The help and the tennis

1. Introduction

There is something in the case that is consensual that it is unclear and that to us is absolutely key.

We would even go as far as to call the person involved, close him in a room and ask him the question he was asked before and to which he has given a very vague and unclear answer to say the least.

That person David Payne and that question would be “about what EXACTLY you intended to help Kate McCann with when you went to the McCann apartment at around 18:30 on the evening of May 3 2007?”

And until he gave a clear answer he wouldn’t be able to leave the room. And if he asked for the presence of his lawyer, then that would be arranged.

And we attribute the extreme importance of clarification of this particular thing because, like water and olive oil, this offered help and tennis simply don’t mix not matter how hard one tries.


2. Tennis court and swinging

A close friend of mine asked me one day what had made me first thing of swinging in relation to the Maddie case.

I told her “David Payne’s trip to the tennis courts, that is what triggered swinging in my mind”. And to this she replied with an incredulous “…and from just that, you came to the conclusion of swinging??”

Yes, the reader read it right. It was not his visit to apartment 5A but the one he made to the tennis courts that made me certain that swinging was at the base of the case, although then, I naively thought that only the T9 were involved in the events of May 3.

Then I had not realised that it was not only them but most guests as well, the Ocean Club management and part of its staff, Mark Warner management and staff and British immigrants of Praia da Luz and around Lagos who were also involved in the hoax.

I do believe that my friend to this day continues to think that I jumped to a rushed conclusion but I only answered honestly because it was that tennis court talk between David and Gerry that made me see that it was swinging they were trying to hide.

Why, is what we hope to explain in this post.


3. The McCanns and the Pope

And to make things worse about my friend thinking that I had made a premature conclusion out of nowhere about something, I’ll share with readers what was my state of ignorance about the case when that lightbulb moment happened.

The Maddie case had caught my interest like with the rest of society and followed it with the average interest of the average citizen.

Very soon after Madeleine disappeared, I thought the parents were lying.

But what clinched that they were lying was the Pope visit.

Before Maddie disappeared, on April 23 2003, Pope John Paul II received, inside the Vatican the President of one of the most known Portuguese football clubs, FC Porto, Mr Pinto da Costa.

Mr Pinto da Costa is a charismatic personality in Portugal. Since April 17 1982 he is the longest President of a football club in functions in the world. Then, in Portugal he was known as the “Portuguese Pope”. So, this visit of the “Pope” Pinto da Costa to Pope John Paul II made the news all over Portugal.

But, however charismatic or popular in Portugal Mr Pinto da Costa is or may be, in the grand scheme of the world, he’s was just the President of a Portuguese football club, even if that football club had won international titles.

When the McCanns met the Pope Benedict on May 30 2007, they were the parents of Maddie the allegedly abducted 4 yr old girl in the Algarve, then the world’s most well-known human face and the human being who was being most looked for in the entire world.

Yet, unlike it had happened with a President of a Portuguese football club, the Vatican protocol had the Pope meet them outside, very, very briefly and all quite awkward.

And the McCanns didn’t appear at the Vatican impromptu. Their visit had been announced in the media and Maddie was on almost every front page of every newspaper in the world. And yet, the Pope only met them outside.

That, as a TV watcher, confirmed to me that the Pope knew the parents were lying. For some reason all refs to this encounter have been removed from the Vatican website.


4. The moment of rage

Fast-forward to when Mr Amaral published his book.

That means that between the visit to the Pope and then, I never went online to search about the case.

In that time, like the majority of the Portuguese, I felt that the Portuguese simply had conceded once again to British pressure by not charging the McCanns in September, by letting itself be humiliated by allowing the couple to leave the country, by beingsubmissive when kicking Mr Amaral off the investigation in October and by archiving the case in July.

So, until then I was simply, right or wrong, one more fatalistically resigned Portuguese citizen who witnessed, once again, Portugal bow to the external British pressure.

One day, not sure if in July or already in August, I was in a big commercial outlet and saw Mr Amaral’s book on sale.

I picked it up and like anyone who picks up a book that has pictures for the first time, I went straight to them.

And when I saw the picture of the Tapas esplanade with an arrow pointing to a flimsy small table saying that it was the location where a group of 9 was having dinner, I immediately sensed that the case was much more than I thought it had been.

And when my eyes ran over the drawings (later would see them as pictures in the PJ Files) of Chapter 11 (pgs 122 to 130) I was furious.

The British had not only humiliated the Portuguese by having the couple flown off but had joked with them. Clearly no one had been abducted from that room and saying that someone was could only be insulting a person’s intelligence, or in the case, insulting an entire nation.

I took it as blow as the huge and humiliating joke at the expense of the Portuguese that it was.

That made me go on the internet where I found the case.


5. Mr Amaral’s book and Praia da Luz

Those who have the original book, know that there’s only a small map of Luz on the 4th page in which the Ocean Club appears as covering the area that goes from the Baptista supermarket, including its parking lot, all the way up to Blocks 4 and 5.

No reference whatsoever to where the tennis courts are but one could deduce that they would be inside that enclosed area that appears in the photo illustrating where Jane says she saw Tannerman, without know how big that area would be.

So, after reading the book, the only detailed information then out about the case, all the data I had about what had happened in that crucial end of the evening of May 3 was that this man, David Payne, had come from a beachfront restaurant called Paraiso (which appeared in one of the pictures) and on his way to his apartment to to change into tennis gear and collect whatever he needed to go play tennis suddenly decided to take a detour, enter the closed facilities where the tennis courts were located, go there and talk to a man, his friend, who was allegedly playing tennis there, and ask him if he could go help that man’s wife in their apartment and after obtaining that permission he went and did just that.

To this day, we are still don’t know what kind of help Payne offered and that Gerry accepted.

And then and there, I knew it was swinging. Not because of the question but because tennis courts were involved as well as 2 men, one playing and the other not and the absence of an objective reason for that encounter to have ever happened.


6. The permission

That, and that alone, in my mind, shouted swinging.

Before being accused of having a filthy mind let me explain my reasoning: the only reason David Payne and Gerry McCann would have together come up with such an absurd story (later we will see how really absurd it is) could only be that they wanted to legitimise Payne’s visit to Kate.

Why the need for that legitimisation?

If Fiona Payne had asked David to pass by 5A for some milk or sugar for the next day’s breakfast or plastic plates for next day’s lunch, for example, would David have gone to the tennis courts to ask Gerry for permission? No, he wouldn’t. His presence in the apartment had been legitimised.

He would have walked up, knocked on the door, asked for whatever and left. And no one would find that strange.

But no one remembered then to come up with such a simple explanation for his presence in that apartment.

When those deciding had to come up with some reason for David having been in the McCann’s apartment, their brains were so filled with adrenaline , showing all was done in haste and under pressure, that their judgement was clouded and weren’t able to see how simple it would have been instead of inventing the permission by the tennis court absurdity.

The invention of that absurdity showed that someone thought that a legitimisation was needed to ‘normalise’ the fact that a married man had been in a married woman’s apartment without the presence of their respective spouses.

And if there was that need for that authorisation from that woman’s husband, then it could only be because someone thought them being seen together without it, would appear that they were engaged, or attempting to engage, in some sort of adult interaction.

Only that could justify the need for David to have a “written” note of approval from Gerry for him being in that apartment and it not appear unusual.

And the fact that Gerry gave that “written” approval, rules out a possible affair between David and Kate.

The public permission from the woman’s husband to show normalcy could only be that the intended/attempted adult interaction between her and David was of his knowledge so a scenario of wife-swapping/swinging.

Knowing how falsely prude British society can be about sexual scandals it was evident to me swinging, or attempted swinging was the heart of what was being hidden.

And that permission by the tennis courts was what THEN sparked me into thinking that swinging was the big secret.

THEN, I didn’t know that Barra da Costa had mentioned swinging, I didn’t know there was someone saying it online before the files were released as we showed in our post “The best answer”, I didn’t know that the only common word that was forensically searched for on all 9 apprehended computers was “swing”, I didn’t know that St Phunurius was a nearby property locals told the PJ held sex parties which was visited by the police because it was in some way linked to Robert Murat, I didn’t know that there was a woman who tweeted that she witnessed a promiscuous environment when she booked there by accident, I didn’t know that there were too many nannies for an off-season resort, I didn’t know the guest booking sheets had been doctored, I didn’t know the creche sheets had been doctored, I didn’t know… I didn’t know… etc.

I didn’t know all this but I felt convinced that it was all about swinging.

So, the answer to my friend was summed up into the following sentence: “I knew it was swinging because of a permission a married man needed to have at some tennis court from a woman’s husband to be with her in their apartment without giving any reason for being there.”


7. The particulars of a tennis court

And the fact that the permission was sought after and given in a tennis court, any tennis court, was what ignited in my brain that this whole episode was absurd.

As I said, I didn’t know the details of the inside of the Tapas area, much less the details where the tennis courts were in relation to it, so in my mind I pictured a tennis court, any tennis courts.

I imagined there would be 2 or 3 with a fence around them.

The particularity about the tennis game is the space it needs to be played.

Not talking only about the court itself but the space around that it needs for the game to be played according to its rules.

They state, if we’re not mistaken, that a ball has to bounce completely outside the line to be considered as out.

So, for the game to be played it has to have enough space outside the markings to allow for a ball hitting the line if only slightly and be played between that moment and where it is to bounce on the ground again.

The player receiving the ball has to have space that allows swinging his/her racquet and continuing the play.

For that reason, tennis courts have normally a distance of 6 metres at each end and 3 metres to the sides.

The dimensions of the court are 24 metres in length and 11 in width.

So, the fencing around a single tennis court is a rectangle with the minimum dimensions of 36 metres by 17 metres. Like it happens at Tapas:

That makes tennis not to be exactly a game in which one can easily communicate for chat on the side with a player playing it .

The player has to come to the fence and unlike collective sports like football, rugby or field-hockey, where a player can come quickly to the side-line to be asked something and the games continues without him or her, in tennis there are too few players.

That means that if one of the tennis players has to stop and come to the fence even for just a quick talk, the game is interrupted and the other player(s) have to wait until s/he to returns.

To prolong such a conversation is disrespectful to all the other players waiting, so not exactly the right location for a man, out of the blue, to go and interrupt to ask a player if he can go help his wife, without having a major reason, such as an emergency, for doing so.

The permission story was just too absurd to be true, in any tennis court.


8. The particulars of the Tapas tennis courts

But, the absurd becomes laughable when one gets to know the tennis courts at Tapas.

As everyone now knows, the 2 courts are on a different level in that space.

It was only after being inside the Tapas area that one can really understand how out-of-the way from the rest of the space that these courts really are.

They are at the farthest corner away from the main entrance to the area.

The entrance to the space is almost hidden and made up of a stairs with 13 steps. The difference in height between the top and bottom of stairs (rest of Tapas area and tennis courts) is around 2.0/2.1 metres.

A not that important detail is that the 2 courts are not level with each other as can be seen above.

The one furthest from the Tapas bar was is about 30/40 cm higher than the one nearer. Making the difference of heights between the kids’ area and the courts to be about 2.0/2.1 metres to the one nearest to the Tapas bar and 1.70/1.80 metres for the other.

We don’t know on which court was Gerry playing in. The only indication we have is that 14:30/15:30 he played on court #2 and even then, we don’t know which one that is.

So, this is the scenario.

David on his way to the apartment decides to significantly detour out of his way into the Tapas area. Inside that out of the way area, he heads to another out of the way area there, the tennis courts, to ask a man who is on the other side of the fence, about 2 metres below who is feet 6 metres away if he could if he could go help the man’s wife, without giving any reason why she would need this help, and the man below and apparently far away, gives his permission without knowing exactly what he has given permission  for.

Or if Gerry came close to the wall:

Does this make any sense?

No, it doesn’t but believe it or not, it’s the official version of events.

It only makes sense if it was what we say it was: an invented story clearly seeking a justification for David Payne having been inside the apartment together with Kate without either Fiona or Gerry being there.


9. Where’s Gerry?

But besides the absurdity there are 2 sets of circumstances that may surprise the reader surrounding this absurd absurdity.

The first is that there’s no way for David to know that Gerry is playing tennis.

This is what Fiona has to say about what she knew of the whereabouts of Gerry that afternoon:

“When they were asleep, I think that day, I know Dave had been talking about trying to go wind surfing because the weather was better. I'm just trying to recall. I think mum had tennis possibly, I think I just stayed at the apartment, Dave possibly, sort of halfway through the afternoon, while the kids were still asleep, went off to do some wind surfing and I think Matt and Russell had already gone down to do, to take a boat out a bit earlier, so the men were sort of out of the picture, and I don't know what Gerry was doing. Erm, as I say, mum, I can't remember whether mum was with me or not, she possibly had played a bit of tennis, I think she might have played a bit of tennis with Jane, I don't know, I can't comment on them, but I was around, I was around the apartment'.”

We will later see that she states that the men had scheduled to play tennis at 18:00. So, possibly Gerry could have been playing tennis but he, just like David could have been late and, for example still be in his apartment together with Kate.

So, David, enters the Tapas area assuming that Gerry is there but running the risk of him not being.

And how is that important? Well, besides him making a needless trip inside the Tapas area, doesn’t logic dictate that if Kate needed any sort of help, Gerry wouldn’t have left the apartment in the first place? To help her with whatever she needed?

No, instead, we have a man who without knowing if the woman’s husband was indeed playing tennis, assumes he is and then offers to help her with something that her husband saw no need to stay home to do himself.


10. Hurry, to be or not to be?

But the second set of circumstances is the most fascinating.

What few people realise is that when Payne remembered to go help Kate for reasons only he knows, he was in a hurry… to play tennis.

Again Fiona Payne in her rogatory:

“Erm, and then I remember it getting to tennis time, because it was men's tennis that night and the men had all rearranged the time to suit us and it was getting towards six o'clock and, you know, they were going to be late, so I remember saying 'Look, you better go because it's not fair, you've moved the time then you'll be late'. Erm, so I think that, that was sort of approaching five to six. And we were toying with the idea of getting the kids ice creams for pudding and then thought oh we probably don't have time, but then we decided well, you know, why don't you go off and go to your tennis and we'll just give them their ice cream and follow on. And so I think they left probably about, you know, that being Matt and Dave and Russell, around five to six, six o'clock time. And the, you know, the wives stayed behind with the kids, they had ice cream and then we followed on about ten past six and we just walked back up to, to watch them play a bit of tennis and give the kids, you know, a little playtime. Erm, and I don't think we stayed there that long that night because the kids were pretty, pretty tired. Erm, I'm trying to think, I'd say probably by seven o'clock we were, me and my mum headed back with the kids to start bath time. Erm, and Dave, we left him playing tennis for a bit longer. Erm, I think we'd bathed the kids by the time he got back, probably ten minutes later. Erm, and then I went for a run that night, after the kids were bathed'.”

We see no such change in the tennis booking sheets, with the exception of seeing that Gerry was moved from 15:30-16:30 slot to an earlier one 14:30-15:30:

Gerry who then was playing tennis again when David at around 18:15 remembers that he wants to help Kate and that he has to have Gerry’s permission.

Gerry must have loved tennis (a vice he seems to have abandoned) certainly more than he did like any other sport!

So, at 18:15, David was Payne in a hurry prompted by his wife to go and play tennis but he decides to make rather a prolonged pit-stop by going inside the Tapas area, to the tennis courts, shout at Gerry he wants to help Kate, gets his agreement shouted back, heads for the for apartment 5A, stays, according to him, there for half an hour and according to Kate, a few minutes.

He only says that he admired the beauty of the children and does not register seeing an adult woman who only had a towel around her but most importantly never gets to, in any way, explain what he did all that time he says he was there nor in what way he helped Kate.

Reading the above, as others had started without him, one would think he had abandoned the idea of going to play tennis.

But that was not the case. Far from it. After this significant and prolonged detour, that’s what he decides to do: go and play tennis.

Something he had been in a hurry to do at the start of all this.

Is this a badly written script? No, to call this a script would be a huge insult to all script writers including all those with no talent.


11. Conclusion

Anyone know any synonyms of absurd?

Do use them ALL please to qualify this episode.

Note, this is not ill-playing a horrible script. This is the script itself. The only bad playing in it is the discrepancy of the time Payne spent in the apartment. The rest is played as “written”.

And that time discrepancy is just another indication of a hastily concocted story. They didn’t account for a question about how long visit lasted? Of course they would.

The ridiculousness of the entire thing shows that this invention was rushed. It was done in haste and under pressure. It they had time and not a hundred other things to focus on, the would have come up with a minimally credible story.

Note, only the excuse was invented. Because if there was a need to concoct so hastily an excuse for David having been in the apartment, it was because he had been there.

Note, as we said, this is the official version. We see many people interested in analysing the wording and body language used by the McCanns and very few questioning the lack of clarification about this help Payne offered Kate that evening.



Post Scriptum:

Textusa14 Apr 2018, 14:32:00

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/KATERINA-PAYNE-INCIDENT.htm
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/P13/13_VOLUME_XIIIa_Page_3909.jpg

“I read carefully the written document/questionnaire provided by David Payne but was not able to extricate any other information besides what is already known.
He declares that he saw Madeleine, for the last time, at 17H00 on 3/5/07 in the McCann apartment. Also present there were Kate and Gerry. He did not indicate the motive for being there or what he was doing. He also cannot indicate how long he stayed.”

So, it was at 17H00 and Gerry was present.

Interesting isn’t it?

So much so that we are going to put it as a Post Scriptum!

(translation  from here and page from here)

Post Scriptum II:


This is the surprise that Ocean Club had especially for me last year at Tapas:

On octagonal table for 8. Not even for 9 or 10. Not even round.

But BIG.

Where no similar object has ever been photographed:

Clearly put there to convince guests who are not familiar with the case that it was the table where the T9 allegedly had dinner.

If this doesn’t show the dinners never happened and how compromised with the hoax the Ocean Club is, nothing will.

We took at as a homage to the fictitious BRT and to us. Thank you, Ocean Club.