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Six months ago, Madeleine McCann was a name that meant something to only a small group of people; her friends and family in Glasgow, Liverpool and Leicester. Now, the four-year-old's name is synonymous with every parent's deepest fear. Her image stares out from faded posters displayed everywhere from rural shops to international airports. Everyone has a theory on what happened to the little blonde girl one fateful night in Portugal. Her disappearance propelled her family into the public arena and evoked various outpourings of emotion from people who had never met her. Her story has received unprecedented global media coverage yet, half a year later, police seem no closer to discovering the truth. On May 3, the McCanns were indistinguishable from any other family having fun at the pool of the Ocean Club, a resort in Praia da Luz in the south-west Algarve. Gerry McCann, a consultant cardiologist at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital, and his wife Kate, a GP, had chosen the resort because of its child-friendly set-up. The couple, who live in Rothley, Leicestershire, were there with their eldest daughter Madeleine and twins Amelie and Sean. Gerry, a graduate of Glasgow University, met Kate, who studied at Dundee, at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow where he was training as a cardiologist and she was in anaesthetics. Most of Gerry McCann's family still live in Glasgow, including Madeleine's grandmother, who lives in Pollokshaws. On the night of May 3, the couple went to a tapas restaurant close to their apartment, where they dined with friends while making periodic visits to check on their three children. They are reported as returning to the apartment at 9.45pm to find the shutter raised, the window showing signs of having been jemmied open and Madeleine gone. She was reported missing at 10pm. Almost immediately, the alarm was raised and around 60 holidaymakers, expats and staff joined in a hunt in and around Praia da Luz. As the hours passed, the hope that Madeleine might just have wondered off disappeared. Early on, there were mutterings of disapproval at the way the investigation was being handled. Days after the abduction, Portuguese newspapers claimed that the frontiers service had been alerted of Madeleine's disappearance only 12 hours after police first knew about the case. One newspaper reported that the main border crossing from the Portuguese Algarve to Spain had no special controls in place until almost 48 hours after Madeleine had been reported missing. Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, police spokesman for the investigation, said more than 350 suspicious incidents had been investigated and some 500 apartments inspected, as well as fields across 15 kilometres, and that hundreds of people - both Portuguese and foreign - had been contacted with more than 100 formally interviewed. However, a week after the disappearance, intense physical searches were wound down and police admitted they could give "no firm assurance" that Madeleine was still alive. Back in the family's home village of Rothley, a silent vigil was held at which people lit candles or tied ribbons to railings at the War Memorial on the village green. Portuguese soccer internationals Cristiano Ronaldo, of Manchester United, and Chelsea's Paulo Ferreira both made public appeals for Madeleine's safe return. Stephen Winyard, owner of Stobo Castle, offered a Pfund1m reward for information leading to Maddie's return, while her fourth birthday on May 12 was marked by a television appearance by David Beckham. In what initially seemed like a breakthrough, Robert Murat was named by sources as an arguido, or suspect, for the first time. Murat, an estate agent with dual British and Portuguese nationality, lives with his mother, 160 yards from where Madeleine was snatched. At the end of May, the description of a dark-haired man was released by Portuguese police and the McCanns gave their first interview describing how, in the first few days after their daughter was taken, they had blamed themselves. A few days later, the couple meet the Pope in Rome before touring Europe to keep Madeleine's image in the public eye. In Berlin they faced a hostile German media and were questioned on their involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.
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