Revenge (11 page)

Nobody would believe his
story of a second person trying to tra
p him;
an Irish
accomplice or
maybe that Henry Whitington-Smyt
h didn't live in London after all. The material which the forensics experts dredged from the computer cou
ld have been explained by Mark’s story
b
ut that would have required
desperation to believe
him which very few people felt
. As the picture became gradually clearer there was only one logical explanation; that Mark had abse
ntmindedly skipped between his “
devils-revenge
”
alter ego and his habitual preo
ccupations, flitting between his
dark plotting, the film noir search for a contract killer and his next flights to France. The police were faced with someone who was either a cold-blooded fiend with an unnatural detachment from life and love or a fantasist embarking on a dangerous daydream.

The deeper the investigat
ors dug, the more they realised that most of what Mark and Savannah claimed was
merely confabulation and lies.
However, t
he telephone records between Mark and Savannah played a key role in the investigation. The polic
e were able to use the details
as proof of their lo
cation and communications. They obtained call logs
relating to a mobile phone in the name of Mark McNamara and a landline in the name o
f Savannah Kingston. The information
proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there had been contact between the two, as approximately twenty calls had been made between the numbers.

"Whoever Mark McNamara claims he was t
alking to, his French mobile had
contact with Sava
nnah Kingston's phone number. Mark left Ireland on Tuesday,
April
26th and went to France, on the same day, Savannah travelled to France," Detective Dan Collins
reported to Detective Leary. "Mark acknowledged in his interviews with police that the phone belonged to him. He also admitt
ed that
only a
few people had access to
the computers and the phones. However, he claims to have only spoken to someone twice, but I've broken it down and there were about twenty telephone calls between them."

"I know we have a huge volume of evidence against them," Detective Leary said slowly. "But is it possible that we have too much information and that it's largely circumstanti
al? You know what lawyers are
like; they'll do their utmost to get key evidence rule
d
inadmissible."

"Anything is possible," Lieutenant Collins
agreed. "We're contin
u
ously trying to find that vital
piece of
conclusive
evidence, but it's proving to be
difficult. I hope the jury won't be confused by the sheer mountain of informa
tion we're going to present
. The only slight issue we have is that the internet cafes which Mark used in France didn't retain any records and a lot of the information on security cameras has already been overwritten."

“Let’s hope we get a break soon,” Lieutenant Leary sighed.

The break was to come sooner than he imagined.
T
here was a major
development when
poison was found in Savannah's prison cell. Daniel
was keen to show the police his
willingness to cooperate and ha
d continued to sing like the proverbial canary. He
described how they had cooked up ricin in their kitchen and
even
told detectives where to find the blender. Savannah and her cell mate were banished from their cell while a full search was conducted. The small flat case was discovered in a wash bag under her bunk. It was empty, except for a slight yellow stain at the bottom. Whatever it had contained had been flushed long ago. However, field tests signalled the presence of the deadly toxin. Nobody could argue that this discovery put everything in an entirely different category.

Chapter 9

Mark was completely oblivious to the latest
developments. He'd been lying low
in France while Rebecca made sure that everything was alright at home in Ireland. He only found out about the ricin when Rebecca called him, after reading about it in the n
ewspapers.

It suddenly made the idea of a murder plot seem serious and all the more deadly. Mark decided it was time to stop hiding out and return home. Rebecca met him at Dublin Airport an
d tried to reassure him but he
could sense that the situation was spiralling out of control. He decided to write another letter to the Di
rector of Public Prosecutions, where h
e explained his predicament and the lethal jail cell discovery, and wrote that the longer this nastiness continued t
he more stress it was causing his family. He told the D
irector, who he now addressed with the familiarity of a pen pal, that he was not the type of man who would ever have anything to do with poison. He hinted darkly that he was being set up and that there were people who wanted to hurt him but
he didn't mention any names, insisting
that he was the victim of a sting much closer to home than any internet plot.

T
he police were continuing to gather their evidence. The computer analysis w
as taking time but a
clear picture of the plot was beginning to emerge. Mark was arrested
again but he stuck to his story of Henry Whitington-Smy
th. He pointed out that Henry may not h
ave been based in London
and that he could have been based in Ireland for all he knew.
If Henry
had been living local
ly then he would have known his situation and with the way
the locals gossiped, it wouldn't have been difficult for him to have woven the details into
the emails and make it appear as if Mark were writing them. H
e admitted that he'd been very open with Henry about his relationship with Rebecca.

“
I had nothing w
hatsoever to do with this plot,” he insisted. “I’
ve never met Savannah Kingston and I've n
ever even heard of Daniel Williams.”

The police were unimpressed.
They’d found several items on
the hard drive which they felt would b
e very difficult to explain
.

“
Maybe the
blackmailers had an accomplice,” Mark hinted. “I
have
some ideas about who it may be.”

The police didn't believe his story but they continued to probe him just to see what he would say. It was a game of cat and mouse.
“
Do you think the accomplice may have been one of th
e women you were sleeping with?” Detective Leary asked. “
You know what they say;
“
hell ha
s no fury like a woman scorned.””

“
I don't want to accuse anyone wrongly, especially when that is preci
sely what has been done to me,”
Mark replied indignantly.

“
Maybe it
was your own son, Christopher?”

“
I'm sure he
wasn't too impressed when he found out about your numerous affairs.
”

The detectives were testing him to gauge his reactions but he didn't take the bait.

“
My son would nev
er do anything to hurt anyone!” Mark replied angrily. “It has to have been Henry Whitington-Smyth.”

The police tried to make some headway during their hours of interviews but Mark didn't budge.

“What happened to the emails between you and Henry?”

“I don't know,” Mark shrugged nonchalantly. “I know my emails were hacked.”

“
I suppose the emails between you and the myster
y blackmailer were hacked too?”
Detective Leary couldn't help th
e sarcastic tone creeping
into his voice.

“
That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. If you don't believe me you sh
ould contact my email provider.”

“
Don't you think it's peculi
ar that the emails sent to “
devils-revenge
” have survived but
your le
ngthy correspondence with Henry,
which
you claim lasted for many
months
,
has disappear
ed without a trace?”

“
It must have been the Irish accomplice, someone who had access to t
he computer at M&R Photography.”

“Who
might that have been
?”
Detective Leary asked bluntly.

“
I can't say. There's no way that I'm going to put an innocent person in the same position as me. All I know is that there must be someone
out there trying to set me up.”

He went on to berate Detective Leary for putting him through t
he embarrassment of an arrest. “
I have nothing to hide. I would have been completely happy to h
ave come in under my own steam.”

“It’s the
procedure in an official investigation that suspects be arrested an
d detained.”

“
I
have my reputation to think of.”

Dete
ctive Leary stared at him
. “
From everything I've hea
rd your reputation wasn't in great shape before we arrested you.”
He couldn't resist the jibe at Mark. The other ma
n's smug disposition was
starting to grate on his nerves. Mark had the good grace not to respond.
Detective Leary hadn't liked Mark from the start of the investigation. There was something about him that irritated him a
nd he was fairly certain that th
e man was guilty. However the detective
was an honourable man and he was determined that every bit of evidence would be examined, no matter how exhausting.

Slowly but surely a damning picture was beginning to emerge. The police found that not only were there phone calls which neatly fitted with the ti
ming suggested in the emails between “
devils-revenge
” and “assassin_hire”
but ano
ther pattern was slowly forming
. The emails already seemed to suggest that w
hoever had been emailing “assassin_hire”
had not only been following Mark's movements and possessed an intimate knowledge of his life, but also was actually travelling with him. The phone records perfectly substantiated the theory. The calls also suggested a clos
e
r relationship with the blackmailer than Mark had suggested. There were calls which
lasted for almost half an hour
at a time, more than long enough to explain the flirtatious relationship in the emails. T
he police were starting to think
that not only was Mark their culprit but he was the only person who could have possibly made all the calls.

Mark was feeling the strain of the mountain of evidence that was building against him so made one last passionate plea to the Director of Public Prosecution's to have the case dropped.

“
It will cos
t those I love far too dearly,” he wrote. “
I'm worried
about my wife. She’s
only just beginning to recover
from the
post-natal depression which has
plagued her
for months
and I'm worried about the amount of stress this situation is causing her. She's taking my predicament very badly. How can you be so cruel as to put an innocent woman through this
terrible ordeal? The
situation is putting me under so much strain that I've even considered suicide. If you go ahead with these charges you'll be responsible for at least two deaths. Surely no criminal conviction is worth
such a high cost in human life.”

Of course, the
Director never entertained such dubious correspondence and immediately saw straight through it as nothing more than an ill-conceived attempt to stop the investigation. It was obvious th
at Mark's pleas were in vain because
he was arrested again
and brought before the c
ourt
s
where he was charged with conspiracy to murder a
nd with soliciting Savannah Kingston
to murder Penelope Garrett, Shona Morgan and Rebecca McNamara.