McCanns Hire Car Contract

CynicAl wrote:I think there's a danger of hyperactive imagination running away with the story. With each new element of intriguing speculation we're also adding rafts of characters each with implausible levels of involvement, implausibly tenuous links to each other, and with each addition we make the PJ ever more stupid, and GA increasingly blind, to boot. 

The leaps of logic and wild assumptions are in danger of becoming misleading. 

When you attempt to create linkage to prior renters, you simply obfuscate the glaring facts. The McS rented (or had rented for them) a car, in which they made a number of inexplicable and suspicious journeys and at one stage in the rental the car turned up with a honking stench wafting from it which was so severe that extraordinary steps had to be taken to deal with it. The stench didn't turn up several weeks or months after carrying the stinky package, nor did the rental company and/or other renters simply have issues pegs on their noses. There is a direct relationship between the stench, the point in the rental that the stench occurred, the people in control of the car at the time, which renders absolutely every other prior connection to the car entirely irrelevent. 

If there's a gap in the rental record, maybe its because there's a gap in the rental demand, or due to a maintenance process. A master criminal using a car as a scene of crime would not return to the scene of crime to do anything but destroy the scene of crime, certainly would never release it to an openmarket and then hope to somehow get it back at a later date. And why would the rental firm entertain such an incriminating act in which the end result was anything other than the complete destruction of the car, covered fully by insurance? 

It may be tempting to imagine so many little links in the chain, each getting their few euros of bunga, but to weave a plot like that you'd have to be disastrously thick because you open yourself up to blackmail, whistleblowing, accidental leak, or a bout of better conscience. 

Similarly, i'll wager there are scores of golf clubs in the uk with links to PDL. I don't play and I don't play in the circles that can afford second homes in those places, but even I know people who frequent that area on golf trips. I know someone with an apartment in PDL. I've been offered a cheap holiday there in times past. His apartment is in the same luxury apartment development that appeared on one of the property tv shows - I think it was 'A Place In The Sun.' Similarly my local golf club has at least five members, all extremely well-heeledp semi-retired business men, who have homes within two miles of each other down somewhere between Murcia and Faro. That's the nature of wealth, friendships, fraternities, clubs and the business mindset. They share the number of a travel agent, of locals who can service various needs down there, of the local tips and tricks, of the realtor and the investment potential. It perpetuates itself organically. Introducers and arrangers are not uncommon. 

If there was a sniff of grand conspiracy, GA would be all over it. His silence on it would be inexplicable. 

The dogs remain the key.

Mirage wrote:

tigger, your mentioning empty properties made me think of DW's rogatory and something she said that stuck in my mind.
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4078:  "If you could just begin by just describe, telling me where your apartment was in relation to the other apartments, just so that I can get a picture of it.”

Praia wrote:Clay they are not gardens per se, more paved areas with various large plants and hedges. The apts on the bottom floor like 5A have these areas facing the pool and Tapas areas. They each have gates leading to steps up to the patio area and the sliding doors entering the apts. A walkway runs beside the wall surrounding the pool and Tapas area. Dr Amaral said they all used this shortcut into the apts except the Paynes who would have to continue around to the lift and stairs to the upper floors.

Praia wrote:Yes. They were probably over and back from the recreation area to the apt's during the day as well. There were toilets available beside the Tapas bar but some holiday makers if their apt is nearby and easily accessable will go back and forth to their apt's.

Praia wrote:Yes I have wondered about that, did he bring the pushchair in with him or leave it outside?  Something about JW and his wife and their statements makes me think they know alot more than they say.

Praia wrote:Hi Kiko, hope you are well, so do you think there were 2 cars hired???

The local gossip was that the Mc's had the use of various "acquaitances" cars that were never acknowledged, certainly the PJ were asking about Rachel driving outside Luz.

Something someone said earlier has made me think, we have wondered why Murat went to the tiny local car hire office on the Sat and made such a fuss about hiring a car immediately. If he was involved why draw attention to himself with people who knew him well so early on.
Supposing the car had been used earlier, perhaps Easter, and they wanted it back to check it had been thoroughly cleaned. A weak theory I know but his actions that day make no sense.

Remember Trish Cameron and husband arrived that day and she said a friend loaned them a car.

I am sure that the answer to what happened to Madeleine will involve a car or cars, I am sure at least some of them left the resort that week.

kikoraton wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Don't disagree with anything said above. But here's the conundrum: the car listed on this docket is the famous McCann Scenic, 59-DA-27. And that's why Kenneth Walkden was selected by the PJ to receive a rogatory letter, requiring him to be interviewed (2008) about his holiday and his hire by an officer of Leics Constabulary. He is listed as the hirer of the car from 25 March to 1 April. The idea was to ask hirers if there had been a blood-accident in the car, or if they had transported a bleeding person or a cadaver.  
Now, leaving aside this docket, the PJ's own records for this car leave a blank period between those very dates. When another golfer, Paterson, had returned the car to Faro on 25 March, it had accumulated only 823km on the odometer. When a Mr Lowes hired it on 2 April, it had travelled only an extra 122km (945 on the odometer). And yet the km figure for Walkden, between those very dates, shows that he began his hire at 4099km, and ended it at 4945!
Surely the PJ are clever enough to have noted this discrepancy, before including Walkden in the list of those to be interviewed? And bear in mind that KW thought he had hired a dark blue Megane. What if he was quite right? What if it was a Megane that had 4099-4945 on the clock?

3114- McCann wrote:
If Walkden didn't hire this particular car, and perhaps he did have a blue one, WHO did use the car for the 122 kms that show as 'used' from 25th March to 1st April.