The Secret Wife(50)
They continued talking, but Dmitri kept an eye on the barn until a girl walked out carrying a bucket. He was too far off to tell much about her appearance but she looked tall and slender. She walked in their direction and as she got closer, Dmitri saw that she had shoulder-length brown hair. Suddenly a plan began to take shape in his head. Was it crazy? Could it possibly work? While Henderson and the farmer continued their discussion, he tried to think it through.
‘How much money would you need to relocate to Crimea?’ he asked the farmer abruptly, interrupting their conversation.
Tolmachev was puzzled. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Name a figure,’ Dmitri insisted, and the farmer thought for a moment then came up with the sum of two thousand roubles.
Dmitri continued: ‘If I give you two thousand roubles, would you consider asking your daughter to help us communicate with the Romanovs? We are trying to get them overseas, and we need someone who has access to the house.’
The farmer was instantly suspicious. ‘Who are you? How do I know you are not a Bolshevik spy?’
‘I can vouch for him,’ Henderson said quietly, and Dmitri gave him a quick nod of thanks.
‘Well, I suppose I would consider it. What do you want her to do? Carry letters back and forth?’
‘Not exactly,’ Dmitri replied. ‘First of all, I need you to find out the days on which she will be working over the coming weeks. Can you do that for me?’
‘Two thousand, you say. In cash?’
‘In cash.’
‘It sounds as though we could work together, my friend.’
The farmer shook Dmitri’s hand, and Dmitri could see the gleam of hope in his eyes, hope of a way out of an increasingly difficult life. This might work. It must work.
Dmitri rode back into town to see Thomas Preston. ‘I need to talk to one of your merchants about the safest route out of Russia. Are any based in Ekaterinburg?’
Preston’s eyes widened. ‘You have a plan?’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘The best man would be Henry Armistead. Let me give him a call.’ He lifted a telephone receiver and instructed the secretary on the other end to get Armistead on the line, then hung up and continued: ‘Between ourselves, he was part of a plan to rescue the family from Tobolsk. They were going to travel down the River Enisei to the north coast then sail round to Murmansk on a Norwegian Arctic shipping line. The scheme had to be cancelled when they were moved to Ekaterinburg but perhaps he could arrange something similar here if you can get them out of the house.’
Dmitri spoke urgently. ‘Please ask him to come as soon as he can.’
The phone rang, the connection having been made, and Sir Thomas spoke to the man on the other end, saying he had an important delivery for the Murmansk route they had spoken of before. There was a pause. ‘Can you make it any sooner?’ he asked. ‘The opportunity could be lost by then … Oh, very well. And you will make the arrangements? Thirteenth of July it is.’
Dmitri’s spirits fell. That was three weeks away. On the other hand, it gave him time to get the details in place. He had a lot to arrange. When he left the consulate he went to the town’s telegraph office and sent a cable to his mother. APOLOGIES BUT URGENT BUSINESS KEEPS ME AWAY STOP CAN YOU WIRE TWO THOUSAND ROUBLES TO HELP CONCLUDE DEAL STOP HOPE ALL WELL STOP WILL VISIT SOON STOP YOUR SON.
Next he sent a cable to Malevich: CARGO WILL BE READY IN EKATERINBURG ON 13 JULY STOP COME A WEEK BEFORE WITH TWENTY YELKA STOP.
Spruce trees – yelka – were the largest and hardiest in the forests where they had fought during the war, and they had sometimes likened the toughest soldiers to them; he was sure Malevich would get the reference.
His stomach churning with nerves, he rode back to the cottage to think through every last detail. At last he was taking action. It felt as though he had delayed too long already and this would be his last chance.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lake Akanabee, New York State, September 2016
As September began, the weather at the lake was hot and sunny but with a fresh breeze. Kitty acquired a deep tan while her brown hair was streaked with blonde. She turned her attention to reconstructing the jetty, buying fresh planks of wood and tearing up the original in order to rebuild from scratch. She had always loved carpentry: the feel of the wood surrendering cleanly to her saw, the pleasure of joints that fitted snugly, the smoothness after sanding. Once the jetty was finished she took a canvas chair out there in the early evenings with a bottle of wine and sat reading the books Vera Quigley had lent her, staying until the light was low and the daytime bird calls were giving way to night prowlers.
Kitty was soon absorbed in the story of the Romanovs’ life in the early years of the twentieth century, when they were the wealthiest family on the planet. She read of Alexei’s haemophilia and his mother’s growing dependence on Rasputin, the Siberian healer and mystic; then the suspicion that grew around them during the First World War, and the anger at their lavish lifestyles while there was famine across the country, leading to the 1917 Revolution. The book told of the family’s fate in captivity, first at their home in the Alexander Palace in St Petersburg, then at the Governor’s House in Tobolsk, Siberia, and finally at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, to the east of the Ural Mountains. There was a map on which Kitty could see the mountains running north to south down the centre of Russia like a knobbly spine. She read that conditions gradually worsened for the family as Lenin and Trotsky took control of the western part of the country: their rations were reduced, many of their personal possessions stolen, and the guards treated them with increasing disrespect, forcing them to ring a bell when they wanted to use the lavatory and limiting their time outside in the yard. It was a far cry from the extravagant luxury they had been used to.