One year on, the mystery of Madeleine McCann lingers on at the Ocean Club in the southern Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.

For it was from this apartment complex that the English girl disappeared on 3 May last year, a few days before her fourth birthday.

There have been reported Madeleine sightings around the globe. The saga has seen her parents and a British man living nearby hauled before police as "suspects". But no one has been charged, Madeleine has not been found and the mystery remains whether she was abducted or murdered.

One guest here one year on is Amanda, a 35 year-old Londoner, together with her partner and their four-year-old daughter.

"I don't know if it's just because our apartment happens to be on the ground floor or because of what happened, but since we've been here I've been sleeping in my daughter's bedroom," she said.

Sealed off from curious eyes

The entrance to another ground-floor apartment, apartment 5-A of dark memory, is sealed off from curious eyes with a metal chain.

This was the apartment from which Madeleine disappeared a year ago, while her parents dined with friends in a tapas restaurant in the complex. Now it is a target of sightseers' curiosity.

"People want to have a look, but there's really nothing," said an attendant at the swimming pool. "Nothing new has been happening here for months."

"There's certainly something funny about the whole story," said the young British employee, who did not wish to be named. "One day the truth will come out."

The disappearance of the little girl prompted a worldwide publicity campaign by her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann -- who were themselves classified as formal suspects by the Portuguese police in September. They have strongly denied any involvement.

There was no evidence to implicate the McCanns in the disappearance, said their spokesperson Clarence Mitchell.

Three months ago the head of the Portuguese criminal investigation force Alipio Ribeiro admitted there had been a "certain hastiness" in making the parents formal suspects.

In February a Portuguese minister said the inquiry was almost over. Justice Minister Alberto Costa said investigators are "at a phase where we are approaching the end of this procedure".

According to the Portuguese penal code, an inquiry must be made public after eight months if there is no charge or formal closure, except in cases of "exceptional complexity".

In January, the public affairs ministry claimed this clause in order to prolong the confidentiality of the investigation by a further three months.

No answer

But a major investigation has brought no answers to the Madeleine enigma.

Appeals for witnesses accompanied by a new identikit picture of someone who might have been the kidnapper have produced no results. Statements by people claiming to have sighted Madeleine have likewise led nowhere.

But the parents continue to believe she is alive. Clarence Mitchell said the family was optimistic.

"A little girl is missing and we need to focus on the search for her, that is our message," he told AFP.

Meanwhile one year on in the village of Praia da Luz where the beach holiday complex is situated there are few traces of the hullabaloo that erupted when the international media descended on the community.

Gone are the missing person posters in public places.

The village church announced an ecumenical service for Madeleine on Saturday, the anniversary of the day she went missing while her parents dined with friends in a restaurant only yards away.

"It will be a normal mass with the participation of our Anglican brothers, with prayers for missing children, especially Madeleine McCann," said Father Manuel Pacheco.

"We have done everything we can to find the child," he said. "Time has passed and the village has returned to normal life."

Meanwhile the tourist season is beginning again at Praia da Luz with bathers on the beach beneath an Algarve sun where last year Madeleine McCann was playing.

AFP