When Nora Quoirin first went missing her anguished family clung on to the vestige of hope that she had just wandered off.
Perhaps she’d woken from a bad dream and stumbled outside, disorientated by jet lag after the long flight to Malaysia?
Could she have gone looking for the rainforest waterfall she’d been so excited to see? Maybe, just maybe, she was lost but unhurt and hiding in the jungle waiting for them to find her?
But Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin never really believed it.
Their eldest daughter had been born with a neurological disorder limiting her co-ordination, speech and intellectual development.
And in 15 years the shy, vulnerable child had never gone anywhere without them.
They were sure she had been abducted. And as each dark hour of fruitless searching went by that conviction grew.
Then, ten days after she disappeared, Nora’s body was found two miles away away near a waterfall, naked, and lying head-on-hands “as if she was asleep”.
But that same area had been searched repeatedly the previous week, while a postmortem showed Nora had been dead for at least three days from internal bleeding caused by starvation and stress.
So, while the authorities have ruled out any foul play, I can completely understand why Nora’s family still fear criminality and want a fresh investigation.
Nora’s grandfather Sylvain says it’s “absurd” to think she could have walked naked and barefoot over rocks at night and insists she must have been dumped there.
And, the family lawyer points out: “In view of the importance of Malaysia’s image for tourism, the authorities may tend to favour the theory of a disappearance over the criminal hypothesis.”
I have little time for conspiracy theories or cover-ups. I spent months in Praia da Luz in 2007 and subsequent years covering the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
And I’ve never believed any of the bizarre, cruel and counterproductive claims which dogged that still-unsolved tragedy.
Yet Nora’s disappearance and the Malaysian investigation make me very, very uneasy.
My heart breaks for her parents and siblings who must be tortured by mental images of Nora’s final moments.
Wandering lost, starving and scared to death or that other unbearable scenario. There are, her grandfather insists, still “dark areas that need to be cleared up for the family to be able to grieve in peace”.
And we should all cling on to the vestige of hope that they get some resolution.
