Now he looked ridiculous, which was precisely what Natalia wanted, because he would know that, too. The prison-issue uniform was intentionally three sizes too large, the trouser cuffs puddled around his ankles and the sleeves practically to his fingertips. Regulations required the trousers to be self-supporting, without either belt or braces, but the waistband was much too big and Yatisyna had constantly to hold them up. They were unwashed, from previous use, and the dirtiest it had been possible to find. There was only one chair in the room, for Natalia. There was obvious relief when the man sat on it, able for the first time to let go of his trouser band. Natalia guessed the attempted swagger was almost instinctive but it failed totally because of the scuffing trousers and made him look even more ridiculous. The effort to loll with his arm over the back of the chair didn’t work, either. Natalia had primed both guards. The man made a remark to the girl who laughed, loudly. Natalia hadn’t bothered with the sound system so she didn’t hear what Yatisyna said, although from the facial snarl he was obviously angered. The wardress laughed at him again.
Before going into the room Natalia carefully placed at the top of the file the photographs she’d had taken earlier of the scowling Yatisyna in his engulfing uniform. She entered briskly, apparently in the act of closing the dossier she’d been studying to remind herself who she was seeing. She maintained the distracted, impatient attitude, flicking her hand towards the man. ‘Get up! Stand at the other side of the table. Properly!’ She thought Yatisyna would probably have ignored her if she hadn’t extended the gesture for the male warder physically to remove him. As it was, the gang leader rose very slowly, as if it were his decision to vacate the seat. Having to keep his trousers up again ruined that bravado. Natalia heard the primed laugh, from behind. Before sitting Natalia very obviously examined the seat, as if expecting Yatisyna to have soiled it. When she finally looked up directly at him, Yatisyna’s face was a blaze of fury. Natalia let her eyes slowly go the whole length of his body. At the puckered ankles she smirked, going briefly to include the wardress in her amusement. The girl smirked back. Still smiling, Natalia depressed the start button of the recording equipment on the table beside her and said, ‘So this is what a great big gangster looks like!’ The disdainful, nose-wrinkled sniff wasn’t forced. He stank. She half opened the dossier, just sufficient for Yatisyna to see the photographs of himself. She saw his eyes flicker to them.
‘Fuck off.’
‘You even look the idiot you were, getting set up like that by the Shelapin’s…’ She picked up the photographs, shuffling them through her fingers. ‘I can’t make up my mind which to issue to the newspapers when we announce your arrest. They’re all so good!’
‘Motherfucker!’
‘That’s what Ivan Fedorovich called you! A lot of other things, too. He used amateur a lot: idiot fucking amateur.’ She’d decided Ivan Fedorovich Nikishov, from their sparse records the most senior of the arrested Agayans’ Family, would have been the one with whom Yatisyna would have had most dealings. Nikishov had told her to go to hell thirty minutes earlier, although he had boasted of his clan’s Chechen connections. She’d been shocked by the man’s total disregard to where he was and of what he was being accused, the only inference that he never expected to appear in a court. Would Yatisyna have the same attitude? It was always difficult to gauge how someone would respond to questioning. During the period when she’d been with the KGB she’d had meek-looking, clerk-like men resist interrogation for days and supposedly trained professionals – like Yatisyna was a professional – crumble in minutes.
‘What’s that bastard know?’
‘He knows you all got set up and the leak must have come through your people. And he knows he’s going to die, like you all are. Which he’s cooperating to avoid. But you should be glad the death penalty is automatic for you: it should be quick. I don’t think you’d live longer than a week in any prison, after the damage you’ve done to so many people.’
‘Nothing leaked from me. Or my people.’
He was talking and he shouldn’t have done: the first concession, Natalia realized. ‘That’s not what the Agayans people are telling us, in signed confessions and with promises to give evidence against you
…’
‘Liar!’ erupted Yatisyna, managing something close to a sneering laugh. ‘No one’s going to give evidence against me!’
‘Yes they are! They want to give evidence against you…’ She pulled a sheaf of papers from the file and began to read what she herself had written, thirty minutes earlier. ‘“Lev Mikhailovich planned everything, said all we had to do was follow his instructions.”’ Natalia looked up. ‘Chernenkov attested that.’ Nikita Chernenkov was one of the Agayans group identified by fingerprints. Natalia selected another personally written sheet. ‘“We thought he knew what he was doing. He came to us in Moscow, with this big plan. We were going to make millions. He wanted to become big time in Moscow, not just the provincial punk he is. Said he had contacts and that it would be easy.”’ Natalia came up again. ‘That’s part of Nikishov’s confession…’
Yatisyna shook his head. ‘No one’s going to give evidence. And I mean no one. There’s going to be an amazing loss of memory.’
The arrogance again, recognized Natalia. She had to prevent it hardening. ‘From men who know the alternative is going before a firing squad…’ She quickly stopped, frowning, a person who had said something inadvertent, which she hadn’t. She hurried on, ‘Did you recognize any Militia personnel?’
‘I don’t have to recognize them; they recognize me.’
‘ Every Militia officer came from Moscow: there wasn’t a single man from the entire Kirov region. And the main contingent weren’t Militia anyway: they were spetznaz. Nothing can keep you from the firing squad. Nikishov, maybe. But not you. You’re dead.’ Had he missed what she’d tried to make seem a mistake?
The flush, which had begun to subside, was returning but the remark registered as well as her contempt. ‘What about Nikishov?’
‘What about him?’ she asked, hopefully.
‘You said men who knew the alternative was going before a firing squad. They doing deals!’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘They are, aren’t they?’
It was going much better than she’d expected. ‘I said it’s none of your business.’
‘He’s lying! It was an Agayans job: Yevgennie Arkentevich himself!’
‘We’ve got scores of witnesses you can’t intimidate. What Nikishov and the others are giving us fills in all the details. And we’ve got all the details. Times, dates, who was at the meetings, everything.’
‘Is Nikishov going to get clemency?’
‘I don’t know what he’s going to get,’ said Natalia in a voice that clearly indicated that she knew very well indeed.
‘So he is!’
Natalia patted the sides of her dossier into a neater pile: she’d assembled it to look impressive largely with statements from past and quite unrelated investigations with less than a quarter, including her fabricated confessions, connected with the Kirs attempt. The very top folios were the formal record of the criminal charges brought against the man, which were some of the few genuine documents and which, under Russian law, had to be officially accepted by a defendant. ‘We’ve talked enough. But you have to acknowledge understanding of the charges.’ She held out a pen towards him, reversing the pages for his signature. She was careful to make the ridiculing photographs more visible as she did so.