Read Online Madeleine by Kate McCann - Free Book Online Page B

always in the small hours, practically never earlier than two or three in the morning.
    In Portugal the only difference was that all three children went down around seven, seven-fifteen. None of them had been taking daytime naps for quite a few months before the holiday, and after the activities and excitement of each day, they were all ready for their beds by then. Familiar with their bedtime ritual, they accepted it as a prelude to sleep and, after milk and stories, settled very quickly. It’s a time-honoured routine viewed as the norm by the vast majority of British parents and children, and we were dumbfounded when, in the months to come, it provoked sceptical comments in Portugal.
    After putting the children to bed, Gerry and I showered, dressed and sat down with a glass of wine before heading over to the Tapas restaurant, booked for eight-thirty. At that time, most Mark Warner resorts provided a baby-listening service – basically, members of staff listening at regular intervals at the doors of the apartments and villas to check that none of the children inside had woken up. This service was not offered by the Ocean Club, presumably because it was less of a ‘campus’ resort than others, with apartments scattered over a greater area. Instead there was a crèche, where children could be looked after from about 7.30pm to 11pm. Given that our children needed to be in their beds by the time it opened, the crèche wasn’t really workable for us. We both felt it would be too unsettling for them and would disrupt their sleep.
    As the restaurant was so near, we collectively decided to do our own child-checking service. This decision, one that we all made, has naturally been questioned time and again, not least by us. It goes without saying that we now bitterly regret it, and will do so until the end of our days. But it is easy to be wise after the event. Speaking for myself, I can say, hand on heart, that it never once crossed my mind that this might not be a safe option. If I’d had any doubts whatsoever, I would simply never have entertained it. I love my three children above everything. They are more precious and special to me than life itself. And I would never knowingly place them at risk, no matter how small a risk it might seem to be.
    If we’d had any concerns we could have hired a babysitter. I could argue that leaving my children alone with someone neither we nor they knew would have been unwise, and it’s certainly not something we’d do at home, but in fact we didn’t even consider it. We felt so secure we simply didn’t think it was necessary. Our own apartment was only thirty to forty-five seconds away, and although there were some bushes in between it was largely visible from the Tapas restaurant. We were sitting outside and could just as easily have been eating on a fine spring evening in a friend’s garden, with the kids asleep upstairs in the house.
    As it was, we were in an apparently safe, child-friendly holiday complex full of families just like ours. The children were fast asleep and being checked every thirty minutes. Even if there had been a baby-listening service it would not have given our kids as much attention as our own visits did. We were going into the apartments and looking as well as listening. We later heard it was an option that had been chosen by many other parents at similar resorts before us. But I’m willing to bet not many since.
    Bringing up children – like all aspects of life – involves making hundreds of tiny and seemingly minor decisions every single day, balancing the temptation to mollycoddle them with the danger of being too laissez-faire. Sometimes, with hindsight, our judgement proves to have been right, sometimes wrong. Mostly when you make the wrong call you can just chalk it up to experience and do it differently next time. It is our family’s tragedy that this particular decision would have such catastrophic consequences.
    That Sunday night we headed over to