afternoon

Coffee with the Doctor.

He says: "Do you think the McCanns did it?"

I shake my head.

"I never thought they did it," I tell him. "Not even for a moment."

He knits his brow.

"Heelers," he says. "You are so predictable. You only think they didn't do it, because they're Catholic."

I lean forward.

"I don't consider the McCanns to be Catholic," I say. "I'm not their judge. But that's not how I see them. They had children through in-vitro fertilisation. That would make them non Catholic as far as I'm concerned. My reason for thinking them innocent relates to something else. I took one look at them. I listened to what they said. My every instinct proclaimed that they were innocent and that their daughter had been abducted. If I knew anything about anything, I knew that. I took one look at the investigating police officer, and I was seriously disquieted. I suspected instantly that he was a bad man. Then there was the man living in the area with the dungeon in his house, who tried to attach himself to the media groups reporting from the scene. And then there was another paedophile who was found dead in the woods in Switzerland a few weeks later who had also been present in the area around that time. That part of Portugal was Paedophile Central the day Madeline was taken. I feel in my heart her parents have been the subject of a most evil attempt to incriminate them. There you go. It's not the most scientific method. Or is it?"

The doctor nodded slowly.

"They left their kids unsupervised Jim," he said.

There was a tear in my eye.

"Jesus and Mary were three days out of Jerusalem before they noticed Jesus was missing," I said softly.