Thanks - you know thinking about it - it is a pretty strong eye witness account - that fits in with the timeline - now we can debate the semantics of the detail - but she either saw something or she is out and out lying
If she isnt lying - then who was the fman and who was the girl if it wasnt Madeline .
I guess he would be what he seemed to be: a father taking his sleeping child home from the creche. It would be helpful to know what the path from creche to apartment 5A is, and which way he was heading. But thinking more about the credibility of Tanner's account (which I agree with you, does sound pretty credible in that early article) has caused me to consider a small number of options. Here's the thinking:
1) according to the article Tanner says she was arriving late to dinner (NOT that she had gone on a check of the children) at 9:30 pm.
2) the article says she "saw the man close to the open window of the bedroom" which would put bundleman on the far side of the Tapas bar, by the parking lot, not in the little lane that goes nowhere.
3) the article also says the child appeared to be asleep (i.e., no struggle).
4) this is the same trip to the Tapas Bar during which Tanner also saw Gerry McCann & Jeremy Wilkins chatting though they didn't see her, as Gerry says he had checked on the kids at 9:30 then bumped into Wilkins for a chat. My understanding of the layout of the place is that the only way to get into Ocean Club is via the reception door, so Jane Tanner is walking around that corner of the building by Maddy's window and down the street to the reception door. If Gerry & Jeremy were standing anywhere along the path between Tapas Bar and apartment, Jane must have walked within feet of them. There's only one path here. But it was dark and the two men might've been deep in a conversation and didn't notice her. I can buy all this.
4) If all the foregoing is true, then Gerry McCann and Jeremy Wilkins were VERY CLOSE to the apartment at the exact moment that someone was grabbing Madeleine out of her bed. If they didn't hear or notice anything, then we have to assume that whatever happened went down without screams or a struggle. Plus there's the fact that Tanner saw no struggle. And yet we have Madeleine being a child whose own mother describes her as "hysterical".
So if we believe the Tapas 9's own account of things we have to conclude either:
a) an abductor was able to subdue Madeleine with threats ... which is something that MIGHT work with a 4-year-old but won't work with a 2-year-old as they're not old enough to understand a threat (which could explain why Maddy was taken and not the younger ones).
b) an abductor somehow rendered Madeleine unconscious. Beat her? That's a risky thing to do and doesn't seem to be part of the usual pedophile MO. Drugged her? Maybe pedophiles carry around hypos full of benadryl these days?
c) An undrugged Madeleine slept through the whole thing.
d) Madeleine was drugged by her parents.
Sticking with Tapas 9's own account of things ("We did not drug our children"), then that means Maddy must have been threatened, drugged, or beaten into submission by her abductor, or else simply slept through the whole thing. The McCanns obviously expect us to believe one of these scenarios, as they are the ONLY ones consistent with their account of things. What is the plausibility of these explanations?
* a "hysterical" 4-year-old can sleep through being picked up and carried away by a stranger.
* a "hysterical" 4-year-old can be threatened quickly into passivity by something a stranger says to her ("I'll kill you/mommy/cuddle-cat if you so much as sqeak"). At the very least, you're going to need a person who speaks pretty good english.
* pedophile abductors sometimes beat children unconscious before taking them away.
* pedophile abductors sometimes use injectable drugs to subdue their victims.
So ... Did he leave the apartment at 9:05, or leave the Tapas Bar to make his check at 9:05? That would be maybe a 10-minute difference in the timeline (5 minutes to walk to the apartment + 5 minutes to do the check). 
