‘I thought you’d run away,’ she said, still smiling at him.
‘And I thought you were dead.’
‘I’m happy we were both wrong.’
‘The police said Lars took your place.’
‘Someone inside Mjollnir tipped him off about what was happening. He refused to tell me who it was and now I suppose we may never know. He saw his chance to find out what the family secret really was and I was so… disappointed…you’d quit on me I… didn’t try to talk him out of it. We met halfway to Koskinen’s house. I got out of the car and he got in. Matalainen had no choice about going along with it. There wasn’t time for him to argue. They drove away – to their deaths. When I heard about the explosion, I realized Tolmar had doublecrossed us – and killed his brother by mistake in the process. I moved to a different hotel so no one would know where I was and tried to decide what to do. In the end, I went to the police. They didn’t believe me, of course. Then the news came from here that Tolmar and Arto Falenius and another man had been found dead – and that you were in hospital. It was the last news I was expecting.’
‘The Opposition sent a hit man after Tolmar, who shot Falenius by mistake. Then Tolmar shot the hit man. And then…’ Eusden searched Pernille’s face for some clue to what she thought he had done. ‘It was him or me.’
‘I’m glad it wasn’t you.’
‘I don’t suppose Michael will be. How is he?’
‘Not good. He’s lost his uncle as well as his father. He’s…’ She shrugged. ‘You can imagine.’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘I left him in Helsinki with Elsa.’
‘Thanks for coming to see me. It… can’t have been easy to get away.’
‘I’ve been several times.’
‘So I gather. And you’ve had to fend off reporters to do it, apparently.’
‘I can handle them. I’m more worried about the police. What did they want to know?’
‘Everything. And that’s what I told them. Now I should tell you everything as well. About what happened by the lake.’
‘It can wait. The doctor says you need plenty of rest. You also need a lawyer. I can help with that.’
‘I’m just going to keep on telling the truth, Pernille. It’s about all I feel capable of doing.’
‘They’ve arrested Erik Lund.’
‘Good.’
‘And poor Osmo Koskinen. But I expect they’ll let him go soon. I think it’s going to be all right. But still you should have a lawyer.’
‘OK. If you say so.’
A silence fell briefly between them, strangely lacking in awkwardness. Then Pernille said, ‘I met your American friend, Regina Celeste, in Helsinki. She asked me to tell you that Werner Straub has turned up there.’
‘He’s wasting his time. Sooner or later, he’ll realize that and go home.’
‘She also asked me to tell you that you owe her an apology.’
‘I seem to owe quite a lot of people one of those.’
Another fleeting silence was broken this time by Eusden.
‘I’m sorry about Lars, Pernille. He seemed a decent man.’
‘He was. I never should have let him go… instead of me.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
She sighed. ‘It’s not going to be easy… to find a way through this. Michael is so angry. He doesn’t believe what I’ve told him about his father. He’ll have to in the end. But then…’
‘Maybe I can help.’ Eusden reached out towards her and she took his hand.
‘Maybe we can help each other,’ she said softly.
Lying in bed that night, gazing up at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the hospital around him, Eusden wondered if he and Pernille really were alive, or if this frailly hopeful future that seemed now to be possible was merely a consoling fantasy devised by his brain to render the process of freezing to death in a Finnish forest more tolerable. Maybe it was, he decided. But as consolations went, it was mightily effective. There was nothing to be gained by fighting against it. Time would tell whether it was real or not. He closed his eyes. And the darkness received him like a loyal friend.
COWES
FIFTY-TWO
The sky over Cowes is cloudless azure, the still air cool, the noon sun warm. It is a Wednesday in mid-September, yet there is no tinge of autumn in the late summer light. The warmth and stillness have certainly been a blessing for the occupants of the motorboat now approaching one of the jetties along the Parade. Richard Eusden and Gemma Conway are returning from a shared last act of mourning for their friend and in Gemma’s case ex-husband, Marty Hewitson: the scattering of his ashes in the indulgently calm, gently lapping waters of the Solent.
The owner of the motorboat puts them ashore, acknowledges their thanks and heads out again. The two people who knew Marty best in the world watch the departing vessel for a while, then walk slowly away, their savouring breaths of the ozoned air blended with full-hearted sighs. The sunlight sparkles on the wake of a Red Jet ferry as it accelerates out of the harbour, bound for Southampton. Eusden tracks its progress from the corner of his eye, knowing he will soon be leaving the Isle of Wight himself, crossing the water where he has just bidden a final farewell to his friend of nearly forty years.
As they turn away from the sea into Watchhouse Lane, Gemma breaks the silence that has hung between them since leaving the boat. ‘I’m glad we were able to do this at last, Richard. Just you and me. And Marty.’
‘Same here. I hated missing his funeral. This has… made up for it in a way, I guess. Even though…’
‘Yes?’
‘I should have been there. To say a few words. To tell everyone…I loved him.’
‘I told them for you. They all understood you couldn’t make the journey. Even Bernie Shadbolt.’
‘And Vicky?’
‘Her too, I think. They had lots of questions, of course. Questions I couldn’t answer.’
‘I’m not sure I’d have been able to either.’
‘Able? Or willing?’
Eusden smiles ruefully. ‘A bit of both.’ They reach the High Street end of the lane and stop by the entrance to the Union Inn. It is a pub he and Marty frequented in their time, as did Marty’s grandfather, Clem Hewitson, though never at the same time. ‘Can I buy you a drink, Gem?’ His use of the diminutive form of her name appears to surprise her almost as much as it does him. He wonders if this is the first occasion he has used it since their divorce. And he wonders if she wonders also. ‘Unless…’ He is aware she is not an entirely free agent. Their long postponed joint adieu to Marty has been arranged as part of a pre-term holiday Gemma is spending on the Island with Monica, who has diplomatically absented herself, though not, Eusden suspects, for long.
‘All right.’ Gemma smiles awkwardly. ‘Just a quick one.’
They enter the pub, stepping down into the cosy old bar that has changed little over the years. Eusden orders a pint of bitter for himself and a spritzer for Gemma. They sit by the window and toast Marty’s memory, the urn that held his ashes sitting in a bag at their feet.
‘I should’ve known Marty would die young,’ says Gemma. ‘He never stuck at anything.’ At that they manage a laugh. ‘You know, Richard, I’ve missed him more these past six months than I ever did in all the years we were apart.’
‘That’s because you could’ve talked to him if you’d really wanted to. But now…’
‘I can’t. Ever again.’ She draws a deep breath. ‘It feels like the three of us have been heading downriver in a boat and Marty’s got out and stood on the bank, while we sail on, looking back at him as he slowly fades from view.’
Eusden pats her hand. ‘I’ll miss him too.’
‘He so wanted his life to… add up to more than it did. I suppose that’s why he wouldn’t leave the mystery Clem bequeathed to him in that attaché case alone. It gave him…a high to go out on.’ She half-turns in her seat to look at Eusden. ‘All those things you told me when I visited you in Finla
nd…’
‘What about them?’
‘Were they really true?’
‘I didn’t lie to you, Gemma. I can assure you of that.’
‘No, but…’ She opens the small rucksack that doubles as her handbag and takes out a newspaper cutting, which she unfolds and lays on the table between them. ‘Did you see this?’
Eusden looks down at the Guardian headline from a few weeks ago. BONES FOUND BY RUSSIAN BUILDER FINALLY SOLVE RIDDLE OF THE MISSING ROMANOVS. He remembers it well, as a Guardian reader himself. He was wandering out of his local newsagent’s in Chiswick one Saturday morning in late August when he opened the paper and saw the faces of the Romanovs staring at him from a 1915 photograph: the Tsar and Tsarevich in imperial navy uniform, the Tsarina and her daughters in the dresses of a bygone age, all solemnly unsmiling, as if oppressed by foreknowledge of what history had in store for them. The two bodies missing from the burial site near Ekaterinburg had finally been found, the article declared, by a local builder on a speculative weekend root-around; case closed at long last. ‘I saw it,’ Eusden says quietly.
‘So, this proves Tolmar Aksden’s father wasn’t the Tsarevich.’
‘Does it?’
‘Well? What do you think?’
‘Not sure. But I can tell you what Marty would say.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘First, DNA isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Second, the Guardian’s man in Moscow falls for the Russian claim that the missing sister was Maria, whereas all the neutral pathologists agreed at the time it was Anastasia. Third, we’re supposed to believe this guy with a prodder found what a whole team of archaeologists failed to find in years of systematic digging. Fourth, the 1991 excavation was patently a put-up job, so you’d have to reckon this was too. Fifth, it comes within months of Tolmar Aksden’s death, unpublicized details of which could conceivably have reached the ears of those who arrange such things in Russia. And sixth, only people who know none of the details – which is more or less everybody, of course – would be convinced this settles a damn thing.’
Gemma smiles at him. ‘I thought you’d say something like that.’ ‘I said it’s what Marty would say. I don’t have an opinion.’
‘There speaks the civil servant.’
‘Not any more.’ He grins.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’ve resigned. I finished at the end of August.’
Gemma looks genuinely astonished. ‘You’re having me on.’
‘No. I quit. Handed in my security pass. Cleared my desk. Sloughed off my Whitehall gravitas.’
‘Why?’
‘I got a better offer.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I’ll be working for an aid organization in Denmark called Uddanne Afrika. I start next week.’
‘In Denmark?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, I…’ Gemma shakes her head in wonderment and sips her spritzer. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Does this…’ She frowns thoughtfully. ‘Does this have anything to do with Pernille Madsen?’ She carries on before he can devise an evasive answer. ‘It does, doesn’t it? This isn’t just about a job.’
‘Maybe not.’ He shrugs diffidently. ‘We’ll see.’
Gemma’s astonishment has by now turned to delighted disbelief. She smiles broadly. ‘In that case, I wish you all the luck in the world.’
Two hours later, Eusden is sitting alone in a coffee shop in the Fountain Arcade, sipping an americano and watching the quayside world go by before boarding the Southampton ferry. Gemma is long gone. There is nothing to keep him here now, on this island where he and Marty were born. He will return occasionally, of course, to visit his sister and her family. Or maybe they will visit him, wherever he may be. Either way, it will be a long time before he is here again. That much seems certain.
A bus from Newport pulls in as he gazes through the open doorway. The past does not arrive with it. His boyhood self does not step off into the mellow sunlight. And Marty is not waiting for him, chewing gum, hands in pockets, lolling against the nearest pillar. The memory of those times is so close he can almost touch it. But it will never be quite close enough. That much is also certain.
The ringing of his phone plucks him back to the present. He takes it out of his pocket and smiles when he sees who the caller is.
‘Pernille?’
‘Hi.’
‘Hi, yourself.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Fountain Quay. Waiting for the ferry.’
‘So, it’s done?’
‘Yes. It’s done.’
‘Did it… go well?’
‘Yes. I think it did.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.’
‘I’m looking forward to seeing you too.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine. Though…’
‘What?’
‘I have some news for you. It’s not urgent. It can wait until tomorrow if you like.’
‘Not sure I could bear that. What is it?’
‘Something Michael found while he was sorting through Tolmar’s things. I was happy he finally did it. And I guess I should be happy he wanted to share this thing he found with me.’
‘And this thing is?’
‘A telegram. A very old telegram. Kept in a locked drawer of the desk in Tolmar’s study. It was sent to Paavo Falenius in Helsinki from somewhere in Russia. I can’t read the name of the place. It’s in the Russian alphabet. But the message and the sender’s name are in English. It’s dated twenty-fifth September, 1918. Falenius must have given it to Tolmar as… some kind of proof, I guess. Though it doesn’t prove anything actually.’
‘Is it from Karl Wanting?’ Eusden asks, knowing already there really is no one else it could be from.
‘Yes. It is.’
‘What’s the message?’
‘Just one word. And the sender’s name. Found. Wanting.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
None of the universally acknowledged facts concerning the ultimate fates of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and their children have been misrepresented in this novel. The same is true of the life of the woman who later claimed to be their daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Readers who care to consult the archives of the Isle of Wight County Press will find a contemporary report there of the visit of the Russian imperial family to Cowes in August 1909. As to what really happened at the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg in the early hours of 17 July 1918, the most accurate statement that can be made is that those who believe they know the course of events for certain can surely never have seriously attempted to learn what the course of events truly was.
I am indebted to Andrew Roberts for suggesting it was time I tackled the subject of this novel. For help generously given to me while I was planning and writing it, I am very grateful to my good friends Susan Moody and John Donaldson, to their good friend Iver Tesdorpf and to my wonderful Danish translator, Claus Bech (whose family secret regarding Tsar Alexander III’s walking stick I have vowed to keep). Thanks to them, location research was not merely fruitful, but a lot of fun into the bargain. Skål!
Robert Goddard
***
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-e3b050-354f-5e47-5ea3-9989-2923-9ffef7
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 25.01.2010
Created using: Fiction Book Designer software
Document authors :
Source URLs :
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать ма
териал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
Found Wanting Page 28