Palma.Yesterday, nearly five years to the day after Jacqueline was last seen or heard of on October 8, 2007, Monique was back in Palma for talks with the Guardia Civil handling the case and to remind people that her search for her sister is far from over. Somebody must know or remember something, Monique said yesterday. Jacqueline was very active, a big walker and was always exploring the island so some one must remember a lone black woman on a bus, catching a cab, the train or hiking, she said.
Over the years, Monique and her family have invested heavily in bringing teams of volunteers and sniffer dogs over to Majorca to liaise with the local Guardia Civil, Civil Protection and hiking groups but no trace of Jacqueline has been found.
The search has featured heavily across the UK on TV and in the media but no credible evidence has been uncovered. The biggest problem was that right from the start, Monique says that the local security services were very slow to react. The first search was not mounted until some ten days after Jacqueline went missing and then, despite numerous warnings from the courts in Inca, Telefonica took six weeks before trying to locate the last call Jacqueline made and, much to the anger of the Guardia Civil, came up with an area which spanned half of the Tramuntana mountain range.
When ordered by a judge to narrow the search down, the phone company could not because, having left it too late, Jacqueline's mobile phone had gone dead.
And tracing that last call at midday on October 8, 2007 would have proven crucial to the search because, during her final phone call, she apparently told a work colleague that she was nearing the top of a mountain and the view was beautiful. But, Monique is not convinced. According to her, two statements given by the fore mentioned work colleague are full of contradictions and the Missing Persons Police Unit wants to review the statements and possibly conduct another interview to clarify the uncertainties. I'm not ruling out foul play, and the British police, which are taking this very seriously, like they do every missing person case, are even prepared to mount a search in the UK in the event that my sister has eventually slipped back into the country. They are trying to work with the Spanish police but are having to do so via Interpol and that slows the process down, she added. And that's even more frustrating. I want to find out what the police are doing here, whether Spain has a missing persons unit like we do in the UK and why the British and Spanish police can not work closer together on this. British police are prepared to send a team over to conduct its own search, Monique said. In the meantime, I am going over Jacqueline's diary again to see if I have missed anything. What I am trying to do is draw out a map of her movements by looking at the places she used to visit more regularly than others, her favourite mode of transport etc. She talks of walking along dry river beds, glorious beaches etc. I want to paint a picture of where she most probably would have gone so that in April I can conduct a fresh major search either with the local police forces or with volunteers from the UK, she explained. I am ruling nothing out and when I went to see Jacqueline's room at the resort in C'an Picafort where she was working the summer as a sports instructor, her room did not look like she had been preparing to go out on a long hike. I knew, know, her very well. To me it looked like she had popped out to the shops. So, there are still plenty of avenues to follow and questions to be asked.