'I won't, and please don't worry. I have been in situations many times before, where my presence was not entirely welcome. It comes with the territory!'
As they ate, they talked about themselves, and he discovered that she was married, although currently separated from her husband and that she had two teenage daughters. He found her very attractive, with wavy shoulder-length auburn hair which she wore loose. She had an unconscious habit of tucking it behind her ears when she was talking, and he found this to be endearing. Her eyes were a deep, forest green, her face heart-shaped, with a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. He thought that her sharply pointed chin added an unusual elegance to her face. She had a beautiful smile that lit up her whole face. He figured that she was in her mid-thirties, a few years younger than he was, but he certainly wasn't going to ask her how old she was.
She also told him that she had been born in New Zealand and that her parents still lived there, and this fact fascinated him. He was a keen rugby player and followed the New Zealand All Blacks as much as he was able from so far away. It was a country that he would love to be able to visit someday.
'My father is an avid All Blacks supporter,' she laughed, 'I used to go to games with him all the time when I was younger. He's really looking forward to the World Cup in October and was hoping to be able to come over to the UK for a couple of their games, but unfortunately, my Mum hasn't been well, and couldn't travel that far, so he decided not to. He's not too disappointed though, and he'll be all set up to watch the games either at home or the local pub!'
Agni laughed. 'Unfortunately, Russia did not qualify, but I do have high hopes for them in 1995. Who knows, maybe they will even get to play the mighty All Blacks!'
He talked about his life; how his wife, Dinara, had recently suffered what the doctors described as a breakdown and that she was currently a patient in had a Moscow psychiatric hospital. He found himself telling her about his many years of anguish as he watched his beloved wife getting sicker and sicker, as a sad melancholy that nothing, not even his love and care could alter, slowly took over her whole being, until the day came that he arrived home from work to discover that she had tried to kill herself in their bathroom by cutting her wrists.
'I felt terrible leaving her in the hospital when I agreed to come here, and to be honest; I wouldn't have if I hadn't been certain that she was in good hands and had the best care. But I didn’t want to miss the chance of being part of this, a part of this team and something that could be one of my country's greatest historical finds. And I admit, I needed some breathing space, and wanted to get away from Moscow.'
He explained that they had never been able to have children, and although this was not the only reason for her decline, he knew that the fact that she could not be a mother had weighed heavily on her and contributed to her unhappiness.
They talked about their work, finding commonalities in their passion for solving mysteries and, when possible, obtaining justice for victims of crime, and they briefly discussed cases they had each worked on, the bizarre and unusual.
'Being their voices.' They said at the same time and laughed together.
They both felt comfortable telling each other about their private and family lives, even though they had only known each other for a matter of hours. There was trust there, and a sense that they were just old friends who were meeting again after a long time apart, picking up an already started conversation.
'I don't know that there's much point in us going to see the remains this late in the day,' Agni said, looking at his watch, 'they'll be getting ready to pack up for the day soon.
'Where are they?' asked May, pouring herself another cup of coffee from the samovar.
'Not too far from here actually, they've loaded them into packing cases and taken them to the Police Departments' firing range near Sverdlovsk, and now the process of unpacking and sorting them will begin.'
'Sorting them?'
'Yes, you'll see what I mean when you get there.'
May thought that this was a strange remark, but decided not to question him any further and to trust his judgement.
He drank the rest of his coffee, and placing his cup carefully on the table, looked at her intently as though he was carefully considering what to say next before continuing, 'there is somewhere else I would like to take you to today if you are up to it. Assuming that the recovered remains are those of the Romanovs, and as I said earlier, I am reasonably sure they are, I think it's vital that I take you to where they were last seen here in Ekaterinburg.'
'Ipatiev House?' she asked. 'I read in my book that they were imprisoned there before disappearing, but I didn't think that the actual house was still there?'
'No, you're right, it isn't,' he smiled, 'It was razed to the ground in 1977 by order of the Communist party. I guess they got tired of people constantly visiting it, wanting to get inside, to go through the rooms where they lived looking for souvenirs and keepsakes, and turning it into a shrine.' He laughed wryly. 'That hasn't stopped them, though.'
May looked at him enquiringly, as he continued. 'There are still many people in Russia who mourn the death of Nicholas and his family, and in particular how legend and gossip have it that they died.'
'I would like very much to go there, Agni,' May said, standing and brushing cake crumbs from her lap, 'For me to conduct an investigation properly, I need to understand the past as well as the present.'
He paid for their coffee and cake against her strong objections and as they left the tea house, he glanced at the car parked across the road in front of their hotel and said, 'It's about a half-hour walk from here, do you feel like stretching your legs or would you rather we drive?'
'A walk would be wonderful,' she replied, 'I feel as though I have been cooped up for ages.'
As they walked, he told her everything he knew about the last days of the family during their time of imprisonment within the Ipatiev House.
'They spent seventy-eight days at the house before they all disappeared. They lived in four rooms on the top floor of the house, and in addition to the family, their physician, Dr. Botkin, chambermaid Anna Demidova, the cook Ivan Kharitonov and valet Alexey Trupp lived there too. They were the only servants who were allowed to stay with them. The rest who accompanied them here from their imprisonment in Tobolsk, including the children's tutors, were either arrested or expelled.'
'So that made eleven of them all together in the house,' mused May.
'Yes, with their guards occupying the rest of the house, including the basement rooms.'
'Where the murders allegedly took place.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'all of the evidence gathered so far since that night certainly points to that.' He continued slowly, 'After the liberation of the city, an examination of the house took place, and in one of the basement rooms, they found certain signs that something violent had taken place there.'
'Such as?'
'The floors in the corridor outside of the room, although recently washed, still showed traces of blood. In their attempt to clean up, sand was sprinkled over the bloodstains, probably in an effort to soak it up, I would imagine, and particles of sand had stuck to the dried blood that remained on the floor. Inside the room itself, the entire floor had been left with a patterned covering of sand mixed with blood. The amount of blood still there on that floor, even after what appeared to be a massive clean-up, indicated that a great number of people had either been gravely injured or killed in that room. The examination of the room found a total of twenty-seven bullet holes in the walls, doors, and the floor, sixteen of those bullet holes alone were to the left of a set of double doors which had led to a storeroom located on the eastern wall. The walls were also badly damaged with what appeared to have been bayonet thrusts.'
'That's a huge amount of forensic evidence,' May remarked, 'was any of it recovered?'
'Parts of the floorboards were cut out and taken away, and some of the bullets were gouged out of the plaste
r walls and sent for testing, so it was possible to identify the type and calibre of the weapons used. The majority of bullet holes were located in the lower parts of the walls as if the victims were kneeling or perhaps sitting while being shot. Portions of the bloodstained wallpaper were also removed, and they tested positive for human blood.'
'I would say that is pretty conclusive evidence that something terrible happened in that room, and that it is the likely murder scene.' May agreed.
Agni continued as they walked. 'Permission was given for the family to leave the house and exercise in the small garden at times during the day; however, they were completely cut off by a high wooden fence purposefully built around the house to prevent any access to the outside world. The house guards painted over all the windows in their rooms so that no-one could see in our out. Apart from their priest, the guards, and a couple of maids from the town who came in to clean now and then, nobody saw them.'
'It must have been seventy-eight days of hell for them.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'particularly so considering Nicholas and the girls were always so active outdoors. Not so much Alexandra and Alexey, of course, due to their ill-health. During their imprisonment at Tobolsk, they were allowed regular exercise, Nicholas and the girls enjoyed sawing and chopping wood and stacking the logs and they even built an ice hill on which the children sledged.'
'How did they spend their time here?'
'Reading and sewing and of course they spent a lot of time at prayer. They wrote letters, and Nicholas and Alexandra kept journals, and they played games together in the evening. Alexey had his toys; he particularly loved his toy soldiers and his dog Joy. Caring for Tatiana's two dogs kept the girls busy.'
'I suppose with Alexandra and Alexey being so ill; the girls spent a lot of time caring for them?'
'I would imagine so, yes, but overall, their boredom must have been debilitating. I can imagine that the days crawled by filled with monotonous nothingness.'
'And no chance of rescue?' she asked, unable to imagine what it must have been like for them, particularly Olga, to have been confined so cruelly.
'I'm sure there were factions who thought about it and probably made plans, but as far as I know, a rescue was never attempted.' Agni paused, considering for a few seconds. 'I often think how strange it was though, that help never arrived for them, particularly given their family connections.'
'Indeed,' May agreed.
He came to a halt. 'Here we are.'
May saw a large vacant concreted section which sat on an upward slope. It was entirely bare apart from a few bunches of flowers and partly melted candles sitting in a circle directly in the centre of the concreted area, and they approached it slowly.
'As I told you earlier,' Agni said, 'people still come here to pray and to remember Nicholas and his family. I'm afraid that tearing down the house and carting everything away was never going to stop them from doing that.'
May took the library book out of her shoulder bag and turned to the photograph section in the middle. She studied the black and white photograph of the house as it was when built in the late 1800s.
'It says here,' she said, 'that it was considered to be a very modern grand house for its day, and had twenty-one rooms and a toilet that flushed! It was in a prime location, with wonderful views of the city, the lake, and the public gardens.'
She looked up, and in her mind, could see the house, exactly as it was in the photograph, but now with the addition of a high wooden fence built close to the windows, preventing any view of the world outside. She blinked, and Agni took the book from her and continued reading out loud.
'Built in the classic Russian style,' he commented, and surprised May by taking a pair of reading glasses out of his top pocket, perching them on the bridge of his nose before continuing, 'and built on the site of an old wooden church. It looks as though it was built out of stone and brick and see here?' He traced the photo with his forefinger. 'The stucco and decorative carvings at the eaves and windows? Yes, it would have been considered a very handsome house for its day,'
'I can only imagine how terrible it would have been inside during the summer months with the windows closed shut and painted over. It would have been so hot and uncomfortable for them.' May mused, the picture of the house behind its high fence still vivid in her mind.
She started walking again, slowly, towards the area where she felt drawn to where the basement might have been, leaving Agni standing engrossed in the book. She stopped again and watched as an old woman dressed all in black, her head covered with a scarf, approached the small shrine. She was accompanied by a little girl, who skipped along, carrying a bunch of bright flowers. The girl's fair hair shone in the fading afternoon light, and from where May stood, she could see her sky washed blue eyes. The old woman said something quietly to the little girl, and she bent, kissed the posy of flowers, then gently laid them at the base of the shrine, fussing with them for a few moments until they were propped up to her satisfaction. The old woman crossed herself and stood quietly for a few moments in silent prayer, then taking the child's hand, they walked off slowly together. May felt touched by their simple gesture and quickly wiped away the tears that suddenly and inexplicably filled her eyes. She had never been this emotional in her life before, not even when she was pregnant with the girls, and her hormones were running rampant.
She moved forward a couple more paces before coming to a sudden stop. Her feet felt rooted to the concrete, she couldn't move, she suddenly felt dizzy again and started trembling from head to toe just as she had done in the forest, but this was much more intense and felt more frightening than it had been there. She closed her eyes in the hope of gaining her equilibrium but instead heard the muted sounds of gunfire and people shouting, followed by screams and moans of terror and pain. The terrible, familiar smell of fresh blood filled her nostrils. She staggered forward a step and would have fallen if Agni hadn't suddenly been there and grabbed her arm, steadying and holding her upright.
'Are you alright? What is it?' She heard his voice, distant as though he was speaking at the other end of a tunnel. She stood, stock still apart from the terrible trembling, eyes shut, and he heard her horrible gasp.
'They're here, I can see them.'
Six
Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg.
17 July 1917
Olga hadn't been able to fall asleep, she felt on edge. Something was different, and she felt as if something had changed, or shifted, even though nothing had. Today had been as yesterday was and the day before, and the one before that. She could think of nothing that could account for her feelings of unease.
Mama and Papa had been confident that a rescue was imminent; they had received a series of letters from an unknown friend, telling them to be ready, and so they had lain awake all night, fully clothed so that they would be prepared at a moment’s notice for a call that had never come. So, they had given up waiting and had returned to their regular night-time routine.
She lay awake, listening to the soft sleeping sounds of her sisters, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia side by side, in their army cots. The house was quiet; certainly, she could hear nothing from where Mama, Papa, and brother Alexey slept just rooms away.
And no sounds come from the guards who were ever-present albeit unseen at this time. She looked at the clock, and it was one in the morning, and far too late to be awake, particularly when she usually welcomed the night time; sleeping and dreaming were her only escape now.
Earlier in the evening, after they had finished supper and sat reading and playing cards, the usual distant sound of gunfire had seemed closer and louder. Papa said that it was artillery fire and that it was certainly much closer than it had been over the last few days. They had looked at each other, not knowing whether to be glad or alarmed because they didn't know what it meant and whose artillery it was. Friend or foe? Captor or rescuer? Their captors gave them no information at all about what was happening in the outside world.
&n
bsp; She shifted in her narrow bed, and for a moment, wished that she still kept her diary so that she could record these strange feelings she had. Perhaps if she did, she might be able to fall asleep? But she had set aside her diary recording a long time ago, a lifetime it seemed now.
So, she was not surprised or concerned when Mama's maid Anna came quietly into the room, and up to the side of her bed and, laying a light hand on her arm, whispered, 'Olga, quickly, get up, we have been summonsed. You have to get up and to wash and dress immediately.'
'Why? What is it, Anna?' she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and reaching for her wrap.
'I don't know. Can you get the girls up and ready while I see to your Mama?'
She quietly woke them, Tatiana, first, she was always first. They called themselves "we two" they were that close, almost inseparable.
'What is happening, Olga?' Maria asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes, but she could only tell them what Anna had told her, scant as it was.
They hurriedly washed and dressed in their usual clothes; plain dark skirts and white blouses, being especially careful to make sure that they all, apart from Maria, who was in disgrace and not trusted by Mama anymore, wore the undergarments into which they had sewn their gemstones, pearls, rubies, and diamonds, just as Mama had always said they must, in case they had to leave quickly.
They did not put on hats or jackets, as they didn't know whether they would be needed, but picked up their handbags, and then made their way to the drawing-room, and sat, waiting for Mama, Papa, and Alexey who arrived a little later.
'I have been told by the leader that we are not safe here any longer and that they are moving us.’ Dr. Botkin said. 'There is some trouble in the city. He told me to have you woken and to make sure you got dressed and made yourselves ready to leave.'
The Girl With the Crystal Soul Page 5