Perhaps I should have said 'believe', rather than' know' - that's all anyone does, after all.
If you have not already read "Looking for Madeleine" and your posts suggest to me you have not, I can thoroughly recommend it to you.
It may give you a greater insight into exactly why those who held the "belief" that Madeleine was dead and who unfortunately were also those senior people tasked with looking for her harmed any chance of finding her.
Whatever you or anyone else may think of Madeleine's parents the expediency of trying to make them the perpetrators of crimes against Madeleine shifted the focus of the investigation from her and ultimately allowed that investigation to be aborted prior to any conclusion being reached.
Summers & Swann have highlighted in a matter of fact way the continuing role of Madeleine’s parents in keeping the search for her alive and ongoing until it was taken up again by those who have the power to do what private investigators cannot.
The present investigation is possibly the last chance to discover what happened to Madeleine McCann … the resistance to that is not only extraordinary, IMO it is perverse.