‘We will rise now and adjourn until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. We command counsel from both sides to attend us in our rooms one hour before.’
So ended the second day of the Grand Prix trial held in the Russian Supreme Court.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Pudovkin stood up and walked round the end of the bench to speak to the prosecutor general. Léon Gazdanov was shaking with anger. Grabbing at his papers, he was stuffing them unceremoniously into his briefcase.
‘We are going back to my room,’ he instructed without looking up at the police colonel. ‘I want to know what the fuck went wrong with Baryshnikov.’ Then adding: ‘You have just presided over your career-ending catastrophe. You are to sack the man in charge of the security operation at that woman's house.’
Pudovkin said nothing. He trailed along behind Gazdanov as the prosecutor general strode out of the courtroom, through the entrance area and out onto the street. The prosecutor's car was waiting for him there and the man climbed straight in. Pudovkin did the same from the other side. The law officer was still seething.
‘How the fuck has this happened?’ he bawled.
Before they reached the office of the prosecutor general in Bolshaya Dmitrovka Ulitsa, Gazdanov's phone was ringing.
As he answered it, Pudovkin witnessed something quite unexpected.
Gazdanov was soon smiling into the middle distance as he said: ‘Mr President.’
Pudovkin couldn’t believe the transformation.
‘Right, sir. Yes, sir. I have Police Colonel Pudovkin with me. Right, sir. Yes, sir.’
Gazdanov ended the call.
Speaking immediately with his driver, the prosecutor gave instructions for them to head for an alternative destination.
‘We’ve been summoned to see the president,’ Gazdanov announced.
Pudovkin had never set foot inside the Kremlin, nor had he met any Russian president. The prosecutor general hadn’t explained why they were going, but it had to be about the trial, didn’t it? How high did the interest in this case actually go?
Suddenly Pudovkin had concerns.
Would he be asked about this case?
With the upsets of the afternoon, Pudovkin realized that he no longer knew the official line on the status of the trial. He would want to sound knowledgeable and on top of things in front of the president. Trying to gain perspective on the current situation, he asked: ‘What are your plans for the trial going forward, Mr Prosecutor General?’
Gazdanov now looked shaken. ‘You undermined this case by letting Ptarmigan snatch that Baryshnikov woman,’ he barked. ‘You’ve destroyed the technical element of our prosecution.’
‘Baryshnikov's testimony was hardly convincing, even before the appearance of his mother.’
‘Baryshnikov was laying the foundations of the technical causes of the crash,’ insisted Gazdanov. ‘Faults or even doubts, there, would have readily placed responsibility for the deaths at Ptarmigan's feet. If a culprit could be put in the mind of the court, why would it go looking anywhere else?’
Pudovkin had a new feeling of unease. What kind of irrational case was Gazdanov pursuing here? Foisting blame was a clear distortion of what Pudovkin believed even Russian justice should be about. Evidence, leading to truth was what he expected; he may have known that, on occasion, cases had to be made without the State having everything it might wish for. But what was this man playing at?
Except Pudovkin suddenly realized it could be far worse than that.
If foisting blame was Gazdanov's thing, Pudovkin suddenly came to a fearful realization. Why was he – a middle-ranking police officer – being taken to meet the president of Russia at all? He didn’t need to be there; he could easily be stood down. Such a summons certainly wasn’t out of courtesy. If Ptarmigan was intended to be Gazdanov's sacrificial offering to appease public opinion over the Grand Prix deaths, was Pudovkin about to be the equivalent sacrifice to appease the president's opinion of the trial?
Pudovkin's pulse was now racing.
He was suddenly sure that he was being set up for his own kangaroo court.
After being waved through, Gazdanov's official car swept up the ramp and through the gate under the Borovitskaya Tower set in the wall of the Kremlin. Inside the red-brick citadel, the car ran along the frontage of the Grand Kremlin Palace and below the cluster of gold onion-shaped domes of the imperial churches. Pudovkin could soon see they were heading for the ominous Senate building, looming at the far end of the complex; above this was flying a flag bearing the Russian coat of arms.
They were met formally by several members of the presidential guard.
Without delay, Gazdanov and Pudovkin were escorted from their car and up towards the president's office.
There was no waiting – they were marched straight in.
Despite Pudovkin's rising apprehension, his attention was momentarily distracted by the grandiosity of this inner sanctum: oak-panelled walls, the intricately patterned silk carpet and the spectacular crystal chandelier burning with twenty or more bulbs. For all its stylish decoration, the room was dark. Windows that should have afforded a view out over Red Square were obscured by heavy gauze – bombproof? – curtains. Whatever their purpose, they reduced the natural light getting through to a dim suggestion of the day outside, hence the room needing to rely on its artifcial lighting.
Pudovkin was surprised the moment they were in the president's presence. Gazdanov's entire demeanour seemed to change in an instant; gone was the strutting egotist. The man now appeared decidedly unsure of himself.
The president of Russia was sitting behind his desk and made no sign of getting up. Pudovkin recoiled. The man's Easter Island features appeared all the more uncompromising in the flesh. Gazdanov moved to stand directly in front of him. Pudovkin felt he should do the same.
The president's first words were: ‘What the fuck is going on with this trial, Gazdanov? The death of that defence lawyer is a catastrophe! The international press are saying it's Sergei Magnitsky all over again.’
Gazdanov answered: ‘McMahon's death was nothing to do with the State.’
‘That's a fatuous answer, and it does nothing to reduce the shock of her death – or the world's perception of it. Who did kill her, then?’
There was silence.
‘You don’t have any idea?’ asked the president.
He turned to Pudovkin. ‘You don’t have an idea, either, colonel?’
