Too Good to be Gorrod

We are all familiar with the Tapas 9, but James Gorrod and his wife Charlotte nee Batchelor have assiduously and very understandably, avoided the limelight.  So, what do we know about them?

Firstly they are friends of JT/ROB from Exeter living within a mile of them (and coincidentally also Robert Murat’s sister’s place where until he suddenly felt the need to buy a ticket out to Faro in the early hours of Tuesday 3^rd and fly out 7am that day).  Secondly, they came out to Luz and hired a grey Opel Corsa for the period 28 April – 6 May. 

When asked about her phone calls/texts in the Leicester police interviews and specifically about the 8.30pm Thursday 3^rd ie just before the night’s melodrama was to play out text she sends to Charlotte Batchelor, she says it’s her friend, that they were “on the same holiday” but they left on the Saturday!  I also read somewhere but have not seen evidence that she called Charlotte the following day) Presumably this gave the police the misleading impression that she was texting a friend back in Blighty.  This was a deliberate and documented lie by Jane Tanner and we should ask why did she lie about this?  What did she not want the police to know and why?

Surely given these were friends of JT/ROB , a couple of similar age to the others and with a small son, who came out to Luz for a week’s holiday on exactly the same dates as the others and who JT describes as being “on the same holiday”, it’s not unreasonable to deduce that they were indeed, or at least the original plan was for them to be “on the same holiday” ie part of the group of couples with toddlers going out on a weeks break with the kids. After all Luz in April/May out of season was a forsaken place to choose as a holiday unless you wanted to have a cheap getaway with a group of friends.

So where were the Gorrod’s staying in Luz?  It would seem that for the first two nights at least 28/29 April, they were staying outside the Ocean Club and no one seems to have asked them where exactly.  Now the Mark Warner booking sheet reveals that from 30 April – 6 May they were booked into Appt 5C between JT/ROB and the Oldfields.  That would certainly make sense if they were buddies of Jane Tanner.  However, it seems that though according to the MW booking sheets, Charlotte Batchelor had booked 5C, (or did Tanner do it on her behalf??), they decided not to stay there (as I presume had they been there on 3^rd May surely they would have been interviewed by the police given that they were an at least semi detached member of the Tapas group?  So, if these booking forms are to be believed, we need to ask what did the Gorrods find out prior to Monday morning (or later if they checked in then checked out) that lead them to conclude it wasn’t such a good idea to hang out with JT and her Tapas buddies, which presumably had been the original point of coming on the holiday?  One possibility that they found out that Maddie had died and that a plan to stage a cover up was afoot.  They may have very sensibly have decided that they wanted nothing to do with it, so didn’t stay at Ocean but agreed to keep their mouths shut so long as no one brought their names up in all the subsequent police interviews. If we could know where they did stay during the first two days and why they seem to have been booked into 5C but decided not to stay there after all, it may throw some light on the whole mystery.