Why the Madeleine McCann campaign must NOT go on forever

Last updated at 11:44 PM on 29th April 2008

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'They didn't find Madeleine yet, did they, Mummy?'

My eight-year- old son doesn't usually listen to the news. But, over this past 12 months, the name of Madeleine McCann has become almost as familiar to him as his best friend's.

If we hear 'Madeleine' mentioned on the radio, I tense slightly, wait for the inevitable questions. And then come my inadequate answers.

'No, they didn't find her yet, sweetheart. Yes, it's very sad. No, a bad man will not take you. Because Mummy and Daddy will keep you safe, that's why.'

Since May 3 last year, how many parents have mentally run the 'Madeleine safety test' before daring to turn away from their children even for a moment? That may be her lasting legacy and our greatest burden.

Still, my small boy is not satisfied. 'Madeleine' is the big story of his childhood, bigger even than Harry Potter and infinitely more disturbing. Like millions of others, he wants to find out how it ends.

No one wants to know that more than Kate and Gerry McCann. A year after Madeleine's disappearance, they have launched a 'media offensive', including a two-hour ITV interview this evening and a year-long deal with Hello! magazine

Without doubt, this Saturday will be unbearable for them. Milestones in a child's life are there to be celebrated. But what do you do with a milestone in a child's absence?

Relatives and friends will be returning to pray in the church in Praia da Luz, but not the McCanns, who, quite disgracefully, are still official suspects in Portugal.

And it will be especially hard, on this first anniversary, to avoid the haunting 'what ifs?' What if they had walked to the restaurant as a family? What if they had heeded Madeleine's protests that she had been crying the previous night?

Even Kate's mother, Susan Healy, now admits she is astonished that the so-called Tapas Seven believed it was OK to go out for dinner without their children. 'I could shake all of them,' she says.

Susan accepts that her daughter believed the resort was perfectly safe. But the brutal, unyielding fact, the one Kate and Gerry must smash their heads against, is that if it had been perfectly safe then Madeleine would be here now.

Perhaps that is why the case has continued to exert such a remarkable hold over us. We can't give up either. There is a fascination in a momentary mistake that can never be undone, no matter how much a mother persecutes herself.

In Greek tragedy, Antigone, the daughter of King Oedipus, cannot rest until she has recovered the body of her brother after his death in battle and given it a proper burial. One suffering leads to another. And there is some of that obsession, and that remorselessness, in the case of the McCanns.

Could this explain the visceral hatred that has been directed at Kate in particular? What kind of person sent them the Christmas card saying: 'Your brat is dead because of your drunken arrogance'? Not much better than the one who snatched Madeleine. Do we think we protect ourselves from cruel acts of Fate if we finish off those it has struck down?

Tortured tears: Kate McCann in the documentary

Of course, the McCanns have unwittingly conspired in this circus of torment. The publicity juggernaut that was launched with the best of intentions has taken on a momentum of its own. But this week's 'media offensive' will strike many as, well, offensive.

Do the two doctors really deserve two whole hours of prime-time when so many other people's kids are lost and thousands are dying in Zimbabwe? Even those, like me, who have never doubted Gerry and Kate's innocence must feel a flinch of unease.

There comes a point when we have to ask whether any of this is going to help bring Madeleine back. And if not, what purpose does it serve? I suppose the truth is that it keeps Madeleine alive in the world, and thus helps her parents to assuage their terrible guilt.

Their campaign to improve safety for all children across Europe is commendable, but it is also a displacement activity. Postponing that dreadful moment when the search must be called off.

Kate says: 'We're never going to get to a day when you think: "OK, we've tried everything now. We're exhausted and we need to start living." ' But they will. And they must. For their own sakes and for Sean and Amelie, who can't grow up with parents forever chasing a child they know they should never have lost.

Twelve months on, like my little boy, we still want the Madeleine story to have an ending. I wish with all my heart that it could end happily. But end it must.