Straker reluctantly stood up.
With increasingly aggressive hand gestures from the policeman, Straker and McMahon were urged from the cell.
Hurriedly, Nazar said: ‘Get over to the telemetry truck, Matt, and have Backhouse go through the recorded data with you.’
The policeman's demeanour hardened.
Nazar, his voice rising as the visitors were being herded out into the passageway, said: ‘Find out what's really going on here, Matt.’
The door of the cell slammed shut.
TWENTY
Straker and McMahon drove away from the Moscow Police HQ in silence. Straker was disturbed by Nazar's demeanour, never expecting to see such indignity visited upon such a proud man. After several minutes of silence he asked: ‘How soon can we get him out on bail?’
‘We’ve filed the applications, but we’ve very little chance of success.’
‘I thought this was a charge of corporate manslaughter, not against Tahm individually.’
‘That's as maybe,’ she replied. ‘But the courts take the public mood into account. At the moment, the public is not minded to give any quarter for the people considered responsible for so many deaths.’
‘We are still applying, though?’
‘Of course…’
‘We’ve got to start clearing their names,’ Straker stated. ‘How soon can we get to the paddock and meet up with the rest of the team?’
McMahon rang her office. She asked her PA to ring the authorities for clearance to enter the Zhar-ptitsa Autodrom. When she signed off she said: ‘With absolutely no warning, we’ve just heard there's going to be a press conference – at the Ministry of Justice.’
‘When?’
‘Thirty minutes.’
‘Any idea what about?’
‘Brandeis believes it’ll be to announce a prosecutor.’ For all her measured demeanour, even McMahon looked surprised.
‘I thought we were expecting this?’
McMahon looked unsure of herself for the first time. ‘Not this quickly, and not announced by the Ministry of Justice. I don’t understand why it's been brought forward and elevated to that institution?’
‘Can we get to this announcement ourselves?’ Straker asked.
McMahon gave fresh instructions to their driver as she called her office. In no time the car changed direction again, making its way instead to the Justice Department.
Their car pulled up near the Ministry. Both were struck by the size of the crowds gathered on the pavement in front of the building. Straker and McMahon had to struggle to get their car doors open, let alone cut their way through to the main entrance.
At the front doors their entry was officially barred.
McMahon conversed in Russian with one of the uniformed security men. After two minutes of heated discussion she nodded her head in the direction of the doors and beckoned Straker to follow her inside.
Pushing themselves through another mass of people also trying to get in, they were met with a packed crowd in the entrance hall. Mac-Mahon and Straker could get no further into the building. From what they could see, the announcement was going to be made inside the atrium anyway: there was a portable backdrop sporting the Ministry of Justice seal – a golden double-headed eagle – and a lectern, bathed in bright television lights.
Over the heads of the assembled journalists and photographers, Straker surveyed the room. There was considerable hubbub. It suddenly quietened.
A severe-looking man appeared from within the building. He walked up the short steps and onto the stage. As he moved behind the lectern and under the television lights, MacMahon whispered: ‘That's the minister of justice. He's one of the president's key placemen – an ex-KGB apparatchik.’
‘Does this guy always get involved in criminal cases?’
McMahon shook her head.
‘How many times does he get as involved as this?’
‘That I know of? … Never.’
The minister addressed the room in English: ‘The Federal Government, as promised, is taking strong and fast measures to bring to justice those responsible for the thirty deaths at the Zhar-ptitsa Autodrom.’
Some reaction could be heard from the room. The death toll seemed to keep rising, presumably as spectators at the race track succumbed to their injuries. Straker felt that this was acting like an emotional ratchet.
‘As minister of justice, I announce that the Ministry appoints … as the federal prosecutor in the Moscow Grand Prix tragedy … Léon Gazdanov.’
Straker had no idea who this was.
But he realized, there and then, it was a significant appointment.
‘Good grief!’ said McMahon.
Straker looked across at her. It wasn’t so much the words as her tone.
