For months, I'd been working quietly on a TV documentary about a missing 29-year-old woman. She was the widow of the July 7 London bomber Germaine Lindsay. Stories about her were mixed, and hard facts were proving elusive. Several weeks before the Nairobi attack, I'd booked to fly into Kenya on 22 September.
By the time I landed, militants had killed dozens of people and held countless others hostage. With the light failing, and police and soldiers roaming the streets, the foreign press corps gathered in a dingy underground car park within sight of the Westgate shopping centre.
I asked the journalists if they'd heard any news about the subject of my film, Samantha Lewthwaite. One told
me it would harm her credibility if she speculated about the so-called "white widow". Others said they'd heard whispers of a white woman among the attackers. But nobody could get a straight quote, and no journalist would even mention her name on camera.
The London news desks wouldn't be so cautious. The next morning the Sun splashed with "Find The White Widow"; the Mirror with "Britain's White Widow Was Bloodbath Mastermind". Both quoted anonymous security sources as saying "she's our No 1 target".
In Kenya, no ministers or police initially went on the record about her involvement. But three days after the attack began, Amina Mohamed, Kenya's foreign minister, told PBS in America "two or three Americans and I think ... one Brit" were involved. And that Brit was a British woman? "Woman Woman [sic]. And she has, I think, done it many times before."
The story spiralled: Lewthwaite seemed to become the world's most wanted. Much of the reporting was based on third- and fourth-hand hearsay, contradictory and anonymous security personnel and government officials, a teacher reporting the words of her traumatised pupil.
There were few facts, however, and there were solid reasons not to believe Lewthwaite took part in the mall shootings. An al-Shabaab Twitter account stated "we do not employ sisters in such military operations". Colleagues from Panorama tried to trace witnesses of a white woman, but either they were not to be found or they backtracked when questioned.
Five days after the attack's start, Interpol announced there was an international arrest warrant for Lewthwaite, triggering more sensational coverage. On 28 September, the Daily Mail could confidently write, "what is indisputable is that she has blood on her hands". She has not yet been found guilty of terrorism or murder. Much of the reporting would be prejudicial to a fair trial. Almost every fact is disputable.
I spent much of the week in a Mombasa courtroom. Jermaine Grant, a Muslim convert from London, sat stony-faced in the dock while a Scotland Yard police officer handled dozens of plastic evidence bags containing substances that he said could make an explosive when mixed together. They had been found in December 2011 in the house where Grant had lived in Mombasa.
The Lewthwaite arrest warrant alleges that she was also involved in this conspiracy. And we do know that in another house, raided at the same time, her birth certificate was found. Kenyan police say they almost arrested her but mysteriously let her go because she was travelling under a false passport.
Another widely reported sighting of the "white widow" was at a bar in Mombasa in June 2012. While the locals were watching football, rocket-propelled grenades ripped through a bar injuring dozens and killing three including a child. When I went back there last week, a witness I found did mention a woman – but she wasn't white.
But why let the facts get in the way of such a good story? Spare a thought for the family. Lewthwaite's brother, sister, father and mother are trying to come to terms with her disappearance while satellite trucks are camped at the end of their streets, and journalists station their cars outside their front doors.
And what's slightly depressing about the whole affair is that the press's determination to create a mysterious and elusive terror mastermind (on the basis of little hard evidence) plays directly to the propaganda agenda of al-Shabaab. She may well be guilty of fraud and other crimes – though how efficient she is is open to doubt – but creating the image of an almost supernaturally skilled queen of indiscriminate terror seems both counterproductive and irresponsible. In Somalia, illuminated in the soft light of their laptops, the canny media strategists of al-Shabaab must be chuckling.
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