Unfaithful (38 page)

"I'll be fine," Jackie shrugged off her sister's concerns. "I've had a strong cup of coffee and now I'm ready for anything. Besides, you two could do with the moral support."

"Come on, let's get going," Penelope interjected, leading the way outside to the garage where Jackie's car was parked. She carefully locked the hou
se and set the alarm. "I think we've had enough surprise visitors for one lifetime," she said. "I certainly don't fancy the thought of having an unwelcome guest waiting for us when we return later."

"I'll second that," Shona quickly agreed, shuddering at the very idea.

The identification parade was set up at Westport Police Station. Four men and five women were in the line-up, including Savannah Kingston and Daniel Williams.

"That's Daniel," Penelope whispered behind the tinted glass. "He's second from the left."

"Are you sure?" Detective Leary asked.

"I'm absolutely positive," Penelope nodded. "I'll never forget his face."

"Savannah Kingston is third from the right," Shona piped up.

"Yes, that's her," Penelope agreed.

"Okay, ladies, you've been very helpful," Detective Leary smiled pleasantly at them. "I'll contact you both as soon as I have any further information."

"What happens next?" Shona demanded.

"We'll question Ms. Kingston and Mr. Williams and we'll be in touch with you soon. They'll be brought before the district court tomorrow morning and we'll have to wait to see what happens from there. My advice to you both is to go home and try to get some rest."

They followed him back out to the reception area where Jackie
was waiting impatiently, then he returned to his office and closed the door behind him. He sat at his desk and considered the events that were beginning to unfold. It had been a long day but intriguing at the same time. He knew there would be an extensive police inquiry and he was already looking forward to the challenges ahead.

The police had no doubt that Daniel
was every bit as complicit as Savannah in the scam, but they couldn’t hold him. They released him after two days and he immediately got on the next flight back to England, wondering what his next step would be.

Back in Ireland, Savannah didn’
t have the opportunity to plan anything. She was brought before the district court in Westport where she was charged with handling stolen property and was remanded in custody.

This was not the end of Detective Leary's enquiries. Now, he had to get to the bottom of the case. Why had the office of M&R Photography been broken into and what had prompted Savannah Kings
ton to approach Penelope Garrett and claim there was a contract on the lives of the three wealthy business women? Savannah had photographs of the women as well as Mark McNamara so there had to have been some substance to her dramatic claims.

Daniel had neatly sidestepped the consequences but the police were still keen for Savannah to provide them with some of the answers which they were lacking. She was furious t
hat Daniel had been released. “I've been set up and plotted against! It hasn't all been down to me. Why am I the only one left here to face the music?” she wailed. Detectives wanted to keep her close so she was remanded in custody on theft charges.

Nothing about the case made any sense to the police who were tasked to investigate the extortion attempt. Nobody could understand how Savannah had obtained the photos and why she claimed to be having an affair with Mark.

Meanwhile, Mark was back to being the model husband and was spending most of his time with Rebecca.

Daniel seemed to have disappeared. He'd moved out of the flat he'd been sharing with Savannah and hadn't left a forwarding address or contact telephone number. It seemed that he wanted to put as much distance between himself and Savannah as possible.

However, Savannah wasn't about to let him slip away that easily. She still had plenty of reliable contacts in London and was prepared to use them to track down her former lover. She asked a mutual friend to send him an email, deciding to set a trap for him. She said she'd be back in London soon and would love to meet him. Her plan was to tip off Scotland Yard once the meeting was arranged. There was no way she was going to be the only one facing a prison sentence. Daniel replied quickly, just a single line; “I dreamed about you last night. I can't seem to get you off my mind.”

Clearly, he hadn’t fallen
for her plan. Perhaps he knew it was highly unlikely that Savannah would walk away as easily as he had, especially after he had convinced the police what a conniving monster she was. Eventually, Savannah had the satisfaction of knowing that she wouldn't be the only one to face the music. Scotland Yard finally tracked him down but once again he would charm the authorities with his story of coercion. He agreed to cooperate fully with the police; more than happy to make sure Savannah bore the brunt of whatever punishment was heading their way. He proved to be a particularly informative witness and revealed details that began to close the net, not just on his lover, but also on “devils-revenge.”

Chapter 7

The police investigation continued and intensified over the following months, gathering pace as each new piece of evidence emerged. When Savannah Kingston was initially arrested, police had no idea that Mark McNamara was in any way involved. Savannah had told the investigati
ng officers in her early interviews that she'd been having an affair with Mark McNamara. However, she later retracted her statement but Detective Leary was intrigued as to how she knew his mobile phone number from memory. He wondered how she seemed to have so much detail about Mark McNamara and his wife Rebecca. It was information which wouldn't have been easily at her disposal.

Detective Leary was determined to explore every
possibility and over the long months of the investigation his team carried out Herculean work. The police in Ireland liaised with Interpol and Scotland Yard. Irish investigators were made aware that Scotland Yard was carrying out their own investigation, independently of the McNamara/ Kingston case, relating to a similar incident in the United Kingdom, which involved Savannah Kingston and Daniel Williams.

The
months passed and it seemed that Mark had gotten away with his evil plan. The computer had disappeared without a trace and the police had no solid proof whatsoever of his involvement with Savannah, although they were deeply suspicious of him.

Rebecca was standing by him for now and life appeared to be
continuing as usual. Nobody seemed to believe the claim that he and Savannah were having an affair and he insisted that he had been the intended victim of an elaborate fraud.

Then Mark's world suddenly collapsed. Scotland Yard conducted a search of Savannah and Daniel's flat in
London, searching for documents which would provide them with a link to the website which advertised Savannah Kingston’s dubious services. They left with a plastic folder in which someone had thoughtfully stored an enticing range of documents. There were emails from Mark and internet booking forms for trips to Ireland and France. Whoever had been corresponding had been very conscientious about keeping records. There was far more in the folder than Scotland Yard actually needed.

They notified the police in Ireland who advised Mark that the
y wanted to formally talk to him. Mark was in bed when detectives arrived. He didn't hear them immediately when they let themselves into the unlocked door of Cois Farraige shouting his name. He came out of his bedroom in his pyjamas just as they were charging upstairs. A police officer stayed with him while he dressed, despite his protestations that he was perfectly happy to go to the station himself.

He didn't seem to quite grasp the dramatic change in circumstances. It was eventually explained to him that as a suspect it was no longer up to him to go to the police
of his own accord. So began an interview process which proved to be intensely frustrating for everyone concerned. Mark McNamara had an impeccable record and had never come to the attention of the police previously. There was no way he could have been familiar with the system in which suspects were interviewed. Any expectations by police who were involved in interrogating him that he might crack under pressure were well and truly dashed as he showed no sign of yielding, despite being put under intense scrutiny in several interviews.

Mark stuck to the story he'd told Rebecca in the aftermath of the robbery. It was a
story about a man called Henry Whitington-Smyth, who from Mark’s vivid description bore more than a passing resemblance to a young Gregory Peck. A cynical observer would have thought that Henry Whitington-Smyth was not just an alibi but an idealised alter ego.

He described in detail how Mr. Whitington-Smyth
came to visit him in Dublin after they’d been corresponding by email for several months. Police thought it was suspicious that Mark claimed he had been in regular contact with Mr. Whitington-Smyth, yet he was unable to provide a telephone number, email address or postal address for him. Mark told the police that his emails and address books on the computer had been erased. However, it wasn't until some days after the computer had been stolen that his profile was deleted from the missing computer. Investigators thought Mark had deleted the profile, in the mistaken belief it could not be retrieved later.

Mark had advised that Henry was helping him put a
portfolio together for potential photography clients in London. However, nobody had ever heard of the enigmatic Henry Whitington-Smyth. How could Mark have brought someone to the office and yet nobody else saw him?

Apparently,
Henry had asked to use the computer. Somehow he’d managed to hack the computers; setting Mark up like a rat in a trap. Mark skillfully wove an alibi that ticked every box in the case the police would eventually put together. He described their drive around Dublin, explaining how they’d taken the scenic route along the coast out to Howth Head. He told of a quick visit to Cois Farraige where Henry needed to use the bathroom and had been shown to the en-suite off the master bedroom. The scene was drawn with an imaginative eye and with great attention to detail. He kept his story just close enough to the truth to keep in sync with what could be brushed away as mere coincidence and he stuck resolutely to it.

He said that Henry returned to England and
soon contacted him. He rang while Mark was in France and seemed quite irate. Henry said that his apartment had been broken into and among the things stolen was his laptop. Mark said that Henry warned him that all the emails they'd sent each other were stored on the laptop. “I didn't think any more about it really,” Mark said. “Not until I started receiving bizarre junk mail which began to worry me. I deleted the first few emails without reading them but then one arrived with Henry's name at the top. The email said that I could be set for life but it wasn't very specific about what that entailed. The phone calls started shortly afterwards, growing increasingly threatening. I can't remember if the calls came from the same person. Maybe it was Henry's girlfriend. The caller claimed that she had Henry's emails, including a particularly nasty email which Mark had written about Rebecca.”

“
What do you think this mystery woman or women were planning to do with the emails?” Detective Leary asked sceptically.

“They threatened to send
the incriminating emails to Rebecca. I was worried because I knew how much it would hurt her if she found out the sort of things I'd been telling other people about her, so I agreed to pay the blackmailers.”

“
Why were the blackmailers using Savannah Kingston's address?”

“
I don't know. I just followed instructions.”

Mark refused to acknowledge that he was being treated like a common criminal and insisted on treating the interviews like a rather awkward social situation. He resolutely addressed the officers by their first names, making firm eye contact and grinning at the absurdity of the situation. He kept a white handkerchief clutched in his hands which he kept patting smooth on his knee before folding it over and over on itself as he thought furiously for a way out. As the interviews slowly progressed the handkerchief was folded and unfolded countless times but Mark never stopped talking.
The officers struggled to keep up with him and had great difficulty keeping notes of the rapid-fire stream of stories that Mark was providing them.

Later, he even had the audacity to complain that the officers
hadn't managed to capture his tone of voice in their notes and had missed out swathes of what he was telling them. “How can your paraphrasing put across the whole truth?” he demanded in irritation. “I want it written word for word otherwise it isn't truly what I said, only a mere interpretation.” He frowned as the police notes were read out to him at the end of each interview and insisted that it really didn't sound like him.

Over many hours of interviews he fleshed
out his intricate story. Henry Whitington-Smyth became a living, breathing person whose aim in life was to ruin everything which Mark had built up over the years. Mark insisted that he was the victim; himself and his family. “I would never do anything to hurt the mother of my children.” Over the course of three days he denied and denied. He wept and laughed and tried to make the detectives understand that it was all some sort of terrible mistake. For their part, the police only had Savannah's word that there had been a link between her and Mark and she was hardly the most reliable source! They hadn't had time to forensically examine the computers which had been stolen. At that stage the police hadn't yet discovered the emails or the fact that Mark's computer profile had been wiped two weeks later than he had claimed.