‘He retired from carpets in 1951, on his sixtieth birthday. By that time he was relatively wealthy because the movie adaptation of his novel In the Pale Light of Dawn had come out, and he owned a share of the box office. The receipts from that and the follow-up, Toward the Sunset, kept him comfortably for the rest of his life.’
Kitty was gobsmacked. Call herself a journalist? She’d been trying to find out about Dmitri all summer and hadn’t even turned up the fact that two of his novels had been filmed. It made her all the more astonished that no one had told her about him when she was growing up. She’d often sat down to watch old movies on Saturday evenings with her mum, dad and Grandma Marta. Why had none of them mentioned the family connection to movies?
‘I see this comes as a surprise,’ the detective continued, ‘so you probably won’t be able to help us fill in any more of Irena Markova’s life story. We know she came to the US from Czechoslovakia in 1948 and set up home in Albany, but we have no record of her death in this country. We got in touch with her stepdaughter, Hana Markova, in a place called Brno,’ – he pronounced it ‘Burr-know’. ‘We tracked her down using the address on Irena’s immigration papers but she says they didn’t hear from her after 1948.’
‘Do you think it might be Irena Markova who was buried at my cabin?’ It was horrible to think of the body as a person with a name, an identity, someone with living relatives who would be upset to hear of her death.
‘It’s only a possibility,’ the detective said. ‘We may be able to make an identification from dental records, or if we find a blood relative who can give a DNA match. But it might be someone else entirely. Perhaps it’s a stranger buried there without your great-grandfather’s knowledge and we may never identify her.’
Kitty shook her head in astonishment. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, but it seems you know more about my family than I do. Dmitri had lost touch with his daughter Marta when he died and I have no idea why.’
‘I can’t help you there.’ He consulted his notes. ‘Dmitri’s son Nicholas died at the age of forty-five of cirrhosis of the liver. Marta moved to England in 1958 and we don’t know what she did after that.’
‘Cirrhosis!’ Kitty was alarmed. ‘So he was an alcoholic?’
‘Not necessarily – but I believe that’s the most common cause.’
Oh Christ, that means I have a gene for alcoholism, Kitty realised. She knew she had been drinking far too much that summer. She’d have to rein it in.
‘Anyway, you are free to move back into your cabin now,’ the detective said. He stood up and handed her a card. ‘Get in touch if you think of anything that might be pertinent.’
‘Before you go … would it be possible to put me in touch with Hana Markova? I’d really like to speak to her.’
He gave her a sharp look. ‘I don’t think that would be right, in the circumstances, do you?’
It was only then she realised they were seriously investigating her great-grandfather for murder. Could it be true? Had she misjudged him all along? Maybe he had been involved in the murder of the Romanovs and this woman, Irena Markova, was blackmailing him, threatening to expose the truth. Perhaps in the end he killed her to silence her.
It would be horrible to learn she had the genes of a murderer, but one way or another, Kitty was determined to find the truth.
Chapter Fifty-One
Albany, New York State, 1947
Dmitri was bemused by the success of his fourth novel, In the Pale Light of Dawn, and even more baffled when the film rights were snapped up. It was not his favourite of his novels, with its dark core about depression contrasting with the comedy of the quirky, eccentric Gloria, but readers seemed to identify with it. He received hundreds of letters from people telling him of their own struggles with depression. The children had both left for college so Rosa had time to reply to them as his unofficial secretary. Dmitri was invited to Hollywood to visit the film studio but he refused. He didn’t feel protective of his work in this new medium; let the producers do as they wished. When the movie came out, he recognised little as his, but the substantial cheque in his bank account was welcome.
In the Pale Light of Dawn was not just successful in America but was translated into several European languages, and his overseas publishers were quick to snap up the sequel, Toward the Sunset. In autumn 1947, his publicist asked if he would be willing to do a three-week, six-stop tour of Europe to promote his books. They would like him to visit London, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Vienna and Prague, giving a speech in each location and signing copies.
Dmitri was reluctant. ‘Who has money for books after the war?’
‘You’d be surprised how many do,’ his publicist told him. ‘Especially yours, because of the anti-Nazi stance you took in the early 1930s.’
He hated fuss and was embarrassed by the arrogance of standing on a stage and talking about writing as if he was some kind of expert.
‘But you are an expert!’ his publicist exclaimed. ‘Readers want to know how you get your ideas, they want to know about your writing process.’
Alfred Knopf was amused by his hesitation. ‘You don’t have to do it, of course, but why not? All you have to do is spend an hour or so in each city being fawned over by a crowd of your most ardent fans.’
Dmitri finally consented when he realised it would be simple to tack on a trip to Istanbul to see his sisters. He had visited a couple of times in the Berlin years but he hadn’t seen them since he moved to America.
‘Come with me,’ he urged Rosa. ‘We deserve a holiday.’
She shook her head and gave a little shudder, and he knew what that meant. A number of her relatives and old friends had perished in Hitler’s concentration camps and although his tour would not take in Germany, she couldn’t bear to return to European shores. For her, the entire continent had been tainted by anti-Semitism.
‘I’d better stay here in case the children need me,’ she apologised. ‘They’re not as independent as they think they are.’
She bought Dmitri some smart new suits and shirts, shiny black shoes and a pale grey raincoat and fedora hat, and helped him to pack. He felt a pang as the taxi arrived to take him to the station. He would miss Rosa. Life was better when she was around.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Lake Akanabee, New York State, October 2016
Immediately after the detective left, Kitty grabbed her laptop and went to the coffeehouse to use their wi-fi. Once again she was the only customer, and they were no longer serving food as they had cleared the stores ready to close for winter.
She opened her laptop and googled ‘In the Pale Light of Dawn’ and immediately a listing for the movie came up. It had starred William Holden and Ann Blyth, and premiered in 1948. A still showed him sitting on a rock by the seaside looking serious and moody while she posed in a flouncy tropical-print skirt, a coconut-shell bra and a huge floppy sunhat.
The movie of Toward the Sunset had come out in 1950 starring the same pair, this time pictured in camping gear, although Ann Blyth would have struggled to clamber into a tent wearing that skin-tight plaid skirt and sweater, all in clashing shades of shocking pink, lime green and purple. She must try to find copies of the films and watch them, although she suspected they would not stand the test of time.
Next she opened her email account and winced at the volume of emails that flooded in from Tom. She should write and suggest a meeting on her return. She’d punished him enough.