‘Who is Olga? And who is Trina?’ Kitty wondered out loud.
Vera shrugged and continued: ‘It seems you must knead the dough for at least twenty minutes to get air into it, then let it rest for half an hour before moulding it into shape. Any activity that distracts us from missing Mama, Papa and Maria is welcome, and I expect that in my next life the skill of breadmaking will prove useful.’
‘In my next life?” Kitty wondered, then answered her own question. ‘Perhaps this was written at a time when Dmitri was planning to emigrate. He lived in Berlin between the wars.’
Vera flicked a few pages further: ‘4th June, Monday. We are all furious with Maria, who has been fraternising with the youngest guard, Anton, the one with the crooked nose. She thinks it is a joke, but it encourages them to toy with the rest of us. I had to push Anton hard tonight as he grabbed my breast on the way to the latrine, and he made a crude sound with his tongue, taunting me.’ Vera looked up at Kitty. ‘It appears this was written by a woman.’
Kitty was surprised. ‘Who can it be? And why was there a guard? Where were they?’
Vera read on: ‘I feel a growing sense of dread that we will die in this godforsaken house with whitewashed windows, denied even one ray of sunlight, and that I will never see my dearest love again …’
‘It sounds as though they are in captivity. I wonder why.’
Vera gasped as she read the next bit. ‘Tomorrow is Anastasia’s seventeenth birthday.’ She looked at Kitty. ‘Do these names mean anything to you? Olga, Maria and Anastasia?’
‘No. Should they?’
Vera skimmed down the page and translated another bit: ‘Alexei is being very brave but he has not been well enough for us to wheel him into the garden since we arrived here.’ She looked at Kitty. ‘I suppose it could be a forgery.’
‘A forgery of what? Who do you think they are?’
Vera frowned. ‘These are the names of the Romanov imperial family, who were imprisoned after the Revolution in February 1917.’
‘Surely it can’t be!’ Kitty racked her brains, trying to remember her history lessons. ‘Why would Dmitri have a journal belonging to one of them?’
Vera placed the notebook on a side table as though it were a precious relic and stood up. ‘I think I should wear gloves when handling this. It could be a document of historic importance.’ She walked across the room and retrieved a pair of white cotton gloves from a drawer.
‘Really? Do you think there’s a chance it is genuine?’
‘We know both the elder girls and their parents kept diaries. They are held in the State Archives of the Russian Federation but parts have been released in translation and this is remarkably similar in tone and content. That description of whitewashed windows sounds like the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. It’s well documented that Maria flirted with a guard there and the others were furious with her.’
Kitty was stunned and could barely take it in. ‘What happened to them?’
‘They were murdered in the early hours of July the seventeenth, 1918.’ Vera sat down again and opened the diary to its last page. ‘This diary finishes on the fourteenth, a Sunday.’ She reached for an iPad that Kitty hadn’t noticed before. Somehow it seemed incongruous in the dusty, bookish surroundings. She tapped on it for a few minutes then said, ‘Yes, the fourteenth of July 1918 was a Sunday. Of course, there will have to be many tests if this is to be verified as genuine.’
Kitty was amazed. ‘Whose diary do you think it is?’
‘It must be Tatiana’s. All the others have been mentioned.’ She tapped on the iPad again then handed it to Kitty. There was a picture on the screen of a very elegant girl with short wavy hair worn in a side parting, dressed in an ankle-length ivory gown covered in embroidery, and wearing several necklaces and bracelets. She looked haughty, regal and suspicious, as if she was not someone who found it easy to trust.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Kitty said. ‘How tragic that she was killed!’
Vera took back the iPad and did another search. ‘Look at that!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s Tatiana’s handwriting. It’s very sharp and graphic, with up and down strokes that are unusual for the period. It’s identical to the writing in your diary, don’t you think?’
Kitty looked from one to the other. The figures were written in the same way; they were indistinguishable. ‘But why would my great-grandfather have had Tatiana’s diary?’
‘There are a number of possibilities,’ Vera mused. ‘A week after the murders, the Ipatiev House was opened to the public and sightseers wandered in and helped themselves to souvenirs. Dmitri could have been one of them, or it could have been passed on to him by someone else. I suppose he could even have been one of the guards at the house.’
‘You mean one of the murderers?’ Instinctively Kitty felt that couldn’t be true. Any man who had written love stories as moving as the ones she had read could never have been a killer.
‘No, historians are pretty sure they know who all the murderers were. Yakov Yurovsky, the head of the guards, and eight of his men.’ She tapped on the iPad and read out the names when she found them: ‘Ermakov, Kudrin, Medvedev, Nikulin, Kabanov, Netrebin, Vaganov and Jan Tsel’ms. He picked the most cold-blooded men he could muster. I believe several other guards refused to be part of it.’
Kitty shuddered and hoped Dmitri had not been involved. But if not, how did he come to have the diary? Suddenly she remembered the pendant and took it off to show Vera. ‘I found this under my great-grandfather’s cabin and a jeweller told me it is Fabergé.’
Vera peered at it. ‘Michael Wigstr?m, the Romanovs’ favourite workmaster. It’s lovely.’ She handed it back. ‘Why don’t I lend you a couple of books so you can read about the family?’ She rose and her eyes roamed along a shelf until she found what she was looking for. She picked out one book, then another.
‘That’s very kind. And would you consider translating the diary?’
Vera hesitated. ‘My services don’t come cheap. Why not donate it to a library or university and they will pay for the translation?’
‘I don’t want to give it to anyone else. It’s one of the few things I have left of my great-grandfather, a memento of the Russian heritage I have only recently discovered. If I pay for the translation, what sort of cost are we talking about?’
Vera sat down to estimate the number of pages then sucked her lip and finally quoted two thousand dollars. She thought it would take her two to three weeks.
Kitty didn’t have to think for long. Her great-grandfather had kept this diary for a reason and she was sure he would want her to read it. She could use some of the money she had inherited from him, which was sitting in her current account. ‘I’d like to go ahead, if you’re sure you want to …’
‘Are you kidding?’ Vera grinned, suddenly looking much younger. ‘I can think of nothing I’d like more. What a fascinating project!’
Kitty held out her hand and they shook. ‘It’s a deal.’
As she drove back to Lake Akanabee, her mind whizzed through all the possible reasons why her great-grandfather might have had the diary of a Russian grand duchess in his possession. Had he known the family? Had he found it after their murder? Why had he kept it rather than donating it to a library? Or was it a clever forgery that he planned to use in a novel?
She wished Tom were there. He had a logical mind and often surprised her by suggesting answers she hadn’t thought of. She liked the fact that their brains worked so differently.
And then she remembered the photo-message on his phone and grimaced. You bastard, Tom. Why did you have to ruin everything?
Chapter Twenty-Seven