The Secret Wife(46)

Kitty was amazed. ‘Whose diary do you think it is?’

‘It must be Tatiana’s. All the others have been mentioned.’ She tapped on the iPad again then handed it to Kitty. There was a picture on the screen of a very elegant girl with short wavy hair worn in a side parting, dressed in an ankle-length ivory gown covered in embroidery, and wearing several necklaces and bracelets. She looked haughty, regal and suspicious, as if she was not someone who found it easy to trust.



‘She’s beautiful,’ Kitty said. ‘How tragic that she was killed!’

Vera took back the iPad and did another search. ‘Look at that!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s Tatiana’s handwriting. It’s very sharp and graphic, with up and down strokes that are unusual for the period. It’s identical to the writing in your diary, don’t you think?’

Kitty looked from one to the other. The figures were written in the same way; they were indistinguishable. ‘But why would my great-grandfather have had Tatiana’s diary?’

‘There are a number of possibilities,’ Vera mused. ‘A week after the murders, the Ipatiev House was opened to the public and sightseers wandered in and helped themselves to souvenirs. Dmitri could have been one of them, or it could have been passed on to him by someone else. I suppose he could even have been one of the guards at the house.’

‘You mean one of the murderers?’ Instinctively Kitty felt that couldn’t be true. Any man who had written love stories as moving as the ones she had read could never have been a killer.

‘No, historians are pretty sure they know who all the murderers were. Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the guards, and eight of his men.’ She tapped on the iPad and read out the names when she found them: ‘Ermakov, Kudrin, Medvedev, Nikulin, Kabanov, Netrebin, Vaganov and Jan Tsel’ms. He picked the most cold-blooded men he could muster. I believe several other guards refused to be part of it.’

Kitty shuddered and hoped Dmitri had not been involved. But if not, how did he come to have the diary? Suddenly she remembered the pendant and took it off to show Vera. ‘I found this under my great-grandfather’s cabin and a jeweller told me it is Fabergé.’

Vera peered at it. ‘Michael Wigstr?m, the Romanovs’ favourite workmaster. It’s lovely.’ She handed it back. ‘Why don’t I lend you a couple of books so you can read about the family?’ She rose and her eyes roamed along a shelf until she found what she was looking for. She picked out one book, then another.



‘That’s very kind. And would you consider translating the diary?’

Vera hesitated. ‘My services don’t come cheap. Why not donate it to a library or university and they will pay for the translation?’

‘I don’t want to give it to anyone else. It’s one of the few things I have left of my great-grandfather, a memento of the Russian heritage I have only recently discovered. If I pay for the translation, what sort of cost are we talking about?’

Vera sat down to estimate the number of pages then sucked her lip and finally quoted two thousand dollars. She thought it would take her two to three weeks.

Kitty didn’t have to think for long. Her great-grandfather had kept this diary for a reason and she was sure he would want her to read it. She could use some of the money she had inherited from him, which was sitting in her current account. ‘I’d like to go ahead, if you’re sure you want to …’

‘Are you kidding?’ Vera grinned, suddenly looking much younger. ‘I can think of nothing I’d like more. What a fascinating project!’

Kitty held out her hand and they shook. ‘It’s a deal.’

As she drove back to Lake Akanabee, her mind whizzed through all the possible reasons why her great-grandfather might have had the diary of a Russian grand duchess in his possession. Had he known the family? Had he found it after their murder? Why had he kept it rather than donating it to a library? Or was it a clever forgery that he planned to use in a novel?

She wished Tom were there. He had a logical mind and often surprised her by suggesting answers she hadn’t thought of. She liked the fact that their brains worked so differently.

And then she remembered the photo-message on his phone and grimaced. You bastard, Tom. Why did you have to ruin everything?





Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ekaterinburg, Russia, May 1918

Three weeks after the departure of the Tsar and Tsarina, Trina came to Dmitri’s lodgings to tell him that Alexei had been judged fit for the journey and the remaining Romanovs were being taken to join their parents in Ekaterinburg. Dmitri packed his belongings and paid his landlady an extra week’s rent to apologise for the lack of notice then hurried up to the Governor’s House. Some old-fashioned tarantass carriages were standing by, presumably to take them on the first leg of the journey. Dmitri rushed to a horse dealer and bought himself a mount on which he could follow.

He watched as the royal party, twenty-seven of them including servants and tutors, were escorted into the carriages, along with the three dogs: Ortipo, Alexei’s Spaniel, Joy, and the family’s Pekingese, Jimmy. Alexei was carried out by a manservant with Tatiana close by, soothing him. She didn’t look up, too concerned for her brother.

Dmitri rode behind the carriages, keeping out of sight amongst the trees and sleeping rough whenever the party stopped at an inn for the night. It was a bone-rattling journey on rough roads and Dmitri feared for poor Alexei, for whom every jolt would mean excruciating pain. His glimpses of Tatiana showed her looking harassed and anxious and he yearned to rush out and throw his arms around her. She was supporting everyone else and there was no one to support her.