No M-Dice, No Game

With this post I run the risk of you thinking that I'm accident prone or have some sort of "50 Shades of Grey" tendencies as it will seem that not only do I get hit by things as I'm only able to think when that happens.
 
First it was a fist, Martin Brunt's fist, today is a mallet, a Polo mallet.
 
First you have to understand that ironing is just one of those household chores that I particularly dislike.
 
Fred knows that when I'm ironing I'm literally armed and dangerous so he avoids, literally, even to utter a sound much less a word.  So much so that I even believe that if we are to win the lottery one day he'll patiently wait for me to put the ironing board away before breaking the news.
 
Well, one of these mornings I was ironing one of Fred’s Ralph Lauren shirts and, by chance, while looking at the logo I was hit just as if the horse and the player had come to life and popped the mallet right smack in the middle of the forehead.
 

"Of course!", I blurted, put the iron in the safe vertical position, and ran to my PC and wrote as quick as I could a mail to my Sisters.
 
The rest of that morning was me running back and forth to the computer. 

It was either because I had thought up of another implication of the initial thought or had something to add to the heated ongoing online debate or eagerly go and read other inputs to it.
 
Fred was sitting on the couch and was silently watching me run back and forth and finding it strange how entertained I was with the ironing added with my occasionals “Yes!” and “Yes, that would explain it!”
 
Later he would confess that although theoretically those moments that I was at the PC didn’t count as “ironing moments”, meaning that he could, in theory, say something or ask what was going on, he also realized that I hadn't exactly finished the chore in question so he opted for safe ground and kept his mouth shut.
 
Wise man, my Fred, and that's why I love him so much.
 
When he finally saw me putting away the board did he feel comfortable to "So what was all that about?”
 
"What? Oh, that? Dear, the most amazing thing just happened. I just realized that without a dice you can’t play a dice game!” said I exuberant with all my brilliance.
 
“Err... and?” he said as looked at me in a strange way certainly thinking his wife had finally last her wits “Not wanting to dampen your enthusiasm but isn’t that… just obvious?”
 
I was about to look at him with one of my deadliest stare that I could muster but did realize that he wasn’t up to date on all the discussion that had just occurred online.
 
“Yes, yes, you're absolutely right dear. The way I just said it, it's indeed obvious. But just imagine you want to be seen playing a dice game and when you open the box there’s no dice, what then? Then you can’t play the game nor be seen playing it, get it?”
 
“Errr… no…" he said "why don't you just get yourself another set of dice, say from another dice game that you may have and use it? It seems pretty simple to me at least….”
 
“Yes, yes, you're absolutely right again dear, but that is if we’re talking about a normal dice game in a normal household and you know how out of the ordinary the Maddie case is…”
 
“Yes, I had already figured out that it would be Maddie related..." now he was being patronizing, "but I’m just not making the connection…”
 
“Ok, let me try and explain. 

Imagine that you’re a wealthy bloke, one very wealthy and very powerful bloke. One day you and other eleven very wealthy and very powerful blokes are invited, more sort of challenged, to take part in a huge publicity stunt.
 
This stunt was based on the idea of having twelve very wealthy and very powerful people challenge each other in what they're supposed to do best: manage money. And what popular game involves playing with money? Monopoly! Following?"

"Yeah, guess so..."

"As it involves twelve very wealthy and very powerful people it could only be a very high-stake Monopoly game. A thirteenth very wealthy and very powerful person would play the banker.
 
The game was to be played with real money and the property prices raised a thousand times, which meant that Old Kent Road would be worth £60,000 and Mayfair £400,000. Each player would take with him  £1,500,000 of his own to gamble with, so the winner would walk out with £18,000,000.
 
£18,000,000!! That would make it a very interesting winner-take-all game, wouldn't it?"

"That would make it more than interesting..." said Fred now more attentive.

"Now imagine" I continued "that it was it was agreed and decided that it would be played away from the public's eye. The idea was to allow the players not feel the extra pressure of "prying" eyes and could feel they could decide with greater ease."

"So where would they play it?"

"In a luxury yacht out at sea. Imagine the ratings the TVs would have when they showed twelve very wealthy and very powerful people enter the yacht to set off like the Dirty Dozen but, in this particular case, only one was to exit "alive": the winner!

The yacht would sail for three days, set anchor and the game would begin. When the winner was found, and only then, the anchor would be raised and the yacht would head home.
 
This would enhance the suspense as no one but those on the yacht would know how the game was going, who was winning and who was losing or had lost all, until after seven days. 

Seven days would the soonest the public would know who had won.

Seven days, the soonest, but obviously the yacht would be watched, and people would be watching for it to move after dropping anchor. It could be after one day, two or three... no one would know. As long as the anchor remained on the bottom of the sea, the game was still on.
 
Then when the yacht finally started its voyage home there would be all the excitement to know who had won all.
 
The world, yes, the world would be following that yacht head home. The port would be packed with people upon arrival!"

"Of course it would! All TVs would be there cover it live!", exclaimed Fred really getting into the spirit. I think at this point he had forgotten that I was inventing a scenario and that the game wasn't real much less was it going happen...

"Now imagine that they publicized the idea and as you can easily understand sponsors would be piling on each other to be able to have their logo in someway associated with what would begin as the “Multi-Millionaire Monopoly Madness” to become the “M-Madness”.
 
At some point in time, somebody decided to spice things up and you know how? By creating a trophy!

You see, that way it would further glorify the winner as he would be able to show off to the world when  he would be holding the trophy in his hand as he walked off that yacht under the crowd's hysterical cheers. It's not every day that one can be recognized as having beat other eleven very wealthy and very powerful people, is it?"


"You bet it is! That would be one cup anyone would like to hold!" agreed enthusiastically Fred.

"No, it wouldn't be a cup! Somebody came up with the brilliant idea that instead of playing the game with the conventional set of dice for Monopoly, they would play it with a single 20-face Dungeons & Dragons dice made out of pure gold:

It would be a UNIQUE dice for a UNIQUE game! So what better trophy than the dice itself? They decided to call it the "M-Dice":

So all agreed and the dice was made specifically for this game by the finest jewelers in South Africa and was scientifically calibrated so that all sides had the exact same probability of appearing regardless of the number it had been engraved with. This was done by changing the carat quality to compensate the missing gold removed to carve the number. 

As you can easily imagine, it was a meticulous process that the media followed attentively. Very attentively.
 
It took almost two months to complete and when it was finally presented to the world it was valued at over £2,000,000. This raised the prize money to a whopping round figure of £20,000,000!" 
 
"So this took months to prepare if you include the making of the dice, the invitations, the announcements, the marketing campaigns... I can just imagine the enormous suspense it was created for the set-off date!", now Fred was really into it.

 
"You bet! Finally the day came for the yacht set off. Day one of three before the game started, remember? This allowed for the media to speculate on all it wanted from each contestant's peculiarities to the weather and even how the size of the waves would affect the roll of the M-Dice. 

All bookies went into a frenzy. Huge amounts of money exchanged hands on who would hold the M-Dice at the end of the game. Much, much more money than the £20,000,000 prize money was at stake, and it now involved the public and their savings with the media helping the party!

Out at sea, the first three days went by with the expected normality. On the fourth day, or day one for the game all players took their places and set up their money. Only when all was ready was the M-Dice to make its appearance.
 
So with all pomp and circumstance the M-Dice was brought in on a cushion by a man dressed in long tails and wearing a top-hat.
 
And then bad luck struck! The man in long tails tripped just like in a slapstick movie and the cushion, the M-Dice and the top-hat flew overboard."
 
"Now that's one enormous Oooops...!"

"That, my dear, is a quite correct description of what had just happened.  All looked at each other in utter disbelief. 

Options started to be raised and discussed.  Voices were raised and tempers went completely out of control but a sensation of helplessness invaded all.

All options had one thing in common, they all involved unacceptable embarrassment.
 
They had created a UNIQUE game that depended on a UNIQUE factor, and without it the game simply couldn't be played. They could pretend to have played it and even name a winner but what would the chosen one hold when they arrived at port? 

The crowd expected to see someone coming out with the M-Dice and when that wasn't possible to recreate they would ask what had happened and why there was no M-Dice and when if they were told the truth that the M-Dice was in fact at the bottom of the sea then they would ask with what dice was the game played with and if they were told that it had been with common dice would they accept the outcome?

Remember, people had bet a lot of money under the assumption that the game would be played with the M-Dice. Sure, those who won what they had bet would be fine with the result presented but all others would rightfully contest it and ask for their money back and that would mean winners wouldn't be able to be paid... It would be both the losers and the winners complaining!

And the sponsors? What to do with the sponsors who had invested so much expecting a return with the success of the event? They wouldn't take it easy to be linked up with such collective incompetence, would they? No, of course not! What an embarrassment! What a gigantic, enormous, monumental worldwide embarrassment!

So while they decided on what to do, the boat stayed out at sea. Day after day. Then days became weeks and weeks, months. No one on board knowing exactly what to do but all realizing that with each day that what was already a terrible embarrassment today would be even a greater one tomorrow. 

Even so they adamantly refused to face it.

On land everyone at first thought that the game was really be on a roll (when in fact it hadn’t even started) but then all became suspicious. A Monopoly game doesn't last that long.
 
They started to question the organizers but they insisted that the game was still going on. Almost a year after the game was supposed to have started, a spokesman came out and said "The game is almost finishing, there's a player that has now 195 new hotels, so it's almost over"

The man overlooked that you can't have 195 hotels in any Monopoly game, much less "new". And that statement was a year ago.
  
So you see, Fred, no M-Dice, no game… and worse, no game, no winner. And the world is STILL waiting for a winner.”
 
“Ok, I understood the story," said Fred "but just one thing, what has all this M-Dice story got to do with Maddie?”

“Don’t you see, Fred? When they destroyed Maddie’s body they threw their M-Dice into the sea, they were left with a dice game with no dice.”
 
“What?”
 
“Tell me, dear, how without a body can anyone justify that the McCanns and the T7 acted alone in PDL? Without the body they can’t pin the blame ONLY on the McCanns and the remainder Tapas, it’s just impossible. Where was the body when the PJ and GNR were present if they weren't helped on May 3rd?
 
Without Maddie's body SY is left with only two possibilities. One is stick to the abduction story.
 
However that one isn’t sticking anymore. Sure, they could come up with an abductor and say that he disposed of Maddie in a similar way the Spanish father, Jose Breton, did with his kids, Ruth and Jose, by burning them up, and present some “DNA-less” human bones, although in the Breton case the forensic experts were able to determine that the remains found belonged to those two unfortunate children. So the bones they had to find to later be "found" had to match Maddie's DNA, just imagine the scandal if it didn't! 

Anyhow, imagine they got themselves some completely "DNA-less" human bones of the size that would be compatible to a chid's skeleton, they still would have to show the world where exactly the body had been burned and that place had to be somewhere near PdL, Portugal!

To find a scapegoat, or if you want an "abductor", is one defying task, as has been proven to be. because it would mean they would have to find someone who would fit the impossible bill to a tee of proving how he was able to escape the whole world's intense scrutiny and meticulous vigilance. Remember how many blonde little girls were then harassed all over the world?

"Yes and I even remember reading somewhere being said that all blonde little girls then should wear a sticker saying "NO, I'M NOT MADDIE!"" 

"Oh yes I remember that too! Imagine someone having to explain, with facts,  how he was able to escape all that hysteria. Besides that, that same someone had to be willing to be called Maddie’s killer for eternity. They did try it with Hewlett, twice even and they saw it’s an impossible card to play.”
 
“And the other option?…”
 
“Oh, that would be to open the whole Pandora’s box that is the Maddie Affair…”
 
“Oh, I see… Hmmm, yes, no M-Dice, no game… no Maddie’s body… Well, tell me something, in your crazy Monopoly story, when did the yacht raise its anchor?”
 
“Honestly, dear, I don’t know when or if they will... they've been out there for almost 20 months now... in 4 months time it will be their 2nd Anniversary out there.. "

Post Scriptum: 

We want to make two things perfectly clear. 

First, is that the twelve players plus the banker don't represent anyone. The number of players was chosen in keeping with the Monopoly pieces that appear in the initial picture.

Second, in no way are we implying that Maddie's body was dumped at sea. The analogy made between the M-Dice and Maddie's body is that when the first falls into the sea it becomes as irretrievable as the second after it was destroyed, an assumption we're making as to what has happened with the body.