The Secret Wife(106)

Hana was nodding. She knew all this. ‘If you’ve read about the investigation, you’ll know how badly the samples were contaminated over the years. What the scientists won’t admit is that they kept finding DNA they couldn’t match and they brushed it under the carpet, deciding it must belong to someone working in one of the labs that handled the material. But it didn’t. There was another girl in there, the same height as Tatiana, just a local farm girl whose disappearance didn’t warrant a police investigation during the upheaval of the times. She had taken Tatiana’s place on the 15th of July, and it was her who died in the brutal slaughter of the night of the 16th. Tatiana lived.’

Kitty couldn’t take it in. ‘So if Dmitri rescued her … where did she go?’

‘Let me read you the story from Tatiana’s diary. My father found it in a drawer long after she had gone. It is distressing but you are Dmitri’s direct descendant and you deserve to know.’

She walked across to a sideboard and pulled a tattered notebook from one of the drawers. It was flimsy, unlike the solid leather-bound one Kitty had found in the box of family photographs, but the handwriting inside was exactly the same.

Hana began. Although she was translating from Russian to English, she spoke without hesitation. It was clearly something she had read many times before.





Chapter Sixty-Three

A Tent East of Ekaterinburg, July 1918

I asked Vaclav to find me a pencil and notebook because in the past writing a diary used to help me order my thoughts. Somehow I need to pass the hours until I leave this world and perhaps I should make a record so that historians of the future will know what became of the last and most wretched of the Romanov grand duchesses.

It seems incredible that just five days ago Mama, Papa, OTMA and Alexei were all together for that emotional service led by Father Storozhev, where he said the prayer for the dead. If only we had taken poison that night and died in each other’s arms, it would have been a better end. I don’t think any of us had hope any more: the guards were too disrespectful, their behaviour towards us too callous for us to believe we would be allowed a dignified and peaceful exile. But then came that note from Malama on Sunday afternoon and for a short while hope was renewed.





15th July, Monday


Papa was concerned about me leaving the house while the cleaner took my place but he trusted Malama. We all did. She was a sweet girl, by the name of Yelena, and she was terribly nervous as she slid off her blouse, skirt and headscarf and swapped them for my gown, while Olga and Maria kept watch by the door. I thanked her for her loyalty and promised that I would see her in the morning. As I walked out with the other girl, Yelena’s friend, I saw Anton, the vilest of the guards, watching us and kept my head down, fiddling with my sleeves, waiting to feel a hand on my shoulder at any moment. Suddenly we were on the street and it seemed so bright and open, I was dazzled by the light. I didn’t know where to go but the girl led me to a street corner and there was my beloved Malama and he was smiling. Oh, the joy of that moment, when all my fears were momentarily banished! We rode back to a cottage he had rented and we embraced and talked and talked and embraced, and it was beautiful. I loved him more than ever that afternoon. Such sacrifices as he has made for me could never be repaid.



I didn’t want him to leave the cottage that evening – perhaps I had a premonition of what was to come – but he was confident of his plan to rescue us all. So I bolted the door and while I waited, I looked round at Malama’s few possessions. His spare clothes, the meagre bread and cheese in the kitchen, his tooth powder and brush, and I loved them for being his. Oh, I would give anything to leap back to those moments, the last moments of innocence.

I heard horses approach and the door being rattled and I ran to hide in the wardrobe. Why there? It was the first thought that came to mind. There was nowhere else. With terror, I listened to the sound of the door being hacked down then there were men’s voices in the cottage. The wardrobe was pulled open and when I saw the ugly pockmarked face of Anton the guard, I knew I was doomed. He grabbed me by the hair to pull me from the wardrobe and spat in my face, calling me prostitutka and all kinds of awful words. I ordered him to let me go and he slapped me then threw me to the ground. He didn’t care if I was hurt, had no concern about what my father might say. ‘We followed you here, you and your boyfriend,’ he said. ‘Did you really believe you could get away? You royals think you are above the law.’



He tied a dirty rag over my mouth so I could not scream for help, and secured my wrists behind my back. When he hauled me onto his horse’s back, I assumed we were returning to the Ipatiev House. At that stage I was not afraid for myself but for what they would do to Malama if they caught him. The two men riding alongside did not look at me. They seemed to take orders from Anton. I suspect it is because he is a bully and they are scared of him.

When the horses stopped, it was not at the familiar house but outside some dirty hovel. Anton pulled me from his horse and shoved me hard in the back to force me inside. There was no one in the street, nowhere to run. It was dimly lit but I could see there were two rooms with straw mattresses on the floor and little else. Anton pushed me into one of the rooms and shut the door and I stood there shivering, deeply shocked. Malama would be back at the cottage soon. What would he do when he found me gone? How would he ever discover my whereabouts? If only there had been time to write him a note, give him a clue – but it all happened so suddenly.