Unfaithful (The Complete Trilogy)

by Clancy, Joanne

  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.

  Chapter 8

  Back in England, Daniel Williams was helping Scotland Yard with their investigation and was being very forthcoming about events in Ireland. Irish detectives had travelled to and from England and the case against Savannah was shaping up nicely. However the evidence against Mark wasn't showing much movement until they received information which could provide the proof they were looking for.

  Reminiscing about their stay in Ireland, Daniel told officers how he and Savannah had dumped the computer in a wooded area at the back of the hotel. Scotland Yard promptly informed the Irish police where the hardware might be found and a team was dispatched to recover it from the bushes. Detective Leary prayed fervently that the Irish weather hadn't reduced the hard drive to useless junk and that they could find the vital proof against Mark.

  If the desktop had remained in its original hiding place it would certainly have been damaged by the rain and the incriminating emails from “devils-revenge” would have been lost forever. Luckily, it was rescued long before the weather took its hold. Ollie Mangan had been the caretaker at the hotel for many years. It was his job to oversee general maintenance and ensure that any technical hitches the guests encountered were resolved. When he wasn't needed he spent most of his time in his work-room deep in the bowels of the building. He was a solid man who didn't waste his words and didn't see the point of mentioning things that weren't asked about.

  One of his duties was to check around the outside of the hotel to see if guests had left anything behind. “It's amazing the things I’ve found abandoned in the bushes,” Ollie told the police at his interview.

  Anyway, Ollie had set off on his usual tour of the gardens, expecting to find cumbersome rubbish which would need to be collected and put in a skip for disposal. It had been a mild spring but the weather hadn't become warmer quite yet. The heady heat of summer still seemed a long way off. The computer was wrapped up in a black canvas bag which had successfully protected it from the worst of the weather and the hard drive looked exactly as it had in the offices of M&R Photography.

  Ollie took the computer into his workshop and stowed it away. He made enquiries to make sure none of the hotel computers had found their way into the bushes for whatever reason but none were missing. It wasn't until all his research had drawn a complete and utter blank that he began to look on the computer as his own. “I decided to check if it was working and so I plugged it in,” he told the detectives. “The hard drive whirred into action but without the monitor it was no use so I unplugged it and zipped it back up into its bag. I left it stored in my workshop for safekeeping, just in case the owner ever did show up” It was still sitting in the corner of his workroom when Detective Leary came searching for it. Ollie handed it over without complaint. He was more than happy to help and the crucial hard drive was rushed off for further examination.

  Meanwhile, Mark was refusing to accept the accusations which were being made against him. He was the type of man who was used to being able to talk his way out of anything and he firmly believed that this situation would not be an exception to his charms. Once again, he turned to the internet to find a way out. He researched the legal procedure and learnt that he had the right to make a personal appeal to the Director of Public Prosecutions. If anyone could persuade the Director not to press charges he believed he could. However, this proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking on Mark's part and displayed his arrogance in the belief that he could achieve things which nobody else could.

  Against the advice of his barrister, who knew that the letters would be read out in court if he were charged, he wrote his first letter to the Director. He begged him to be released, casting himself as the tragic hero in a story of his own telling. Needless to say, he never received a response from the Director but luckily he hadn't been cast completely adrift. Rebecca was standing by him and since his arrest she had been his rock. She knew her husband was capable of many things and knew they would never share the same intimacy again but she refused to believe that he would ever physically hurt her. He loved his children dearly and there was no way that he would want them to be without their mother. She believed the story of Henry Whitington-Smyth as recounted by Mark because she simply could not accept that he would betray her to that extent. Somewhere deep down she still felt he loved her just as a little part of her would always love him.

  Henry Whitington-Smyth was a welcome scapegoat behind whom Mark could hide. If they could find him he would be their star witness, Rebecca insisted. Of course, Mark didn't have any contact details for him. He blamed a virus for deleting any contact information and Rebecca didn't have the heart or the energy to argue with him.

  Mark mentioned that Henry may have had a connection to Savannah so he bought a return ticket to London, at Rebecca's insistence, where he spent about ten days “investigating” the mythical figure of Mr. Whitington-Smyth. He seemed determined to find the man whom the police had failed to find. By the time Mark returned home Rebecca had hired private investigator Graham Scott who she asked to find the elusive Henry Whitington-Smyth. Rebecca had no doubt he would prove her husband’s innocence.

  The police were busy analysing the computer which they'd seized from the hotel grounds. The extraordinary correspondence between “devils-revenge” and “assassin_hire” was revealed piece by piece. The emails were peppered throughout the hard drive of the computer. The correspondence was scattered and it was painstaking to put back together. The hard drive revealed searches for hitmen and assassins, contract killers and inheritance rights. A reference to money being transferred from Dublin to London, via courier, in one of the many email exchanges, prompted this latest development to be followed up. This resulted in Mark admitting that he had sent money via courier to stop a blackmailer. Police knew that the courier element would play a significant part in their case when considered in conjunction with the crucial emails.

  Mark had worried that there might be a possibility that the computer would be analysed by the police and had insisted that it be removed and dumped somewhere irretrievable but the bumbling scam artists he'd hired hadn't bothered. They'd only gotten as far as the back of the hotel and thanks to Ollie Mangan's work-room the hard drive was still in perfect condition to reveal their sickening secrets. Mark was correct to be worried about the searches which had taken place but in the end it was not the searches which “devils-revenge” had conducted for a hitman that made the most significant impact on the police, it was searches of a more mundane nature which sparked their curiosity.

  Secure in the anonymity of a web based pseudonym, Mark had emailed “assassin_hire” far more freely than he should have done. He had used his own name to open his “devils-revenge” email address and repeatedly signed his emails
“Mark.” He also used an internet search engine which provided an email address that stayed logged in when the user returned to the home page. The search history showed that “devils-revenge” was researching camera lenses and astrological predictions for Mark's date of birth.

  Nobody would believe his story of a second person trying to trap him; an Irish accomplice or maybe that Henry Whitington-Smyth didn't live in London after all. The material which the forensics experts dredged from the computer could have been explained by Mark’s story but 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 absentmindedly skipped between his “devils-revenge” alter ego and his habitual preoccupations, 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 investigators dug, the more they realised that most of what Mark and Savannah claimed was merely confabulation and lies. However, the telephone records between Mark and Savannah played a key role in the investigation. The police were able to use the details as proof of their location and communications. They obtained call logs relating to a mobile phone in the name of Mark McNamara and a landline in the name of 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 talking to, his French mobile had contact with Savannah 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 admitted 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 circumstantial? You know what lawyers are like; they'll do their utmost to get key evidence ruled inadmissible."

  "Anything is possible," Lieutenant Collins agreed. "We're continuously 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 information 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. There 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 had 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 newspapers.

  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 and tried to reassure him but he could sense that the situation was spiralling out of control. He decided to write another letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, where he explained his predicament and the lethal jail cell discovery, and wrote that the longer this nastiness continued the more stress it was causing his family. He told the Director, 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.

  The police were continuing to gather their evidence. The computer analysis was 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-Smyth. He pointed out that Henry may not have been based in London and that he could have been based in Ireland for all he knew. If Henry had been living locally 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. He admitted that he'd been very open with Henry about his relationship with Rebecca.

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

  The police were unimpressed. They’d found several items on the hard drive which they felt would be 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 the women you were sleeping with?” Detective Leary asked. “You know what they say; “hell has no fury like a woman scorned.””

  “I don't want to accuse anyone wrongly, especially when that is precisely 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 never 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 mystery blackmailer were hacked too?” Detective Leary couldn't help the sarcastic tone creeping into his voice.

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

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

  “It must have been the Irish accomplice, someone who had access to the 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 the embarrassment of an arrest. “I have nothing to hide. I would have been completely happy to have come in under my own steam.”

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

  “I have my reputation to think of.”

  Detective Leary stared at him. “From everything I've heard your reputation wasn't in great shape bef
ore we arrested you.” He couldn't resist the jibe at Mark. The other man'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 and he was fairly certain that the 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 timing suggested in the emails between “devils-revenge” and “assassin_hire” but another pattern was slowly forming. The emails already seemed to suggest that whoever 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 closer 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. The 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 cost 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.”