Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Duthie, the head of the Yard’s homicide squad, said officers were pursuing “justifiable and reasonable” leads in the investigation into the missing three year-old.
Mr Duthie, who is in overall charge of the investigation Operation Grange, said: “There is ongoing work. There is always a possibility that we will find Madeleine and we hope that we will find her alive.
“There is a missing girl and if she has been murdered and if we think we have got justifiable and reasonable lines of inquiry to pursue then they should be dealt with.”
Mr Duthie raised the possibility that the police inquiry could continue into next year.
He said: “The investigation continues. We go to the Home Office every six months. We have a smaller team dealing with it because we have less inquiries to deal with but we still have a job to do.
“I imagine that if we have not completed our inquiries within six months we will go back to the Home Office and ask for more money.”
He refused to give further details about the inquiry but confirmed that detectives were still examining possible links to a series of burglaries in the Algrarve area at the time Madeleine went missing.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crim...we-still-hope-to-find-her-alive-a3227561.html