The suggestion that Madeleine McCann’s mother could in some way be responsible for the death of her own child triggered outrage and astonishment from her family, friends and colleagues yesterday.

As Kate McCann endured a second day of increasingly probing questions from Portuguese detectives, her friends rallied around her to counter a growing local resentment towards her in the Algarve.

Her husband, Gerry, who waited patiently at his hired apartment in Praia da Luz before being called in for questioning, posted a statement on the website dedicated to finding his daughter, who vanished 128 days ago. On his blog he declared: “The suggestion that Kate is involved in Madeleine’s disappearance is ludicrous. Anyone who knows anything about the 3rd May [the day the child disappeared] knows that Kate is completely innocent.” The cardiologist added that the family would “fight this all the way and we will not stop looking for Madeleine”.

His strong words were echoed immediately in Glasgow by his brother, John, who rounded on Portuguese police, condemning their latest theory as “crazy”. “We just want to see exactly what police are saying. We cannot believe the line that they are going down — we just find it unbelievable.”

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He told The Times: “There were some indications that it would be aggressive but we didn’t realise the extent of it. We’ve been taking this in two ways: there is disappointment that Gerry and Kate are being considered as suspects at all, but if that is what it takes for progress to be made, let’s get them in, let’s get them questioned and let’s get them exonerated. Then the police can get on with finding out who really abducted Madeleine.”

According to Portuguese tabloid newspapers, examinations of the bedroom where Madeleine vanished, and analysis of the family’s hire car, have proven pivotal. A police source told one newspaper: “The room spoke to us through the forensic examinations. We have to smooth off all the edges about what happened in that apartment.”

Madeleine’s uncle attacked the suggestion that the child’s body had been disposed of in the couple’s Renault Scenic hire car. He said: “It seems highly implausible that after all the searches for Madeleine that had gone on she could be secreted into a hire car. I don’t understand it, it makes no sense.” He also said there was growing frustration with the Portuguese police’s methods.

“There’s a degree of almost anger — it’s more frustration. We just want them to get on with the real focus. My wee niece is missing and it’s not Gerry and Kate who are involved in this. Let’s get back to the real reason.” He added that the events of the night of May 3 would not have given his sister-in-law a window of opportunity to dispose of the body.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “They were there with other people, they had children to put to bed — it’s not feasible.”

The decision to make Mrs McCann a suspect could mean that she will have to inform police of any intention to leave the country, threatening the family’s plans to quit the Algarve over fears that the prolonged stay could have a detrimental effect on Sean and Amelie, their two-year-old twins.

Susan Healey, Mrs McCann’s mother, described the decision to name Mrs McCann as a suspect as “ludicrous”. Speaking from her home in Liverpool, Mrs Healey said: “Anybody who knows Kate and Gerry knows it is absolutely ludicrous; I just can’t describe it any other way.”

Justine McGuinness, the couple’s spokeswoman, said: “They have done nothing. She has done nothing. She really has worked incredibly hard to try to find Madeleine. She’s a fantastically loving and caring mother.

“I could not imagine Kate McCann harming a fly.” But the staunchly Catholic and fiercely family-orientated Portuguese are turning on Mrs McCann after local media reports that she killed her child accidentally, possibly with an overdose of sedatives.

One Portuguese man, who did not want to be named but led the mocking whistling as Mrs McCann entered the police station, said that he was appalled at the possibility that the mother could be behind the child’s death and then covering it up before claiming that the girl had been abducted.

Tabloid papers in the country have claimed that police sources say sniffer dogs had signalled the presence of a corpse in the children’s bedroom and in a cupboard at the holiday apartment. They say the dogs detected the odour of death on Mrs McCann’s clothes and even on her Bible, which is said to have been removed as evidence.

It has also been reported that Mrs McCann’s account of the evening does not tally with those by other witnesses. One elderly woman’s account suggested that Mrs McCann claimed she had called police before an emergency call was received by the authorities.

A police spokesman told the paper that there were “three hours of mystery” on the night Madeleine disappeared. Another newspaper suggested that surveillance carried out by police on the McCanns had raised their suspicions.

One British holidaymaker, Leroy Stone, 38, from Cardiff, shouted: “We believe you, Kate,” as the mother entered the police building yesterday. Like his wife, Mr McCann faced a barrage of journalists and onlookers when he arrived at the headquarters of the Polícia Judiciária — Portugal’s CID — in Portimão, in the Algarve, at 3.35pm. It is understood that he has been released as a witness.

He eventually came out again after midnight to another throng of journalists and onlookers, looking tired, drawn, and confused.

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