The jury got an insight into the way the Garda interviews with Mr Lillis had progressed after he was arrested, writes ALISON HEALY
CHEKHOV BELIEVED that if a gun was hanging on a wall at the start of the play, then it had to be fired before the end.
The metaphorical gun was introduced to the Celine Cawley murder trial on Thursday when a two-page note in an evidence bag was produced. It had been retrieved from her husband Eamonn Lillis’s bedroom during a Garda search after her death.
The note was held aloft for all to see but, tantalisingly, there was no explanation of its role in the proceedings. The reason for its importance remained a mystery. It had been found on top of a chest of drawers in the bedroom.
Yesterday the note took centre stage in the courtroom drama as Det Sgt Fionnuala Olohan read it aloud.
“She will get that wedding dress,” it said. “She will marry Keith next June. She will send out invites in January. You will never be with her properly. The only way you’ll be with her is to live here. Think of the positives in the relationship. You will never take her to France. She will never share your bed. You are running out of time!!!”
Mr Lillis told gardaí he had written it four or five weeks before his wife’s death. He had been doing some creative writing and it was the basis of a short story.
But wasn’t it true that Jean Treacy, the 31-year-old woman with whom he had been having an affair, was to be married to Keith the following June? gardaí asked him.
These were notes about a “doomed love affair”, Mr Lillis responded. Based on your experience? asked gardaí. “Well, yes, on experience,” he replied.
He said his marriage to Ms Cawley was good and the couple had never had a physical row in their lives.
The jury also got an insight into the way the Garda interviews with Mr Lillis had progressed after he was arrested in connection with his wife’s death.
He was arrested early on December 20th and gardaí had spent hours interviewing him to establish what had happened at their house in Howth on the morning of December 15th.
Det Garda Pat Flood reminded Mr Lillis that he had achieved a lot in his 51 years and nobody had a bad word to say about him. Everyone said he was a “decent, soft, nice bloke”, the detective said. “Let that decent, soft, nice bloke come out and speak to us now,” he urged Mr Lillis.
He went on to tell Mr Lillis that “shit happens,” but this was the time to put it right. “This is the moment,” Det Garda Flood said. Mr Lillis repeated that he had told no lies.
Det Garda Paul Donoghue changed tack when he later interviewed Mr Lillis. Wasn’t it true, he asked Mr Lillis, that he was just a lapdog for his wife? Wasn’t it said that she was a strong, dominant, opinionated woman who was “slightly on the bullying side”?
Unconcerned about Mr Lillis’s sensitivities, he continued. Wasn’t he a second-class citizen in the relationship? Wasn’t he earning €100,000 a year while his wife was earning €500,000 from their advertisement production company? Wasn’t it said that she regularly shouted at him to go here, do this, do that?
Mr Lillis’s barrister Brendan Grehan added to this. Wasn’t it fair to say that Ms Cawley was a formidable person who had succeeded in a ruthless line of business, a business that had been male-dominated up to then? he asked Det Garda Donoghue, but the detective said he couldn’t go that far.
The detective had asked Mr Lillis about divorcing but was told it had never come up. “You wouldn’t be the first man to give a mistress the impression that divorce was a possibility,” the detective told him, which sparked a snigger from the public gallery.
After four days of evidence, the jury must now feel that they know more about Mr Lillis than some of his closest friends. They have learned about his jean size (waist 31, leg 32); preferred jeans brands (Gap, Armani, Timberland, Hugo Boss); choice of underwear (Abercrombie Fitch); and socks (Gap).
The trial resumes at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Monday morning.