Then we have this statement by a witness Maria Manuela Martins da Silva
who claims that at 10pm there was nothing at all going on in the vicinity of Apartment 5A which (had the alarm been raised at 9.20pm) should have been abuzz with distraught people searching and shouting
"Declares further that on the night 03-05-07, she left the apartment at around 21H58—she remembers the exact time because she asked her friend the time and she responded after checking this on the telephone in the lounge;
. They left the building and the deponent and her boyfriend took the Opel Frontera, previously indicated, which was parked out front of the apartment, in the private parking area of Block 6 where her freind’s apartment was located;
. She declares that the night was good with a breeze, and that it was dark;
. After leaving Block 6, they turned right and after left, passing in front of the block occupied by the McCanns. She states that she saw no movement of people, and that in the immediate areas of the blocks she saw no vehicle with the exception of a small car, that appeared to her grey in colour, parked close to the window of the McCann apartment;
She declares further that she mentioned this fact to her boyfriend and that it wasn’t yet summer given the movement on the roads, and at that hour movement was nill;
. States that she looked at the exit of the apartment and that from the flat above the McCanns, she saw light, and also in from of the apartment, but she could not define, concretely, where she saw the light when she passed the McCann apartment;
. Next to the tree, she did not detect any movement of people or vehicles, and nothing struck her as abnormal in that zone that would have raised her suspicions;
. She only learnt of what had happened to little Madeleine the next day after having received a telephone call from her friend, who alerted her to what had happened;
How can we account for this? Does this not suggest the alarm was raised AFTER 10pm? If not, why not?
