Revenge (17 page)

Mark smiled wryly. “Not at first, no,
I wanted to t
ry to sort it out.”

Mr. Clifford pushed further. “
Did you
ever
tell
her abo
ut Henry Whitington-Smyth
?”

“Eventually, yes I did tell her
.
People keep things to themselves and don't necessarily t
ell their partners everything,”
he retorted.

“
You probably needed the time to get your story st
raight,” Mr. Clifford retaliated. “
You were well practiced by the time you started telling
people about Mr. Whitington-Smyth.”

Mark showed his
irritation for the first time. “
It wasn't difficult to explain what happened. It's easy to tell a story wh
en you know what you have done.”

"The only reason you admitted to the police about sending the money to England was because it was essential,"
Mr. Clifford
interrupted, changing the subject.

Mark glanced around the courtroom before responding. "I see James Le
ary down there. I asked him if
there
was
any chance of getting my money back."

Mr. Clifford
quickly explained to the jury that Mark was on first name terms with some of the police officers. Mark was equally swift in his response. "They sat in
my kitchen with me for three or four hours. W
hy wouldn't I call them by their names?"

The barrister
decided to probe him about his telephone calls. "There was telephone traffic between your number and Savannah Kingston's phone."

"There were a lot of phone calls mentioned. Twenty seven conversations were suggested to me when it may have been more like four or five conversations which were a few minutes each. I was attempting to return a call to a blackmailer."

"Were you blackmailed by a man?"

"I think at the time I couldn't be certain if it was one or two men. I don't know
who was ringing me. It was
difficult to know
where the call was coming from but
I never telephoned Savannah Kingston."

"Are you saying that
you never spoke directly with Savannah Kingston after the package had been sent?"

"No, I did not."

“
Are you claiming that the numerous phone
calls between you and Savannah Kingston
were in fac
t phone calls to a blackmailer?”

Mark shook his head again. “
No, s
ome of the calls were to Henry.”

“
But the calls ar
e between the same two number
s
,” Mr. Clifford
quickly countered.

“
The numbers were withh
eld. It was difficult to know.”

The line of questioning moved on to the computers at the centre of the
case. It was pointed out to him
that emails had been retrieved from several computers, two of which were in Ireland; one at the office and the other at Cois Farraige, the house he shared with Rebecca."

"How many people had access to those computers?"

"Obviously, I had access, as had Rebecca, Shona an
d Penelope. My son, Christopher,
would h
ave had access to anything in the
house, but not in the office.
" He glanced over at his son
who refuse
d to make eye contact with him
. Christopher had sat ston
y
-
faced in the courtroom throughout the trial. He was pale and withdrawn and was utterly dev
astated by the accusations which
were being made against his father.

"Did anyone else have access to the computers?"

"There were a few others who may have used the computers too."

“
Are you
“devils-revenge”?”

“No, I am not.”

“It’s an interesting coincidence that “d
evils-revenge
”
kept signing himself as Ma
rk. How would you explain that?”

“
It wasn't me. I understand that it's your job to bring in a guilty verdict but
I can assure you
I'm not
“
devils-revenge
”.”

“But the emails are very detailed;
det
ails that only you could know,” Mr. Clifford
remarked.
“The writing style in the emails is similar to the letters which you admit writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions.”

Mark agreed that some of the language used in the emails was similar to his own. "I don't know what was going on but some of it was definitely not written the way that I write."
He
stood firm and repea
ted that he hadn't written them but the barrister
was relentless and was in
no way disconcerted by his
continued denials and smiles at the jury.

“I made the whole situation
clear to the police when they questioned me but the
y didn't write everything down.”

“
We know you were
n't happy with the interviews,” Mr. Clifford
conceded.

Mark nodded. “
I actually have quite a long list of points which I would like my defence
team
to address, but I think the jury m
ay want to finish up for today.”
He flashed a mega watt smile at the jurors.

The barrister
was not i
mpressed by his grandstanding. “
The jury will have the right to request your interv
iew videos
once they have begun their deliberations and it's up to them to decide if the differences matter. Right now it's the emails from
“
devils-revenge
”
that are
of interest to the P
rosecution.”

Mark was insistent. “
I'm not
“
devils-revenge
.
”
I'm a victim. I've been blackmailed. I never made any secret about paying the money. I think the position
I find myself in is ludicrous.”

“
It's of
your own making, Mr. McNamara.”

“
I don'
t agree with you. I was set up.”

“It must have
been someone with a particularly Machiavel
lian mind who set you up,” Mr. Clifford continued. “
They would have had to
have crept
around your house to use your computer and when they were framin
g you they would have had to
have been very precise in their internet searches for photography equip
ment and flights to France
at the same time as
they were searching for an assassin. Whoever set you up
must have known you well.”

“Anything is possible.”

"Why didn't you tell the police about the computer that was missing from your house?"

"I most certainly did inform them. It's in the Book of Evidence. You should look it up," Mark challenged.

Mr. Clifford
was unperturbed by his demeanour and continued to fire questions at him. "The police never found any trace of
your correspondence with Mr. Whitington-Smyth
."

"So I've been told," Mark beamed from the witness box. "It's not unheard of that emails can be lost."

Mark had been on the stand for almost half an hour at that stage and he remained relaxed and comfortable. It was clear that he was thoroughly enjoying his
moment in the spot
light. Mr. Clifford
continued to probe him about the context of the various emails at the centre of the case while Mark adjusted the stripy tie he wore against his pale blue shirt.
He continued to smile.

"You are "
devils-revenge
",” the barrister repeated.

"I'm not.”
Mark immediately denied.

"You don't have a shred of ev
idence to prove otherwise," Mr. Clifford
retaliated.

Mark was equally swift in his response. "I had hoped that the police would find something. I even wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and asked if he could have somebody investigate the theft of my life, but he chose not to follow through with it."

"There's no way that you can accuse the police of being lazy. They have engaged in an exhaustive investigation."

Again, this yielded a swift response from the
witness. "I'm not so sure
they were exhausted. They seemed to have
had
a lot of holidays. An
y
way, I don't believe for a moment that anyone ever intended to kill three people."

"The presence of ricin will contradict you,"
Mr. Clifford
quickly responded.

"Well, I don't know anything about ricin," Mark replied. "I can tell you that I certainly didn't intend to have three people killed."

"There was a lot of detail in the emails that only a few people would know."

"Who do you think sent them?" Mark asked.

"You, Mr. McNamara, you,"
Mr. Clifford
replied. "There was consistency between the emails and other proven facts, including that when Savannah Kingston arrived at the house
she had photographs and investigators found an email which
referred to sending photographs of the three intended victims. There was even a photog
raph of you where it was stated;
"I'm the handsome devil in the tuxedo.""

"I'm amazed that somebody would identify themselves like that to a would-be assassin. Would anybody really be that stupid? Surely if someone had planned to do something like that, they would have tried to cover their tracks a little better."

"
The deleted emails were retrieved by investigators.”

"Are you saying that
someone assumed
by deleting them
that
they wouldn't be found?"

"Yes."

"Why go to the bother of getting someone to break into the office?"

The questions were being hurled back and forth between the two at a fast pace and Mark was feeling thirsty. "Excuse me," he smi
led before
leaning forward and pouring himself a glass of water. He slowly drank the water and braced himself to answer the flow of questions which continued to be thrown at him.

"One
of the emails suggested disposing of the computer in
the sea, when in fact it was discarded in bushes behind the hotel."

"So I believe," Mark shrugged nonchalantly.

"You don't believe it?"

"S
o I believe," Mark repeated, enunciating each syllable.

"Are you aware that deleted emails can be retrieved?"

"Of course, everything is retrievable these days."

"Are you aware of net analysis?"

"No
,
but I'm sure I'm about to find out."

"Net analysis is the second by second reconstruction of a computer."

"No, I'm not aware of that. I'm appalled that my email address was being access
ed because
I wasn't using it myself. However, my password is saved on all the computers that I use which might explain how someone could have used my email address."

"Do you think someone has a motive to set you up? You seem to be trying to imply that there is someone."

The question was met with a pause and there was silence in the courtroom. A few seconds passed before Mark finally spoke. "I've been brought to the police station and questioned at length. I've been charged with crimes that I certainly didn't commit and never would commit. I've been put in prison. You can't even begin to imagine the effect it's having on my life. I refuse to accuse anybody of anything when I don't know for certain. I would hate to wrongfully accuse someone and have them experience what I have been forced to endure."

"Do you think it was Rebecca McNamara?"

"No."

"Who's left? Are you suggesting it was Penelope Garrett or Shona Morgan?"

"O
nly a limited number of people have access to the office."

"Why do you think Ms. Garrett or Ms. Morgan would set you up?"

"You'd have to ask them." It was the first time that Ma
rk seemed to be getting
uncomfortable.

"Were they trying to get money from you?"