She helped Agni search for the missing bones on the brown paper sheet which had been allocated to skeleton seven, but as she had found earlier, they were not able to locate anything more than a few small pieces, which they carefully fitted together. They wandered around the room, looking at the other unreconciled bones, but could not find anything more.
They looked at each other for a long moment.
'What's your take on there being so many missing bones, Agni?'
As if he had been eavesdropping on their conversation, Nikhil called everyone together for a team meeting, and they all withdrew to the tea room, where he had made tea and coffee.
May sat down gratefully. Her back was niggling her again, just as it had yesterday, and she reminded herself that she had to take more regular breaks and stretch and rest it more. The problem was that once she got started each day, and became so engrossed in her work, finding it to be so fascinating and challenging, that she completely forgot about self-care, and it wasn't until forced to stop that she discovered how sore she had become. She longed for the examining table that she always used back in England, which could be raised and lowered as needed.
'I know that you have already noticed that we do appear to have a major problem,' Nikhil said when they were all seated with their hot drinks. 'Many of the bones appear to be missing. We know that there are nine bodies, which means that there should be one thousand, eight hundred, and fifty-four bones. We have counted again, and there are only five hundred here.' He gazed around the room as if waiting for one of them to come up with a logical explanation. 'This is a huge discrepancy, and I believe it is hindering our ability to do a thorough job of identification. Now, while it is primarily the small facial, hand and feet bones that are missing and therefore easy to overlook, my biggest concern is about the number of large bones that are missing, specifically femurs, tibia and fibula, ribs, and arm bones.' He stopped and took a neatly folded handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face before returning it. It was warm in the room, but May was surprised to see that he was heavily perspiring, and wondered whether he was ill, or nervous maybe?
'Obviously, it would be impossible to overlook or misplace such large bones,' Nikhil continued, 'so a decision has been made to conduct a second exhumation of the gravesite in the Koptyaki Forest to make sure that there was nothing left behind. This is, of course, very unfortunate; however, it is the reality; we have no other choice.'
It's not just unfortunate, May thought, it's a bloody disaster!
'Forgive my ignorance Nikhil,' she asked, 'but was the grave in Koptyaki the only burial site? Should we be looking somewhere else also, either in the forest or elsewhere? I understand that there is at least one grave that has not been discovered; the one containing the two people who are missing, but I think that's different from this.'
'It's a good question,' Petya replied. 'The original plan after taking the bodies from the Ipatiev House was for them to be disposed of down a mine shaft. I understand that they were taken there, and thrown in, with hand grenades then thrown on top of them; however, the shaft was too shallow, so the killers hauled them out again, bringing them to Pigs Meadow to where we now know, they were finally disposed of.'
'Was that mine shaft ever examined?' Katya asked eagerly, 'Perhaps……..'
'Yes, it was,' replied Petya. 'The mine was called the Four Brothers, and it was searched back in 1918. They found traces of a fire having been lit there, but no human bodies. They apparently removed three hundred and eleven items from the Ipatiev House and the mine, including several icons, buttons, belt buckles, charred material and hooks and eyes from clothing and shoes, as well as some jewellery, precious stones, glass vials, and bullets. They also apparently discovered small amounts of human remains, namely hair, chopped and burnt bones, a severed finger supposedly from Alexandra, some blood and skin and fat mixed with earth, and a set of dentures which most likely belonged to Dr. Botkin.'
'But not over a thousand bones.' May sighed.
'No, only forty-two by all accounts.'
'Is it worth going there, to the Four Brothers to conduct another search?' Katya asked eagerly.
They looked at each other, deferring to Nikhil to make a decision.
'I don't think so, Katya. That area was gone over very thoroughly back then, and quite frankly, I just don't have the resources to do it. I'm sorry.' He added, noting the disappointment etched on her face.
'I understand, Nikhil. Do you know when the second exhumation of the original grave is likely to take place'? I was there at the first one, and as you know, I had concerns. I would like to be there also for this one.'
'Of course. Yes, I want you, May and Agni, to be there and to observe and to assist if you feel it is necessary. I understand that it will take place tomorrow; however, that has not been confirmed, and of course, I will let you know as soon as I can.'
'I cannot believe that so many bones could have been left behind,' Katya muttered. 'We can't have missed that many, even given the chaos that took place.'
'If they're not there, where could they possibly be?' May asked.
'Let's consider the problem logically,' said Agni. 'Could the grave have been opened again either before or after the 1978 excavation and before now? By wild animals or grave robbers, maybe? Someone who knew the Romanovs were buried there and wanted relics or souvenirs? They may have been looking for valuables.'
'I don't think that could have happened, Agni, going by what we saw at the grave.' Katya said quickly, exchanging a concerned look with Nikhil. 'The evidence of the staining and marking of the soil shows that it has only been opened once before now.'
'I agree. 'Vadim, who had been quiet throughout the meeting, now spoke up. 'What about the acid that was poured over the bodies? Maybe it completely dissolved the bones in their entirety, or they were incinerated completely in a fire with the petrol they had. Could that have happened?'
'The acid could have obliterated some of the small bones perhaps.' Nikhil replied. 'As could have a fire, but the larger ones? I just can't imagine it. We all know how hot a fire needs to be to incinerate a human body, and I doubt very much that they would have had sufficient petrol or other fuel to completely destroy so many bones.'
'When I first came here, and you showed me around Nikhil,' May said tentatively, you said that some of the recovered bones had disintegrated on handling and washing. How many do you think that would have accounted for?'
'Oh, very few, very few indeed, and they would have just been smaller ones, certainly not the larger ones.' May thought he sounded defensive and so she did not question him about it any further.
Nikhil stood up. 'Come with me, all of you, I want to show you something.'
He led them back to the morgue, to the table that held skeleton number eight.
'This poor soul was at the bottom of the grave, and as you can see, there is almost nothing left of him. I say him because I believe it is one of the two male retainers. Because he was at the bottom, he was obviously subjected to more acid damage, and as it dripped down from the other bodies until he has eventually been laying in a pool of it for decades. But even then, there are still remains. I think this proves to us that the acid did not and could not have dissolved the sheer number of bones that we see missing today.'
It made sense, thought May. She had heard of acid completely dissolving bones; however, that was usually when a whole body had been immersed in acid, say in a barrel or a vat. In this situation, acid had been poured over the bodies and left to pool at the bottom of the pit.
No-one else had any further ideas on the matter, and they all slowly went back to their tables to resume their work.
Deciding that she could not do anything else on the skeleton she had been working on, May moved to the next table, to where the remains that had been labelled as number one had been placed.
She pondered this one for a long time; its identification was proving to be problematic for the team. This skeleton had been found within the
grave at a depth of approximately ninety centimetres, and as with the others, was missing most of its bones.
It intrigued her, because the skull was one of the ones that had been removed in 1979, and then reburied, in 1980 inside a plastic bag which was then placed inside a wooden box. She carefully picked up the skull, looking closely at it. She firmly believed that it belonged to a female, because of the way that the skull sutures had been formed. Nikhil, however, was likewise sure that the skull belonged to Nicholas, mainly in part because while many of the facial bones, including the upper jaw, were missing, the lower jaw still contained a fragmented bridge of six gold teeth.
She put the skull back down, shaking her head gently and moved on to examine the rest of the skeleton. The pelvic bones were most definitely those of a female too, and the few ankle joints that remained were worn in a way that was consistent with someone who may have spent a lot of time in menial work such as kneeling or crouching.
'A maid, perhaps?' she wondered out loud. 'Could you be Anna?' She appeared to have been shot through the thigh from behind, not a life-threatening wound by any means, but she couldn't find any other injuries that might have proved fatal.
'Time to go, May.' Agni said from beside her, and she was startled, not having heard him approach, or noticing it was so late in the day, she had been so engrossed in her examination.
'By the way, for what it's worth, I think it's Anna Demidova too!' Agni said, leaning in and whispering, his brown eyes glinting with mischief. 'But don't tell Nikhil!'
Katya was quiet on the way back in the car, and May could see Agni casting worried glances towards her in the backseat as he drove.
After a while, he said. 'It's not your fault if that dig was compromised, Katya. You know it, and so does everyone else. You have to stop blaming yourself.'
'You don't understand,' she replied angrily. 'I was the senior archaeologist there, and I should have had more control over what was happening. I should have insisted that I was in charge and made sure that it was done properly.'
'And just how do you think you would have done that Katya? If you had interfered, you would most likely have got yourself shot. You know that as well as I do!'
May was shocked at Agni’s words and at his anger. Surely he did not mean that? She commiserated with Katya and knew precisely how she would have felt if a whole lot of officials from government departments had come and walked all over one of her digs.
They didn't speak again until they were in the hotel waiting for the lift, when Katya said, 'I don't think I will join you for dinner tonight. I am feeling exhausted, and I think an early night will do me good.' She made an attempt at a bright smile, which failed miserably, and Agni put his arms around her and gave her a long hug.
'Only if you're sure.' he said, standing back and looking at her with concern. 'You know where we'll be if you change your mind.'
They had taken to eating their evening meal in the hotel restaurant, as they all enjoyed the food there and the service was excellent. The staff knew them by name now and went out of their way to make their evenings enjoyable.
As was their usual practice, May met Agni there at seven, and they ordered from the menu. Katya had not appeared, and so they both assumed that she had not changed her mind and had probably just ordered room service and gone to bed.
They had joked that at the rate they were going, they would have eaten their way through the entire menu, and May was determined to try everything on offer, choosing a different dish each night. Her choice was a chicken plov, which sounded delicious, and Agni chose his favourite, beef stroganoff. They ordered a bottle of red wine as they waited for their meals.
'I've been thinking about Anna Demidova,' May said. 'What do we know about her, Agni?'
'Not a lot really,' he replied, taking a sip of his wine, 'she must have been held in fairly high esteem by Alexandra as it would appear that she availed herself of the Imperial dentist. She started off in service with the Romanovs as a maid and went into exile with them to Tobolsk, most likely reluctantly, but did so out of a sense of duty or loyalty and then, of course, to Ekaterinburg. She would most likely have been Alexandra's lady in waiting at Ekaterinburg as she was the only female servant there.'
'I had wondered how she would have felt going into exile with them, whether she had a choice or if she was made to go. Whichever way it happened, she most likely would never have imagined that her life would be ended in such a brutal way as a result of her service.' May mused, sadly.
'If she is skeleton number one, I estimate her to have been around forty when she died with the rest of them,' Agni said. 'And apart from the one through her thigh, doesn't appear to have sustained any other bullet wounds. I would say then that she was stabbed to death with a bayonet. A horrible way to die.'
'Of course, you do realise don't you Agni, that if Anna is not number one, we have another serious problem on our hands?' May teased.
'How so?' he asked.
'We will have an unknown person in the grave along with the family, and it's for sure not one of the missing two, so we will have gone from a situation of too many missing bones to one of having too many bones!'
He laughed with her, almost choking on a mouthful of food. Anyone overhearing us would think we are heartless bastards May thought, but in this line of work, they needed to maintain a macabre sense of humour, and it was only at this time of the day when they were able to let their defences down and dispel some of the gloom and horror that surrounded them during the day.
They finished their meal and the wine and took the lift back up to their floor. Saying goodnight, Agni watched May walk down the corridor and let herself into her room. She gave him a little wave. He did not go into his room until he heard her door shut, and the locks snap into place.
Ten
Koptyaki Forest
Ekaterinburg, Russia.
19 July 1918
After leaving his men in the forest with the bodies and returning to the city for more supplies, the leader went to report to his superiors at headquarters to let them know what progress was being made with the disposal.
Understandably, they were not happy, as they had expected the business to have been completed hours ago. He explained the difficulties that experienced with the truck breaking down and getting stuck, and that the mine shaft that had initially been chosen had not been adequate after all, and that an alternative burial site now had to be found.
The leader also made it quite clear to them that he was not happy about the fact that Half-Face and his band of men had shown up, and that they had potentially compromised the entire operation.
'I thought this was to be done in secrecy,' he grumbled. 'Who the hell are those guys anyway, and how did they know to turn up? Half-Face was of the understanding that the prisoners would be alive and that they could help with the killing. I almost had a riot on my hands when I tried to get rid of them. The only use they turned out to be was that I needed their carts and horses; otherwise, we'd really be buggered.'
If his superiors had the answers to his questions, they weren't saying so, and they just sat glaring at him until he was forced to change the subject by asking them what they thought he should do next.
After much discussion, they all agreed that the bodies should be disfigured with acid and burnt as much as possible before eventually being buried, and he was told that further on in the forest were deeper copper mines; one of these surely would be suitable? The area was remote and swampy, and therefore it was highly unlikely that they would ever be discovered there.
'How do you propose that I completely burn eleven bodies?' He asked sarcastically as he had no idea at all of how this could be achieved.
Neither did anyone else, so he gathered the extra supplies that he needed, including ropes, shovels, and more petrol, and sent them on ahead. He tried to requisition a car to drive himself back into the forest, but none were available, so he obtained a horse and cart, and headed back to where his men waited at the Fou
r Brothers.
He thought about his conversation with his superiors at length on his long slow journey back, and as he did, he became angrier. He felt betrayed by them. He had followed their orders and through no fault of his own, had encountered these unforeseen and debilitating hurdles and delays every time he turned around. They had been wholly unsympathetic and unhelpful, all they were interested in was apportioning blame for the debacle this had turned into, and that blame was being laid entirely on him. He didn't trust them and decided that he was going to buy himself an insurance policy. He was going to do something they would know nothing about, and that he would be able to hold over them if he ever needed it. He had learned the hard way that no-one could be trusted, no matter how loyal they professed to be.
And after all, he was the one that was left in charge of a truck full of dead bodies in the middle of a bloody forest, not them. And not just any bodies either. His superiors sat complacent in Ekaterinburg and would no doubt deny all knowledge about what had happened if this was ever exposed.
At that moment, he made the decision that he was not going to dispose of all of the bodies together. He would keep two aside and get rid of them differently and somewhere else. That would be his secret.
It was common knowledge that there had been eleven people living in the Ipatiev House, and he thought that if a grave was ever discovered and it only contained nine corpses, it would create confusion, and they would never be identified as belonging to the former ruler and his family.
He had considered leaving two of them at the Four Brothers, burning them to ash, which had been his original idea for all of them, however, changed his mind after conclusion that the peasants they had found camped there could not be trusted and would most likely talk about the unusual activity they had seen that morning.
The Girl With the Crystal Soul Page 9