Why are the “Tapas 9�?key to solving the Madeleine mystery?

Kate and Gerry McCann were dining with seven British friends at a tapas restaurant in the Ocean Club resort when Madeleine was reported missing. The friends are crucial witnesses but have said very little publicly. Police sources have claimed there are inconsistencies in their statements to officers. The friends are Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, Russell O’Brien and his partner Jane Tanner and David and Fiona Payne and her mother Dianne Webster.

Did any of them see anyone taking Madeleine?

Jane Tanner told police that she saw a man walking away from the McCanns�?apartment at 9.15pm. Sources close to the couple have previously said that the man had a child wrapped in the blanket and was walking in a southerly direction. However, the London Evening Standard reported yesterday that Ms Tanner had seen man carrying a girl dressed in Madeleine’s distinctive pink-and-white pyjamas walking eastwards, towards the house of the official suspect Robert Murat, 33.

Do police believe this was a man abducting Madeleine?

Detectives refused to publicise the sighting for three weeks. Another witness, Jeremy Wilkins, is reported to have told police that he was in the area talking to Mr McCann and did not see the mystery man.

Did anyone else in the Tapas 9 notice anything strange?

Matthew Oldfield said he had checked on the McCanns�?apartment at 9.30pm. A source close to the McCanns had said he did not look into the bedroom where Madeleine was sleeping with the two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie. But the Evening Standard report claimed he saw the twins but did not have a view of Madeleine’s bed.

Was there anything strange about the room after Madeleine disappeared?

Mrs McCann was sure Madeleine had been abducted because the bedroom window was open and the security shutter was forced open, a source close to the family has insisted. Tests on the shutter showed no sign of forced entry. However, another friend claimed yesterday that the shutter had been left open.

When will the Portuguese courts decide what to do in the Madeleine case?

Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, a criminal instructional judge in Portimão, has decided that there is no need for the McCanns to be reinterviewed at this point, hence the prosecutor’s statement last night. The threat of them having to return to the Algarve in the near future has been lifted. The judge must complete his rulings by today on a variety of issues. It is believed that he has already authorised the use of Mrs McCann’s diaries as evidence.

Could the couple still be charged soon?

Unlikely. LuÍs Armando Bilro Verão, the lead public prosecutor, must now decide if there is sufficient evidence to bring charges against them, if he needs to request the PolÍcia Judiciária to carry out further investigations or if the case against them should be dropped.

Why is it all taking so long?

Portuguese detectives are still waiting for the results of tests on samples being carried out by the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham. They are also believed to want to carry out further searches in the Algarve and possibly at the McCanns�?home.

So how long will the McCanns have to wait?

The couple can remain as arguidos, or official suspects, for eight months before the Portuguese police have to apply for a four-month extension. After this time they automatically cease to be suspects, but there is no requirement for the prosecutor to clear them formally.

Robert Murat, a British self-employed property consultant on the Algarve and the only other official suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, has been an arguido for four months.

Why has there been so much confusion?

Portugal’s strict laws of judicial secrecy mean that nobody involved in a criminal investigation is allowed to reveal any of the evidence in the case. However, Portuguese police sources are regularly quoted giving incriminating details about the McCanns�?role in their daughter’s disappearance. Friends of the couple have increasingly been attempting to challenge these reports with their own interpretation of events. Both sides are actually breaking the law and could face up to two years in jail.

Who is who in Team McCann

Clarence Mitchell

Former BBC journalist appointed on Monday as Kate and Gerry McCann’s official spokesman. Represented them in May and June after being sent to Praia da Luz by the Foreign and Commonwealth Offic

Michael Caplan, QC

One of few solicitors to be appointed QC, expert in extradition and international criminal law. Prevented extradition to Spain of former Chilean president General Augusto Pinochet

Angus McBride

Leading criminal solicitor with expertise in dealing with media and protecting reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation

Carlos Pinto de Abreu

One of Portugal’s best-known lawyers with reputation for taking on controversial cases. Lodged McCanns�?libel action against Portuguese newspaper which said they were police suspects

Esther McVey

Former GMTV presenter and Conservative parliamentary candidate, trustee and spokeswoman for Madeleine Fund. Has known Mrs McCann since they did their A levels together

Father Haynes Hubbard

Anglican priest at church of Nossa Senhora da Luz (Our Lady of the Light) in Praia da Luz and his wife, Susan, have become close friends and confidants of McCanns

Calum MacRae

18-year-old internet expert runs Find Madeleine website which has attracted more than 400,000 unique users and helped to raise more than £1 million in donations for campaign

Philomena McCann

Mr McCann’s sister, a headteacher, has been key family member to publicise hunt for Madeleine and to defend her parents

Trish and Sandy Cameron

Mr McCann’s sister and brother-in-law have been frequent visitors to the couple in Praia da Luz and Rothley. About 30 other relatives and friends also visited them in Praia da Luz

Why are the McCann’s early television interviews being scrutinised?

Commentators have seized on the lack of emotion shown by Kate and Gerry McCann during a series of televised statements and interviews in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance. It is claimed that this was an unnatural response and indicated that the couple were hiding something. In fact, criminal profilers had advised them to display no overt emotion in case Madeleine’s abductor “got off" on the sight of her parents in obvious distress. Off camera, they were deeply distressed and received help from counsellors.

How can the police establish Mrs McCann’s state of mind?

Prosecutors are reported to want access to Mrs McCann’s medical records to see if there is any history of illness such as depression which could explain why she would kill Madeleine. They are also said to want British police to carry out investigations into the couple’s relationship and personal history.

Could Mrs McCann’s handwriting be used as evidence?

A judge has authorised police to seize Mrs McCann’s diary and detectives want a graphologist to study the handwriting, it was reported yesterday. Alberto Vaz da Silva, a criminal psychologist and a handwriting expert, told the newspaper 24 Horas: “It would be possible to discover the temper and the character of the person in question. You can see if someone is lying or hiding something.�?However, handwriting evidence is usually used only for forensic science purposes, not to determine a person’s emotional state.

Why could Mrs McCann’s newspaper interview lead to jail?

Mrs McCann could be prosecuted under Portugal’s laws of judicial secrecy for telling the Sunday Mirror that police had seized her bible. She said: “One of the pieces of evidence is that a page from a passage in Samuel about having to tell a man his child is dead is crumpled - so I must have been reading it.�?The 24 Horas newspaper said that the public prosecutor could accuse Mrs McCann of breaking the secrecy law, which carries a maximum two years' jail sentence. Varradas Leitao, a member of the Superior Council of the Ministerial Publico, said: “A witness or an arguida, the law is the same for everybody. You cannot divulge procedural acts.�?

What are the police doing to find Madeleine or her body?

Portuguese police are reported to be preparing for a new series of searches using sniffer dogs and infra-red equipment in an area between Praia da Luz and the village of Burgau, about two miles to the west. It has also been suggested that they will search the church in Praia da Luz and the town of Arao, where a big operation was carried out after an anonymous tip-off to a Dutch newspaper.

Who is advising Kate and Gerry McCann?

British lawyers Michael Caplan, QC, an expert in international law, and Angus McBride, a solicitor who specialises in protecting the reputation of individuals subject to media or criminal investigation. They have also hired a Portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, who filed the libel action against a newspaper which said the police suspected them of involvement in their daughter’s death.

How can the couple win the battle of public opinion?

Clarence Mitchell, 46, has been appointed as their official spokesman. He resigned yesterday as head of the Government’s Media Monitoring Unit and had previously been seconded to the Foreign Office to help the McCanns in the weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance.

What can Mr Mitchell do to help the McCanns?

His job at the Cabinet Office has given him contacts among senior members of the Government and Civil Service. He also has extensive contacts with journalists in both Britain and Portugal and more than 20 years�?experience as a reporter.

Are the McCanns paying for his services?

No. He has been employed by one of their wealthy backers and will continue to work for that person after the Madeleine case is over.

What action will the police take this week?

Portuguese detectives are due to arrive in Leicester to work with a British police team investigating Madeleine’s disappearance. It has been reported that Kate McCann could be interviewed again this week. A Portuguese judge must decide by Thursday whether to approve requests by Portuguese police to secure more evidence.

Who’s advising British police on the case?

Tony Connell, a member of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special casework unit, has been advising the “Gold Group�?of senior detectives at Leicestershire Police, which is investigating the Madeleine case. Mr Connell led the review which led to the conviction of Damilola Taylor’s killers.

Could the McCanns be prosecuted in Britain?

It is possible to prosecute a British citizen for a murder or manslaughter abroad under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. This was last done in 2005 when Christopher Newman was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of murdering Georgina Eager in Dublin.

Can the public support Kate and Gerry McCann’s legal battle?

A fighting fund to help to pay their legal costs is expected to be announced within the next few days. A source close to the family told The Times: “It will be getting set up and formalised as a proper fund. It has to be meticulously thought through.�?

Why is the McCanns�?hire car pivotal to the investigation?

Portuguese police claim they have found traces of Madeleine’s hair and bodily fluid in the boot of the Renault Scenic, indicating that it was used to transport Madeleine’s body after her death. Scientists have said that it should be possible to establish whether the hair came from a dead or living person.

Does this mean the scientific results hold the key to the case?

Not necessarily. Kate and Gerry McCann used the Budget rental car to move apartments, taking with them all their children’s toys and clothing, which would have contained large amounts of genetic material. It was also used by friends, relatives and people who worked on the campaign to find their daughter.

Where is the car now?

When the McCanns left Britain they drove the car to the airport. They have since said they will hold on to the vehicle to get their own independent scientific examinations done.

Under what circumstances was the car searched?

Police seized the car last month and took it to an underground car park opposite their offices in Portimão. Police sources say this is an unusual place to carry out such a delicate search.

Is there any other explanation about how the material could have got there?

If the DNA samples did come from Madeleine’s corpse it would seem an amazing coincidence that the McCanns hired a car used by their daughter’s abductor and killer. However, friends of the McCanns claim that the couple are being framed. It has also been suggested that the samples may have been labelled incorrectly.

Why do Portuguese police want to read Kate McCann’s personal diaries?

Detectives want to check for inconsistencies with the information previously given to police and for clues about the personal relationship between Mrs McCann, her husband and other members of the party who went with them to Portugal. Mrs McCann was seen regularly writing several pages a day in the diaries.

What evidence could be held on Gerry McCann’s laptop computer?

Mr McCann sent and received dozens of e-mails almost every day from friends and people involved in the campaign to find his daughter. It may be possible to retrieve those e-mails, which detectives hope could provide information about the events surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance and the couple’s connections with other people.

Why does a Portuguese judge need to authorise the seizure?

Portuguese police must get an authorisation from a judge to request items which are abroad or to retain items taken without the owner’s permission. Mr and Mrs McCann are believed to have taken most of the objects home to Britain. There are also reports in Portugal that police seized a copy of Mrs McCann’s diaries before the couple left the country to ensure they could not be destroyed. A judge must be asked to authorise a seizure without the owner’s consent within 24 hours.

Why didn’t the Portuguese police seize these items in Praia da Luz?

It may be that the items left Portugal some time ago when Mr or Mrs McCann made previous trips to Britain, or a friend may have taken them. The couple left the Algarve on Sunday morning at very short notice. They notified the Portuguese authorities but perhaps police did not have the opportunity to ask a judge to authorise the seizure of items without the couple’s consent.

Has the judge been asked to authorise any other seizures?

Portuguese papers reported yesterday that officers wanted to obtain Madeleine’s favourite soft toy, which Mrs McCann took home. It is also claimed that police seized the Renault hired by the McCanns 25 days after Madeleine’s disappearance. The car contained samples of the girl’s hair and “bodily fluids�?

What else has the judge been asked to do?

It has been reported that detectives want to search the church in Praia da Luz where the couple regularly prayed after Madeleine disappeared. They would only require an order from the judge if the priest or bishop in charge refused to authorise the search. It has also been suggested that police want to search a cemetery beside the church and to excavate roads where sewers were being replaced at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Who is revealing details about scientific evidence?

By law Portuguese police are prevented from revealing details of investigations. However, some officers have been secretly briefing Portuguese journalists.

What scientific evidence have police collected?

In a briefings on Monday night detectives said that they found traces of “bodily fluids�?in the car which had probably come from Madeleine with a large amount of Madeleine’s hair in the boot of the car.

Why are the “bodily fluids�?significant?

When pathologists refer to bodily fluids they usually mean the putrefying substance created during the decomposition of a body tissue and blood. This “fluid�?is evidence that a corpse has been present, but DNA samples are required to identify the body. It is unclear what “fluids�?have been found. It might be traces of urine, dried blood or vomit, which would not conclusively prove Madeleine had died.

Does a large quantity of hair prove that Madeleine’s body was in the car?

No. The hair must show evidence that it came from a decomposing body. Other hair could be “transmitted�?from items of Madeleine’s clothing and belongings.

Is anyone else confirming these reports?

Sources in Britain who are assisting the Portuguese investigation have agreed that there is “significant�?scientific evidence linking Mr and Mrs McCann to their daughter’s death. However, Portuguese officers took the highly unusual step of publicly denying a report which was allegedly based on sources in Britain.

Does the scientific evidence prove that Madeleine was killed?

Because the samples have degraded over time the scientists can never be 100 per cent certain that they came from Madeleine.

What happened in the four hours before Madeleine was reported missing?

Kate and Gerry McCann claim that while they dined at a restaurant with friends regular checks were made on Madeleine and their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie, at their nearby holiday apartment. Mr McCann told police he saw his daughter asleep at about 9pm. A friend, Matthew Oldfield, entered the apartment at about 9.30pm but did not look in the bedroom Madeleine and the twins were sharing.

It is not known if anyone apart from Mr and Mrs McCann saw Madeleine alive between 6pm and 10pm, when she was reported missing by her mother. The timing is crucial but would be only circumstantial evidence in any prosecution. Although a small child could be killed quickly it would take time to hide a body so that it was not discovered in the biggest search in Portuguese history.

Why did Kate McCann cry out “They’ve taken her?�?when she discovered Madeleine missing?

Portuguese police are reported to find it suspicious that Mrs McCann immediately believed that more than one person had taken her daughter. This could suggest that she knew who had taken Madeleine, perhaps people who thought they were helping Mrs McCann by removing her daughter’s body.

Alternatively, it could be an off-the-cuff remark by an hysterical mother or perhaps was misheard or misunderstood in the confusion of the night.

What were the movements of the McCann’s friends on the night Madeleine disappeared?

The McCann family had stayed at the Ocean Club resort with three other British couples and their five children, and a single woman. Russell O’Brien, a doctor from Exeter, left the restaurant for half an hour to look after his own daughter, returning shortly before Madeleine was reported missing.

His wife, Jane Tanner, was the only witness to report a man carrying away child from the McCann’s apartments. There is confusion about when members of the party arrived at the tapas restaurant and left to check on their own sleeping children.

How much alcohol did the McCanns and their friends drink on the evening Madeleine disappeared?

Kate and Gerry McCann and their friends are reported to have told detectives they shared four bottles of wine, with another two barely touched before Madeleine was discovered missing.

However, it is claimed detectives have recovered a bill showing they downed eight bottles of red wine and six white during the afternoon and evening.

Why was Madeleine’s bedroom window and shutter open?

Kate and Gerry McCann told police that the window shutter in Madeleine’s bedroom, which could not been seen from the restaurant, had been forced open.

Police tests showed the heavy metal shutter had not been forced up from the outside, so must have been pulled open from inside the room. Assuming that the abductor entered through the apartment’s unlocked patio windows, why would he or she not leave by the same way or the use the front door?

Or was the window opened to make it appear as if an intruder had used it to enter the bedroom?

Why did Madeleine’s sister and brother sleep through her “abduction�?

Sean and Amelie were heavy sleepers who were not disturbed by their sister’s abduction, claim their parents. However, they also slept through their mother’s hysterical response to Madeleine’s disappearance and the presence of dozens of people who joined the search before being carried out by a female police officer. Kate and Gerry McCann have strenuously denied sedating their daughter.

Why were the McCanns allowed to leave Portugal if they are suspects?

The Portuguese authorities allowed the McCanns to return to the UK after they agreed to reside only at their home in Rothley and to return for further questioning if necessary.

Portuguese law states that after someone is declared a suspect, police have eight months to conclude the investigation into that individual. If they require further time officers can apply to the courts for a four-month extension.

If the McCanns refused to comply with a request to return to the Algarve for interview, Portuguese police could issue a European Arrest Warrant under which extradition can be carried out within six weeks.

Why has it taken so long to find the evidence that could implicate Kate and Gerry McCann?

The material was only collected at the end of July and early August in a review of the investigation carried out by Portuguese detectives with the help of British police and two sniffer dogs. Many of the samples are very small, containing just a few cells, while others are of poor quality because of damage by cleaning or simply the passing of time.

A full report of the findings will not be ready for weeks, but many results have already been passed to the Portuguese authorities.

What evidence were police looking for?

Detectives are searching for any evidence that proves Madeleine is dead or contradicts the accounts of Mr and Mrs McCann and other witnesses.

What is the most important forensic evidence?

It appears the Forensic Science Service believes it has discovered compelling new evidence, possibly from more than one source. Portuguese detectives told Mrs McCann repeatedly that they found traces of Madeleine’s blood in a Renault Scenic hired three weeks after she disappeared, suggesting that the missing girl’s parents used the vehicle to carry her body. It is possible to tell if the blood came from a living person or from a corpse, and even the time of death. However, some reports suggest that the quality of the blood sample was too poor to confirm the origin while others have denied any blood was found in the vehicle and claim it was other “bodily fluids�? Unless a body had been placed in a freezer, it would have badly decomposed during the warm weather; leaving a mass of traces invisible to the human eye.

Does any trace of Madeleine in the hire car prove she was killed?

No. Mr and Mrs McCann hired the car to buy new clothes in the town of Portimão a day before they flew to Rome to see Pope Benedict XVI. They then used it regularly for family outings and to collect friends and relatives from Faro airport. They continued using the car until shortly before flying home yesterday. Kate and Gerry and their two-year-old twins would have often carried in the car items used by Madeleine. These items could easily certainly carry Madeleine’s hair and minute traces of skin, dried blood, saliva and vomit. The same could be said of the holiday apartments used by the McCanns and their friends in the Ocean Club resort. However, if the blood came from Madeleine’s corpse the only other highly unlikely explanation would be that a previous hirer had moved the body.

One report suggested yesterday that Madeleine’s DNA had been found on the floor of the McCanns holiday apartment, but because of degredation it was based on an incomplete picture, with only 15 of the 20 genetic markers usually used for such analysis.

What is the DNA evidence that has supposedly been found by the Portuguese investigators?

Newspapers in Portugal have been reporting that “biological fluids�?with an 80 per cent match to Madeleine’s DNA have been found underneath upholstery in the boot of the McCanns�?rented Renault Scenic. Some media reports claimed that another DNA sample with a 100 per cent match to that of Madeleine’s profile had been found in the car.

What would this tell us?

Perhaps nothing. If it was sourced from something such as a hair follicle or skin cells then that could have been one of Madeleine’s hairs that had stuck to the clothes of a family member or her “cuddle cat�?toy that her mother carries. If it was from Madeleine’s blood or corpse, that could be more significant. The most important issue is the size of the sample found. If there was a substantial amount of material it is unlikely to be from accidental contamination and would indicate that Madeleine had been in the car.

Can investigators establish if the DNA sample comes from someone who was alive or dead?

Unlikely, according to British experts. A DNA profile does not change just because someone dies. You can tell if DNA has degraded but that can happen if, for example, it had been exposed to sunshine.

Does an 80 per cent match with biological fluids indicate that Madeleine was definitely in the car?

No. The sample will have been tested against a definite sample of Madeleine’s. A 80 per cent match indicates that profilers could find only 16 of the 20 markers usually used for such analysis and suggests that the biological traces are tiny and degraded. Additionally, the twins Sean and Amelie could share a high percentage of DNA characteristics as most siblings do.

What complicates the matter further is that all three of the McCanns�?children were born through IVF and it is unknown whether the couple’s sperm and eggs were used for conception.

What about the discoveries of the “cadaver�?sniffer dog?

Mr and Mrs McCann were shown a police video of a sniffer dog used to find corpses “going crazy�?when it approached the hire car. Reports also claim that is discovered the scent on the vehicle’s key fob. Mrs McCann is reported to have explained that in her work as locum GP she came into contact with six corpses in the weeks leading up to Algarve holiday.

This seems a high number for a locum GP working just a couple of days a week but would be easy to check against surgery records.

The crucial difficulty with the sniffer dog “evidence�?is that it cannot distinguish between corpses. This type of dog is trained to find bodies, not identify where dead bodies have been. Crucially, they can become excited by other scents.

Any evidence of Madeleine’s death on Cuddle Cat?

The cadaver dog is alleged to have become excited when shown Madeleine’s favourite soft pink toy, called Cuddle Cat. The cat had become poignant symbol of a mother’s loss as Kate McCann carried it with her at all time from the night of Madeleine’s disappearance.

She washed it four days after the police tests, claiming it had become dirty. The toy was potentially crucial evidence and should have been seized by police very early in the investigation.

What evidence can be found in Mrs McCann’s Bible?

Mrs McCann, a devout Roman Catholic, claims that police told her that a crumpled page in her Bible was evidence that she was involved in the death of her daughter. The page contained a passage from Samuel II, chapter 12, verses 15-19, which recalls how man’s child is stricken with illness after he “scorns�?the Lord.

The man fasts for seven days, refusing to get up off the ground, to try to gain redemption �?but eventually his child dies. Mrs McCann claims that detectives told her that damage to the page proved she had been reading it.

Why are the McCanns suspects in their daughter’s killing?

Portuguese police refuse to say why the couple have been made official suspects. Under Portuguese law police can not question someone as if they had committed a crime unless they are a “suspect�? It could simply be that police wanted to ask the couple about the evidence they had collected, and that the seriousness of the process has been misunderstood and exaggerated by cultural and language differences. The McCanns believed that they were about to be charged with Madeleine’s death, but it does not appear police disclosed any crucial evidence to them.

All parties have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

February 10, 2008

Francisco Marco might have been thinking about other matters on the day he apparently spoke out about his hopes that Madeleine McCann would be home for Christmas. It was the day his Spanish private detective agency, Metodo 3 �?paid an estimated £50,000 a month to help find Madeleine �?moved from cramped premises above a grocer’s shop specialising in sausages in Barcelona’s commercial district to a multi-million-pound suite of offices in a grand villa on one of the city’s most prestigious boulevards.

When a taxi driver drops me off at Metodo’s new premises, he tilts his finger against the tip of his nose and says “pijo�?�?meaning stuck-up or snobbish. Pointing to the restaurant on the ground floor, he says: “That’s where people who like to show off go �?so others can see their Rolex watches and designer clothes.�?

It is in his office on the second floor that Marco has agreed to meet me, the first British journalist, he says, to whom he has ever granted an interview. When I point out that he was filmed by a Panorama documentary crew in November claiming he was “very, very close to finding the kidnapper�?of Madeleine, he corrects himself: “Well, apart from that.�?Marco will tell me later how who he has spoken to, and what he has or has not said, has been misunderstood.

But first I must wait, taking a seat at a long, highly polished boardroom table surrounded by pristine white-leather chairs. At one end of the room, discreetly lit shelves display an impressive collection of vintage box cameras and binoculars. Stacked against the walls are modern paintings waiting to be hung. It feels more like an art gallery than the hub of one of the most frantic manhunts of modern times.

There is no discernible ringing of telephones; little sign of activity of any kind, other than a woman searching for a lead to take a pet poodle for a walk and the occasional to-ing and fro-ing of workmen putting finishing touches to the sleek remodelling of the office complex.

It is not clear whether this is where the hotlines for any information about Madeleine are answered. Opposite the boardroom is an open-plan area of around half a dozen cubicles, equipped with banks of phones and computers. Most are empty when I arrive; admittedly it is lunch time. But I cannot ask about this.

“We won’t answer any questions about Maddie. Maddie is off limits �?is that understood?�?Marco’s cousin Jose Luis, another of the agency’s employees, warns me sternly.

Catching me eyeing the setup, he is quick to explain that Metodo 3, or M-3, bought the premises earlier last year. Though I say nothing, I get the distinct impression he wants to make it clear that this was before M-3 persuaded those involved in decisions regarding the £1m Find Madeleine Fund �?partially made up of donations from the public and partly from business backers such as Brian Kennedy �?to sign a six-figure, six-month contract with the firm, whose financial fortunes now seem assured by the worldwide publicity they’ve since received.

“All the remodelling work took months, so we only moved in on December 14,�?he says, hesitating slightly before adding: “Moving is better at Christmas.�?The implication that this was a quiet period for M-3 is strange, as it was exactly the time Marco is reported to have said his agency was “hoping, God willing�?that Madeleine would be imminently reunited with her family. Marco has since denied he said this.

I cannot ask him to clarify what he did say, or whether talking about an ongoing investigation is potentially detrimental. Instead, I am left to discuss the matter with a handful of other private detective agencies in Barcelona, the private-eye capital of Spain. What they tell me is disturbing.

I expect a certain amount of rivalry, and some of what they say about M-3 could be dismissed as jealous gossip. But they claim otherwise.

They say there is nothing they would like more than to see M-3 succeed in solving the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance. But they worry that M-3’s inflated claims of progress in the case is making a laughing stock of the rest of them. References to Inspector Clouseau cut deep. They are proud that, unlike their UK counterparts, Spanish private detectives have to be vetted and licensed. They must also have a specialised university degree in private investigation. More importantly, in a profession where discretion is critical, they worry about the effect of such public declarations on the progress of any investigation. It is in the days following reports that the Find Madeleine Fund is considering sacking M-3 that I talk to Marco �?though of course I cannot discuss this with him.

Clarence Mitchell, the spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s parents, says he believes M-3 “put themselves forward�?for the task, as did a number of other companies. Just a week after the four-year-old’s disappearance from the McCanns�?holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3 last year, Portuguese police had announced that official searches were being wound down. Initially, the British security company Control Risks Group, a firm founded by former SAS men, was called on for advice. Mitchell confirms that the company is still “assisting in an advisory capacity�? but he says that the reason the

Spanish detective agency was hired was because of Portugal’s “language and cultural connection�?with Spain. “If we’d had big-booted Brits or, God forbid, Americans, we’d have had doors slammed in our face, and it’s quite likely we could have been charged with hindering the investigation, as technically it’s illegal in Portugal to undertake a secondary investigation,�?Mitchell explains. “But because it’s Metodo 3, [Alipio] Ribeiro [national director of Portugal’s Policia Judiciara] is turning a blind eye.�?Portuguese police are reported to dismiss M-3 as “small fry�?

Mitchell says the decision to hire M-3 on a six-month contract from September was taken “collectively�?by Gerry McCann, and the family’s lawyers and backers, on the grounds that the agency had the manpower, profile and resources to work in several countries. “You can argue now whether it was the right decision or not,�?he says, referring to widespread reports that M-3 will find its contract terminated in March �?if it hasn’t been already �?and not just because the Find Madeleine Fund is dwindling. “But operationally Metodo 3 are good on the ground,�?he insists.

It was M-3, for instance, who recently commissioned a police artist to draw a sketch of the man they believe could be involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, despite Portuguese-police claims that the sketch had “no credibility�?

Clearly, the McCanns are desperate to keep Madeleine’s disappearance in the public eye. And the release of photofits by M-3 will help to achieve this. The McCanns insist, however, that they are not engaged in a bidding war for interviews with American television.

But when 35-year-old Marco finally breezes into his company boardroom and throws himself into a chair opposite me, I do not get the impression that the prospect of losing the contract that has brought his company such notoriety is playing much on his mind.

Marco slaps on the table a 144-page pre-prepared dossier of articles written in the Spanish press about himself and M-3. He goes on to list some of those in the city he says I have already been speaking to about his company. Had my movements been monitored? If so, why would a private detective agency be interested in this at a time when they were supposed to be tirelessly searching for the most famous missing child in the world? This confounds me until, after talking to Marco for half an hour, I conclude that what motivates him �?as much as, if not more than, his professed desire to present Madeleine with the doll he boasts he carries around in his briefcase to hand to her when he finds her �?is a sense of self-regard, self-publicity and money.

) ) ) ) )

In most of the many pictures of himself included in the material he hands me, Marco looks a little nerdy. He wears the same serious expression, slightly askew glasses and suit and tie in nearly all of them. But when we meet he has a more debonair look. He is wearing a black polo-neck jumper underneath a sports jacket, sharper, and better-adjusted half-rimmed glasses, and a fringe that looks as though it has been blow-dried. It is as if his image of how a suave private eye should be has finally been realised.

In contrast to the other private eyes I meet, however, Marco is anything but relaxed. While most of them sit back easily in their chairs, trying to size me up, Marco leans towards me as we talk. He presses his hands hard on the table, almost in a prayer position, to emphasise a point, and has an intense, slightly unnerving stare.

He seems eager to please. He summons a female assistant on several occasions to bring me material, including a book he has recently written, to illustrate what he is talking about. Even when I make it clear this is not necessary �?aware that these distractions eat into the time we have to talk �?he insists, partly showing off.

When I ask about his background, Marco summons her to photocopy the first pages of his doctoral thesis on private investigation: he has a master’s degree and a PhD in penal law. He gets strangely agitated when she can’t find it, telling her to carry on looking, then mutters that he will have to look for it himself. Eventually he starts to reminisce about his youth. As a teenager, Marco says, he was so keen to become a private detective that he would get up at 5am to follow people on his scooter and record their movements before starting and after finishing his studies. His mother, Maria “Marita�?Fernandez Lado, founded M-3 in 1986, when he was a boy, and he used to help out in the agency every holiday.

I hear several different accounts of what Marita was doing before she set up the agency. According to her son, she was working on a fashion magazine when, by chance, through Marco and his brother’s boyhood love of sailing, she met and became friends with a private detective. “From that moment, she decided she wanted to create her own detective agency, and wanted it to be a big company with big cases, a real business. She wanted to change the public image of a small private detective concerned with infidelities,�?Marco says.

In Spain, private eyes are sometimes called huelebraguetas �?“fly [zip] sniffers�? One of the reasons Barcelona has always been the home of so many of them, Marco explains, is that Catalonia �?traditionally one of the wealthiest regions in Spain �?had many rich families wanting to safeguard their inheritance. So parents would employ “fly sniffers�?to check out the backgrounds of the people their sons or daughters wanted to marry. M-3 took a different track. It started specialising in investigating financial swindles, industrial espionage and insurance fraud. His mother was the first private detective, Marco says, to provide video evidence used in court to unmask an insurance fraudster: she filmed a man reading who had claimed to be blind. Marco also speaks about how in the early 1990s his mother had helped advise the Barcelona police, who were setting up a new department dedicated to investigating gambling and the welfare of children. He says his mother advised them on how to track adolescents who had run away from home, helping them to trace 15 or 16 of them at that time. (It is when I try to bring the interview back to this subject, to see if these were the children the agency has talked about finding in the past, that the interview grinds to a halt.)

But the agency almost came to grief early on, when police raided its offices, and Marco, his mother, father and brother were arrested and briefly jailed in 1995 on charges of phone-tapping and attempting to sell taped conversations. They were never prosecuted, as it was clear that the police had entrapped them.

Their big break came nearly 10 years later, when M-3 was credited with tracking down one of Spain’s most-infamous spies, Francisco Paesa, a notorious arms dealer and double agent also known as “El Zorro�?(The Fox) and “the man with a thousand faces�? Paesa fled Spain after being charged with money-laundering. His family claimed he died in Thailand in 1998 and arranged for Gregorian masses to be sung for his soul for a month at a Cistercian monastery in northern Spain. Acting for a client who claimed to have been defrauded by Paesa’s niece, M-3 traced the fugitive to Luxembourg. At the behest of the Spanish national newspaper El Mundo, the agency then traced him to Paris. Paesa remains on the run, however.

“This was just one of our great achievements. Our biggest successes have never been made public,�?boasts Marco. “If you speak to other detectives in Spain, I don’t think they will speak very highly of us because they are envious. But as far as other detectives around the world are concerned, we are the biggest, the most famous; the ones who work well.�?

Again in collaboration with El Mundo, and again by following an illegal money trail, M-3 last year tracked down the daughter of the wanted Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim to a farm in Chile. “This was pro-bono work, and we only do it when we have time,�?says Marco. The hard-pressed detective did have time just before Christmas, however, to launch a book he had co-written with a Spanish journalist. The book claims that clients of M-3 sacked directors of a charity involved in sponsoring children in the Third World, were victims of a plot to discredit them by people associated with a Spanish branch of Oxfam who were jealous that the public was giving them large donations. The sacked directors are still under investigation for fraud.

It is perhaps because Marco has spent so much time collaborating with journalists in the past that he feels so comfortable talking to the press �?the Spanish press, at least �?about his investigation into Madeleine McCann. In November he gave two lengthy interviews about the case, one to El Mundo and another to a Barcelona newspaper, La Vanguardia.

In the interview with El Mundo, Marco talks touchingly about how his six-year-old son asks him the same question every evening when he kisses him goodnight: “Papa, have you found Maddie?�?Because the little boy is learning to read, the article continues, he knows that his father is “the most famous detective in the world�?

But why, the journalist Juan Carlos de la Cal asks, would anyone in the UK, “the country of Sherlock Holmes, with all its cold-war spies and one of the most reliable secret services in the world�? have chosen M-3 to help? “Because we were the only ones who proposed a coherent hypothesis about the disappearance of their daughter,�?Marco replies, explaining that M-3’s “principal line of enquiry�?at that time �?the article was published on November 25 �?was “paedophiles�? He talks about how he “cried with rage�?when he investigated on the internet how paedophiles operate.

Apart from these comments made by Marco, little concrete is known about how M-3 has been conducting its investigation. In the same article, Marco’s mother says the agency, which she claims has located 23 missing children in the past, has �?0 or so�?people working exclusively on the McCann case. M-3 was said at that time to be receiving an average of 100 calls a day “from the four quarters of the globe�? and to have half a dozen translators answering them in different languages. The agency has distributed posters worldwide bearing Madeleine’s picture with the telephone number of a dedicated hotline it has set up to receive tip-offs. The interview was carried out just after Marco returned from a two-week trip to Morocco, a country he describes as being known for child-trafficking and a “perfect�?place to hide a stolen child. The north receives Spanish TV, he says, but the rest of Morocco knows nothing about the affair.

Yet in an interview published three weeks earlier in the newspaper La Vanguardia, Marco claimed that the agency had “around 40 people, here and in Morocco�?working on the case, on the hypothesis that the child was smuggled out of Portugal, via the Spanish port of Tarifa, to Morocco, “where a blonde girl like Madeleine would be considered a status symbol�? At that time he said he didn’t want to think about paedophilia being involved. Asked how often his agency contacts the McCanns with updates, Marco replies “daily�? He adds that the fee that M-3 is charging for its services is not high. He says that it is “symbolic�?

In the same article �?accompanied by a photograph of Marco holding a Sherlock Holmes-style hat �?he says with absolute certainty that Madeleine is alive. “If I didn’t think she was alive, I wouldn’t be looking for her!�?At first he states categorically that he will find her before M-3’s six-month contract runs out in March. But also in the same article the journalist explains that Marco proposes taking him out to dinner if he does not find the missing four-year-old before April 30. Unless all such statements are “misunderstandings�? Marco is in danger of leaving everyone with hopes that are not fulfilled.

When I start to touch on these themes �?the claim, for instance, that M-3 traces around 300 missing people a year �?Marco is quick to clarify. He says that, of the 1,000 or so investigations his agency undertakes every year, “between 100 and 200 involve English people who owe money and have fled England for Spain; the same with Germans, etcetera, etcetera�? This makes it sound as if much of the agency’s work

is little more than aiding bailiffs or debt-collecting, though I do not believe this to be the case. But when I ask him to elaborate on the 23 missing children his mother is reported to have said the agency has located in the past, Marco eases himself away from the table for the first time, tilting far back in his chair. He cannot talk about that on the grounds of confidentiality, he says. Shortly after this, his cousin Jose Luis, who has sat mostly silent until now, calls time on the interview with a chopping motion of his hand.

As I leave M-3’s office I pass another door discreetly announcing it is that of a private Swiss bank. As I take a seat in the restaurant downstairs for lunch, I notice Marco’s father, Francisco Marco Puyuelo, sitting close by. I nod at him and smile. He does not smile back. I have heard unsettling reports about Puyuelo.

He is rather menacing-looking, and I feel uncomfortable as he sits staring at me, slowly spooning chocolate ice cream into his mouth.

) ) ) ) )

It is easy to feel a little paranoid in Barcelona. Nearly every quarter seems to have its own private detective agency. Offices are prominently advertised; on the short ride in from the airport

I pass four. The city’s yellow-pages directory has six sides of listings. According to Catalonia’s College of Private Detectives, the professional association to which private detectives working in the region are obliged to belong, of the estimated 2,900 licensed private eyes in Spain �?around 1,500 of them actively working �?370 are in Catalonia, mostly Barcelona.

The city has traditionally had a prestigious record for private investigation. One of Spain’s most well-known detectives, Eugenio Velez-Troya, was based in Barcelona, where he helped set up the first university course in private investigation, covering subjects such as civil and criminal law, forensic analysis and psychology.

One of the largest private detective agencies in Spain, Grupo Winterman, founded by Jose Maria Vilamajo more than 30 years ago, is based in Barcelona, though the company now has 10 offices in different cities with a staff of around 150. Vilamajo is the only detective prepared to talk on the record; the others prefer to remain anonymous for fear of professional reprisal. He talks about how Barcelona came to have so many private detectives, pointing out that competition in the field is now so intense that it is pushing individual agencies to “specialise�?

Vilamajo is the only private detective apart from Marco to receive me in a spacious company boardroom, which, it strikes me, might be the model on which Metodo 3, anticipating rapid expansion, is basing its new office setup.

I meet the other private eyes either in bars or in their more modest premises, with more cloak-and-dagger decor, though nearly all have an impressive array of certificates praising their work. One has the theme music from the film The Godfather as a mobile-phone ring tone.

All talk of the “different way�?M-3 has of operating from other agencies in the city. Most of what they say I have no way of substantiating. Traditionally, they say, M-3 has wined and dined clients more than others, sometimes holding grand “round-table�?suppers to which it invites important figures in the community.

One ageing sleuth slides across the table a Spanish newspaper article entitled “Detectives with marketing�?, in case I might have missed it. A short piece referring to the book Marco recently co-wrote about the alleged charity conspiracy, it makes the point that the book “is another step in the direction of incorporating marketing into the business of private investigation�?

When I ask what’s wrong with a business marketing itself, my question elicits a long sigh. Suddenly I can see that underlying much of the rancour M-3’s rivals feel towards it is a sense that they are not “old-school gumshoes�?working in the shadows. One of their criticisms of Marco is that “he doesn’t know much about the street. He’s good at theory. He’s like a manager, always dressed up in a suit and tie�?

So he has a team of others to do the legwork, I argue. Another long sigh. “Not as many as he claims,�?comes the response. On this point, all those I speak to agree. None believes M-3’s claims that it has 40 people working on the hunt for Madeleine, since the maximum number M-3 employs in its Barcelona office, they believe, is a dozen, with another few in its Madrid branch.

But again, I point out, it could have any number of operatives working for it in other countries, namely Portugal and Morocco.

My comment draws a weary smile. Metodo 3 company records for the six years up to 2005 appear to show a decline in the number of permanent employees listed �?from 26 in 1999 to just 12 in 2005 �?although there could be some accounting explanation for this.

Perhaps the most worrying of the detectives�?concerns is the consistent complaint that M-3 is using its involvement in the search for Madeleine to raise its profile and that Marco’s statements about how close he is to finding the child could be seriously prejudicing attempts to find out the truth. “If the agency fails to solve the mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance, that failure will be forgotten in a few years,�?said one. “But M-3 will be famous and, ultimately, that is what they want.�?

“They are making us look ridiculous,�?says another detective. “The English are looking at us and laughing and we are very worried, very upset about it. They [M-3] are denigrating the ethics of our profession.�?

To seek guidance on how private detectives are expected to behave, I visit the president of Catalonia’s College of Private Detectives: Jose Maria Fernandez Abril. After making the point that he is unable to speak about any individual member of his professional association, he proceeds to carefully read me a statement that begins: “Following the media impact of affairs in which detectives belonging to the college are involved…�?It clearly echoes the concerns that others I have spoken to voice about the conduct of Metodo 3.

“No general conclusions should be drawn about the profession from the actions of any individual,�?Abril reads, before helpfully explaining that this means: “You can’t go around saying you are the best in the world, implying that everyone else is somehow worse.�?

More importantly, there are repeated references to how members are obliged to comply with the college’s strict code of conduct, which includes: not stating with certainty the result of an investigation and not revealing information about an investigation without agreeing it first with the client.

In other words, if M-3 was to argue that announcing just when it believed it would find Madeleine would help its investigation, the announcement should have been cleared with the McCanns. Given the deep dismay Gerry McCann is reported to have expressed over Marco’s comments about how close the agency was to finding his daughter’s kidnappers and about her being reunited with her family for Christmas, it seems unlikely any agreement over such statements was ever made.

As I leave, Abril informs me that the college has in recent years organised an annual “Night of the Detectives�?supper. This year it will be held in March. He invites me to attend. At the supper, various prizes are presented. Among them is one for the fiction author they believe has contributed most to the public understanding of investigative work. This year they have awarded the prize to Dan Brown, author of the worldwide bestseller The Da Vinci Code.

They are a little hurt that he has not replied to, or even acknowledged, their invitation to attend.All this could be almost funny if I were not constantly aware that the reason I have come to Barcelona is because an exhausted little girl enjoying a family holiday went to sleep in pink pyjamas alongside her twin brother and sister on the night of May 3 last year, then disappeared. The anguish and desperation of her parents account for the Spanish detective-agency’s lucrative contract. The boasting and apparent false hopes fed to them by Marco could yet prove to be his downfall.

The police case against Kate and Gerry McCann suffered a severe setback last night when a Portuguese prosecutor said that no new evidence had been gathered to justify reinterviewing the couple.

Luis Bilro Verão, the lead public prosecutor, said that the police had failed to produce new evidence against the couple during the 13 days since they were made official suspects in the death of their daughter.

In his first official statement, he said that the McCanns remained arguidos, or official suspects, and that the investigation against them continued. He offered new hope to the McCanns by stating that all lines of inquiry were being investigated.

The admission comes as the McCanns said that they feared that they were being bugged as part of the investigation. They also believe that the scientific evidence against them is deeply flawed.

Mr Verão said: “Since the police have not collected any elements of proof after the parents became arguidos on September 7 that justifies any new actions, I have not requested any new interviews.�?

Last night’s statement follows a review of the evidence by Judge Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias, who had been asked to approve new interviews and searches requested by the PolÍcia Judiciária, the Portuguese equivalent of the CID. Detectives wanted to reinterview the couple after they refused to answer 40 key questions.

The Portuguese police case was so weak at the time the couple were made official suspects that they had to be released on the lowest form of bail and were allowed to return home to Rothley, Leicestershire, two days later.

Detectives hoped that samples taken from the couple’s hire car and holiday apartment would prove that Mr and Mrs McCann were responsible for accidentally killing their daughter while on holiday in Praia da Luz 140 days ago. However, Mr Verão has indicated that the evidence remains too weak to charge the couple with accidental homicide and hiding the corpse of their daughter. He could authorise further questioning if new evidence is found.

Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns�?spokesman, said: “This information has been conveyed to Kate and Gerry directly. It is now for their Portuguese lawyer to assess very carefully but, on the face of it, it does appear encouraging.�?

Mr and Mrs McCann were convinced that their calls were tapped in Portugal because questions asked by detectives focused on private conversations with friends and family.

But the couple now believe that their calls are still being recorded as part of a surveillance operation.

“British police warned Kate and Gerry when they were in Portugal that their phones and e-mails might have been tapped into,�?a source said last night. “Everyone involved is careful, particularly with their mobile phone calls and what they say. There was an assumption from the early days that mobile communications are unsafe and could be listened to.

Page 2 of 2

September 4, 2007

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This is the story that has preoccupied at least two nations and elicited sympathy around the world. It is now 124 days old and has been told thousands of times in millions of words. Yet the story has only one fact: on the evening of May 3, a three-year-old child, Madeleine McCann, disappeared from the bedroom where she slept. We may think we know more than that, but we don’t, and no matter how often the story is repeated and the sole fact is spun, all we are reading is speculation. Or slurs and lies. There have been plenty of those, too, because when the media run out of facts and speculation, their more unscrupulous exponents resort to invention.

It’s not pretty. A story that was always tragic and has yet to have any kind of resolution, let alone a happy ending, is being treated with the abandon more normally meted out to soap opera characters or to those who elect to engage with the manufactured world of reality TV. The difference is that Madeleine is neither fictional nor a wannabe star, and neither are her parents, Gerry and Kate, who, you will note, don’t need a surname any more. We know them that well, or we think we do. Note, too, that referring to them as Gerry and Kate breaks the convention of referring to them as Kate and Gerry: when feeding the masses a tale of heartbreak the distraught mother is a more emotive presence than an anguished father.

There is no doubt that Madeleine’s disappearance �?and what has happened since �?raises important questions about how we can best protect our children from those who wish them harm, about the obligations of the media, and about our responses to the pain of people we don’t know. During the past three weeks I’ve examined these questions in Praia da Luz, the sunny whitewashed family idyll on the Algarve where I met the McCanns, and elsewhere.

As everyone is acutely aware, the reason we know so little about Madeleine’s disappearance is because she was abducted in Portugal, where the segredo de justiça law prevents the police from putting information about a criminal investigation in the public domain. Had Madeleine disappeared in Britain or the US, this would not have happened. Given that the Portuguese police admit that after four months they still have no idea where she is, or whether she is alive or dead, the first question has to be whether the lack of information is merely frustrating, and especially so for her parents, or whether it has impeded her safe recovery.

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“The first two to three hours are vital. The first officer at the scene secures it and calls in detectives. A good officer has a nose for these things, and you have a process that tells you when a child has not wandered off. You set up road blocks, you check ports, you check intelligence �?has anyone tried to snatch a child in the area? Can anyone describe a car? All that is fed into an incident room and analysed and the senior information officer decides what to release to the public. In the UK police can get a newsflash out straight away to TV and radio so you’ve got thousands of eyes and ears right at the beginning and you tell the public what you want them to look for. If you do that 24 or 48 hours later it loses impact.�?

We don’t know exactly when Madeline was reported missing, and I am told that none of the published timelines relating to May 3 are accurate. I have also learned that the Portuguese response system is slow and unwieldy. The McCanns�?call to the police was received in Portimão, a 30-minute drive away, and the practice is for a local officer to attend the scene to assess whether a crime has been committed and whether to call for help. Police officers drove to apartment 5A at the Ocean Club where the McCanns were staying, then referred the case to the Policia Judiciaria in Portimão. Thus vital time was lost immediately after Madeleine’s disappearance �?when it was imperative that the investigation should become active.

“You’re only as good as your expertise,�?Thompson says. “If you’re in a country that hasn’t got a lot of serious crime and the training hasn’t gone into major investigations, you make mistakes and lose evidence.�?Abductions are rare but not random, he adds. “Most child abductions are planned; it’s not a burglar who finds a child and takes it. Paedophiles go to places where there are children, such as Disney World. Whatever this abductor’s motive, he has been in the vicinity, he knows that there are children in this complex and that when people are on holiday they’re relaxed, and don’t think about risk. He will know the area and will have planned what he is going to do with the child. If he’s going to keep the child in a secure room, he will have been careful not to alert shopkeepers by buying food he wouldn’t normally buy. If a child is going to be sold for exploitation, in this case the unprecedented scale of the publicity has given the abductor a problem because he has an item that is readily identifiable all over the world and can’t be passed on.�?

Those who specialise in tracing missing children acknowledge that publicity can unnerve a perpetrator, but insist that it is key and does save lives. “We know the public helps us to find missing children and it’s up to law enforcement officers on each case to make the call as to what they tell the public,�?says Nancy McBride, the national safety director at the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has recovered 110,276 (just over 86 per cent) of the 127,737 children reported missing to it since 1984. “There’s always a risk, but it’s worth it. We never give up, we never close a case until we know what’s happened to a child.�?

In seeking publicity, the McCanns had the clear objective of finding their daughter. What they did not envisage was that interest would spread, as Gerry puts it, like a forest fire, and that 150 journalists would suddenly descend on Praia da Luz, excited by the prospect of a story of a pretty child with attractive parents who are also middle class and intelligent �?and far away from the stereotypical image of an inadequate single mother who might carelessly mislay a child and who certainly couldn’t afford to visit this aspirational resort. Add to that the parents�?status as doctors, people who save lives, yet who leave their children, Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings, without adult supervision in an apartment while they eat at a tapas bar a 52-second walk away, and the chattering classes are simultaneously full of sympathy and hooked.

When you first see apartment 5A you are struck by its exposed location. On the ground floor of a five-storey block, it is on a street corner and, like most of the Ocean Club apartments, not part of the gated section that houses the tapas bar and crèche. It would be easy to observe from different viewpoints, and perhaps to notice that this family had a regular pattern of behaviour in the evening, putting their children to bed, slipping across to the tapas bar and checking on them regularly.

But these are observations made with the benefit of bitter hindsight. Before Madeleine became a household name, no one thought like that on holiday, especially in an English-speaking resort so sedate that it doesn’t even have facilities for teenagers. In late April the weather is pleasant, the beach is a five-minute walk away and you’re there to relax and have fun. “It’s a quiet, safe resort,�?says Gerry when we meet in a borrowed flat. “The distance from the apartment to the restaurant was 50 yards. We dined in the open-air bit and you can actually see the veranda of the apartment. It’s difficult because if you are [at home] cutting grass in the back with the mower, and that takes me about half an hour, and the children are upstairs in a bedroom, you’d never bat an eyelid. That’s similar to how we felt. We’ve been unfortunately proved wrong, out of the blue. It’s shattered everything.�?

“Everyone I know who had been to Portugal with their children said it was very family friendly, and it did feel like that,�?says Kate. “If I’d had to think for one second about it, it wouldn’t have happened. I never even had to think like that, to make the decision. It felt so safe that I didn’t even have to �?I mean, I don’t think we took a risk. If I put the children in the car the chances of having an accident would be greater than somebody coming in, breaking into your apartment and lifting a child out of her bed. But you never think, I shouldn’t put the children in the car.�?

This is the first time that the McCanns have confirmed that the apartment was broken into. This information does not compromise Madeleine’s safety, and rules out one of the numerous red herring theories that the police have explored, that Madeleine wandered away on her own. There is no logic in withholding it from the public.

“I have no doubt in my mind that she was taken by somebody from the room,�?says Kate. “We don’t know if it was one person, two, or if it was a group of people, but I know she was taken.�?

“There’s still hope because we don’t know who’s taken her, we don’t know where they’ve taken her and we certainly don’t know where she is,�?says Gerry. “The first time I spoke to Ernie Allen, the chief executive of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the States, he said what I wanted to hear, and they’ve got enough experience of getting children back after long periods of time still to remain hopeful, and their own experience is that the younger the child, the less likelihood of serious harm. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not blinkered. The scenario that everyone thinks about is that a paedophile took her to abuse her and if that is the situation then statistically the chances are they would kill her. But we don’t know that and that’s the difficulty we’re dealing with. There are a range of scenarios and we want every single avenue explored because they’re all pretty rare. That doesn’t mean they should be represented in front page headlines as if all of them are likely, because they’re not.�?

Does the Portuguese insistence that no information can be given about the investigation have any advantages? “For us, not having any information is very difficult,�?Kate replies. “For us as parents it’s beneficial having information. We know that from our own jobs �?the main complaint from patients�?families is lack of communication and not being informed. It’s detrimental.�?

Of course the McCanns�?bid for information from the public, unsupported by details of the abduction, had already been hamstrung by the investigation’s slow start. There was also a language barrier. They now have phone access to a police officer who speaks English, but contact is variable, they say. You sense that they are often in situations where they would like to be forthright, but are obliged to keep their thoughts to themselves. “It is frustrating,�?says Kate. “The whole situation makes you angry, that’s part of the whole grief that something like this has happened to Madeleine and to us. They’re all normal emotions and sometimes you do just want to explode.�?

The McCanns sit on a sofa, Kate bone-thin �?although I am told that she is very fit �?extremely shy and modest, Gerry composed and easier to read. At the beginning of our interview Kate holds Madeleine’s pink toy cat in one hand and clutches her husband’s with the other. Kate’s face looks so tense and agonised that you might think that she was about to be tortured, and she seems to shrink into herself.

But as the hour passes she relaxes, takes her hand out of her husband’s and even laughs at some of the absurdities of their situation, recalling a day on the beach when she was on the phone to a friend and suddenly found herself being covered in kisses by a group of Portuguese matrons. Were this couple not wrapped up in this extraordinary event they would be unremarkable, the husband an assured man who likes to be in control, the wife a family-orientated mother who enjoys her job and still has friends from when she was 4.

Both are from working-class backgrounds: Gerry is the youngest of five children of an Irish matriarch and her joiner husband who brought up their family in Dumbarton, near Glasgow; Kate the only child of a Liverpool joiner and a civil servant. They met as junior doctors in Glasgow 12 years ago, got together as they travelled in New Zealand and she trained as an anaesthetist before retraining as a GP because, as two hospital doctors, they rarely saw each other.

In the immediate aftermath of Madeleine’s disappearance the McCanns found solace in their Catholic faith and were grateful for the warmth and care that greeted them at the Nossa Senhora da Luz church, a tiny, beautiful and peaceful sanctuary that forms a focal point for the community. “I felt cosseted,�?Gerry says. “We felt so fragile and vulnerable. People kept saying ‘you’ll get her back�? It was what we needed to hear because we just had the blackest and darkest thoughts in the first 24, 36 hours, as if Madeleine had died. It was almost uncontrollable grief.

“The psychologist who came out to help us [Alan Pike from the Centre for Crisis Psychology in Skipton] was very good at turning our thought processes away from speculation. OK, there’s probabilities, but you don’t know that and he was very good at challenging the negatives. He was very much, ‘You will feel better after each thing that you take control of, even simple things�? We were surrounded by the Ambassador, the consul, PR crisis management, police, and he was saying ‘The decisions are yours�?�?

“All these people we were meeting had to be there, and I felt so out of control and I found it quite scary,�?says Kate. “I felt as if I’d been pushed into another world. Alan was saying, ‘There are little things you can take control of�?�?

“For example,�?says Gerry, “if you are asked ‘Do you want a cup of tea?,�?instead of saying ‘Mmm�? make a positive decision. Decide what you want. That combination of the Church, the community and the psychology helped very quickly. We agreed to interact because we thought it would probably help the search and it would be easier than hiding. Stay in the dark and you’re an enigma. There wasn’t anything to hide and in the first few weeks we were shown a lot of respect.�?

The launch of the Find Madeleine campaign brought them more respect for their organisational skills. Friends and family rallied, a strategy was worked out, the media were fed pictures and quotes, and big businesses, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Beckham and numerous unknown individuals responded with support and donations. This money �?the fund now stands at more than £1 million �?enabled them to appoint a campaign manager and to publicise Madeleine’s disappearance by visiting other countries. With the possible exception of their blessing by the Pope at the Vatican, which was the brainwave of a tabloid newspaper and seemed to contradict the McCanns�?status as ordinary people, they were beyond reproach as campaigners, particularly as they began to engage with agencies that have expertise in recovering missing children. The story rolled along nicely, filling more front pages than any other event since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, though not because the McCanns were managing the media, but because there was increasing evidence that Madeleine sells papers.

Then things started to go wrong. By the end of the second week of August, when the McCanns marked the 100th day since Madeleine’s disappearance by launching a YouTube initiative to help to find missing children, the Portuguese media had suggested that the McCanns could have killed their daughter, and the British press was not shy about repeating and even revelling in the “monstrous slurs�? Coincidentally that was the week I first visited Praia da Luz: there were nine television satellite trucks, each with a noisy generator, on the road outside apartment 5A, and the Portuguese crews were threatening to move outside the McCanns�?rented villa and had to be pacified with an interview. The Ocean Club asked the McCanns to stop bringing the twins to the kids�?club because other guests had complained about the media presence, and a couple of chain-smoking security men appeared outside reception. Praia da Luz, once a sardine-fishing community, now a manufactured resort with a reputation for guaranteeing uneventful and sunny family holidays, was becoming ugly.

The solicitor of Robert Murat, the only person to have been named by police as a suspect in the Madeleine investigation, didn’t help matters when he announced that business in Praia da Luz was suffering and that people there wanted “those bloody McCanns to go home�? However strong a news line this was, it wasn’t entirely true. Some shopkeepers continued to display posters appealing for information about Madeleine, others spoke tactfully about their sympathy for the McCanns. “It’s not that we want the McCanns to go home, it’s just that we want the bad feeling to go away,�?said one café owner, who declined to be named. “Last year you had to book three weeks ahead to get in here in the evening, now you don’t need to book. Praia da Luz has become the place where you lose your children. It’s terribly sad, and it’s terrible for the McCanns.�?

Something else was happening, too, that wasn’t entirely edifying. At the church a steady stream of Portuguese worshippers and tourists approached the shrine to Madeleine to the left of the altar, and many were devout and respectful. Others nipped in to take a quick picture of the shrine and left without a bow of the head; after all, it’s not every year that you go on holiday and find yourself in the presence of a moment so big that it is being recorded by television cameras.

Outside Robert Murat’s home, which could not be seen from the road because of a deep and dense hedge, a Portuguese tourist checked with me that she had the right house, then stuffed herself into the hedge to get a proper look. (She was obviously not the first to do so, as sections of the hedge are now dying.) A hundred yards away sight-seers posed for photographs alongside the television crews positioned with 5A in the background.

On a seat overlooking the beach, Martin Payne, a well-meaning hairdresser from Stratford-upon-Avon, displayed an intriguing mixture of sympathy and fascination. He had just spotted Gerry in his Renault Scenic (which was more than I had at this stage; the McCanns are impossible to get near unless their campaign manager vets and approves you) and was happy to volunteer every known fact about the McCanns, and to speculate, in detail, on what might have happened to Madeleine.

“You’ve been reading too many books, Martin,�?said his wife. “I feel the same way that I felt when Princes Diana was killed,�?Martin said. “Such a loss to a lovely family. We want to have a conclusion to this.�?

When I suggest to the McCanns that some of the interest in them borders on the prurient, they seem to be unaware of it. At church they register the crowd outside as kindly support, and don’t notice those on the fringes who are there just to spot them. In other contexts their unsought fame appals them. “We feel totally exposed, as though we have been stripped bare,�?says Kate.

They tend not to pick up the more sickly nuances within the press, because they don’t read it; instead the campaign team (which consists of the full-time lobbyist the McCanns hired after the fund was set up, plus two other part-timers who ensure seven-day-a-week cover to field the innumerable media inquiries) shows them what they need to see, including translations of Portuguese coverage. And as they demonstrated last week with the announcement that they are to take legal action against the Portuguese newspaper Tal e Qual, for its allegation that they killed Madeleine with an overdose of sedatives, they will no longer tolerate lurid claims that defame them.

“We had no illusions that we could control the media,�?says Gerry. “The way that information has got out has been handled incredibly badly, without a doubt. It’s almost as though some people are thinking out loud. It’s all very well to have a potential scenario but that shouldn’t necessarily be written up as if there is evidence to support it. I think this has been handled very irresponsibly by a number of people. We don’t believe there is any evidence to support any of the deluded headlines, and the police have made that clear.�?

“There are times when you just want to shout out ‘That’s wrong�? because I think we’ve been done injustice in a lot of ways,�?says Kate.

“There’s a blacker picture painted than what is true,�?says Gerry, “whether it is how much we were drinking, which was a gross exaggeration, or how often we were checking. We know what we did and we are very responsible. It’s bad enough for us to have to deal with the fact that someone saw an opportunity �?to then have elements sneering at your behaviour and making it look much worse than it was. It’s difficult because a lot of untruths, half truths and blatant lies have been published. It was published that we had 14 bottles of wine.�?

“In an hour between us,�?interjects Kate. “I’d have been impressed with that in my student days. Not only that, they qualify it by saying eight bottles of red and six of white, as though it gives it more credibility. You just want to scream.�?

Where do the Portuguese media get their information? Brendan de Beer, the editor of the English language Portugal News, is the only journalist to have spoken at length to Chief Inspector Olegário Sousa, the spokesman for the PolÍcia Judiciária on the Madeleine investigation. Sousa, who has 20 years�?service and has previously focused on crimes relating to works of art, armed robberies and car-jacking, suggested that some information is being inadvertently leaked by officers at informal lunches with friends. De Beer is more specific and suggests that some of the more incongruous claims are no more than gossip.

Some of the police detectives involved in the case have spoken off the record, he says, and journalists have contacts within the police just as they do in Britain. “I’ve spoken to a couple of them [police officers], but never to an extent where they told me a syringe had been found in the room or there was blood on the keys of the hire car. That kind of information seems to come from police constables. You get someone who tells something to their wife, they tell their hairdresser, who tells a journalist.

“I think that there’s a lot of invention. A journalist might say to a detective, ‘Do you think Madeleine fell and died and Kate and Gerry got rid of the body?�?Off the record the detective might say ‘It’s possible�? and they write a story based on ‘sources close to the investigation.�?I’d be very surprised if there was any bribery, though a constable does earn only about �?00 or �?00 a month, so it could happen. The suggestion that the police were closing in on the McCanns . . . I’ve been disappointed by some of the reporting.�?

Not that British reporting has been irreproachable. The slurs have been widely dissected, a suspect has been invented by one needy tabloid, and when I rang Paolo Marcilemo, the editor of the Correio da Manhã, which has a reputation for scurrilous reporting, he said that he was no longer giving interviews because the British press has misquoted him.

For the McCanns there is no respite, though they are slowly becoming accustomed to their grief. “They’re not gone, the feelings,�?Gerry says. “When we enjoyed ourselves with the kids we had guilt �?how could we enjoy ourselves when Madeleine was missing? But it’s so important for the kids that it’s unbridled love and attention for them. I’m definitely much better at doing that now, almost carefree for a lot of the time. Not 100 per cent.�?

They will return to their home in Rothley, in the East Midlands, they confirm, and the timing will depend on the police investigation, which is currently in a state of hiatus as the PolÍcia Judiciária waits for the results of British tests on samples taken from the apartment.

Gerry has been home twice, he says, and has been inside the house. “I was pretty anxious about it, but it’s now a comfort. We’ll go back when we’ve done as much as we possibly can for Madeleine. We’re at a point where staying here is not necessarily adding anything to the campaign to find her.�?

He has also discussed returning to work with his line manager; he elected to take unpaid leave rather than compassionate leave shortly after Madeleine’s disappearance. As a cardiologist who deals with very sick patients he doesn’t want to return immediately to a full-time schedule of patient care, but plans to focus initially on MRI scans, administration and academic work. “When you’re seeing 12 or 15 patients a day you have to be focused on them and can’t be thinking about what you want to do for missing children in Europe. When I’m occupied and applied it helps, and work eventually will take some of that focus. The fund enables us to make decisions for us and for Madeleine, and not for financial necessity. It’s not paying for any of our accommodation here, but it has covered a lot of expenses for us, and trips, and it helps to provide support for people to come out to help us, flights and things.�?

As a part-time GP, Kate’s job is patient-centred, and she has yet to decide whether she will return to it. What they are certain of is that they will continue to campaign for systems to be established to help to recover missing children. Portugal, like Spain and many other European countries, does not have a sex offenders�?register, and as for the UK, although a Child Rescue alert system was launched here last year, relying primarily on speedy contact with the media, it has yet to be tested. Neither does Britain have any reliable statistics on missing children, and this means that the scale of the problem is unknown.

Fortunately, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a system that works, and can be copied. It is based in Virginia, employs 300 people and its success relies on instant media alerts and distribution of fliers, and a high level of training for the professionals involved. Its agenda has always been to make its methods operate globally, and now it has Gerry and Kate McCann on its side. Their determination to be involved in this task is the first sign that something positive, tangible and enduring could come from what has so far been the bewildering and tragic story of Madeleine McCann.

In the space of a few days Gerry and Kate McCann had been to Italy to meet the Pope, flown to Spain and spent the weekend with their two-year-old twins, Amelie and Sean, in Portugal.

Now they were in Berlin, hoping to jog the memory of German tourists who had been staying in the Algarve when their daughter Madeleine vanished last month.

As they sat before 60 journalists and a live television audience of millions on Wednesday they were asked the question they least expected.

Sabine Mueller, a German radio journalist, said: “How do you feel about the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the finger at you, saying the way you behave is not the way people would normally behave when their child is abducted? They seem to imply that you might have something to do with it.�?

Gerry replied: “There is absolutely no way Kate and I are involved with this abduction.�?

Unpleasant though the question was, it reflected wider concerns about their publicity campaign. The British media, having followed the Madeleine story so avidly, have begun to cast doubts about the value of the McCanns�?“speeding juggernaut of publicity�? as one columnist put it last week.

For Madeleine’s parents, the response is simple. They are doing everything in their power to get her back; and, after taking the advice of police and professionals, they believe that publicity is vital.

Gerry said last week: “If we had stayed indoors, locked ourselves away and waited, and waited, and waited for a month, we would be shells of the people we are. We are doing everything we can to try to become a family of five again.�?

They remain undaunted by the criticism. After Berlin, they flew straight to Amsterdam, before returning to Portugal to spend more time with their twins. Today they will end their series of appeals by flying to Rabat in Morocco.

They are planning a celebrity-backed “Madeleine day�?and the distribution of millions of bookmarks bearing her photograph with the new Harry Potter next month.

But key questions remain. Five weeks ago the McCanns were an anonymous couple from Rothley, Leicestershire. Today they are at the hub of a publicity whirlwind.

How have they managed to captivate the world’s media? Who is the brains behind their campaign? Does it improve the chances of finding Madeleine or hinder the police investigation? And is it good for the McCanns themselves?

IN the dark hours following Madeleine’s disappearance on the night of May 3 the McCanns searched the streets of Praia da Luz until 4.30am. Later that morning Kate called a family friend, Jill Renwick, who had worked with her and Gerry at a Glasgow hospital.

“At that point she was crying out for help,�?said Jill. “She was desperate. I didn’t know what else to do so I picked up the phone and called GMTV. It was a random thing to do.�?

So began one of the biggest missing person appeals in history. As hundreds of journalists began to flood into Praia da Luz, the McCanns realised the media had a key role to play.

Within two days after Madeleine’s disappearance, the holiday firm Mark Warner had sent a crisis management team to Portugal. It included Alex Woolfall from Bell Pottinger, the public relations company. Woolfall, who has 20 years experience in PR, spent the next two weeks advising the family on how to keep the media interested.

“From the outset the experience I had was two people in utter desperation,�?he said. “They feared that it would be a one-day story, a girl taken from a resort and that’s the end of it. They were aware that there were journalists outside, and that if they could get pictures to them it would increase the likelihood of them finding their little girl.�?

The McCanns were faced with what they have described as an “information void�? The Portuguese police refused to release even the most basic of details about Madeleine’s disappearance, including the clothes she was wearing.

“The reason [the McCanns] ended up doing more than they would have done if this had happened in the UK is because there was a news vacuum,�?said Woolfall. “They knew that the pressure was on them in the absence of any new information coming from police.�?

Every morning, Woolfall and the McCanns worked on a strategy for the day after they had brainstormed ideas overnight with a close circle of friends in Britain. They then organised a series of carefully scheduled statements, interviews and photo-opportunities.

Back in the UK, the McCanns relied heavily on their family and friends, asking them to help in any way they could. Within days thousands of e-mails had been sent.

“They are a middle-class family who knows someone, who knows someone, who might know someone important,�?said Woolfall. “They were trying to push every lever.�?

One early idea from the family was for Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United’s Portuguese winger, to make an appeal. Gerry called a friend who had contacts in the football world, and word reached Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager.

“The quote that came back from him was ‘the boy will do it�?�?said a source close to the family. Other football stars, including David Beckham, soon followed suit.

Family and friends took direct action. Jill Renwick approached Gordon Brown’s brother, John, who lives in her street in Glasgow.

Soon the chancellor contacted the McCanns and promised to help them “in any way he could�? It is thought pressure from Brown helped force Portuguese police to release details of a potential suspect seen by friends of the McCanns. He is also understood to have been instrumental in putting the request for the Harry Potter bookmarks to J K Rowling, the author.

When Woolfall left Portugal his role was later assumed by Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC journalist who works for the Cabinet Office but was seconded to the Foreign Office because of his experience of working in television.

Under Mitchell, the campaign stepped up a gear, with the papal visit and European tour. The meeting with the Pope was not instigated by the McCanns. It arose from a combination of the Catholic authorities in London and a media request to the Vatican. The European tour, however, was very much their plan.

Woolfall had already explained that they needed to raise awareness in countries where Madeleine might have been taken and where potential witnesses were based.

Many holidaymakers in Praia da Luz come from Spain, Germany and Holland. “It all kind of clicked, and Gerry said, ‘yeah, I understand what you are saying�?�?

Wellwishers financed their journeys. Philip Green, the entrepreneur, provided a private jet for their trip to Rome, and an unnamed company supplied a plane for the other journeys. The McCanns paid for hotels and other costs out of the Madeleine fund to which the public has donated more than £700,000.

Is it all worth it? The Portuguese police are uncertain. They have raised fears that the publicity campaign may be hindering the search for Madeleine.

In the first fortnight they complained that they were deluged with more leads than they could cope with. Then last week Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, the spokesman for the investigation, warned that the intense media coverage may deter Madeleine’s kidnapper from asking for a ransom.

“Who would ask for money for the girl when her image is running around the world?�?he asked.

The McCanns were advised by British police, however, that keeping their daughter in the public eye raised the chance of her being found alive.

THEIR tour schedule was punishing, and concerns are now being expressed about their mental state.

In each city the McCanns visited they met politicians, police and charity leaders before conducting news conferences and multiple television interviews. Those close to the family point out that the calm face they show the outside world is a far cry from the inner turmoil they are experiencing.

Woolfall said: “I thought their focus was remarkable. However, the bit that people don’t see is how they feel when they get back to the apartment. Their first thought is that she is still not here, and they are devastated. There is a discrepancy between what people see and what they actually feel.�?

The couple, who are in regular contact with two psychologists provided by Mark Warner, described the campaign last week as their way of “taking control�?

Gerry said: “It makes me feel temporarily better that we are doing things in a positive way. We come out here and do this with determination because we think it will help us increase the chance of getting our daughter back.�?

The strain showed on Wednesday after a mystery caller, whose mobile was registered in Argentina, phoned Spanish police with “credible�?information about Madeleine’s disappearance.

He demanded to speak to the McCanns, whose flight from Berlin to Amsterdam was put on hold for three hours. They only continued with their journey after the caller failed to get back in touch at a prearranged time. Police are still attempting to reestablish contact.

By the time theMcCanns reached Amsterdam on Thursday, they were exhausted and on edge. While they were composed and calm during interviews, off camera the strain showed. Twice during the day Kate broke down in tears and needed to be comforted by her husband before she was ready for the next interview.

According to Dr Lesley Perman-Kerr, a clinical psychologist who has helped victims of 9/11 and 7/7, the McCanns are showing all the signs of posttraumatic stress. In her opinion, their visits to European cities are a way of avoiding dealing with the awful truth that Madeleine is no longer with them.

Perman-Kerr said: “One way people often deal with trauma is to keep doing things because it makes them feel less.

“In the McCanns�?case their response has been extraordinary. But they have to be prepared for the fact they will crash at some point, and they will need to preserve their energy and resources for this.�?

The McCanns have acknowledged as much. When they spent last weekend with their twins in Portugal, they found Madeleine’s absence almost too much to bear.

Gerry said: “When we have family time, just on our own, it is very difficult because Madeleine is not there and it really brings it home for us. She is such a lively, vivacious character. She fills our existence and Sean and Amelie’s. We’re doing everything we can to try to become a family of five again.�?

He revealed yesterday that he wants time now to grieve. “In the first few weeks when I slipped into dark moments of despair I was finding it quite easy to emotionally switch a light back on, but I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to do.

“More importantly I don’t want to do that any more. I want to be able to grieve and let those emotions out. Early on I was absolutely driven by a focus I’ve never had before in my life. All my energies have been channelled into anything I can do. I was concentrating on organising the main visits, but after that I want my emotions to come out.�?

Kate and Gerry McCann became suspects in the death of their daughter at the end of last month, as Portuguese police began receiving the results of tests on evidence collected during a review of their investigation.

Tests are continuing on a mass of material gathered at the Ocean Club resort from where Madeleine disappeared, other properties in the area and vehicles used by the couple and other people connected with the case.

Experts at the headquarters of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham, which is carrying out the tests on behalf of the Portuguese authorities, believe they have already discovered significant new evidence.

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Why has it taken so long to find the evidence that could implicate Kate and Gerry McCann?

The material was only collected at the end of July and early August in a review of the investigation carried out by Portuguese detectives with the help of British police and two sniffer dogs. Many of the samples are very small, containing just a few cells, while others are of poor quality because of damage by cleaning or simply the passing of time.

A full report of the findings will not be ready for weeks, but many results have already been passed to the Portuguese authorities.

What evidence were police looking for?

Detectives are searching for any evidence that proves Madeleine is dead or contradicts the accounts of Mr and Mrs McCann and other witnesses.

What is the most important new evidence?

It appears the Forensic Science Service believes it has discovered compelling new evidence, possibly from more than one source. Portuguese detectives told Mrs McCann repeatedly that they found traces of Madeleine’s blood in a Renault Scenic hired three weeks after she disappeared, suggesting that the missing girl’s parents used the vehicle to carry her body. It is possible to tell if the blood came from a living person or from a corpse, and even the time of death. However, some reports suggest that the quality of the blood sample was too poor to confirm the origin while others have denied any blood was found in the vehicle and claim it was other “bodily fluids�? Unless a body had been placed in a freezer, it would have badly decomposed during the warm weather; leaving a mass of traces invisible to the human eye.

Does any trace of Madeleine in the hire car prove she was killed?

No. Mr and Mrs McCann hired the car to buy new clothes in the town of Portimão a day before they flew to Rome to see Pope Benedict XVI. They then used it regularly for family outings and to collect friends and relatives from Faro airport. They continued using the car until shortly before flying home yesterday. Kate and Gerry and their two-year-old twins would have often carried in the car items used by Madeleine. These items could easily certainly carry Madeleine’s hair and minute traces of skin, dried blood, saliva and vomit. The same could be said of the holiday apartments used by the McCanns and their friends in the Ocean Club resort. However, if the blood came from Madeleine’s corpse the only other highly unlikely explanation would be that a previous hirer had moved the body.

One report suggested yesterday that Madeleine’s DNA had been found on the floor of the McCanns holiday apartment, but because of degredation it was based on an incomplete picture, with only 15 of the 20 genetic markers usually used for such analysis.

What about the discoveries of the “cadaver�?sniffer dog?

Mr and Mrs McCann were shown a police video of a sniffer dog used to find corpses “going crazy�?when it approached the hire car. Reports also claim that is discovered the scent on the vehicle’s key fob. Mrs McCann is reported to have explained that in her work as locum GP she came into contact with six corpses in the weeks leading up to Algarve holiday.

This seems a high number for a locum GP working just a couple of days a week but would be easy to check against surgery records.

The crucial difficulty with the sniffer dog “evidence�?is that it cannot distinguish between corpses. This type of dog is trained to find bodies, not identify where dead bodies have been. Crucially, they can become excited by other scents.

Any evidence of Madeleine’s death on Cuddle Cat?

The cadaver dog is alleged to have become excited when shown Madeleine’s favourite soft pink toy, called Cuddle Cat. The cat had become poignant symbol of a mother’s loss as Kate McCann carried it with her at all time from the night of Madeleine’s disappearance.

She washed it four days after the police tests, claiming it had become dirty. The toy was potentially crucial evidence and should have been seized by police very early in the investigation.

What evidence can be found in Mrs McCann’s Bible?

Mrs McCann, a devout Roman Catholic, claims that police told her that a crumpled page in her Bible was evidence that she was involved in the death of her daughter. The page contained a passage from Samuel II, chapter 12, verses 15-19, which recalls how man’s child is stricken with illness after he “scorns�?the Lord.

The man fasts for seven days, refusing to get up off the ground, to try to gain redemption �?but eventually his child dies. Mrs McCann claims that detectives told her that damage to the page proved she had been reading it.

Why are the McCanns suspects in their daughter’s killing?

Portuguese police refuse to say why the couple have been made official suspects. Under Portuguese law police can not question someone as if they had committed a crime unless they are a “suspect�? It could simply be that police wanted to ask the couple about the evidence they had collected, and that the seriousness of the process has been misunderstood and exaggerated by cultural and language differences. The McCanns believed that they were about to be charged with Madeleine’s death, but it does not appear police disclosed any crucial evidence to them.

Inside the world where experts try to unlock DNA clues

Although the technology has improved vastly, scientists warn that genetic evidence is not a shortcut to the truth