‘Of course we will,’ Straker exhaled. ‘Don’t you understand? Even if this was ever about justice and the state preserving citizens’ rights of law and order, it's certainly not about that any longer.’
‘Yes it is,’ answered McMahon. ‘That's why the Ministry of Justice …’
‘… Sandy,’ he said firmly, ‘Tahm and Remy said there was nothing wrong with the car.’
‘Machines malfunction,’ she countered. ‘Nazar and Sabatino's assertions carry no weight in law. Subjective, self-serving opinions have no value as legal argument.’
‘I don’t care. They are no longer subjective to me. What I found this morning – the cut wire, the missing ties, the plasticine in the breeze-block wall and the tampered-with gravel trap – all make one thing abundantly clear: a car was expected to breach that fence. Therefore, Remy's crash was … not … an accident. My intelligence – garnered this morning – therefore, is utterly consistent with Tahm's and Remy's assertion that there was nothing wrong with the car.’
McMahon looked momentarily lost. ‘What you “found” this morning is – legally – useless,’ she said. ‘It's inadmissible. We can’t use illegally gathered evidence in court.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘That's the second time you’ve said that. Why not?’
‘Because it tells us, without question, that somebody wanted this accident to happen – something we did not know for sure earlier.’
McMahon, for all her profession's readiness to take any view in an argument for the sake of a fee, was thrown. She tried to think of a rebuttal, but couldn’t; had the sinister implications of Straker's last comment thrown her too far, perhaps?
‘What this morning has absolutely done,’ he went on, ‘is to help define our immediate course of action. We have found the first tiny chink in the accusations and legal processes that have been launched against us. My recce has given us a clear indication of what was intended to happen at that Grand Prix, even though we are yet to understand fully how it happened, let alone why. We have made a breakthrough. We now know we should be looking for whoever is behind all this: we now know we need to look for a who. If we can identify this person, we might then – crucially – have the chance to understand the why.’
McMahon said nothing.
‘The other key corollary,’ said Straker, ‘is the clear realization of the malice involved, something else we weren’t aware of before.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For someone to have doctored that corner in that way – fully expecting the car to be going that fast, and knowing there would be spectators behind the point of impact on that fence – means the perpetrators knew exactly what the consequences would be.’
‘You mean injuries?’
‘At that speed – on that corner – they could not have been in any doubt the consequences would be serious.’
‘That there would be deaths?’
Straker nodded. ‘Whoever's behind all this, Sandy, wanted to see people die.’
‘Who could ever want that?’
‘God knows, but that's what we’ve got to find out,’ said Straker. ‘Now that we do know that someone did, though, we should be in no doubt about the malevolence of the people we’re up against.’
THIRTY-FOUR
When Straker shuffled back through into the main part of the motor home with McMahon, he found the Ptarmigan team members looking at him expectantly. There was a very different atmosphere. Backhouse pulled up a stool. Still favouring his left side, Straker heaved himself up onto it.
Backhouse asked: ‘Any thoughts on what you want us to do now?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Sandy has pointed out that none of my discoveries this morning is admissible in court. What I have discovered, though, tells us one thing very clearly. Someone wanted a car to crash through the fence at that point. Of course, that's far from how the world sees it; it's certainly not how the Russian people see this accident. Our job, now, is to come up with a convincing explanation of what actually happened – which would also get Tahm, Remy and Ptarmigan off the hook.’
‘How the hell do we do that – with all the obstructions we’ve encountered so far?’ asked Backhouse.
‘Our intelligence gathered this morning should convince us of a key factor. That when Remy says the car was faultless, and Tahm says there was nothing wrong with her attempt to go round the outside of Baryshnikov, we should believe them.’
The faces round the table changed quickly.
‘So, our investigation starts with trying to understand how she could still have come off the track.’ Straker held up his hand to acknowledge the difficulties. ‘I know we don’t have access to the wreckage but, Andy, you’re piecing together a picture of the car during the race, yes?’
Backhouse nodded.
‘Let's crack on with that, then, and pull together every scrap of telemetry data you’ve got.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’d also like to analyze the gravel samples,’ he said turning to McMahon. ‘Does Brandeis have access to a decent lab here?’
‘I’ll ask. It's not something we do as a matter of course.’
‘If you don’t have any luck, we can always fly them home. Next,’ said Straker, ‘could we download my photographs and video? They could be useful in the investigation.’
One of the young Ptarmigan team volunteered to take that on; Straker handed him Sabatino's phone.
Addressing the whole gaggle, Straker said: ‘Getting those things going would be a good start. Before we disperse, I want to talk about Yegor. I want to know how you all feel about his defection?’
Their faces darkened once more.
‘Does anyone feel his defection to the prosecution was a surprise?’
‘Yes,’ answered Backhouse. ‘I was surprised, actually.’
