She shared the flight with two businessmen, and apart from acknowledging her at boarding, they didn't speak the whole time, keeping themselves busy with paperwork the entire flight, their only interaction being with the hostess, whenever their drinks needed refreshing. She didn't mind; in fact, she preferred it that way as it gave her time to think about what might lie ahead.
She wondered how James had managed to get her the flight and how much it must have cost him. She was pretty sure that last-minute charter flights wouldn't come cheap and hoped that his division budget wouldn't be set back too severely.
May had been surprised but pleased to see James at Heathrow when she got there, and he had walked with her to the private hangar where the charter plane had stood, ready to go.
As they walked, he handed her a small case. 'Papers, passport, and some money; rubles and US dollars. If you need anything else, just let me know.' He gazed at her intently. 'Be careful May. I can't stress enough how politically sensitive this recovery and identification operation is likely to be. Yeltsin was only recently elected President, so changes within Russia are most likely on their way, but that will take time. If these remains are those of the last Tsar and his family, there will be factions within Russia who will want the secrets of the past kept,' he smiled wryly. ‘Try to keep a low profile, just do your job and don't get involved in the politics of it.'
'I will, thanks, James.' May assured him, returning his hug, then turned and walked towards the plane.
Although she had not slept much the night before for worrying as anyone going on a journey does that she wouldn't hear her alarm and miss her flight, she did not feel tired, and after accepting a breakfast of cereal and coffee from the hostess just after they had taken off, settled down in her seat and spent the flight reading her library book.
She found herself returning time and gain to the family portrait, her eyes continually drawn to those of the eldest of the children, Olga. May felt a frisson of recognition as she studied Olga's face; there was something about her that drew her attention. She was beautiful, of course, not in a truly classical way, but there was an inner beauty about Olga, as well as seriousness and an infinite sadness within her gaze. The later pictures within the book taken at the time of the family's captivity at Tobolsk only enhanced Olga's aura of sorrow; it was now visible and to May heart-breaking. There were no photographs of them from the time they were held captive at Ekaterinburg; according to the book, they had been completely cut off from the outside world, and any photographs that they may have taken of themselves had been lost.
All of the girls were beautiful, and May felt a wrench knowing that the youngest two, Anastasia and Maria, had been so close in age to her two girls. Such a rotten waste, she thought bitterly. What might have become of these beautiful girls, she wondered, and of the wee boy, Alexey, who, although chronically ill with hemophilia, still may have overcome his affliction and lived some sort of life?
She liked the look of Nicholas and Alexandra; she considered Nicholas to be an extremely handsome man with his dark moustache and beard, and he had a kindly face. Even in the still photographs, she felt that his eyes were twinkling with mirth and a hint of mischievousness. She understood from the little she had learned over the past two days, that Nicholas had not welcomed becoming Tsar, and that his tenure appeared blighted from the start. He and Alexandra were happily married, and deeply in love, he was a loving family man who put them before everything, including his empire and the role of Tsar that he had been born to and which the Russian people believed was ordained by God. But despite all that, he had only ever wanted to live a happy normal family life with his beloved wife, Sunny and children without the responsibility of being the supreme ruler of the largest country on earth.
His reign as Tsar had been an abject failure, ignoring his people and eventually alienating them. Russia's disastrous involvement and Nicholas' mismanagement of the army in the slaughter that was World War One had done nothing to help his reign; instead of the people rallying around him, his actions as ruler and leader of the army only served to push them further away.
Which, she thought sadly, meant that the country and the majority of its people were ripe for change, for revolution, hoping that the promised changes would change their lives for the better. She doubted whether that had happened, for the average Russian citizen at least; many of the wealthy and important citizens, including Nicholas' mother, had escaped the worst, finding haven abroad, but the revolution had tragically been the end for Nicholas and his beautiful young family, who were either unwilling or unable to escape.
Her notes said that a man called Agni Blanter would meet her on her arrival, so she was not surprised to see who she assumed was him waiting for her inside the hangar as her plane taxied to a standstill.
'May Dawson?' he smilingly asked in English with just the slightest accent, 'I'm Agni, welcome to Russia.'
'It's lovely to meet you, Agni,' she said, taking his proffered hand. He had a firm grip which she liked and appreciated as a sign of strength. When he smiled, which she soon found was often, his teeth were white and evenly spaced, and his smile exposed deep laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He had thick dark hair, closely cropped, and sported a neatly trimmed beard. She guessed him to be around forty. His eyes were a deep brown. From his tanned skin, she wondered whether he spent a lot of time outside, and she was sure she had felt a callous on the palm of his hand. Maybe he was a gardener, she thought. May felt instantly at ease with him, with his friendliness, open, honest face, and those sparkling brown eyes.
'Here is my car.' He said, leading her to an old beaten up looking blue Citroen. 'I'm sorry, it's ancient, and probably not at all what you are used to in England!' He stowed May's suitcase on the backseat and opened the passenger door for her to climb in.
'It's fine, Agni, really, as long as it goes, right?' They both laughed as he started the engine, and they made their way out of the airport. 'So, tell me, where am I?'
'We are at the airport, obviously, Koltsovo, but you will know that already. We are about sixteen kilometres southeast of Ekaterinburg, which is where the grave is located, and the recovered remains are-'
'They've been recovered then?' May interrupted him. 'They weren't sure whether that had happened or not when I had my briefing before leaving London. When did the recovery happen?'
'The excavation of the grave began in the late morning; around ten I think it was, on July eleventh. They completed it on July thirteenth.' He said quickly.
'Three days?' May was surprised, 'how many bodies did the team recover?'
'There appear to be nine.' Agni replied.
'It took you only three days to excavate nine bodies?' May couldn't hide her surprise. She had never heard of a forensic dig being done so quickly, especially not one that involved so many bodies, which, from what she knew from James, were entombed in what could have been an ancient grave. From her extensive experience, she would have expected a project of that magnitude to have taken weeks, if not months.
'Is something the matter?' Agni asked.
'Yes, I mean no….' May stopped, remembering James' words before she left. She had only just met Agni and didn't know who he was and what part he played in all of this. She decided to be cautious with her views and opinions, as she certainly didn't want to begin her working relationship with any of the Russians on the wrong foot.
'You think that it should have taken longer, perhaps?' He asked, glancing sideways at her as he navigated a stream of traffic. 'It's alright, May, I happen to agree with you. I am also a forensic anthropologist, based in Moscow, and I think that the recovery operation was executed much too quickly, considering the size of the site and the appearance that indicates the grave has been there for many years.'
'Were you involved in the excavation and recovery?'
'No, unfortunately, I got here too late, and it was all over.' His tone changed, and he sounded sad all of a sudden. 'I had some family business to attend
to in Moscow.'
'I see,' said May, thinking quickly. 'Are you able to take me to the burial site Agni? I would like to see it before I see the remains.'
'Of course, I was hoping that you would ask me. I would like to see it again too, with no-one else there. Naturally, I understand how important it is for you to see the burial site so that you can form a complete picture.'
'Yes, of course,' May agreed, 'usually, back home, I am in charge of the excavation, or if I can't be, one of my colleagues is. But I do realise that this is not my project and that I am only here to help.'
They drove in silence for a while, each deep in thought. May looked out of the window and saw that they were passing a vast pine forest that stretched away on both sides of the road. To her left, she could see residential homes, shops, and business areas. As they got closer to the city centre, May could see a winding river, which Agni informed her was the Iset; and that the city of Ekaterinburg lay on its upper reaches. May exclaimed at the beauty of the buildings they passed and the churches with their ornate gold and blue domes.
As Agni navigated them through the busy city centre, May's thoughts returned to the recovered remains and her concern that they could have become compromised if the exhumation had been completed so quickly.
'Do you happen to know who made up the recovery team Agni?' she asked.
'I don't know them all personally,' he replied. 'I understand the team was made up of government officials, of course, plus members of the police force, government archaeologists and forensic experts and someone taking photographs. I know one of the archaeologists who were there; Katya, we have worked together before. I think we might want to talk to her'.
'The burial site turned out to be roughly nine miles from the centre of Ekaterinburg,' Agni explained, 'at a place called Pigs Meadow along the Old Koptyaki Road, which runs through the forest. The old road no longer exists, but when it did, it ran parallel to the highway that we are currently on.' He drove on for a while, as May peered out of the window at the dense forest.
'The strange thing,' Agni continued, 'is that the burial site has been visible from this highway that we are on since its construction, and it would certainly have been visible to anyone passing between Ekaterinburg and Koptyaki Village, especially in 1918, if that is indeed when the grave had been dug.'
May thought about that for a while, wondering why it had taken so long to find it.
As if reading her thoughts, Agni said, 'I think they have known it was here all the time, it just wasn't allowed to be found until now.'
May was full of questions, but before she could ask Agni any more, he had turned the car off into a clearing in which stood an olive-green army tent.
'Here we are.' Agni said. 'Pigs Meadow.'
They got out of the car, and May suddenly noticed how tall he was as he unfolded himself out of his seat and stretched to ease his back and shoulders.
She looked around, apart from the tent, and what appeared to be a hastily erected fence, the meadow was unremarkable. The roadway was overgrown, and tall trees surrounded the entire area; pine and birch she guessed.
'Are you sure it's OK for us to be here? May asked. There didn't appear to be anyone around, but she felt uneasy nevertheless. The atmosphere here disturbed her, there was a distinct aura of sadness, of tragedy about it, and despite the trees and meadow grasses, it felt desolate. She shivered and felt immediately silly. For a moment, she thought that the meadow felt haunted; that had surprised her because, of course, there was no such thing. The feeling that she got from her surroundings was foreign to her; she had never been this attuned to a burial site before. They were always areas of grief and loss, but this place felt different.
'Yes, it's perfectly fine. I had already made arrangements to bring you here today.' Agni replied as they put on rubber gloves, and May pulled a pair of paper shoes over her boots.
They entered the tent and looked around. May could see clearly where the recent digging for the excavation of the remains had taken place; to one side stood a large earth-moving machine, no doubt it would be taken away along with the tent at some stage.
She moved closer to the trench. She could see by its size, that even though the recent excavations had extended it in size somewhat, that the original grave had been very shallow, perhaps no deeper than 119cm, and was puzzled on noticing quite distinct differences in the colour and texture of the soil at the sides of the trench.
'There appear to have been two digs here, Agni, both sometime apart, do you know anything about that?'
'Yes, the grave was discovered and opened up earlier, back in 1978. It wasn't fully excavated then, however, and unfortunately, the men who found it removed some of the bones, including three skulls and other items before they covered it up again. They came back in July 1980 and reburied the skulls and other bones they had previously removed.'
May sat back on her heels and looked at him, shocked. 'You're kidding me. Why on earth would they do that, I can't even imagine how could that even happen!'
Agni just shrugged. 'This is Russia, and it was the Soviet era. If the remains that were in this grave belonged to the Romanovs, no-one wanted to know about it then.'
'God,' she said, turning back to her examination of the grave. ‘So, if the team has had the remains for a couple of days now, do you have any idea of who they are?'
'We are fairly sure that they are the Romanovs,' Agni replied, 'but of course, we will need to do more testing before we know for sure. There is also some confusion around the fact that there were only nine bodies recovered when there should have been eleven.'
'Yes, I wondered about that too. The book I was reading on the plane over said there were eleven people last seen, that being seven family members and four servants. Do you have any theories about what might have happened to the other two?'
'None whatsoever at this stage. The authorities conducted the first investigation into the family's disappearance in 1918. Because they found no grave or signs of any bodies then, they assumed that they had all been completely destroyed during the disposal, either here or at another site.
He thought for a few minutes as though he was pondering how to form his next words.
'During the Soviet Era, the Romanovs were a taboo subject. Nobody talked about them, and speculation and innuendo abounded. There were so many conflicting accounts of what had happened to them, even whether or not they were dead. If they were dead, where were the bodies? No-one knew the truth. There was talk years ago that they were disposed of here in Koptyaki, in two separate graves, but this grave is the only one that anyone has ever found here.'
'Well,' she said, getting to her feet and brushing the loose dirt from her knees, 'It seems then that there may be some truth to that after all, if there are indeed two bodies missing,'
She looked around the clearing again, as if willing a second grave to appear suddenly, or for someone to suddenly appear and show her where it was, and inwardly, she told herself to get a grip.
'I think I've seen enough here, Agni, shall we go?'
When they got back to the car, May turned and looked back over the meadow to where the green tent stood, the empty grave invisible from the angle at which she stood. Light rain was now falling, and the whole area seemed to be even more dreary than it had been when they had arrived. Again, she felt the same intense sense of sadness and loss as she had done earlier, and now the wind in the trees sounded like voices crying out.
She discovered with a shock that her cheeks were wet, and that tears were streaming down her face, the onset had been so sudden that it was almost as though she had just experienced a severe allergic reaction to something. She staggered slightly under the weight of the grief she felt and placed a hand on the roof of the car to steady herself.
'Are you alright, May?' Agni came over to her, concerned to see that her face had become drained of colour and that she looked stricken. 'What is the matter?'
'I'm fine,' she replied shakily, 'I think I'm just tir
ed and hungry. I haven't eaten since early this morning on the plane, and my sugar levels are probably low.' She tried to laugh it off, angry at herself for this unusual weakness. She had seen hundreds of burial sites in her career and had never been affected by any of them to this extent.
'Of course,' he said. 'Let's go, and we can stop in town and get a late lunch.' As they drove off, May took a last look at the towering trees surrounding the burial site, her relief at being in the car and leaving was palpable. She hoped she never had to come back here again.
'So, tell me Agni,' she asked once they were back on the main highway heading back towards Ekaterinburg, 'what the hell actually happened here?
Four
Koptyaki Forest, Ekaterinburg, Russia.
17/18/19 July 1918
It was taking far too long to get to the forest, to the place where he had decided to dispose of the bodies. The worn-out overloaded truck had been grinding slowly along for over two hours now, and they had only gone nine miles.
The leader was frustrated and impatient. The truck was noisy, its gears crunching every time the driver changed them, and he worried that someone would hear them. It was still early, but the village was not that far away, and the villagers were early risers. Some of them might be about getting ready for the day.
'Can't you hurry it up?' he implored the driver, who just shrugged, lit another one of his foul-smelling cigarettes, and ignored him.
'Turn off here.' He ordered the driver, and after a while, they started travelling along one of the narrow, rutted tracks that ran through the forest. He cursed under his breath as he saw that this change in direction had slowed the progress of the truck down even more. He had not thought it possible that they could go any slower.
He made the driver stop when he saw a group of mounted men waiting with carts at the side of the track. He got out of the truck and walked over to them, and was furious when he identified a couple of them as men who were attached to the local Ekaterinburg garrison. This operation was supposed to be secret; now, it appeared that every arsehole in town knew about it. He ground his teeth in frustration.
The Girl With the Crystal Soul Page 3