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LONDON - Kate McCann, the mother of the missing British girl Madeleine McCann, has told her story for the first time.
In it, she speaks at length and in detail about her elder daughter, the night she was taken, her family's life as the investigation continues and much more.
She reveals that Madeleine's last words to her on the night she disappeared were almost unbearably poignant: "Mummy, I've had the best day ever."
Mrs McCann, speaking in an interview that she asked should be distributed to all Sunday newspapers, also tells what really happened when she discovered that her daughter was missing, how her twins are coping without their sister, and why she may never want to return to the family home again.
She also takes time to answer those who have criticised her for leaving the children alone.
Meanwhile, as her story is published, Belgian police were awaiting results of DNA tests done on a straw and drinks bottle which were used by a girl spotted in a restaurant in the Flemish town of Tongeren.
A customer described by the police as a "highly credible witness" n said that she was "100 per cent sure" that the youngster she saw was Madeleine herself.
The girl was sitting with a couple - a Dutchman and an English-speaking woman of Mediterranean appearance.
The witness, a child therapist, said the couple with the child did not seem to be acting as a real mother and father would be expected to, and told a waitress, Jolien Houbrech.
Ms Houbrech said: "She said that, because of her experience as a child therapist, she had noticed that the people's behaviour was not that of normal parents."
The couple left quickly in a Volvo estate car with a Belgian numberplate.
Belgian police have now issued an identikit drawing of the man based on the description by the "trusted witness".
Last night police in Portugal were again searching the home Briton Robert Murat, 33, the only official suspect in the McCann case.
Around 10 officers, including two British detectives, arrived at the house in Paraia da Luz, in the Algarve, just 100 metres from where Madeleine was last seen, at 7am to begin the search which they said could take four days.
Mr Murat has strenuously denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance from her family's rented villa on 3 May, towards the end of a week's holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
- INDEPENDENT
