Unfaithful (46 page)

"Did you send money to Savannah Kingston?"

"I didn't send any money to Ms. Kingston. I sent money to stop the blackmail."

Details of various emails which were sent by "devils-revenge" were put to Mark but he repeatedly denied any knowledge of the email account. "I can't comment. It's dreadful but those emails certainly were not written by me."

“
Whoever set you up must have been very devious indeed,” Mr. Clifford repeated his deductions from the previous day. “It's amazing that this mystery person has exactly the same interests as you; photography equipment and flights to France.”

“It's not me.”

“They seemed to have known you very well. The Canon camera online shop was a peculiar place to go for a mystery man or woman who was trying to set you up for conspiracy to murder. Your scheme to murder the women was based on pure greed,” Mr. Clifford declared. "One of the emails suggested that your wife might feel suicidal and jump off the building in France when she heard that her friends were involved in an accident. What's your reaction to this?"

"My reaction is that I didn't write that email. Anybody who knows my wife would know that she would never react in that way. It's crazy! I was absolutely shocked when I first read the email."

"You don't look particularly shocked to me."

"Well, I've read the email several times."

"So you've recovered from your shock."

"I'll never get over it."

"Are you trying to suggest that Penelope Garrett or Shona Morgan wrote the emails?"

"I'm not suggesting anything. I didn't do any of this. I didn't set up "
devils-revenge" and I did not write the emails."

"Did you want to get rid of your wife for the money?"

"I never felt like that about Rebecca."

"One of the emails refers to your wife's "miserable face," rather callous, wouldn't you say?"

"I didn't write it," Mark insisted.

Mr. Clifford
decided to change direction slightly. "There was contact between "devils-revenge" and "assassin_hire" and within minutes the user accessed the courier website with a tracking number. Only you had that tracking number."

"I gave the tracking number to the blackmailer."

"You are lying and insulting the jury's intelligence."

"I didn't set up "
devils-revenge” and I'm not lying."

"It's your mantra and you are sticki
ng to it, but it's wearing thin in the face of the evidence against you. We know there was contact from France to Savannah Kingston's phone around the same dates you were in France."

"I never spoke to Savannah Kingston. I spoke with a man."

"What do you know about the ricin?"

"I don't know anything about it."

"The hard facts of internet evidence are staring you in the face yet you continue to deny everything."

"I don't know what happened. I wish I did know. I can only comment on what happened to me which was dreadful and frightening. It has destroyed my life and my children's lives. I certainly didn't do any of this."

"Logically, it must have been either Penelope or Shona who sent the emails, considering the limited access to the computers."

"I
don't know."

"You insinuated that it could have been Penelope or Shona in your interviews with the police."

"That’s not true." Mark's handsome face was pale and drawn. The charisma and confidence which he had displayed throughout most of the trial had well and truly disappeared. It was obvious that the pressure was getting to him. He coughed repeatedly and his forehead was creased with worry. The smiles from the previous day had faded and his misery was clearly emerging. His time in the witness box was coming to a sad and sorry end and he was not enjoying himself any longer. He accepted that he had done some wrong things but he continued to fight to defend himself. "It was stupid of me to write to Henry about the problems I was having in my marriage. I should never have written to him, but I certainly did not intend to kill anyone." Mark's calm veneer was wearing decidedly thin.

Mr. Clifford pushed on. “
Where are the emails which would back up your story?”

“
As I've said before, my computer must have been hacked because most of my emails were wiped,” Mark sighed. He continued to deny the truth in spite of the mountain of evidence stacked against him. His composure was slowly being eroded. “I'm a victim of blackmail, not a would-be murderer. I'm being accused of the most horrendous crimes; accused of trying to hurt people who I care about. I didn't do any of it!” He slammed his fist down on the table in front of him. A moment passed before he spoke again. “I admit I’ve done some foolish, stupid things. I should never have written those emails to Henry about my marriage, but I certainly didn't plot to kill anyone.” His voice cracked under the strain. Judge Enright could see that he was struggling and asked if he would like a break. "I'll continue without a break," Mark replied. "Let's just get this over and done with."

The final phase of the cr
oss-examination proceeded and Mr. Clifford accused Mark of only telling the truth under duress. “It also seems that your story became more elaborate as the evidence increased. Your letters to the Director of Public Prosecutions were emotional and manipulative; you even suggested that your son or wife may die if charges were brought against you."

"There was a lot of emotion but there was no manipulation. Of c
ourse I was emotional. I was hauled out of my home and all kinds of allegations were being thrown at me. My family was devastated and I was beyond shattered. I was trying to explain in my letters the damage this was doing to me."

"You decided, in the arrogance which we've come to expect from you, that you would write to the Director of Public Prosecut
ions, even though your own lawyers advised you against it. You came in here to this courtroom, trying to do what you've always done; smile and manipulate your way out of trouble."

"I'm not smiling at anyone."

"You were all smiles at the jury yesterday."

"I'm nervous and when I'm nervous sometimes I smile. I came here to tell the truth. I've always told the truth. I'm not here to mislead anyone. One of the detectives told me that in his fifteen
years of detective work he has never seen so much evidence stacked against one person. His comment keeps playing on my mind. I feel there are too many convenient paths leading to me. I know I did some stupid things; in trusting Henry Whitington-Smyth or whoever he really is, in not mentioning him to Rebecca sooner, in divulging personal details of our lives together to Henry, in giving in to blackmail demands, in not telling the police and in sending that money to England. I am aware of how stupid some of my actions were and I will forever regret them, but I am not a stupid person. If I really was plotting such a dreadful crime, surely I would have tried to have covered my tracks and not have left so many trails leading back to me. It all seems far-fetched. Anyone I speak to agrees with me. My own son has doubts about my innocence now, having been told so much by the police. I used to have a fantastic relationship with Christopher. He confided everything in me and was like a cross between a son and a good friend. I love him dearly. He is an exceptional young man but I doubt that our relationship will ever be rebuilt again. How's he supposed to feel when he thinks his own father wanted his mother dead?"

Shortly afterwards Mark stepped down
wearily from the witness box and quietly made his way over to his seat beside his legal team. His evidence had not been the triumphant opportunity to put his story across that he had expected. The prosecution had seen to that. His change in mood captured everyone's attention and he didn’t regain his composure for the remainder of the trial.

Chapter 16

The beginning of the final phase of the tr
ial got underway when the legal teams delivered their closing speeches. Mr. Clifford for the Prosecution got to his feet to present his convincing speech which summarised the main points of the case.

"This trial has been extraordinary and bizarre with a mountain of evidence and it has been our job to pull it all together. Admittedly, from a distance, this may seem like a cheap thriller which Mark McNamara himself may have written, but this is a tragedy for everyone involved. It would be very wrong to dismiss this case as trivial. The
finding of poison in Savannnah Kingston's cell lifted the matter out of fantasy and speculation. I urge you to look beneath the farcical elements to the much darker truth because treachery lies in honeyed words. You may feel that you are dealing with fools but they are dangerous fools.

T
ruth can be stranger than fiction but this is a tragic situation. It may not have been a tragedy with dead bodies but it is a ridiculous plot between two people whose lives should never have intersected. Mr. McNamara poured poison into his emails and his shameful plan has managed to destroy too many lives.

This case has displayed
an incredible amount of greed, callousness, deceit, manipulation and arrogance. Love degenerated and corrupted itself into hatred. There were almost farcical events, plots and sub-plots to this case. Mr. McNamara said to me that I was only out to get a conviction but that's not how the system works. Perhaps he was indulging in too many television thrillers.

This case was tried on hard facts. The existence of so much evidence wipes out the possibility of reasonable doubt. There was a feeling at times that there was a triviality to this case because nobody was actually killed. However, ricin was found in th
e prison cell of Ms. Kingston which takes this case out of any idea of fantasy. She travelled to Ireland with a deadly poison and had every intention of killing Penelope Garrett and Shona Morgan and later Rebecca McNamara. Thankfully, Ms. Kingston changed her mind which is the only reason why the plot did not proceed. Mr. McNamara sent vicious emails where he speculated about staying with his wife's body in France. This is the level of callousness involved.

The State's case is that Ms. Kingston is "assassin_hire" and Mr. McNamara is "
devils-revenge." Mr. McNamara accepts that many of the things which were searched for online would have been of interest to him; travel plans, camera equipment and financial advice. There was a lot of email activity between "devils-revenge" and "assassin_hire and there was even some disgusting flirtation which slipped into some of the emails between them. Look at the telephone records between Mr. McNamara and Ms. Kingston. How are they going to get out of that? They were obviously plotting together." Mr. Clifford stressed the importance of the email and phone charts which were included among the exhibits in the case.

"I invite you to draw th
e inference that they were discussing their “Plan B.” The first mission failed because Mr. Williams decided not to go through with his side of the plan so Ms. Kingston decided to do the job herself. Mr. McNamara’s hiring of an assassin was done in a very calculated and businesslike manner and the cold detail of the methods discussed was nauseating and callous beyond belief. There was a lot of haggling over the price of these three lives. Mr. McNamara claimed he was being set up but to do this, someone would have had to have gotten into his emails. Mr. McNamara sent the money to England. He claims it was in response to blackmail. The Prosecution says it was the deposit for the hit. The two conspirators sitting across the court were discussing the deposit. It all hangs together perfectly.

Mr. McNamara was the only person who had the tracking number and "someone" is checking the
courier’s website and the email "devils-revenge" and shortly afterwards Mark McNamara’s personal email is accessed. He can try to talk his way of it but the tracking number is unavoidable. Mr. McNamara was caught "red-handed" when he input the tracking number as he was the only person, apart from the supposed blackmailer, to have that information. It's ludicrous, bizarre and ridiculous in the extreme.

The turning point came when Ms. Kingston lost her temper at Mr. McNamara's lack of contact with her. Her short fuse led her to attempt to sell the contract to the targets instead. Than
k God for Ms. Kingston's tantrum, otherwise these three women would not be here today and this would be a murder trial and not a conspiracy to murder trial." He turned briefly to acknowledge the three women who were sitting in the courtroom.

"Penelope rang Rebecca to tell her about Ms. Kingston's contract offer and obviously Rebecca told Mark what was going on. It was then that Mark realised that his plot was begi
nning to unravel and so he told his wife about Henry Whitington-Smyth. This is the start of him covering his tracks. Mr. McNamara has uttered dark hints and mutterings but he won't even come straight out and tell us who he might suspect is trying to set him up. Why? The answer is simple; because there is nobody else."

Mr. Clifford
paused for a brief moment before continuing. "The summary of the case against Ms. Kingston is briefer than in the case against Mr. McNamara. Her case is much simpler. It's overwhelming; open and shut. The main evidence against her is Daniel Williams’ testimony, the identification parade and the forensic findings relating to the stolen computers. The evidence presented during the trial points to Savannah Kingston as the assassin. It has been proven that her intention was to kill and not to extort. If this was a "shakedown" she would have come to Ireland without any ricin. She went to the trouble of actually manufacturing the poison, so there was a clear plan. There's an intention to kill in the emails too."