PORTUGAL:One by one the leads are discounted, only to be replaced by more theories, writes Esther Addleyin Praia da Luz
Like almost every day since their daughter Madeleine disappeared more than three months ago, Gerry and Kate McCann spent yesterday quietly, dropping their two-year-old twins off at playschool in the morning before retreating behind the high gates of their rented villa in the small Algarve town where the toddler vanished on May 3rd.
But if the couple kept a low profile, and signs of police activity around the town were minimal yesterday, the McCanns have again found themselves at the centre of a media frenzy.
The discovery last weekend of a spot of blood in the apartment where they were staying when Madeleine disappeared has unleashed a storm of speculation and innuendo in the Portuguese media, much of it suggesting new theories about the toddler's disappearance and probable death.
There was more of it yesterday: the local Diario de Noticias reported that police had been intercepting phone calls and e-mails as part of the investigation. That claim, like many others, was attributed to unnamed and unverifiable figures in the Portuguese police.
Local officers have refused to confirm or deny the waves of speculation which on Tuesday forced the McCanns to give a television interview insisting that they retained confidence in the inquiry. But if the couple managed on that occasion to contain their exasperation, one of their friends has not.
Rachael Oldfield, who was among the party having dinner with the couple when Madeleine vanished, described the speculation yesterday as "very hurtful and all rather ludicrous".
"I think there are some leaks coming from the police but a lot of what I have read recently has been completely untrue," she told the London Evening Standard. "It is difficult to defend ourselves because the investigation and everything in it is confidential." Of the e-mail suggestion she said: "It's just made up." It is high season in the Algarve and, in contrast to the weeks in May when the town seemed overrun with police and journalists, Praia da Luz has returned to doing what it does best, accommodating crowds of holidaymakers on its picturesque town beach.
Until last week it seemed that the investigations in the town had largely run their course. The McCanns' holiday apartment, deemed no longer to be of interest to police, was let out to other families, and the crowds of journalists gradually peeled away. But this week attention returned to the town after British police joined local officers to search again the significant sites in the case, including the home of Robert Murat, the local man who is the only official suspect in the case.
The latest of the theories that have surfaced since Madeleine's disappearance appeared, like so many of the rest, to have disintegrated yesterday.
Belgian police said that DNA tests from a restaurant in Tongeren near the Dutch/Belgian border where a woman reported seeing Madeleine, did not match the missing girl. Other reports have suggested that a paedophile who has been linked to the disappearance of a Swiss five-year-old was holidaying in the Algarve in early May. A Swiss police spokesman said yesterday that they had never suggested there was a link to the Portuguese case.
Even if the speck of blood turns out to be Madeleine's, a leading forensics expert said yesterday it would not prove a thing. In contrast to what has been reported, Derrick Pounder, professor of forensic medicine at Dundee University, Scotland, said the tests would not be able to determine whether the blood was from a living person or a very recently dead one. In addition, he said, it could come from any number of the scores of people who have spent time in the room.
"The speculation is so far ahead of the logical approach to the science that it becomes unreasonable," he said. The results are likely to take at least a week. In the meantime, the authorities, along with the McCann family circle, must once again simply wait. - ( Guardian service)