CHAPTER 13

JULY 1918, YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA

Nana Ruthie pushed her carpet bag into the bush and told Anya to share the bread between herself and Fritzie. “Now, what did I say?”

“That I mustn’t leave here until you come back.”

“That’s right. I might take a little while, but don’t come looking for me. Promise?”

“I promise, Nana.”

“Good girl. You can play patience if you get bored.”

“And Fritzie?”

Nana patted the little dachshund on his head and he snuffled her with his wet nose. “Fritzie can have a snooze. Don’t let him leave the hedge though – promise me.”

“We promise, don’t we, Fritzie?” Fritzie pawed the air.

Nana chuckled and spruced up the tall grass in front of the blueberry hedge to disguise the child’s whereabouts, before picking her way back through the wood to the perimeter wall of the Ipatiev House. The house backed onto woodland. Guards stood only at the front gate, so after she checked that the coast was clear, she chose a spot covered in ivy and pushed her way through. The six-foot wall had plenty of footholds for her, but it was still a tricky climb for a sixty-year-old woman; for the hundredth time that week she wished she were back in Tower Hamlets. Oh, how she wished she were there now.

Safely over the wall, she straightened her back, groaning with the effort. Woodland surrounded her and she headed in the direction of where she thought the house should be. She had not fully worked out what she was going to do when she got there; she would reassess when she had a clearer view of the house and gardens.

The women in the bread queue had said that the royal family and their attendants – including Princess Selena – were free to roam the grounds. If her suspicions were correct, Selena was not really a prisoner, and was still being used by the Bolsheviks to get close to the royals. After overhearing the conversation with Countess Sofia Andreiovich, Nana Ruthie had gone to the embassy to meet her contact. He had told her that a mole inside the Bolshevik inner circle had informed him that Selena had been press-ganged into working as a double agent. She had been promised that no harm would come to anyone in her family as long as she fed them information about what the Romanovs were planning and thinking. Nana Ruthie realized that this line would only work with a stupid person – and fortunately for the Bolsheviks, Selena was just that. So when Selena was imprisoned along with the tsar, tsarina, children and attendants, Nana strongly suspected she was still acting as a mole.

Nana’s plan was to attract Selena’s attention and to tell her she knew the whereabouts of the key – which she had taken off and hidden under a stone on the other side of the wall. She would tell Selena that the key was in London – taken there in a diplomatic pouch – and if the Russian princess were to arrange safe passage for Nana and Anya, she would hand it over once they reached England. She calculated that Selena would not tell the Bolsheviks that she had the key, as the actress would want it in her hand before she did and would relish the influence it would give her with Lenin. And if she didn’t think like that already, Nana would convince her that that’s what she needed to do. It was imperative though that Nana catch Selena on her own. She could assess, face to face, whether her theory about the woman was right. If it wasn’t, she would be able to outrun the overweight actress, but not any accompanying guards.

Nana neared the edge of the tree line and the house came into view. Out of nowhere two people ran towards her. She froze, then slipped behind a shrub hoping she hadn’t been spotted. Peering through the foliage she saw it was a man and a woman, their clothes and hands splattered with blood. They stopped a few feet from her. She knew one, but not the other.

The woman held out her hands like Lady Macbeth. “You promised, Nogovski! You promised! You promised they wouldn’t be hurt.”

“It wasn’t my doing, Selena, I swear. It was out of my control.”

“But they’re dead! They’re all dead! Even little Alexei. Oh God, oh dear God!”

The man, Nogovski, tried to placate her, looking over his shoulder as if checking they weren’t being followed. “It was out of my control,” he said again, his voice hollow.

Selena’s voice grew shriller and shriller: “They’re dead! You killed them!” She flung herself at Nogovski and clawed at his face. He grabbed her hands and wrestled her to her knees.

“I did not kill them, woman. If anyone did it was you.”

Selena threw her head back and glared at him. He was holding her wrists above her head. “Me? What did I do?”

“If you had told them where the key was they might have spared them. It might have distracted them.”

“But I didn’t know. I told them it was at the Andreiovich house –”

“It wasn’t there.”

“But it was. That was the last place I saw it, I swear. But that’s not the reason they killed them. It’s because they’re royal. They’ll kill me next, they’ll –”

Selena’s words were knocked out of her mouth as Nogovski struck her hard across the face. She looked at him, still kneeling, like a victim before her executioner.

“Are you going to kill me too?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, as he took a handkerchief and held it over her mouth and nose until her body went limp. “No. I’m going to save you.”

Nana Ruthie smelled the sickly scent of chloroform. She held her hand to her mouth as she watched Nogovski struggle to pick up the body of Princess Selena Romanova Yusopova and carry her back to the house. When they were gone she stumbled back to the wall, leaving behind all hope of salvation at the Ipatiev House.

SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER 1920, LONDON

Poppy slipped off her bar stool and as nonchalantly as possible followed Andrei Nogovski as he crossed the dance hall and went into the foyer. To her disappointment he went into the men’s cloakroom. The clerk at the coat-check asked if she would like her coat. Not knowing what else to do, she said “yes”. As she waited for the man to return with her red mackintosh, Nogovski came out of the men’s room. That was quick, she thought. He looked to left and right, and slipped his arm behind the hat stand. When he pulled it out again he looked up and caught Poppy’s eye. Drat, she needed to work on her surveillance technique. Not quite Secret Service material, she thought wryly as she slapped a false smile on her face.

“Have you lost something, Mr Nogovski?”

He peered at her, as if trying to place her face, then answered: “No.” He put the piece of paper in his pocket and then waited in line for his coat. The clerk soon appeared with Poppy’s mac and then took Nogovski’s chit for his.

“So, Mr Nogovski, I was wondering if –”

“I have an appointment with Ike Garfield in the morning.” His coat arrived and he shrugged into it, then plucked his hat from the hatstand.

“Yes, but –”

“Good evening, Miss Denby.” And with that he walked out of the club, leaving her smarting.