'Closer to seventy years.' May agreed.
Nikhil continued. 'Also, I believe that there are two groups of people present; one being members of the same family. The other group is not forensically related at all. I believe that we have the remains of four adult men, three adult women, and two younger women, possibly in their late teens.'
He took a deep breath, looking around the room as if waiting for any challenges or questions, none of which eventuated.
'I believe these are the remains of the Romanov family and members of their household. Of course, further testing is required to identify each body separately.'
'I concur Nikhil,' said May, 'therefore, I believe that by process of elimination, we can quite probably agree that the two missing bodies are those of the boy, Alexey and one of the Romanov daughters?'
'Well, yes. If we look at who was in the house at the time, I think we can safely say that the four adult men we have here are Nicholas Romanov, Dr. Botkin, Trupp and Kharitonov.'
'And the three adult women are most likely Alexandra Romanov, Olga Romanov, and Anna Demidova.' Vadim added. 'I have classed Olga as being an adult woman as her age at the time was twenty-two. Are we in agreement?'
Yes. May thought. Olga is here in this room, but I already knew that.
There were no dissenters, so Vadim continued. 'The remaining two are, to me, quite problematic. Obviously, they are two of the daughters, and I think they are most likely Tatiana, and; this is totally my view, of course, Anastasia. Until the tests are fully completed, I cannot say for sure. Anastasia and Maria were close in age at the time of death, and therefore their bone structures are characteristically quite similar.'
'So, we are saying that the boy, Alexey and either Maria or Anastasia, are missing?' May asked the room in general.
'Anastasia is not missing!' Nikhil said vehemently. 'She is here in this room. I am certain that she is skeleton six. In fact, I would stake my reputation on it!'
They looked at him in surprise as this had come from nowhere; however, no-one was confident enough to argue with him. As Vadim had said, the two girls were close in age and bore striking similarities to each other.
'So, it is Maria and Alexey who are missing? Is that what we are saying?' Agni asked.
'Yes.' said Nikhil, with finality.
'We need to find them.' May said. 'Where do you think they are?'
She felt a sense of urgency, as though this was the grief that was still permeating the room and her heart, the pain she felt from Olga, that their family unit was not complete, and that while they were separated, none of them could be at peace. Yes, there was relief that they had finally been found after all these years and that there would, eventually, be closure, but not until they had all been found.
'From what we know, which isn't much, and changes depending on who you are talking to' Agni began, 'there were eleven bodies taken to the forest that night. Yurovsky, who was Commander of the house at the time and who oversaw the executions, decided, for whatever reason, to place only nine bodies into the grave. The other two had been taken somewhere else in the forest, burnt and buried, apparently not too far from the main grave. But of course, no-one knows for sure.'
'Could they have been taken back to the Four Brothers?' Katya asked, looking hopefully at Agni. 'It might have been easier to dispose of just two bodies there.'
'No, I believe that they are there, and not too far from the main site.' May replied. 'I suppose once the news gets out that two bodies are missing every amateur sleuth in Russia will be out there looking for them.'
'Well, I for one hope they do and that they find them,' said Katya, 'their recovery could make our jobs a lot easier and perhaps answer some questions.'
Having finished for the day, they piled into Agni's car and headed back to the hotel. On the way, Katya, who was sitting in the back, leaned forward between them and said urgently, 'can we go somewhere else before we go to the hotel? Somewhere private where we can talk without being seen or overheard? I have something that I need to tell you, it's very important.'
'Of course,' replied Agni, 'where do you suggest?'
As it was still early and the weather was glorious, they drove back to Ekaterinburg to the Arboretum and walked to the fountain. They sat on a bench under a large shady tree, Katya, between them.
They waited for her to speak. She sat, wringing her hands, her expression set, and worried.
'There are some things that you don't know about,' she said finally. 'I can't keep them from you anymore, I don't think it's fair as it's starting to impede your ability to make informed decisions.'
'What do you mean, Katya?' asked Agni.
She took a deep breath. 'What you haven't been told, is that when we exhumed the grave, we discovered several anomalies which suggested to us that the grave may have been opened before 1979.'
'Who's we?'
'Nikhil and I.' She replied.
'But why was nothing said about this?' Agni demanded.
'I don't know. All I was told was to keep quiet about it and that it would be revealed later. But, as time has gone by and that hasn't happened, I felt that I needed to say something now. You have to keep quiet about it! You cannot let Nikhil know that I have told you!'
'What did you see that made you think this?' May asked her.
'I saw strips of soil on the north-eastern side of the pit, which to me indicated that it had been deposited there sometime after 1918.'
'The different coloured soil we saw from the 1979 dig was at the southwestern side of the pit.' May mused.
'Yes, a completely different place.' Katya confirmed. 'As well as that, underneath the soil, the layers of railway ties that had been described as intact when re-laid in 1979, were completely disintegrated. They were rotted and barely resembled railway ties at all when I saw them. They looked to me as though they had been damaged, and not just by time and the conditions they had been in.'
'What else?' Agni asked tersely.
'We found a power cable along the western side of the pit.'
'A what?' He shouted, jumping to his feet. A bloody power cable? Tell me you're joking Katya!'
'I'm not,' she said, almost in tears. 'It measured fifteen centimetres in diameter, and crossed through the grave along the southwestern edge. The cable ran parallel to the thorax of skeleton seven. It was my view that the cable had disturbed the integrity of the remains quite considerably. It had, in fact, overturned and disrupted some of the bones.'
'Do you have any idea of when the cable was laid?' He asked.
'There are differing estimates about that.' Katya replied, 'someone said it was laid in 1972, while others say it was done a year and a half before now, which would make it early 1990. The people working there at the time say that they were not aware of a grave.'
'That will explain then why the skeletons were lying in such a disordered way.' May remarked thoughtfully. 'If a skeleton is lying without interruption, the bones should be found in their anatomical order; obviously, they weren't in this case.'
'That's right,' said Katya. 'They appeared as though they had been turned over and in many ways, spoilt.'
'Was there any mention of this cable back in 1979?' Agni asked.
'No, nothing. The men who opened the grave then didn't report seeing anything, although to be fair, the pit was filled with muddy water at the time, and they couldn't see the bottom of it.' Katya replied.
'Can you remember how deep the cable was when you saw it?' May asked her softly, sensing that she was becoming overwhelmed by all of their questions.
Katya reached into her bag and pulled out a folder. 'I've written it all down here. The cable was eighty centimetres down. The 1979 excavation reached a depth of one hundred centimetres. We know for sure that skulls one, five, and seven were extracted from the pit at depths of ninety, ninety-two, and one hundred centimetres respectively, which means that if it had been there in 1979, the cable would have been located above those remains. They would have had to ha
ve seen it or at the very least, felt it in there.'
'So that means that the cable couldn't have been laid in 1972, and the beginning of 1990 is most likely correct.' Agni concluded.
'Yes. And there are a couple of other strange things.'
Why am I not surprised? May thought.
'The power cable was found beneath the pile of rotted railway ties; therefore, they must have been removed. The cable could not have ended up inside the grave otherwise. They could have become damaged and fragmented then, and it is also possible that the crew who laid the cable did this. But, if that was the case, how could they have failed to notice the bodies? Particularly as we know that the cable caused significant disruption to the integrity of the bones.'
'And that the level of the cable itself would have come into contact with several of the remains. Alexandra, skeleton seven in particular as she was found at a depth of seventy-nine to ninety-six centimetres.' Agni remarked thoughtfully.
They sat silently, each contemplating what this could mean.
'What's the other strange thing, Katya?' May asked.
'Probably the most significant thing that also suggests that the grave was secretly opened between 1980 and 1991 is with what we found in the wooden box.
'That's the wooden box that the three skulls were reburied in back in 1980?'
'Yes, the three skulls had been placed within plastic bags before being put into the wooden box. The men placed a small metal icon also wrapped in a plastic bag into the wooden box along with the skulls and other bones they had taken in 1989. When we recovered the wooden box, it had split apart, which was not unusual since it had been sitting in wet earth for eleven years, but the skulls and the bones were still in their plastic bags and were otherwise undisturbed. The metal icon, however, had rusted and broken into many pieces, and those pieces were contained in separate, multiple polyethylene bags.'
'That's incredible.' May breathed, hardly able to believe what she was hearing.
'Well, of course, the icon could have rusted and fragmented over eleven years of being in the ground, but how the hell could the pieces have then gotten into separate bags?' Agni sounded as dumbfounded as May felt. He sat, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief.
'I am baffled though Katya.' May said, 'I took a really close look at the pit when Agni brought me here, and I certainly saw the 1979 disturbance, and I commented on it to him at the time. I didn't see any other signs of disturbance, though, certainly not to the extent that you have told us about just now. That should have been really noticeable, and I don't know how I could have missed it?'
Katya paused before answering, chewing her bottom lip. 'That evidence was destroyed, May. I hate to say it, but it was obliterated by the digger at the end of the three days, once we had finished.'
'Destroyed!' May and Agni both echoed in shock. 'But why and by whose order?' Agni managed to ask.
'It was Nikhil.' Katya replied in a small voice. 'He seemed to know what to expect, he most certainly wasn't surprised at what we found, and it was on his instructions that the digger was used to collapse that side of the pit.'
'So, what are we saying here?' asked May
'That I lied to you when I said that there was no way the grave could have been tampered with before we excavated it in July. It very obviously has been opened, at least twice before now. I don't know whether this goes any way towards helping us solve the mystery of the missing bones, it probably doesn't, but I needed to get this off my chest and tell you.'
'Why did Nikhil want it covered up, Katya?'
'I just don't know Agni, and I am so sorry I kept this secret from you. I hope you will forgive me.'
'Of course.' He said, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick hug. 'I completely understand the quandary you have been in over this. It is a terrible secret to have kept, and I am glad that you have told us. It answers a few questions for me that's for sure.'
They walked back to the car and headed back to the hotel. That evening over dinner, they spoke of everything but their work.
Twelve
Governor's House
Tobolsk, Western Siberia, Russia
April 1918
Olga cried when her parents were taken away. The others did too, of course, but they were soon able to compose themselves, accept what had happened, and start preparing for when they also would leave, and they would all be together again. As hard as she tried, she just couldn't. She felt awash with tears, as though a dam somewhere inside her had burst, and the tears would not stop. A lump that felt like the size of a large rock permanently filled her chest, and the inside of her head was dark, black. An unfathomable dread for their future consumed her, and although she refused to give it life, to name it for what she knew it was, it walked behind her every day and followed her every step she took.
Tatiana tried her best to cheer her, and even Anastasia's usual clowning failed to ease her grief.
She was angry with herself; she was the eldest of the five children and felt that she should be setting an example for the younger ones, not behaving like a baby. She did not know what was wrong with her. All she could feel was this great sorrow, a darkness that had grown steadily worse since her father's abdication and their exile from the only life she had known. How she longed to be back at the Alexander Palace, nursing and taking care of the wounded soldiers in the hospital annexe. She desperately missed the feeling of being wanted and useful and wondered and worried about what was happening with them and with the war. Olga longed for Mitya, the brave, handsome officer whom she had fallen in love with while she nursed him and healed his wounds. She remembered the final words he had spoken to her the last time she had seen him before they were separated by war and abdication
'I love you, darling girl. Remember that you are my girl with the crystal soul. I will find you, no matter where you are.' Olga tried to hold onto that, to his words, which were still as clear to her today as they had been almost two years ago now. How could it have possibly been that long ago since she had seen him or spoken to him or even had a word of him? The few letters that they did receive here from friends were silent.
And so, with each day that passed, her grief and sense of loss grew, and she doubted that she would ever see him again.
They had been under house arrest in the Governor's House in Tobolsk since August, and apart from not being free to come and go, their lives were reasonably comfortable. They were able to exercise outside; however, they had no garden, and as the months ground on relentlessly, their sense of being locked up grew more and more intense, and they soon became bored with their strict unchanging routine. They spent as much time as they could outside when the days were warm and sunny.
Papa, helped by Anastasia, had dug out a pond for the ducks and geese that had been brought in, and he had also built them a platform on the roof of the greenhouse where they sat soaking up the sunshine as they watched the world go by.
'Happy birthday, my dearest.' Papa said, hugging her the day she turned twenty-two. 'I am sorry that your birthday has to be spent in such horrible circumstances. I am sure that next year will be much better for you and for all of us.'
Olga smiled and hugged him back, thanking him for his kind wishes, but inside she was screaming. What was to become of her? Her current prospects were entirely dismal, now unmarried at the age of twenty-two, and a captive in Siberia.
As it was November, it was snowing heavily, so they were not able to go outside. She laughed with delight at the gifts of small potted cyclamen and geraniums she had been given as birthday gifts by her beloved sisters.
She had never thought much about her future when she was a Grand Duchess but felt sure that her parents would have wanted her to make a marriage for love and that they would not have forced her into a match that she was not happy with. But now she thought about her future all of the time, but she could see nothing. No marriage, no children, just the blackness that engulfed her. She looked at herself in the mirror, she
was gaunt, both in body and face, still not fully recovered from her bout of measles and the ongoing effect the illness had on her health. Her blue eyes seemed faded; their sparkle lost, and her skin no longer a healthy milky white but pale to the point of death. She couldn't even look at her shorn head; although her hair was slowly growing back, she always kept it wrapped in an old scarf. Her clothes hung on her.
She thought about the clothes she had to leave behind at Tsarskoe Selo, her beautiful court dresses and gowns with matching shoes and headdresses, but found that really, she didn't mind at all. That life seemed so very long ago now, she wondered if it had been real or just a dream.
With every day that passed. She felt herself withdrawing further and further from the rest of her family, her anxiety increasing. She knew that she had become short-tempered, and found herself snapping at Alexey and Anastasia over small, silly inconsequential things. She felt ashamed at how she had begun to find fault with Mama and her constant grumbles about their captivity, the uncouth guards, or as always, her many ailments, aches, and pains. Olga knew that all would be well if they could just leave this place and go to England, which was all they wanted now, to start new lives there, as ordinary people, away from the politics and intrigue. And now the unthinkable had happened. Their new commander had just ordered Papa away from them and would not even say where he was being taken to. Mama was crying out in anguish, saying that he was not to be taken on his own, that she did not trust the guards or the officials when they said he would not come to any harm.
'He will most likely be taken to Moscow to stand trial.' The Commander finally admitted.
'On trial for what?' Mama screamed. 'He is not a criminal, and he will not be taken away from us and go there on his own!' The Commander just looked at Mama with amusement; however, he eventually gave his permission that Papa could have a travelling companion, and that we were to decide whom that would be. Mama agonised for hours over what might happen to Papa if he was on his own, especially without her to look out for his best interests as she believed she had always done. She was still bitter that he had made the decision to abdicate and firmly believed that if she had been there with him at the time, he would not have done so.
The Girl With the Crystal Soul Page 11