Very Pertinent Question

“EXCLUSIVE: WHO WAS THE WOMAN OUTSIDE MADDIE'S FLAT?

Sunday May 10, 2009

By James Murray

A WOMAN was seen acting suspiciously outside Kate and Gerry McCann’s apartment just an hour before their daughter Madeleine was abducted.

The slim, Portuguese-looking woman in a plum-coloured top and white skirt with long, dark, swept-back hair acted furtively when she was spotted at 8pm on May 3 in 2007 near the Mark Warner Ocean Club complex.

She was standing under a streetlight at a crossroads only 40 feet from where Madeleine was sleeping with her brother Sean and his twin sister Amelie.

Investigators are being urged to find her to see if she was in any way connected to a pockmarked prowler seen several times outside the apartment in the day leading up to the kidnap.

Details of the mystery woman have only just become known after a Sunday Express investigation into the baffling case was alerted by an elderly British woman who has lived in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve for more than 30 years.

Speaking from her villa near the Ocean Club, the woman, who has asked not to be named, recalled: “On that night I went to the supermarket at the bottom of the road just before it closed at 8pm.

“As I drove past the entrance to the Ocean Club I saw a woman standing opposite Apartment 5A the McCanns were staying in.

“Even at that time of night the streets were deserted, so I was surprised to see someone there. I remember thinking it was unusual because it is just not the sort of place you would hang around.

“As I drove up to the junction she stepped around to the other side of the street lamp as though she didn’t want me to look at her. She was not carrying a bag or a mobile phone. I thought she might have been waiting for a lift but no car came along while I was there.

“I turned right and could see quite clearly she was looking at Apartment 5A.

“As I approached another junction a small, brown car, with just one English-looking man in it swung round and nearly hit mine.”

When she heard that Madeleine had vanished she asked a relative to inform the police about her sightings.

More than 30 people have so far phoned in about the artist’s impression shown on a Channel 4 documentary last Thursday of a scar-faced man seen loitering outside the McCanns’ apartment”

Does anyone know, by any chance, of “an elderly British woman who has lived in Praia da Luz for more than 30 years", and “speaking from her villa near the Ocean Club” says that she drives “to the supermarket at the bottom of the road” and has “asked a relative to inform the police" about a "man seen loitering outside the McCann´'s apartment"?

Hmmm... an elderly ex-Pat, living in PdL/Lagos for more than 30 years that drives down to the supermarket down the street and has a relative that has spoken to the police… I bet you’re thinking of Mrs Fenn aren’t you?

Don’t be silly! Mrs Fenn lived in an apartment, the G5 right above the 5A, and not in a villa, right?

Besides that, the relative that spoke to the police wasn’t asked to do so. She did it after contacting other relatives in the UK, remember? And she hardly described the man she saw as a "pockmarked prowler” / "scar-faced man" but rather to be a blonde one, albeit the incomprehensible insistence on the part of Leics Police to have her say that she had seen him with glasses when she hadn't, remember?

No, it just can’t be Mrs Fenn. Why? Well, first and foremost I just can’t see any reason for her to do something like that. Can you?

But sure seems to have been an unusual concentration of elderly ex-Pat ladies, that live in PdL/Lagos for more than 30 years and that drive down to the supermarket down the street and that have relatives speaking to the police about Maddie… isn't there? One very special little town, isn't it?