Kate and Gerry McCann were two months into the search for their missing daughter Madeleine when they received a letter out of the blue.

It was from Sir Clement Freud, inviting them for a meal at his holiday home in Praia da Luz, a short drive from the Ocean Club, where Madeleine had vanished on May 3, 2007.

“I’m embarrassed to admit that Gerry and I thought this letter was a hoax,” Mrs McCann wrote in her book, Madeleine.