Missing woman Nicola Bulley's frustrated partner looked a picture of despair as he visited the river bank in the continuing search for the mum-of-two.
Paul Ansell cast a dejected figure as he stood at the water's edge yesterday, and at one point was witnessed holding his head in his hands.
Mr Ansell, who has been trying to stay strong for Nicola's two young daughters, joined expert dive specialist Paul Faulding at the river in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire.
Wearing a big black puffer jacket to protect him against the cold February air and trainers, Paul - who originally met Nicola in a pub 12 years ago - was observing the river alongside the expert.
At one point Mr Ansell could be seen waving his arms around as he talked, before Mr Faulding pointed over at something on the bank and the pair were seen staring over.
At another stage Mr Ansell could be seen in a police incident support van, accompanied by a detective and in animated conversation.
Mr Faulding, who has dealt with similar missing person hunts, believes if the missing 45-year-old mum was in the river, he would have found her.
He said: "I don’t think she fell in the water."
He told breakfast show host Nick Ferrari on LBC: "That's just my opinion with all the drownings I've dealt with over the years.
"They normally go down and the police dive team are brilliant, they know what they're doing, professional, they would have found her, as we would've done.
"We locate people quickly. That's what I'm shocked with, that she's disappeared."
After being seen with Mr Ansell, the dive boss said Nicola's partner was "clearly upset".
"He was stunned, really. He just wants to know where his partner is. He’s an upset man," he added.
"The family just wanted to come up and talk to me and see progress and how we’d done and Paul wanted to go up to the bench again to see the area.
"I walked up with Paul and explained to him this is where we’ve searched and I told Paul that we’d cleared from the weir up to about another mile up river, a long way up the river."
Mr Faulding, who runs search group Specialist Group International, arrived to much media fanfare as he carried out a sonar sweep this week. But he pulled out with his firm yesterday with their efforts having failed to produce anything in relation to the missing dog walker.
There has been no trace of Nicola since she vanished while walking her dog on Friday, January 27.
Her phone was found on a bench by the waterside and had recently connected to a work call. Her dog Willow was running loose.
Police launched an extensive search of the area and said their "main working hypothesis" was that she fell in a river but a body has never been found.
Nicola had dropped her two daughters, aged six and nine, off at school and then gone on her usual dog walk alongside the river before she disappeared.
Mr Faulding told TalkTV yesterday: "After 25 years of doing this kind of work, after hundreds of cases, I am well and truly baffled.
"Normally you would expect the divers to find them easily. The police have nothing to go on.
"All they have is a mobile phone at the moment and they said it could possibly be a decoy."
Mr Faulding's continued comments on the case drew flak from Lancashire Constabulary, with the force seeking to make clear that the diver had not been party to all the details of their wider investigation.
