Ending that call, he rang another number.
After numerous rings, Léon Gazdanov picked up. Sounding sleepy.
‘How could you do it?’ Pudovkin asked judderingly.
‘Do what?’ the other croaked.
‘Straker and McMahon are dead. You’ve just blown them up – on the Moskvoretsky Bridge.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘I followed them out of the Brandeis office.’
Gazdanov groaned. ‘Going where?’
‘I don’t know – to his hotel? Their car exploded right in front of me. On the bridge. There's nothing left. How could you do it?’
Gazdanov sounded like he was being shocked awake. ‘What do you mean: How could I do it?’
‘You were the one talking about stopping Straker,’ said Pudovkin. ‘Well … all I can tell you, Mr Prosecutor … is you’ve stopped him all right. There's absolutely nothing left of him now …’
SIXTY-FOUR
Pudovkin hardly slept. His reaction to the explosion tormented him. He woke at five o’clock and got up, leaving Ivan asleep in their bed; Pudovkin didn’t want to disturb him – he, too, had had to work late, at the club. In the kitchen, Pudovkin thought to console himself with a fresh cafetière of coffee. He clicked the television on with the remote and turned away to make himself some toast.
Russia-1 was in the middle of a bulletin.
The news channel was announcing the explosion of a car in the middle of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge.
Pudovkin spun round and then just stood there. In his kitchen. In his boxer shorts.
The news bulletin ran a video clip – in black and white – that looked like CCTV footage. It showed the empty bridge, running top right to bottom left across the screen. Framed in the very top right-hand corner were the floodlit domes of Saint Basil's Cathedral. To either side of the bridge, left and right of the screen, were the untroubled waters of the Moskva River.
As the car reached the dead centre of the picture, there was an initial flash – temporarily whiting out the camera. Then came the second blast.
After the smoke and debris had cleared, all that was left was what Pudovkin remembered: the denuded frame of the car in the middle of the bowl gouged into the surface of the bridge.
He then had a secondary shock.
As the clip ran on, it showed the first person to appear on the scene after the explosion. Pudovkin could see all too clearly.
It was himself.
Then came another element to the broadcast.
The news programme's director switched back to the studio. An announcer was speaking straight to camera; she spoke in a solemn tone. Two photographs – formal portraits – appeared on the screen, one to either side of the newsreader.
On the left was a picture of a soldier – Colonel Straker – wearing a grey/blue uniform, Sam Browne, dark green beret, and a chest full of medals.
On the right came a picture showing the striking face of Alexandra “Sandy” McMahon – her pale blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair and freckled complexion – looking determinedly out from the photograph. Captions were placed under each picture, but all Pudovkin managed to catch was “decorated war hero” and “defence lawyer”.
He couldn’t believe it. The newsreader then declared: ‘ Two members of the Ptarmigan Formula One Team's legal team – in the trial of the thirty-four deaths at the Grand Prix – were killed earlier this morning in Moscow. It is not yet clear who was responsible for this act of violence, or how it will impact on the legal proceedings of the case.’
‘No shit,’ said Pudovkin.
The police colonel hit a number on his phone. The prosecutor general answered immediately.
‘Are you near a television?’
There was a reticent grunt from the other end.
‘Well, Mr Gazdanov,’ he said, not using the law officer's title for the first time. ‘What do you want to do now?’
Pudovkin's attention was suddenly drawn to the TV picture. It had just switched to a new shot – tagged live – with “City Hall” encaptioned in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The remainder of the picture showed a table with a bank of microphones set up in the middle, ready for an announcement of some kind.
Pudovkin said: ‘It looks like the mayor is about to make a statement.’
‘What about?’ asked Gazdanov huskily, still not sounding fully together.
‘One can only guess.’
Into the shot, walking behind the table and its forest of microphones, came a striking middle-aged woman with short black hair, large brown eyes and a narrow mouth. She wore a dark suit with a black pashmina swirled around her shoulders and across her neck. Oksana Pavlova stood motionless for a moment – her eyes lowered as if in contemplation – before looking up, straight down the lens of the TV camera.
‘Last night, an event of seismic political significance occurred, right here – in Russia's capital. A lawyer handling the defence of the people charged with the deaths at the Russian Grand Prix was killed. What possible threat could she have posed? Unless, of course, someone feared she was in danger of proving that the people charged in the case were not responsible for the accident at the race track.
‘What had this lawyer discovered? What threat did she pose? And to whom? The key question, therefore, is: Who had her killed? Was it, perhaps, the real culprits behind the accident at the Grand Prix? It's not hard to see that this young lawyer was not killed – but assassinated.’
‘Get that off the air,’ barked Gazdanov. ‘Now!’
