The reason why on the evening of Thursday the 3rd May 2007 that when Kate returned to the tapas restaurant to break the news that (a) 'they have taken her, they have taken her, Madeleine is gone' was because by that stage the McCanns knew by then that a man and a woman had been responsible for taking Madeleine from the lobster creche two days earlier (the two people concerned must have been the people linked to the Carpenter child who got booked into the lobster creche 10 minutes after Madeleine on that Tuesday afternoon, booked in by a man, but collected by a woman...
It's possible that when the Carpenter child got brought to the creche that the child was accompanied by a man and a woman...
For some reason, these two people were given the responsibility of taking the Carpenter child and Madeleine McCann down to the beach with a view of them joining the other six (6) children in that afternoons activity, but they never arrived there! The man and woman abducted Madeleine...
This was what the McCanns and their friends had known about from after the close of the lobster creche by 5.30pm on the afternoon of Tuesday 1st May 2007...
I believe that it was Fiona Payne who makes mention of the fact that Kate had asked her if she had seen Madeleine down on the beach at the sailing club activity, and Fiona Payne had said 'no' she hadn't...
By this stage, the McFlies and the rest of the group were referring to the sailing club activity down on the beach taking place on the Thursday afternoon (3rd May 2007), but it had taken place two days previously - Fiona Payne had not seen Madeleine McCann at that activity! This fits in with Madeleine vanishing at some point after 14.30hrs on the afternoon of Tuesday the 1st May when Gerry McCann deposited Madeleine at the lobster creche, and the commencement of the sailing boat activity down on the beach shortly afterwards. The alarm does not appear to have been raised until either Kate had bumped into her friend Fiona Payne during the middle of the afternoon and they spoke about the children enjoying the sailing club activity down on the beach, but that Madeleine wasn't there with the other children, or later on at the close of the lobster creche business at 5.30pm, when parents or guardians collected their children, or the creche nannies took children back to their parents or guardians!