The loudest noise on the quiet Kendall street where little William Tyrell went missing is the wind whipping through the tall eucalyptus trees surrounding his grandmother’s house.

Birds chirp and there’s the occasional sound of the dirt bikes in the distance being used in the search for the three-year-old boy who vanished a week ago.

• Search for missing three-year-old scaled back
• Police “open-minded” about investigation into missing toddler

A policewoman standing near the house on Benaroon Drive keeps looking up at the nearby tree tops, in case by some miracle William’s sitting up there.

She can’t help herself, she says.

But the trees are empty.

She’s not the only police officer baffled by the case of the missing boy.

Dressed in his red and blue Spider-man costume, three-year-old William was last seen on Friday morning, September 12, running around the manicured lawns of the his grandma’s home, playing with his younger sister.

William’s grandmother was sitting at the rear of the house.

His mother was inside making a cup of tea.

And then the little boy, who was running red and blue streaks against a backdrop of dull green bush, disappeared.

The house sits without a fence on 0.4 hectare of land in a quiet estate about 2km out of the small town of Kendall, about 30km south of Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast.

Police have spent eight days combing the dense bushland surrounding the property, as well as nearby roadsides, looking for William.

As the days passed, police expanded their search from a 1.5km radius from the home to a 20km radius.

There’s been no sign of William.

Not a scent.

Not a scrap of the superhero costume on the thick bracken bordering the bushland.

Police say he could not be alive after so long if he was in bushland. But they remain open-minded about what might have happened to him.

The hundreds of volunteers assembled at a nearby showground were told by police not to give up hope as they spent day after day combing the area.

“We look at those statistics and this is a stand-alone case, so we still hold promise and we are going to continue with that attitude,” police rescue Sergeant John King told them.

Mounted police, dog teams, SES, members of the Rural Fire Service and local surf lifesaving club members have also all been involved in the search.

Other lines of inquiry are being followed.

Known sex offenders in the area have been contacted to confirm their whereabouts at 10.30am last Friday.

More than 70 rescuers were on Thursday directed to look for discarded clues along the roadside in the hope they may uncover a spot where William may have been “assisted” into a car.

Scores of police and volunteers searched the nearby village.

The roadside search is “in case something has been thrown”, said Sgt King.

The man heading the investigation, Superintendent Paul Fehon, reasons that being a three-year-old, it’s unlikely William would have powered uphill for a long walk into the dense bush at the back of the house.

And then to the other side of the house, it’s all downhill, heading to a ditch, a field and then onto more bush.

“Everyone just wants to find the little boy,” he told AAP.

A family friend of the Tyrells describes William as a typical, happy three-year-old.

“William is a gorgeous little boy, happy, cheeky adventurer,” she told media outlets.

Benaroon Drive is long and it’s dotted with a few houses – all on half hectare plots of land, with cars parked in the driveways.

The dozen or so cars parked out on the street all belong to people involved in the investigation – with the exception of a washing machine repair van.

Standing in the quiet, listening to the rustling trees, it seems unlikely a car could drive up Benaroon Drive without being seen or heard by someone.

A strike force has been set up to investigate the disappearance, including specialist police and officers from the sex crimes squad.

“Everyone is very committed. We’re talking about a three-year-old boy,” Supt Fehon said.

AAP