Yelena explained that the family all lived on the first floor, and she drew a plan of the rooms. She showed him where the guards took their meals, where the chapel was, and she drew a map of each of the entrances. ‘There’s a door leading down to the basement just here,’ she pointed. ‘Some of the guards sleep there.’
Dmitri looked at her sketch and asked questions until he felt he could picture every corridor and doorway. ‘How far in advance do you know the days you will clean?’ he asked.
‘Only a couple of days,’ she said. ‘It is roughly once a week, although the actual dates vary. The next days will be Monday the eighth and Tuesday the ninth of July.’
Dmitri nodded. ‘So after that it could be the fifteenth and sixteenth?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘We’ll speak again. Thank you with all my heart for this information.’
Malevich and his ‘spruce trees’ arrived on the 10th of July and they met at Dmitri’s cottage. After they greeted each other and Dmitri handed round shots of illegal vodka he’d purchased from his landlord, they sat down to study the layout of the Ipatiev House and hear from him about the number of men in the guard posts and the hours at which the guard was changed. There were fewer guards on duty from one till five in the morning so they agreed the raid must be between those hours. The plan was to kill the external guards instantly before they could signal to waken their comrades indoors. It was made trickier because a curfew had been imposed on the town and all citizens were supposed to stay indoors after eight in the evening, but as yet it was not being strictly enforced.
‘We shoot for the heads,’ Malevich suggested. ‘You say the sentry posts are around twenty feet tall and we will be on the opposite side of the main road? That’s close enough range.’
Everyone knew it was risky. There were many ways the plan could fail but they talked it over endlessly, exploring every possibility, until it seemed as foolproof as such things ever can be. Dmitri trusted Malevich with his life, and the men he’d brought were former imperial guards, trained to a far more exacting level than any common soldier. He felt a thrill at the impending action. At last he would be doing something after seventeen fruitless months of watching from the sidelines. At last Tatiana would be free.
No one except Tolmachev, his wife and daughter knew about the plan to free Tatiana from the house. Dmitri was too ashamed to share it with Malevich or Sir Thomas. It had no strategic advantage; it was purely his own selfish scheme to keep her out of harm’s way.
Dmitri visited the British consulate every few days and Sir Thomas confirmed that Henry Armistead was still planning to arrive on the 13th, and that he had agreed to help. As the day grew closer, Yelena confirmed that she would be working on the 15th and 16th and Dmitri asked Sir Thomas to tell Armistead the cargo would be ready for dispatch in the early hours of the 16th.
He then wrote a note for Tatiana to warn her of what would happen. ‘We need your help to plan a rescue. On Monday, a cleaner will switch clothes with you while they are working in the house and you should leave with the other cleaners and let her take your place. Don’t be scared. I will be waiting outside.’ It was only as he wrote this that it dawned on him what a huge risk he was asking her to take. What would happen if she were discovered trying to walk out? What if a guard intercepted this note? But still, he convinced himself, it was safer than being inside the Ipatiev House during the rescue operation.
He walked past the house on Friday the 12th, while the girls were in the yard, and looked through the knothole. Once he was sure Tatiana had spotted him, he stuck the note into the hole, so it protruded only slightly on the other side, then walked off. He turned back as he reached the street corner and could see the paper had already gone. There was no changing his mind now.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ekaterinburg, Russia, 13th–15th July 1918
On Saturday the 13th of July, Dmitri rode to the consulate in the afternoon hoping to meet Henry Armistead, only to be told he still had not arrived.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sir Thomas assured him. ‘I telephoned and was told that he left yesterday, so he should be here by nightfall. Come again tomorrow.’
The following day there was still no sign of him and no word either. Armistead must have been delayed on the journey. Dmitri felt he would explode with tension. He ran his fingers through his hair and hardly noticed when he yanked out a strand. Pain was a welcome distraction.
He met Malevich early on Sunday evening to discuss the options.
‘I think we should go ahead. The arrangements are made, all the men are here,’ Dmitri argued. ‘The longer we wait, the more chance there is of something happening to them.’
Malevich was adamantly against it. ‘There is no point freeing the Romanovs without a strategy to whisk them out of the country. They can’t get on a train without the railway workers reporting it. It’s too far to reach safety by road. We need Armistead’s help.’
Dmitri had to accept he was right, but felt panicky at the thought of waiting. Anything could happen in a week.
After their meeting, Dmitri tried calling on Sir Thomas again but there was no sign of the merchant and Sir Thomas was at a loss to explain his absence. He tried to calm the increasingly distraught Dmitri. ‘He has never let me down before. I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow.’
Dmitri didn’t explain to him why he was quite so agitated. Sir Thomas didn’t know that the following day Yelena would be going into the Ipatiev House to change places with Tatiana. Should Dmitri stop her? Or should he trust that Mr Armistead would appear and the plan could proceed?
Back at his cottage, Dmitri sat up late mulling over the options until his brain was frazzled, absent-mindedly stroking the waistcoat Tatiana had knitted for him. There was still time to ride to Tolmachev’s farm and tell Yelena that the plan was delayed till the following week – but he was reluctant because he yearned so badly to see Tatiana. He had been counting the hours until he could hold her in his arms and a week seemed an impossibly long delay.
Eventually he decided that Yelena should go ahead and make the switch. If Armistead did not arrive, it could be a trial run for the following week, giving Dmitri a chance to brief Tatiana about their plans, so the family could take cover when the rescue began. He convinced himself it made sense.
Next morning, Dmitri watched as the party of cleaning ladies made their way into the Ipatiev House at 8 a.m., Yelena among them. He rode round the town, in an attempt to contain his extreme agitation. This was the moment when it could all go wrong. At eleven he enquired at the consulate, to be told that Mr Armistead had still not appeared, and he glanced into the exercise yard to see Tatiana strolling with her sisters. Was she going to do as he asked? She must be petrified. At twelve noon, he positioned himself on a street corner just a few houses further down Vozhnesensky Prospekt and consulted his pocket watch, wearing an old jacket and cap like a factory worker.
The gates opened and a group of women walked out in a huddle. Dmitri strained his eyes to pick out individual figures but he couldn’t see either Tatiana or Yelena. His heart was thudding against his ribcage.