.
We have take off
The
witnesses 'positivity,' despite not being present at either end of Kate
McCann's trajectory in the late afternoon of May 3rd suggests that she
has an overarching 'helicopter' view of the situation. However, without
being an extraordinary visionary, the only way she can have acquired
such a perspective is from someone else. And having been given that
perspective it will not have been formed in her mind as a product of
perception but of imagination. There is a world of difference between
'according to what I remember' and 'according to what I remember being
told.' Does anyone even say, 'according to what I remember?' 'As I
recall' is the stock phrase. Accordances are at one remove.
In
sum therefore we have an important witness to events preceding the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann, whose initial recollection of
significant details appears defective. Madeleine's schedule of
attendance at the crèche, as represented verbally by her to police, is
not that described by corresponding entries in the register. Within
three days of the child's disappearance she fails to advance any detail
with respect to the Thursday itself, supporting the instinctive
interpretation of possibly the most significant thing she did say about
that day - that until Thursday May 3rd, the little girl came every day.
Almost a year later and with a domestic visit to the McCanns in the
interim, her memory of the relevant Thursday improves to the point where
she can describe Kate McCann's actions, motivations and dress code
without being in a position personally to observe or appreciate any of
these things (unless she 'copped a peek' at Kate's running shorts when
handing Madeleine over to Gerry, who left it up to Kate to sign the
register without collecting anyone at all).
In the final analysis
the only 'helicopter' Catriona Baker will have known anything about
would have been one that air-lifted her out of Portugal and transported
her across the waves to a secret destination known only to her employers
– and the McCanns.
Comments can be left on this thread: https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t5843-catriona-and-the-waves-by-dr-martin-roberts
More discussion here:
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t3908-catriona-baker
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t1543-how-maddie-s-creche-attendance-was-arranged
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14884-do-you-believe-something-happened-earlier-than-may-3rd-if-so-how-did-the-mccanns-manage-to-deceive-everyone-at-the-creche
https://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t14704-planning-the-abduction-hoax-was-it-done-over-four-days-or-four-hours