“What then happens is that you get people’s avid fascination and expectation that it’s all going to get solved really quickly, and it’s all nice and neat, and follows nice dramatic lines, and in reality it never does,” he said. “In real life, it’s messy, and you can’t get anything more messy than the whole Madeleine McCann investigation, the whole saga. There are human beings, there’s pressure and people make mistakes. It’s different. It’s never as perfect as it’s portrayed in the media world. But people are absolutely fascinated by a story like that, it just happens that this one is a real-life tragedy.”

It is this fascination with the case, and in turn Praia da Luz, that has led some residents to blame the McCanns for damaging the town’s reputation. Road signs in the town were once defaced with graffiti reading “McCann circus”. The signs have now been cleaned up but still bear traces of the town’s unease.

Hundreds of journalists descended on the town to report on the mystery of the three-year-old girl, but tourism dropped and businesses suffered. “This place was like a ghost town at one point,” said Tahir, who did not want to give his surname.

It is why he and many others hope the case can be solved. “Everyone has got an interest in what happens to Madeleine. For locals, it’s still closure that they’re looking for. It’s not just the family; everyone wants to know. It’s gone on so long. There was a point where locals wanted to bury the story because it was affecting businesses and all the rentals went down, but I think it’s got over that point,” Tahir said.

A retired Portuguese businessman in his 60s, who did not want to give his name, said: “[It has been] 18 years and we’ve had enough. For the family it’s a pity, but it’s enough. This area was full of people, it was a joy, a happy family place that was completely transformed and completely dead after [Madeleine disappeared]. Now it’s OK but it took 10 years.”

The search, the latest in a series of renewed efforts by German prosecutors, was said to have been the last chance to build a case against the prime suspect, Christian Brückner. He denies any involvement. The countdown is now on to the 48-year-old’s imminent release from a German prison, where he is being held for the rape of an American woman in Praia da Luz in 2005.

After 18 years, hundreds of leads and still no trace of the missing girl, the emotional toll must weigh heavily on Madeleine’s family, who have not commented on this week’s search.

And for a place that once hoped its name would be reclaimed by the sun, the sea and the quiet rhythm of local life, the McCann case still casts a long shadow, one that no end-of-search announcement can fully erase.