Lev disappears into the Moscow night

PROINSIAS De Rossa was recalling a 1986 disarmament conference in North Korea. "It was quite boring, I have to say. It went on for a long time.

"How long?" said defence counsel Patrick MacEntee. "A week and more," said Mr De Rossa. "A week and seemed like more?" suggested Mr MacEntee.

It was the end of a long, dull day in Court No 4. For the umpteenth time, the press corps shifted on the hard benches, and knew exactly what the Korean conference must have been like. It was one of those days when the design on the carpet and the eccentricities of the barristers' wigs offered more hope to the colour-writers than anything that was happening in the case.

Not even "a man called Lev" brought relief. He made a brief appearance in evidence in the late afternoon, sounding promisingly like a character from a Cold War thriller. Everyone in the courtroom simultaneously conceived a pun on the word "levity", but almost as soon as Lev appeared, he was gone.

He was, it emerged, only the man who brought Mr De Rossa and Mr Sean Garland from airport to hotel on their stop-over in Moscow en route to Korea. "He didn't stay a while and make polite chat?" said Mr MacEntee. "No." "He disappeared into the night?" "Yes."

Mr De Rossa confirmed he visited Gorky Park during the trip but that was as near as we got to a thriller. Among the many Moscow attractions he did not take in was Lenin's tomb. "I'm not that much into visiting mausoleums or graves," he explained. "Even Lenin's?" said a frowning Mr MacEntee, clearly disappointed at Mr De Rossa's disregard for the "hero of the revolution."

Before that, the hero of the drinking man - Mr Pat Rabbitte - had paid a 15- minute visit, and his quick departure was the sort - of shrewd decision you expect from a politician who has managed to make the price of the pint an issue in election year. But Mr Rabbitte was not one of the "highly idiosyncratic" TDs referred to by Mr MacEntee during the morning session: nor were Eamon Gilmore or Liz McManus, who had more prolonged spells in court.

The TDs in question - which handwriting expert Michael Ansell agreed were "quite unusual" - were the ones Mr De Rossa sometimes put after his name. These took on an added relevance yesterday as Mr Ansell insisted on the abnormality of the capital D used in the signature on the so-called "Moscow letter".

After another hard-hitting session of cross-examination, the ex-policeman accepted that each of the other "idiosyncrasies" he identified in the Moscow signature could be found among the samples provided by Mr De Rossa - though he insisted none except the disputed one had them all.

The judge intervened at the end of Mr Ansell's testimony to ask whether - if the signature on the Moscow letter was a forgery - it was an "exceptionally accomplished and sophisticated" one. Mr Ansell agreed it was.

When the case resumes this morning it will feature Mr MacEntee's continued cross-examination of Mr De Rossa. Including the original hearing last year, the men have now faced each other for almost two weeks of court time, and familiarity may be breeding respect.

Before reading the Moscow letter into evidence yesterday, Mr MacEntee invited the plaintiff to stop him if he got anything wrong. "I'm sure you're well able to read, Mr MacEntee," came the reply. "Well, one can make mistakes," said counsel modestly.

He got as far as reading the date on the letter - September 1986 - when Mr De Rossa intervened. "The 19 isn't written there," he said. Mr MacEntee accepted the correction with equanimity.