Madeleine's parents: 'We'd rather know she's dead than live in limbo'

Kate McCann admitted yesterday she would rather know that her daughter was dead than never discover what happened to her.

And her husband Gerry admitted they were considering "the worst possible scenario".

The couple are waiting to hear the results of DNA tests on two blood samples taken from the apartment, one reportedly from curtains in their bedroom.

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In a moving interview, Mrs McCann said she could not bear the uncertainty of not knowing what had happened to her daughter, adding: "This is the worst kind of limbo. Gerry and I have spoken about this and in our heart of hearts we'd both rather know - even if knowing means we have to face the terrible truth that Madeleine might be dead. We both need to know."

Mrs McCann and her husband have always insisted that four-year-old Madeleine was kidnapped and is still alive but after the 100th day of their daughter's disappearance came and went without news, their certainty appears to have been shaken.

Gerry McCann was interviewed for the BBC 1 religious programme Heaven and Earth. The 39-year-old cardiac consultant said that if "the worst possible scenario happens", he was at least comforted by the belief Madeleine was "in a better place".

The couple's grim mood coincides with a hardening of the Portuguese police approach to the crime. Detectives are going back "to square one" to re-examine the case from the moment on May 3 when Madeleine vanished.

The review has led to a smear campaign in the Portuguese press, implying that the McCanns and their friends were in some way responsible for the disappearance.

At the weekend the man leading the inquiry sought to end such speculation by confirming that neither the McCanns nor their friends were suspects.

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But relations between police and the couple are under strain after Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa went on TV to admit that Madeleine could be dead - without telling her family first.

A family friend said it was "extraordinary" that police had "not had the decency" to contact the couple before giving the interview.

It is understood the McCanns were particularly distressed that Mr Sousa chose to make his comments on Saturday, the 100th day since Madeleine went missing. He said new clues - including the traces of blood found in the McCanns' holiday apartment - had given "intensity" to the thesis that she had been killed.

However, Portugal's most senior policeman, Chief Inspector Alipio Ribeiro, yesterday warned that detectives were "far from throwing light on the case". His words will dismay the McCanns, who have privately described the police to friends as "clueless" and behaving like "the Keystone Kops".

Mrs McCann, in an interview with Woman's Own, said: "When children have gone missing in the past - Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman and Sarah Payne - I've watched the news and thought, 'That's my worst nightmare'.

"I had no idea how those mothers got through the day. But until you're in that situation, you can't even begin to imagine what it is that gets you out of bed. You just have to go on.

"And it doesn't take the guilt away. I suppose I'm really just going through the motions of life hoping, every night when I go to bed, that this will be the last day I'll have to get through without her.

"I can't prepare myself for bad news. I simply don't know how."

Yesterday, the McCanns, who are both Catholics, went to Mass in Praia da Luz, where they have become regular members of the congregation. Green and yellow ribbons - the symbols of the Find Madeleine campaign - adorn the pews in the simple, whitewashed church and tourists visit to light candles for the missing girl.