Having been so liberal with his authority, Pudovkin now wondered how on earth he could deliver on his undertaking. He realized he had to take a long shot. Telephoning the Kremlin, he didn’t really know who to ask for. He asked for the office of the president's chief of staff, feeling ridiculous even as he said it. To his amazement his call was patched straight through.
And answered.
Pudovkin explained that he needed to authorize the analysis of the explosive residue recovered from the site of the blast. To Pudovkin's further amazement he was told his request would be granted within the hour. He replaced the receiver of his phone barely able to comprehend the access he was being granted.
Expectations on him were clearly extraordinarily high.
Police Colonel Pudovkin needed to pick up on a loose end. Telephoning Major Ustinov, he updated his subordinate on progress at the forensics laboratory. ‘I gather the SOCO had a blood sample from the blast site? We need a match, though, for confirmation. Can you do something on that? Get over to Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. Get into Straker's room and try and lift a DNA sample from his bathroom – hairbrush, or whatever.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘If you manage to find something, get whatever it is over to the RFCFS forensic lab as quickly as you can.’
Ustinov sounded as if he was already on his way.
Police Colonel Pudovkin saw that his other Police Major – Kuprin – had sent through the batch of photographs his watchers had taken while trailing Straker and McMahon round Moscow.
There were in excess of three hundred shots.
For two hours Pudovkin clicked through all of the pictures. He was desperate to find a way of prioritizing them. Which of these photographs, he wondered, could have any significance? As he rethought this, he cursed his brain once again – for not picking up on things sooner.
Pudovkin found himself looking at the snatched shots of the mysterious visit Straker and McMahon had made to City Hall. For that visit, they had switched from their earlier Brandeis car – and hidden in the back of an unmarked van. If Straker's behaviour meant anything, it had to mean he knew he was being watched, didn’t it? Meaning that Straker did not want their meeting at City Hall to be noticed.
Why?
Pudovkin dived back into the pictures, carving out those of Strak-er's visit to City Hall. There were thirty-odd shots of it, apparently snatched by a long focal-length lens from a fair way down the side street. It all looked pretty clandestine … and strange. Straker and the Brandeis lawyer were being smuggled in through a delivery entrance … to visit the mayor of Moscow …
Why would Straker have gone to such extraordinary lengths?
With the camera's distance from the subject, the length of the lens it required caused most of the images to be grainy, more frequently out of focus and occasionally even blurred. Even so, he was readily able to recognize the subjects via the overall sequence.
Pudovkin studied each shot, trying to glean anything – willing them to reveal something.
Then something clicked.
Pudovkin was looking, again, at the second half of the City Hall batch.
These photographs showed Straker and McMahon at the time of leaving, surreptitiously via the same delivery entrance. It looked as if they were being escorted to the door by someone from inside the building. A woman. Who was that, then? Firing off an email, he attached one of the photographs and asked Major Kuprin to follow it up – to see if this unknown woman could be identified.
Then something else, which he felt he should have seen much earlier, also finally popped. It happened at the point when the sequence skipped from the last picture of them arriving at City Hall to the first shot of them leaving.
How had he not spotted this before?
When Straker and McMahon were leaving, it was just the two of them – accompanied by this unknown woman from inside. Hurriedly, Pudovkin scrolled back to the sequence which showed them arriving. He suddenly spotted the anomaly, realizing that there had been three of them going in. How had he missed the third person? Had he confused that individual with the driver of the van or with a passerby, perhaps? No, that third person was definitely part of the Brandeis party. The individual had got out of the back of the van with Straker and McMahon. Pudovkin shuffled quickly through the other pictures of their arrival, to try and find the clearest shot of this third person. Enlarging a segment of one photograph, Pudovkin could see a shortish man, with a closely shaven head, wearing a preponderance of pastel-coloured clothes. Who the hell was that? Much more importantly, why hadn’t this man left at the same time as Straker and McMahon?
Why had this man stayed behind in City Hall?
Pudovkin could only force his concentration for so long. He realized he was already missing things. He decided he had to sleep and, so finally, went home.
Rising early the next morning, the first thing he did was check the television news. There was absolutely nothing being broadcast about the Grand Prix trial – on any of the channels or even on the radio.
Pudovkin put a call through to Gazdanov's office to see if there were any last-minute instructions before they left for court. Instead, he was told by the office that the prosecutor general was not there.
He tried Gazdanov's mobile.
Voicemail only.
Where was the prosecutor general?
SEVENTY-TWO
Police Colonel Pudovkin entered the Supreme Court building shortly after seven thirty that morning and made his way to his usual place. He was in his seat on the concentric bench by a quarter to eight. He looked around the courtroom. Everyone there seemed to be waiting with obvious anticipation, except the space felt different. Then Pudovkin realized why. There were no media present that morning – no cameras down the far-side wall.
At five minutes to nine, a door opened at the front of the courtroom and Oscar Brogan QC, the British defence counsel, appeared wearing his wig and gown. This, thought Pudovkin, must be the man returning from the eight o’clock conference of the barristers called by the judges. Brogan was accompanied by another man wearing the pale blue uniform of the Prosecution Service, whom Pudovkin did not recognize. This man walked on into the courtroom and sat down directly in front of Pudovkin, where Gazdanov had been sitting earlier in the trial.
Where was the prosecutor general?
At one minute to nine a court official appeared through the same door and, taking up station, announced the opening of the session, instructing the room to stand.
Pudovkin watched the three judges take their seats in the row of thrones. As they lowered themselves into the grand chairs, a nod was given by the middle judge. Another call echoed around the red oak panels of the courtroom summoning the accused.
The two Ptarmigan officials were shuffled into court. And, once again, the slamming of the steel door reverberated around the room as they were locked into the cage.
The court fell silent.
Pudovkin could still see no sign of the prosecutor general.
The senior judge announced: ‘Mr Brogan.’
