by Tim Heath
“Are you able to confirm your presence in this context?” he said.
“No, I am not,” Anissa relented. She wasn’t going to give up Sasha.
“Then I’d like to ask you to leave the stand. Your evidence will not be considered in my verdict,” he said, Anissa stepping down from where she’d been, catching Josée’s glance, the Frenchwoman looking distraught.
“I’d like to call Ms Josée Allard to the stand,” the defence lawyer instantly said.
The afternoon session was no less brutal. Leona’s lawyer barraged Josée with question after question, accusing her outright of killing the janitor, something she denied through many tears. Her own lawyer was then allowed to the floor, the pressure changing in the room, as she carefully walked Josée via some clever questioning through the whole ordeal as she’d seen it.
The defence lawyer went at her answers a little after that, though held back from a full-on assault. By four, much to her own personal relief, Josée was asked to step down from the stand.
“I’d like to now call in the police forensic expert who was the one to closely examine the crime scene, as well as the pathologist who inspected the body.” The Judge looked at his wristwatch––despite there being a large clock that showed the same time on the wall of the courtroom––before nodding to his men at the back of the room. Two men in suits walked in through the open doors, one carrying a black briefcase by his side. They stopped at the defence lawyer’s table, the man with the briefcase taking out a few sheets of paper, before walking directly to the stand. He confirmed his name and occupation––pathologist––to the Judge before answering his first question.
“Tell me,” the defence lawyer said, loving being the one to be in control, to dictate the way this trial was going, “after a full and thorough examination of the corpse, were you able to find any physical evidence or DNA that would prove helpful for this courtroom?”
“Yes, I did,” he said, his English broken, his voice not sounding confident using that foreign tongue.
“Could you please inform the Judge what you found out?” As part of the pre-trial, when it was determined Leona and Josée would have to fly to St Petersburg to stand before a Russian judge, DNA samples were taken from both women as part of that process.
“I found clear samples of DNA on the victim’s genitals.”
“Were you able to get a match for that DNA?”
“Yes,” and he glanced at his notes, “they matched the sample obtained from Ms Allard.” Nothing new there then, she’d stood that afternoon on the very same stand and shared how they’d had sex together.
“Did you find any other physical DNA evidence, that didn’t match either the victim or Ms Allard?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Josée’s lawyer then asked a few simple questions, but there was little more she felt he could tell the court, and he was allowed to leave. Then it was the turn of the forensics expert, who confirmed skin tissue samples had been found in the vault and by the narrow exit she’d obviously later squeezed through, which had matched Ms Allard’s sample, but that nothing else was found in the Armoury.
“Nothing?” demanded the prosecution. “You mean, despite there no doubt being hundreds of visitors into a place that is a tourist magnet in St Petersburg, there wasn’t a trace of anyone else?”
“No, there wasn’t. As far as I’m aware this room is off limits to the public,” which was true, and Josée had said that herself earlier, which is why she’d first approached the janitor to gain access. “Also, the Fortress confirmed that the whole room had recently been cleaned just days before the crime.”
“That’s not true!” Josée said, standing and shouting out her annoyance for the first time. “That room was filthy dirty, and you know it!” Her lawyer motioned her to sit back down. Outbursts in any courtroom never helped anyone.
“Ms Allard, I’ll warn you that any behaviour like that again will mean you are expelled from my courthouse,” the Judge barked. “Am I understood?” Her lawyer answered for her.
“It will not happen again, Your Honour.” She turned and put her arm on Josée’s shoulder, Anissa also now comforting her.
The defence lawyer then moved to the centre of the room––speaking aloud but with her focus solely directed in front of her, to the Judge, the man in power. “Your Honour, I propose you be allowed time to consider your decision. We’ve just had it confirmed from two renowned and respected Russian experts, that my client’s DNA was not found anywhere near the victim nor was it evident anywhere in the room Ms Allard claims my client was in. That’s because she’d already obtained the ticket; not from the Armoury––where Ms Allard claims it was––not even from the Fortress, but in a small boat that runs along the canal next to the Fortress. My client has freely admitted to being in St Petersburg at this time, but no evidence connects her to this horrific murder.
“Aside from Ms Allard’s own testimony––remember, this is someone who has freely admitted to consenting to sexual intercourse with a complete stranger just to get into a room she believed she needed access to––there is only the apparent word of Mrs Edison. An MI6 agent who can’t explain how she even got into Russia, despite the fact that your own country’s border guard––an agency that prides itself in keeping your borders safe––have no record of her ever doing so. I propose that her involvement has been fabricated. She doesn’t even have the backing of her own employer!
“We’ve seen nothing to suggest that my client, Ms Leona Chase, has done anything deserving of the treatment––the suspicion––that she is currently under. In fact, I go on record to state that it was only after losing the ticket, seeing the happiness of my client and the life that she is now living, that Ms Allard conjured up this whole episode. It's an attempt to get my client’s money, while trying to atone for her own heinous moral failings and crimes, including that of first-degree murder. That once she realised she’d given herself sexually for nothing––the ticket wasn’t where she thought it would be––she then killed that man in her rage.”
“Objection!” Josée’s lawyer screamed, angry now how the trial had suddenly turned into something far more significant than she’d bought into. Her own victim––her own client in this––now having the spotlight turned towards her, now being made the perpetrator of this horrible murder.
“If I may speak,” the Judge said, “I think I will call proceedings to a close for the day––and the trial in general––pending my full exploration of the facts and then my verdict. Both women,” and he motioned to Leona and Josée with each hand, “are to be held in the custody of the court overnight, before my answer to the original charge is brought first thing tomorrow. I will speak with both lawyers immediately in my chambers, but for everyone else, the court is dismissed,” and he stood and left, the two lawyers gathering their things together.
“What does that mean?” Josée said, a police officer already coming to stand next to her.
“I’ll do everything I can to get you released tonight,” her lawyer said, “but I need to see him now. Anissa will stay with you,” and she started walking, though Anissa held her by the arm.
“Take this,” and Anissa handed the lawyer her own mobile phone, the video displayed on screen being the footage taken from outside the Armoury at the time of the crime. “It shows Leona entering the Armoury at the time of the incident.” It also showed the legs of Alex and Sasha too, and their shadows as they were fired upon, though not enough of them to give away their identities. The lawyer took the phone, glancing briefly at the screen, before walking off towards the Judge’s chambers.
Inside, the Judge already sat down behind his desk, two chairs facing him––one already occupied by the defence lawyer––she took a seat. She handed the Judge the phone.
“What’s this?” he said, holding the device before him.
“It’s the video feed from outside the Armoury at the time of the crime,” she said.
“Your Honour,” the defence
lawyer interjected immediately, “if they have a piece of evidence to present, it needs to be done in the right way. As it is, we spoke with the security guys at the Fortress to ask them about possible CCTV footage from the day of the crime––you know, anything that could prove my client’s innocence––and they confirmed there wasn’t any. The cameras were having their annual maintenance during the week that the crime occurred.”
The prosecution lawyer had no way of knowing who to believe. She’d never been shown a video––the first she knew about Anissa having anything was the phone she’d just been handed. She had no way of knowing what was right. The Judge played the video anyway, which showed some movements, some people outside the doors before one figure entered, another appearing some seconds later. Nothing was obvious. It was not possible to make out who any of the people were.
“I’ll check myself with the Fortress to see if they can confirm this footage,” the Judge said, “but need I remind you––and I’m sure the law is the same in France as it is here––such evidence needs to be presented before trial, so that its authenticity is able to be confirmed.”
“It only just came to my attention.”
“From the agent, you mean?” the other lawyer said. “The one who can’t prove she was even in Russia,” and she threw her arms into the air as if it had finally got too bizarre for her, as if it was amusing to the point of hysteria.
“Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock. We’ll reconvene, and I will share with you my verdict,” the Judge concluded.
17
Sasha had spent the second day of the trial tracking down where the dead sniper had lived. As much as he wanted to be around Anissa––especially after what she’d said last night, knowing she was most likely taking the stand that day, and therefore was most vulnerable––he knew he couldn’t be seen anywhere near the courthouse. That would risk giving him up to anyone who was watching––and from what he’d heard from Anissa the night before, they were undoubtedly watching. The trial, or whatever it really was, seemed to have the oligarch’s influence all over it. But from whom that control was coming––who was really behind it all––was frustratingly hard to find any real evidence for. He hoped at least he would be able to come up with something himself.
He drove to the edge of the city––where the blue metro line stopped at its most southern end. It was the same metro station one Contestant had previously escaped from after pushing another to his death. The buildings were taller in that part of the city, many storeys above the five they were limited to in the centre, where foundations of buildings built a few hundred years ago on the marsh, really didn’t allow any greater height.
The building he was looking for––the address coming up on the dead sniper after searching through the FSB database of previous Russian army employees––was the third row back. He waited outside the closed metal door until someone left––a building that size, there would always be someone coming or going before too long––and he climbed the stairs until he got to the fourth floor. Apartment three-zero-three was the fifth one along the corridor.
Sasha knocked hard. There was no answer, and after a second knock, this time a little quieter––as well as a look around to make sure no one was about––he took out a device that he then used on the lock, and was into the apartment thirty seconds later.
“Allo?” he called out, his gun ready, as he quickly scanned the compact two-roomed home. There was no one there. What there was on display was neat and ordered. Army discipline still seemed to prevail, and the one photo on the wall was the sniper in his uniform, presumably––given the age of the picture and how young the man looked in it––from when he’d first joined. Military service started as young as seventeen.
He checked the fridge. It was well stocked, the milk already souring. This wasn’t the home of someone expecting to be dead anytime soon. This was a home waiting for the return of its owner.
The bedroom had very little in it, besides a cupboard and double bed, though there was only a pillow on one side at the head. The small bathroom held even less. One bottle of shampoo on the floor of the walk-in shower, and one toothbrush in a small glass on the edge of the sink.
The kitchen, which formed part of the central living area, was kept tidy. In the centre of the room was a sofa, which faced a television and some shelving. There was very little paperwork, no documentation of any kind that Sasha could make out. Clearly, this was where the guy lived, but he apparently didn’t do much work from there. There were no weapons or other equipment anywhere––and he’d checked as he went around the small flat––which meant the man kept all that, and presumably the links to who employed him, somewhere else.
The one thing he did find––a key with a BMW emblem––was hanging on a hook on the kitchen wall. Sasha put it in his pocket, the hope being that these were a spare set of keys, assuming the sniper hadn’t indeed taken the train to the city centre when he’d left for his last job. He undoubtedly would have had too much equipment to bring with him for that to have been a possibility. If he had in fact driven, the car might well be still parked up somewhere near the Volkov mansion.
Seeing as there was nothing else in the apartment of note, he closed the door behind him, again checking no one was in the corridor outside and left. Finding the car was his next challenge.
It took him an hour to drive into the city. A journey that would probably have only been marginally quicker on the metro, given the fact a change of lines would have been required in the centre, further confirming his suspicion that no highly paid, highly trained sniper would have used that form of public transport. He would have had to drive in.
Parked cars were not in short supply in the city––charges for street parking never having been implemented in Russia––but with the key in hand, and the knowledge he was looking for a BMW, Sasha started to comb the area. The sniper would not have wanted to lug the bag or case containing his weapon too far on his own, the weight alone would have made it a hard job. At only the third BMW Sasha got to, the lights flashed, and the locks opened as he once again pressed the button. He got straight in.
It was a new model, the car kept as clean and ordered as the apartment Sasha had been in earlier. Putting the keys into the ignition, he turned them enough to get the electrics working without engaging the engine. The car’s inbuilt satellite navigation system flashed up. Sasha scrolled through the menu options, finding what he wanted, which was the car’s inbuilt history of its last ten trips. The most recent had been to where he was now sitting, of course. The one before that was somewhere in the south of the city––he noted down the coordinates––and the one before that was where he’d just been that morning, the sniper’s home. He assumed the sniper would have left home, gone to whatever lock-up he used to pick up his weapon before he had then headed to the Volkov mansion and positioned himself for the kill.
Sasha switched on the ignition. He had his own car nearby, but there might be other things hidden inside the BMW that would tell him more after a thorough search was done, and he couldn’t do that from where the car was currently. He tapped the navigation––pressing the location that was second to last on the history––and headed south.
Fifty minutes later, he pulled off the main road as directed into an area of metal garages, standard right across the city, storage space for those who could afford them. He was now only about fifteen kilometres away from the apartment he’d been at that morning, thus making perfect sense for a convenient location for the dead man’s lock-up. The challenge was, there were hundreds of garages.
Weaving his way through a few of the turns––the navigation directed him a little closer––it only got him to the furthermost row, when the car’s inbuilt system confirmed he’d reached his destination. At least there were just about twenty garages along that part of the site, a few he could see were also apparently no longer used, rubbish mainly occupying the space where the garage must once have stood.
He searched the car––
in the boot was a box of ammunition for a high powered weapon. There was nothing else there that was obvious. The back seats were clean also. In the front passenger seat footwell compartment, there was a key for a padlock. Sasha grabbed it and walked down in front of the garages. Only three of the doors were secured in place by a padlock, and thankfully the key had opened the first one he tried, not that there was anyone else around the area at that moment. Still, no owner would like the sight of someone attempting to gain entry to their lock-up.
Inside the garage, it was a sniper’s dream. Three different weapons sat on special wall mountings along the left-hand side. At the back was shelving, containing everything from boxes of ammunition to scopes and silencers. A small array of handguns was on the right-hand wall, as well as a desk, a filing cabinet and a safe. In the middle of the garage was a table, with specialist equipment on it that Sasha knew to be for checking and cleaning a weapon.
The safe was locked––he was sure that was where he would have kept his cash––though the filing cabinet, which contained three drawers, opened with a little effort. Each drawer was full of information––it was a career’s worth of material.
The paperwork housed in the cabinet was remarkably organised, though that fitted with what he’d seen about the man so far. Sasha pulled out his phone, opening up the email draft that he had going with Alex. He scrolled down the message until he found the list Anissa had added of all the known Russian names within the Games. He started looking through the files, which were ordered alphabetically, one name at a time, sometimes having to open different drawers, until he found one that matched––Foma Polzin.