She must have
been having so much fun.
Chuckling with delight,
Madeleine McCann dangles her feet in a pool and poses for a
holiday snapshot.
Less than eight hours
after it was taken, Madeleine disappeared. So yesterday this
became the last, poignant picture of the missing
four-year-old - released by her grief-stricken parents in
their desperate campaign to bring her home.
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This newly released
photograph of Madeleine shows her laughing with her family
on the day of her disappearance
It shows Madeleine with
her father Gerry and two-year-old sister Amelie, sitting
beside the pool in their
Algarve holiday apartment complex.
Her mother Kate is behind the camera with Amelie's twin
brother Sean.
It could hardly have
captured her character more perfectly - a cheeky little Miss
in a pink summer dress and floppy hat, stealing the
limelight as usual with that trademark smile.
That was at 2.29pm on May
3, a few days after the family checked in to an apartment in
Praia da Luz and just nine days before her fourth birthday.
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Kate McCann with
Sean yesterday |
And last night, another
picture of Madeleine was projected onto
London's iconic
Marble Arch to bring her plight to the attention of the
city.
During the day of her
disappearance they had all gone for a walk, played tennis,
and taken some more snapshots for the family album before
relaxing by the pool.
Some time between 9.10pm
and 10pm, an abductor is assumed to have snatched her from
her bed while her parents dined nearby.
Three weeks on, there has
been not a single trace of her whereabouts, no breakthrough
in the investigation, and no clear indication that she is
even still alive.
In the evening her parents
gave her a bath, took out her trendy hair bead and washed
her hair. Then they tucked her up alongside Sean and Amelie
before kissing them all goodnight.
Mr and Dr McCann - he is a
consultant cardiologist, she a GP - remain convinced she is
alive, and have vowed that they cannot even consider going
home to Leicestershire until they find her.
But yesterday, for the
first time during the remarkable campaign they are running
in parallel with the police operation, they made known their
frustration at the investigation's lack of progress.
The 38-year-old couple met
Portuguese police chiefs to express their concern at the
"apparent slowness" of the hunt.
A source close to the
family said: "At every stage throughout this they have been
feeding their own questions and concerns back to the
investigating authorities through British police and in turn
the Portuguese authorities.
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A photograph of
Madeleine McCann is projected onto
London's iconic Marble
Arch |
"While they remain content
with the overall thrust of the investigation they do at
times hope that their questions and concerns are addressed
more quickly."
Yesterday the latest
Portuguese initiative - a plea to the kidnapper from the
Bishop of the
Algarve
- stalled almost immediately.
Bishop D. Manuel Neto
Quintas appealed to Madeleine's abductor to phone him to
arrange Madeleine's return - but he failed to supply a phone
number.
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Madeleine's
father Gerry with her twin sister Amelie
(centre) and Madeleine (right) |
as the family relaxes by
the pool. Hours later their holiday would turn into a living
nightmare that appears to have no end in sight
In other developments, new
leads have emerged from more than 300 holidaymakers'
photographs that have been sent in to an appeal for pictures
that might reveal the abductor.
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more ...
Gerry McCann made a moving
visit to a shrine in Madeleine's honour in their hometown of
Rothley, Leicestershire, recently
Officers from the Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Centre had appealed to
tourists who visited Praia da Luz in the two weeks prior to
the kidnap to send in their holiday pictures.
Strangers in the
background of pictures are being cross-referenced with an
image of known paedophiles using facial recognition
software.
A spokesman for CEOP would
not comment on the detail of the new leads.
It also emerged that the
McCanns have been offered the use of private jets to make
trips around
Europe in their continued
campaign to find Madeleine.
Early discussions are
under way with Warner Brothers cinemas to put posters in
every cinema and to play an appeal video of Madeleine before
every movie.
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Frustration is
growing as the weeks slip by in the search for Madeleine |
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