Crash, p.15
CRASH, page 15
Straker looked across at McMahon who tilted her head sharply in the direction of the armed police in the corridor outside.
‘Remy, I don’t know how much time we are likely to have with you, so I need to bring you up to date quickly – in case we get thrown out of here.’
Sabatino smiled, expecting this to be some sort of joke.
‘I need to introduce you to Sandy McMahon,’ he said.
The lawyer stepped forward into Sabatino's feld of vision.
‘Sandy's with a firm of solicitors here in Moscow. DQ has appointed her and Brandeis Gertner to look after you and Ptarmigan.’
‘A solicitor – to look after me?’ she rasped.
‘Remy, it seems you’ve not been told anything about your accident.’
Sabatino acknowledged the point with silence.
‘Things have become rather complicated. Are you up to this?’
Sabatino's eyes showed a hint of concern for the first time.
Straker moved in closer and sat on the bed beside her. ‘You had a terrible accident – crash, at the Grand Prix.’
She smiled as if to say tell me about it.
‘You went off the track – at high speed. You hit the tyre wall, went through a concrete wall and fence, and …’ Straker paused, ‘… landed in among a group of spectators.’
Sabatino's face fell. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Were any of them hurt?’
Straker braced himself: ‘Remy, thirty-one people were killed.’
Without saying a word, new tears were welling in her large dark eyes. In a matter of moments they were running down her cheeks. She stuttered: ‘Thirty … one … people … dead?’
Straker squeezed her hand again.
Sabatino did not speak. Her eyes rolled up, her whole body seemed to slump and, then, with her face crumbling, she let out a heart-wrenching, uncontrollable howl. All her pain – all the discomfort she had endured for the last few days – all the attempts she had made to be brave – all her struggles to recover – all were set at nought. Her trials, efforts and the challenges she’d set herself – all her little triumphs – meant absolutely nothing against the horror of anybody dying.
Sabatino was now sobbing, her breathing becoming deeper – more rapid – and uncomfortable under the body armour of her brace. Straker put his other hand on hers, trying to provide any form of comfort. Sabatino howled again, tears pouring down her cheeks. She needed to sniff, to keep her airways clear. Straker continued to hold her hand, thinking it best simply to let her react as fully as possible, to help her start to come to terms with this news.
From across the room, McMahon approached the bed. ‘We are sorry that this has come as such a shock,’ she said.
Taking his cue, Straker said: ‘Remy, Sandy and I need to talk a few things through with you, as the Ptarmigan situation – here – is pretty serious.’
Sabatino's attention was held for a moment, distracted from the deaths.
‘Ms Sabatino,’ said McMahon. ‘As Colonel Straker has explained, I am a solicitor and have been asked to look after you. Dr Nazar has been arrested. The government here in Moscow has charged Ptarmigan and him with corporate manslaughter for the deaths of the spectators at the Grand Prix. You, yourself, have been placed under police guard while you remain in the hospital.’
‘I ’m under police guard?’ She paused. ‘Does that mean … I am also under arrest?’
McMahon shrugged. ‘Sort off,’ she said.
‘What does that mean, Matt?’ she asked, snifing severely – prompting Straker to reach for some tissues sitting in a box on her bedside table.
‘The authorities have declared that they want to put the two of you on trial – for the deaths that occurred at the race,’ stated McMahon.
A look of concern crossed her face.
‘The trial has been announced very publicly, because of how fiercely the public has reacted to the accident,’ said Straker. ‘Public feeling is running so high that the president of Russia has got involved. A prosecutor has already been announced.’
‘Colonel Straker and I are looking into what might have happened. I gather the colonel is highly effective as an investigator; I am confident we can construct a powerful defence.’
Straker looked down into Sabatino's eyes. ‘Andy and I have already made a good start,’ he said. ‘But we’re going to need you, though – as soon as you can – to tell us everything you can remember, to help us understand what might have happened, and what might have gone wrong to cause you to crash where you did.’
There was suddenly a noise from outside her room.
The policemen were moving about outside. Agitated discussion could be heard taking place in the corridor.
‘I have tried not to remember too much about it,’ said Sabatino.
‘I understand,’ said Straker.
‘I think I was attempting to go wide,’ Sabatino went on hesitantly. ‘I was going round – wide – and was ready for the track to be dirty. But when I got out there,’ she said, sniffing again, ‘the steering went.’
Voices again came from the direction of the corridor. ‘Sandy, could you go and see what's going on?’
The lawyer nodded.
‘What did the steering feel like, Rems?’ Straker asked.
‘Not normal, at all,’ she said. ‘I remember starting to turn. And then feeling huge resistance. The wheel wouldn’t move. Then I hit the brakes – and, in a millisecond, I was hurtling across the gravel.’
Straker could hear McMahon's voice discussing something animatedly with someone outside the room. He was concerned that a halt could be called to their visit at any moment. ‘Did you feel the brakes kick in? – I know this must be painful.’
Sabatino breathed deeply, trying to dismiss all her emotions from her thoughts. ‘I can’t remember, Matt,’ her voice cracking slightly. ‘I really can’t,’ she said trying to cast her mind back – trying to think of something to help her and Ptarmigan's cause. ‘My memory's so patchy.’
‘Was there anything that happened to you or the car in the race before that manoeuvre? Anything that didn’t work as it should? Do you remember hitting anything – a kerb, another car? Was there anything that could have upset the workings of the car that morning, before the incident?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The car was perfect. Best I’ve ever known it. I was ready to take Yegor in that move. I remember everything was going exactly as planned.’
‘What do you think caused the resistance to the steering, then, Rems?’
Sabatino fell silent, trying to concentrate.
More voices were audible outside. The door was banged hard and swung inwards. ‘Was there anything else that happened that afternoon – or during that manoeuvre – that struck you as strange?’ he asked.
Sabatino's face screwed up in concentration. ‘I don’t know … I really don’t, Matt,’ she said with tears in her voice. ‘I don’t know whether I’m remembering or imagining things.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Straker.
‘I think … I don’t know … there might – might have been some kind of jolt – as I began to turn in.’
‘What kind of jolt?’
Straker's attention was suddenly caught by the door flying open and Mr Uglov striding in. ‘You’re going to have to leave,’ declared the consultant. ‘Your visit's over.’
McMahon was following the doctor back into the room, having appeared to have been pushed out of his way. ‘What's going on here?’ demanded the lawyer. ‘We’ve had permission – through the British consul – from the prosecutor general's office.’
Mr Uglov seemed unmoved. Shouting through the doors of the room in Russian he seemed to be issuing instructions. Moments later the two policemen came charging in, brandishing their weapons.
McMahon moved past Uglov and leant in over Sabatino.
The patient seemed a little taken aback at seeing the lawyer's face up so close.
‘At no time should you say anything to anyone here,’ McMahon instructed her. ‘Do not discuss anything to do with the crash, or Ptarmigan, with anyone, even the medical staff. Remember, any of them could be called as a witness. Matt and I will be fighting your case as hard as we can. Please try and put all this out of your mind – easier said … I know.’
As McMahon was giving her urgent briefing, the two policemen had walked up behind her. One of them was issuing instructions. She straightened up and turned to face them.
Straker took advantage of the distraction.
Quickly digging into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and, without looking down, turned it off and shoved it into Sabatino's hand, closing her fingers around it. He then pulled the blanket up over the phone. Bending down, he appeared to be kissing her; instead, he was whispering: ‘Take this. Turn it on only for a few minutes every four hours – eight a.m. to eight p.m. each day – and wait for any instructions or news. To save the battery, turn it straight off again after you check for messages. If anything happens here that you’re worried about – text Andy straight away, yes?’
Tightening her grip around the phone, Sabatino felt some relief that she might at last have a link to the outside world.
A few minutes later McMahon and Straker were being physically escorted out of the main entrance of the hospital.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Standing outside the front of the medical centre in the twilight, neither Straker nor McMahon knew how to react professionally to what had just happened. It was so far removed from anything they might have expected. If anything, the lawyer was taking it worse.
‘This is intolerable,’ said McMahon. ‘Either one hand of government doesn’t know what the other hand is doing, or they are maniacally changing their minds.’
Straker was quiet, trying to weigh it all up.
‘Aren’t you appalled?’ she asked him.
‘I take it this incident has finally taken us beyond the stock response of: “This is Russia”?’
McMahon wasn’t happy at her own line being used back at her.
Their car drew up. Both climbed in to the rear. Pulling away, it headed towards the centre of Moscow.
Straker spent some more time looking out of the window. As he turned to face McMahon, though, he was intrigued: for the first time that day she looked as if she was ready to defer to him.
In response, Straker offered: ‘We need to try and see what has been going on for what it might mean.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We need to put all this in perspective,’ explained Straker. ‘The accident at the Grand Prix was horrible … dreadful. It would be perfectly natural – and expected – for there to be a negative public reaction – a public outcry.’
‘So?’
‘We need to consider what a rational and proportionate response to that ought to look like, even if it was horrible.’
McMahon looked as if she didn’t know whether that was a rhetorical point or whether she was meant to hazard a response.
Helping her out, Straker went on: ‘No aspect of the “system's” reaction to this tragedy, so far, could be considered as anything close to “normal”. None of the authorities’ actions could be described as “expected”. A humiliating arrest and a Black Maria? Impounding the wreckage and the crash site, denying us the chance – and the best experts – to examine them both? Initiating legal proceedings ahead of any investigation?
‘At the same time, some of their actions could only be described as overkill: appointing the country's most senior prosecutor? Escalating this case to the highest court in the land? Holding the trial in four weeks?
‘While some of the “system's” other actions seem almost vindictive – such as denying both the accused legal representation, and even countermanding permission to see your clients when such permission had been granted?’
McMahon didn’t offer a challenge to any of these observations.
‘I am prompted, therefore, to wonder … Why?’ said Straker. ‘Why is nothing about what has happened since the accident “normal”, let alone reasonable? Why has everything been so exaggerated?’
With the continued lack of pushback from McMahon, Straker paused.
‘You know,’ he said in a softer tone, ‘when things occur in line with expectations, no one thinks to question them. But in an investigation, whenever something unexpected occurs, my curiosity is always piqued – because things very rarely happen without a reason. In this case, it is not just the exaggerated occurrences that have me curious, but the combination of them. How can there have been so many here – one after the other?’
McMahon was still silent. The legal part of her brain was desperately trying to question Straker's logic. ‘Are you suggesting that, because the sequence is so extraordinary, you think they are linked?’
‘Doesn’t the sequence surprise you: how likely is such an unbroken chain of such disproportionate occurrences from different institutions?’ he asked. ‘If they didn’t happen randomly, then – logically – it means they would have to have been orchestrated.’
McMahon found herself inhaling. She would never have let her mind leap from F to Z like this in one go. ‘But that's ridiculous,’ she said. ‘If they were orchestrated, it would have to imply that they were intended? Why on earth would someone want all this to happen?’
Straker went on: ‘God knows why … for some sick reason? But it isn’t impossible, is it?’
McMahon shook her head less tentatively than she felt.
‘So if – for whatever warped reason – the institutional responses were intended,’ Straker said, ‘none of them could have happened without the accident having occurred in the first place.’
McMahon looked at him incredulously. This time, her legal instincts didn’t allow her to follow him from F to Z: ‘You’re not serious?’ she asked. ‘You’re not saying that you think … the accident … was premeditated?’
Straker maintained direct eye contact. ‘That deduction would not be inconsistent with everything that's happened since,’ he said. ‘Besides, Tahm and Remy both stated that there was nothing wrong with that car. Something, then, must have happened to it. My starting point in this investigation, therefore, is now clear: we have to establish what that might have been.’
‘How can you ever hope to do that, when the car and crash site are impounded?’
‘Andy Backhouse has a fair amount of data in the motor home and we can do a lot more analysis of it.’
‘What if that isn’t conclusive, though … isn’t enough?’
They continued to make their way through the Russian capital as the last of the light was fading.
Straker shifted in his seat. Softly, he said: ‘We might need to get proactive.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘We might just have to take a look at some of this for ourselves.’
‘No, no. No,’ she replied vehemently, suddenly sounding surer of herself. ‘Don’t even contemplate going anywhere you shouldn’t. I am, officially, warning you – right now. Don’t.’
‘As I understand it,’ Straker replied, ‘part of the circuit abuts municipal parkland, which is open to the public.’
‘Communal ownership and access would be completely superseded by police orders,’ McMahon said. ‘Anyone found anywhere near any police-impounded items will be in serious trouble – in all likelihood, arrested. Encroachment on anything to do with a legal case carries the clear penalty of contempt of court.’
‘Which means what?’ Straker asked, showing a hint of impatience.
McMahon answered: ‘Five years’ imprisonment, no questions asked.’
TWENTY-NINE
Straker's frustration with the case was mounting, but it was nothing to the hammer blow they were about to suffer.
Every aspect of this affair – so far – had fallen to their disadvantage. The system appeared to be marshalling itself against them. Straker felt damned if they were going to be prevented from getting to the truth but, realizing he was not going to get any support from McMahon for his suggested action to counter this, he stopped talking.
In the ensuing silence, a gabble of Russian filled the Brandeis car; their driver was listening to some sort of talk radio station.
Straker, having not eaten since arriving in Russia however many hours earlier and been busy non-stop, wanted to find his hotel, order a decent slug of room service and take a high-pressure shower before working out what he was going to do next. ‘Do you know where Quartech's putting me up?’ he asked as the car reached Kremlevskaya Naberezhnaya. They were heading east on the embankment along the north bank of the Moskva River, below the walls of the Kremlin.
Still sounding wary at Straker's intent to be proactive in the investigation, McMahon said: ‘We’ve put you in Ms Sabatino's room – in the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. Ptarmigan still have the booking; it seemed an efficient substitution, at least while she's still in hospital.’
Just before Saint Basil's Cathedral, the car navigated the slip road to make a right turn over the bridge and head south over the river.
Without any warning, McMahon barked at the chauffeur in Russian.
Almost flinching, the driver leaned across and turned up the radio. Straker wondered what was going on.
He heard the matter-of-fact tone of a news bulletin. In the background were the unmistakable sounds of rapid camera clicks.
‘What's all that about?’ he asked.
McMahon held up her hand to silence him so she could hear. Her face told Straker that some serious news was breaking. The broadcast went on. A voice could be heard, sounding like the man was reading a prepared statement. His intonation only rose as he came to finish speaking. Then, a different voice – more natural, but more hesitant – could be heard.
Suddenly it dawned on him.
Straker suddenly realized who it was.
No wonder McMahon was concerned.
The second man's voice continued for nearly two minutes before the reading voice was back again. In a matter of seconds, the bulletin was over and a woman, presumably in the studio, could be heard moving on perhaps to the next item.
