A diving expert said Nicola Bulley's family "need closure" - but his team "have done the job we came here to do" and are now pulling out of the search, amid police criticism.
The 45-year-old missing mum's partner Paul Ansell was pictured at the search scene on the River Wyre today alongside outspoken underwater forensic chief Peter Faulding, who has made several comments on the police investigation.
Mr Faulding - who was on the end of a backlash from police stressing he does not know all the details of their operation - said Mr Ansell remained "stunned and upset" over Nicola's disappearance.
The dive boss went on: "He just wants to know where his partner is."
Mr Faulding's independent Specialist Group International (SGI) firm were drafted in earlier this week to aid Lancashire Police divers with their high-tech sonar equipment.
However, he told the Mirror this afternoon they have completed scouring the area of river from where Nicola's phone was found - and where investigators theorise she likely fell in on January 27.
"We’ve done our job and we’ve cleared the areas that we were tasked with by Lancashire Police and we are happy that there is nothing in that water," he said.
However, Mr Faulding emphasised that does not mean Nicola did not go into the water, with different search teams expanding out towards the estuary and sea at Morecambe.
On the eve of beginning their efforts on Sunday, he said he was confident if she had fallen in by the bench and drowned, her body would have been snagged within 500 metres.
Mr Faulding continued: "Along with our searches and the police dive searches along that particular stretch of river from the weir up to the caravan park we are 100 percent confident that Nicola is not in that stretch of water.
"Going down river, we’ve searched an area to a bridge. We could not find anything at all in that stretch of water after many long hours.
"We’re doing this long days, and the police search continues to search the river down to the sea."
Asked how Paul was today, Mr Faulding said he's "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."
He said Nicola's family was "grateful" for the work SGI did - which they offered completely free of charge - but "it's difficult".
"They just want to know where Nicola is. They are all upset…they haven’t got any answers and no one’s got any answers to give them.
"All I can say, we’ve given them the answers they need to know from the river, I suppose. I’m glad we never found Nicola, we got no body and that’s good. If she’s alive, I don't know.
"It would be nice for the family to get some closure, some form of closure somehow."
During his time on the job, Mr Faulding told a number of news outlets he thought mum-of-two Nicola was in the River Wyre, before backtracking and saying she wasn't.
He also claimed Nicola's phone, which was discovered on a bench still connected to a meeting, could be a decoy.
His comments drew fire from the police, who sought to make clear that the diver has not been party to all the details of their wider investigation.
During a press conference in St Andrew's on Wyre village hall on Tuesday night, superintendent Sally Riley of Lancashire Constabulary said: "Mr Faulding isn’t included within all the investigation detail any more than the members of the public are that I’m briefing through these sorts of press conferences.”
In response, Mr Faulding, hit back, saying it would be "useful" to have all the information, which he would typically be privy to when helping with an investigation.
Mr Faulding said he now plans to go back home to Surrey tomorrow.
"I’m going home tomorrow, I’ve only had three hours sleep last night, I’m extremely tired," he continued.
He explained it is one of the most "baffling" cases he's ever dealt with.
"This has totally, totally blown my mind out, really. It’s really baffling," he said.
