Found Wanting (9 page)

‘Who’s he meeting off the plane at Frankfurt?’

‘An eccentric American millionaire who’s distantly related to Jack Manahan and is prepared to pay through the schnozzle for evidence that Jack’s wife was the true-blue Anastasia.’

‘But she can’t have been. The DNA evidence ruled that out. You said so yourself.’

‘Ah, Richard, you always were too much of a determinist.’ Marty gave him a benignly superior smile. ‘She can be whatever people persuade themselves to believe she was. The DNA technique they used back in the early nineteen nineties has been discredited now, anyway. It produced far too many false positives
and
false negatives for comfort. Besides, why trust DNA results which you and I, and everyone else bar a couple of boffins in lab coats, haven’t a hope of understanding over hard physical,
visible
evidence? Anna Anderson was the wrong height, shoe size,
ear
size, to be Franziska Schanzkowska, but right for Anastasia. She had a scar on her shoulder exactly where Anastasia had a mole removed. She had the same deformity of the big toe as Anastasia and her sisters. Besides, everyone who met her agreed she was an aristocrat, a difficult trick for a Polish factory worker to pull off. And let’s not get into all the things she knew that only Anastasia could know. A graphologist testified at the trial that there was no doubt Anna’s handwriting and Anastasia’s were those of the same person.’

‘Fine. But why didn’t they have the same DNA?’

‘How should I know? The excavation of the remains at Ekaterinburg was a suspect business anyway. The authorities had obviously known where they were for years – if not the whole time since 1918 – before they chose to dig them up. And DNA only proved they were Romanovs. It was down to pathologists to say
which
Romanovs. The Tsar and his family, obviously. But unfortunately they weren’t all there. The Tsarevich and
one
of his sisters were missing, almost certainly the youngest sister, Anastasia, despite attempts by the Russians to prove it was Maria. As for Anna Anderson’s DNA, they extracted that from an intestine sample they found at the hospital in Charlottesville where she’d been operated on a few years before her death. Nobody could say it was exactly tamper-proof.’

‘What are you suggesting, Marty? The KGB crept into the hospital and planted a false sample?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. I only got involved in this because . . .’ Marty broke off. He groaned and pressed one hand to his forehead.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I . . . get these pains from time to time.’ He grimaced. ‘They’ll get worse, apparently, as the tumour grows. It could affect my vision, hearing, speech. It could trigger fits and God knows what. Oh, there’s a lot to look forward to.’

‘Listen, Marty, I—’

‘It’s all right, Richard. It really is all right. I’m dying. But not today. Or tomorrow. Probably not this week. Or even next.’

‘Even so . . .’

‘Yes? Even so
what
?’

‘Why don’t we forget Werner and his machinations? You’ve got your pay-off. Why not spend it . . . having fun?’

‘It’s spoken for.’ Marty smiled. ‘A debt to a friend.’

‘Forget that too.’

‘OK. If you insist.’

‘I do.’

The smile broadened. ‘We’ll see. But Werner? No. I can’t let that pass.’

‘What can you do?’

‘Try to put a spoke in his wheel.’

‘How?’

‘I’ve got an idea. And you promised to help me, as I recall. It’s time we were moving.’

‘Where’re we going?’

‘A department store, to start with. I can’t be seen with you in that suit, Richard. It’s bad for my image. Besides, I assume you’ll want to put some clean clothes on eventually. After that, the station. We have a train to catch.’

ELEVEN

‘Why Århus?’ asked Eusden, glancing down at his ticket. He and Marty were sitting next to the fruit machine in a small bar above the platforms at Hamburg central station, lunching on beer and bagels in the half-hour at their disposal before they boarded the slow train to Denmark. They had already missed the fast one.

‘You remember they ceremonially reburied the Tsar and his family in St Petersburg after the pathologists and the geneticists had finally finished with them?’

‘Yes.’ Eusden could only assume Marty’s response would ultimately lead to an answer to his question.

‘St Peter and Paul Cathedral, seventeenth July 1998: the eightieth anniversary of the massacre at Ekaterinburg. The priests didn’t refer to the deceased by name during the service, you know. They called them ‘Christian victims of the Revolution’. The Orthodox Church never formally acknowledged that they were burying royalty. And none of the crowned heads of Europe turned up to see them do it. Anyway, last September, they got round to reburying Dagmar there as well. No one doubted who she was and she’d always said she wanted to be buried with her husband, Nicholas the Second’s father, Tsar Alexander the Third. So, she was disinterred from Roskilde Cathedral – traditional resting place for Danish royals – and shipped off to St Petersburg. But there was a strange incident during the disinterment. A man rushed into the crypt and tried to stop it happening. As protests go it was pretty half-baked. He was arrested and later released without charge. It was never clear what he was protesting
about
. It probably wouldn’t even have been reported in the papers but for the fact that he’s a reasonably well-known artist. In Denmark, at any rate. Lars Aksden.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘No. Nor had I. But Werner had. Lars Aksden, it turns out, is Hakon Nydahl’s great-nephew.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. Nydahl’s sister married into a Jutland farming family: the Aksdens. Lars is her grandson. His elder brother is Tolmar Aksden. Heard of him?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Think again. Mjollnir, the Scandinavian conglomerate. Shipping, timber, hotels, electronics . . . Ring any bells now?’

‘OK, Marty, you’ve had your fun. Of course I’ve heard of them. Mjollnir buys X; Mjollnir sells Y. It’s difficult to flick through the business pages in the paper without seeing a headline like that sooner or later.’

‘Tolmar Aksden is chairman and chief executive of the company. He owns it. He
is
Mjollnir.’

‘So, I’m guessing he didn’t appreciate his brother’s antics at Dagmar’s disinterment.’

‘Probably not. No way of knowing for sure. The guy’s notoriously reticent. He lets Mjollnir’s share price do the talking for him.’

‘No good asking him for the lowdown on his great-uncle, then.’

‘None. But other members of his family might prove more . . . talkative.’

‘Any of them live in Århus?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes. His sister still lives on the family farm, south of Århus. She and her husband run the place. Tolmar’s son, Michael, is a student at the University of Århus. And Lars divides his time between Copenhagen and the farm. Well, farm’s an understatement. More of a country estate, actually. Since his escapade at Roskilde, he’s mostly been lying low there, apparently.’

‘How convenient.’

‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Werner will have his hands full for the next couple of days translating the letters and negotiating a price for them. We can steal a march on him.’

‘
If
Lars or any of the others know what their great-uncle’s secret was. And
if
they’re willing to share it.’

‘Don’t be so pessimistic. My bet is Lars is itching to share it.’ Marty grinned. ‘We just have to ask nicely.’

They finished their beers and went out on to the walkway serving the steps down to the platforms. A clamour of PA announcements rose with the rumble of arriving and departing trains towards the station roof. Their train was up on the platform indicator, but had not yet pulled in. Marty lit a cigarette and leant on the railings, gazing down at the comings and goings.

‘I love stations,’ he remarked. ‘Big ones, I mean, like this. Everyone going somewhere. Converging and diverging. North, south, east, west. Endless . . . possibilities.’

‘How long will it take us to get to Århus?’ Eusden asked.

‘About six hours.’

‘
Six hours?
Couldn’t we have flown?’

‘You’re forgetting the real advantage of train travel, Richard: anonymity. As long as we don’t stray outside the EU, nobody will ask to see our passports. Set foot in an airport and it’s a different story. I’m not just thinking of my own problems, either. We’re operating incognito now. So, the train makes sense. And stay off your mobile. Any calls you want to make, use a payphone. Better still, don’t make any.’

‘What about Gemma? Shouldn’t we . . .’

‘Keep her informed? Why would you want to do that?’

‘She might be worried about us.’

‘She should’ve come along, then, shouldn’t she? Between you and me, I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad she sent you in her place.’ Marty turned to look at Eusden. ‘The question is: are you?’

‘I think so.’

‘Only
think
?’

‘You
are
telling me everything, aren’t you, Marty?’

‘Everything I know.’

‘Did Otto Straub have any . . . pet theory . . . about what Clem and Nydahl were up to?’

‘According to Werner, he thought Clem must’ve been sent over to Copenhagen at some point in the nineteen twenties as part of a Buck Pal initiative to assist Nydahl in dealing with the fallout from Anna Anderson’s claim to be Anastasia. The Queen Mother, Alexandra, was Dagmar’s sister, remember. It’d be understandable if she wanted to help out.’

‘Why Clem?’

‘Well, Alexandra was in the royal party at Cowes regatta in August 1909. She was the queen then. Maybe she was impressed by how Clem thwarted the assassination attempt
and
kept his mouth shut about it.’

‘But what was there for Clem – or Nydahl – to do? You said Dagmar wrote off Anna Anderson as an impostor without even meeting her.’

‘Did I?’ Marty looked troubled. ‘That’s not strictly accurate. Blame the tumour. Surprisingly enough, this is one of my good days.’

‘Would you care to be “strictly accurate”
before
we start rattling cages in Århus?’

‘Cupboards, more like. With skeletons inside. All right. But it’ll have to wait.’ Marty nodded down at a train approaching the platform below them. ‘That’s ours, I think.’

Marty began his explanation as soon as they were settled aboard the train. He looked tired, Eusden noticed in the watery sunlight that angled through the window as they left the station. He was struggling to concentrate. It was easy to forget how ill he really was.

‘OK, where was I? Dagmar. The Dowager Empress. No dope, apparently. She realized that, if she admitted her son and grandson were dead, she’d have to choose an official pretender to the Tsardom from a squabbling bunch of cousins, inevitably causing a split in Romanov ranks. She solved the problem by steadfastly maintaining that the Tsar, Tsarina and all their children were still alive, somewhere in Russia, a convenient fiction that preserved family unity in her lifetime but ruled out the very possibility of acknowledging Anna Anderson as Anastasia. She didn’t exactly ignore her, however. She sent her daughter Olga, who was living with her in Copenhagen, to visit Anna in hospital in Berlin, in the autumn of 1925. Olga seemed to agree the girl was Anastasia, only to change her mind when she got back to Copenhagen. Her trip had coincided with the death in England of Queen Alexandra, which sent Dagmar into a depression from which she never really recovered. It’s hard to say what she might have done if she’d remained fit and well. But she never actually denounced Anastasia as an impostor. The so-called Copenhagen Statement, in which twelve members of the family, including Olga, formally rebutted Anna’s claim to be Anastasia, was only put out after Dagmar’s death. Straight after, as a matter of fact.’

‘Surely Olga wouldn’t have signed such a statement unless she believed it? We’re talking about her own flesh and blood.’

‘We’re also talking about Russian royalty of the nineteenth century. Virtually a separate species of humanity. There was a huge stumbling-block to accepting Anna’s claim, one of Anna’s own making. I don’t mean her obstinate and prickly personality, though that didn’t help, even if it did chime with people’s memories of Anastasia. No, no. The real problem was her story of how she’d escaped the massacre.’

‘They died in a hail of bullets in a cellar, didn’t they? How did she get out of that?’

‘She said she stood behind her sister Tatiana and was knocked out when Tatiana fell on top of her. She woke up in a farm cart being driven by the Tschaikovsky family, mother, daughter and son. The son, Alexander Tschaikovsky, had been a guard at Ekaterinburg and had rescued her from the pile of bodies when he realized she was still alive. They smuggled her out of Russia and took her to Romania. They settled in Bucharest, where she married Alexander shortly before giving birth to a son, in December 1918. The son wasn’t Alexander’s, though. She’d been raped by another guard while in captivity. She let Alexander’s sister adopt the boy. Then, when her husband was killed in a street brawl, she decided to seek help from her family and set off for Berlin, where her aunt Princess Irene lived, accompanied by Alexander’s brother, Serge. After they reached Berlin, Serge inexplicably vanished. She convinced herself he’d been murdered and that she’d be rejected by her family, so she tried to end it all by jumping into a canal. She was rescued, hospitalized, then sent to an asylum suffering from amnesia and referred to as Fräulein Unbekannt – Miss Unknown. Gradually, she revealed who she really was and a fellow patient went public with the story when she was discharged early in 1922. Cue general hysteria and enduring controversy. But it’s worth remembering that the truth, if it was the truth, was completely unacceptable – viscerally intolerable – to any right-thinking Romanov. A daughter of the Tsar couldn’t bear a child to an illiterate peasant turned prison guard. It just couldn’t happen.’