Revenge (15 page)

"There are many vulnerable people searching the internet a
nd you caught one in your evil
net."

"It was a contract to kill, not a shakedown," Daniel repeated.

"Is th
is yet another lie, Mr. Williams?"

"No."

"Do you have any
plans for any other shakedowns?”

"No."

"Your intention all along was to get money and your intention was exactly the same in this situation. Every
time you do one of these jobs it’
s for money, not to kill anyone."

"It is to kill people."

"You don't seem to be very good at your job. You've been caught every time; you were arrested in England and pleaded guilty and you were caught here in Ireland and you scammed your way out."

"I am under no obligation to testify in this case."

"I don't believe you had any poison."

"We did have it."

"How were you planning on using the poison? You said previously that you were thinking about putting it into a drink. Was your master plan to follow Penelope and Sh
ona around town and hope they go
t thirsty and want
ed
a drink?"

There were a few titt
ers of laughter
from the public gallery at the image which Mr. Loftus
painted.

"Let's face facts, Mr. Williams
, you never intended to kill anyone. There was no plan. You are an incompetent criminal, yes or no?"

"I was merely participating to the extent that I was controlled by Savannah," Daniel coolly replied.

"Would you agree or disagr
ee that when there is an attempt
being made to kill someone that it's not a particularly clever idea to go and tell the person, or meet them in a centrally located hotel?"

"I was
following Savannah's instructions."

"What were you going to do if the women had refused your demand for money?"

"I don't know."

"Savannah Kingston was not involved in
the plot to kill," Mr. Loftus
stated.

"That's ridiculous!" Daniel shouted. It was the most animated he had been throughout his entire time in the witness box.

"Ridiculous is
the correct word, Mr. Williams
, because everything you have said to the jury and the trial is ridicul
ous," and with that Mr. Loftus
had the last word.

Daniel Kingston stepped down from the witness box and flew back to England later that evening. However, his crucial evidence would not be forgotten.

Mr. Kiely, Savannah’s barrister
,
faced the jury.
"If everything that Mr. Williams
says is true, that makes him an accomplice. You must
treat his evidence with parti
cular care and caution. If you accept his evidence beyond reasonable doub
t
, you are ent
itled to act on it. Mr. Williams’
evidence in
relation to Savannah Kingston
's reaction when she couldn't reach Mark McNamara is of particular importance. Apparently, she was quite furious and it is this fury which prompted her to approach Penelope
and sell the contract to her; t
hat's the turning point when Mark McNamara's plan started to go wrong for him. If Mark had answered the telephone to Savannah these women wouldn't be here right now and this would be a murder trial, not a conspiracy to murder tri
al. Thankfully, Ms. Kingston has
a short temper."

Mr. Loftus
then
made his summary speech to the jury of the
day's proceedings. "Mr. Williams
took an oath to tell the truth and wil
l
fully proceeded to tell lie after lie. He has no regard whatsoever for the truth and is self-interested, self-serving and a conniving fraudster who would like us to believe that he is almost a slave to Savannah Kingston. However, it's interesting that the only person with a criminal conviction i
n this case is Daniel Williams
. He presented
a web of lies and told
one of the most self-serving and conniving pieces of perjury that I've heard in an Irish court. He's a liar and a conniver who came here to serve his own interests when he found himself caught like a rat in a trap. He sat there in that witness box giving evidence like the ston
e face of a liar. Mr. Williams
is the Prosecution's star witness and
they are relying on
him
to tie together their whole case. He claimed the intention was murder but it was evident that he didn't have a clue about how that was actually going to happen. Was he going to follow his targets around Westport with a bo
ttle of poison in the hope
they would get thirsty? It's at that absurd level," he finished.

Daniel Williams’
evidence
made the outlook seem
bleak for both the accused. The two defendants took their seat
s
every morning and endured the intense scrutiny of the packed public gallery. Mark had worked his way through an entire notepad while Savannah was busy making friends with everyone. She joked with the prison officers and journalists, smiling a welcome as each familiar face arrived in court. She seemed to relax as every day passed and listened to the evidence with an expression of almost rapt attention. Mark was equally alert but seemed less impressed; frequently bowing his head to murmur to his lawyers and vigorously shaking his head when the evidence seemed particularly damning. He was absolutely determined not to go down without a fight and this would
prove to be
the fight of his life.

Chapter 13

The discovery of trac
es of the
deadly poison
, ricin,
in Savannah Kin
gston's prison cell
led to widespread media coverage.
Ricin makes a perfect poison for various reasons. It has no antidote and cannot be detected in the victim. There is no telltale scent or distracting taste to alert the target and death is almost guaranteed. It's
estimated that it would only
require
an amount of the pure poison
which is
the
same size as one
grain of salt to kill an adult human. It would take approximately one hundred grains of arsenic to produce the same result.

Add to this the fact that the castor plant is a popular decorative shrub and easily available. It's grown in gardens and is a popular hou
se plant. T
he seeds
can be purchased
from any garden centre and they
're widely available to buy
online. The fact
that something so deadly could be growi
ng happily at the bottom of the
garden is an attractive thought for the more homicidally inclined.

Ricin is estimated to be, gram for gram, around six thousand times more poisonous tha
n
cyanide and around twelve thousand times more potent than rattle snake venom. Once it gets into the blood it makes the red blood cells clump together and eventually burst as they die. Interestingly, ricin is successful in the treatment of cancer. It bonds with an antibody which can seek out the tumour cells, delivering the ricin to have its de
vastating effect on the tumour.
However, a fatal poisoning with ricin means a slow and painful death with no hope of reprieve. Doctors are only able to assist the victims and make them as comfortable as possible.

The
mention of ricin in open court
was a major talking point throughout the country. Everyone was greatly anticipating the evidence which was about to be presented. The investigation into alleged conspiracy to murder was in full swing at tha
t stage and the last thing
police wanted was
any public revelation to
potentially hamper their inquiry.

The next stage in the dramatic saga began to unfold on the eighth day of th
e trial when Gerald Loftus, Mark’s barrister,
began to spea
k. "The examination of the poison
which was carried out by th
e Irish army was clearly not
adequate as the contact lens case had to be sent to England for further analysis. The testing process in England involved the irrig
ation of the case;
therefore it's unl
ikely
there are any remain
ing traces
for the Defence
to have independently tested
.
T
he sample was destroyed and
I was g
iven no notice of the fact that
this was going to happen."

"The correspondence between us and the
State is the same," agreed
Savannah’s barrister, Arthur Kiely.

"Ms. Kingston was entitled to have physical evidence maintained until the trial," the judge said. "There may have been a trace of ricin available and there was an obligation on the Prosecution to have made known to Ms. Kingston that there had been a preliminary
positive result for
its presence. It seems
the court should rule that it is not permissible to have the matter of the ricin element adduced in evidence."

The judge's ruling left the entire courtroom in complete shock. The respective legal teams left the courtroom in a flurry and grouped together in the hall to discuss the effects which the ruling would have on the
case. Police officers
were beyond flabbergasted. They knew that if the ricin elem
ent was dismissed
the jury would have to be discharged as they had been told about the ricin in the opening speech of the trial.

Mark spoke to his legal team outside the courtroom, before confidently strolling back to
his seat moments later. He chatted to his lawyer
and smiled and laughed with his defence team. Was this going to be his last day sitting in the dock? It certainly was beginning to look that way. The judge's ruling
was crucial and he knew it. H
e seemed convinced that the ruling was about to go his way.

"It's my submission that the court should give me an opportunity to see definitively if evidence can be obtained from the laboratory in England. If there's material there which can still be examined I'll make certain applications," said
Mr. Clifford
, senior counsel for the Prosecution.

Judge Charles Enright
agreed to the application
and adjourned
until the following morning.

"I would like to apply to the court for permission to call further evidence
. I want to call Detective James Leary and three witnesses
from the laboratory in England t
o give evidence. Detective
Leary w
i
ll
deal with the circumstances in
which the material was sent away and the reasons for it
being sent
,"
Mr. Clifford
explained
the next morning
. "There were extraordinary and exceptional circumstances in this case. I want to be given the opportunity to be heard on this matter."

"The court does not want to exclude evidence by
any party," Judge Enright
replied. "The court will allow the evidence."

Detective Leary
took the stand and told the court that he was the senior officer in charge of the investigation. He stated that he had been made aware by Scotland Yard that they had received confidential inf
ormation to the effect that
ricin had been transported from the United Kingdom to Ireland in a contact lens case. He said that a warrant had been obtai
ned to search a cell at Mountjoy
prison and the services of the army explosive ordnance disposal team had been sought. "I
had no knowledge of ricin
. I was made aware that this was a serious biological
poison. There were hundreds of prisoners and staff at Mountjoy
prison and the possibility
of evacuating
everyone
was discussed. We were aware that t
here were serious health and safety issues involved. Eventually, we decided to carry out a search of Ms. Kingston's cell and this was done after lock-down. The army unit wore biological suits because of the toxic nature of the poison. The presence of ricin was confirmed but I was advised that I should seek further confirmation elsewhere. I went to England to get a conclusive report on the sample and they proved that it was
indeed
ricin. Micro
gram
s of this substance are lethal if ingested in any way, so I was obviously very concerned."