‘All right.’ Gemma smiles awkwardly. ‘Just a quick one.’

They enter the pub, stepping down into the cosy old bar that has changed little over the years. Eusden orders a pint of bitter for himself and a spritzer for Gemma. They sit by the window and toast Marty’s memory, the urn that held his ashes sitting in a bag at their feet.

‘I should’ve known Marty would die young,’ says Gemma. ‘He never stuck at anything.’ At that they manage a laugh. ‘You know, Richard, I’ve missed him more these past six months than I ever did in all the years we were apart.’

‘That’s because you could’ve talked to him if you’d really wanted to. But now…’

‘I can’t. Ever again.’ She draws a deep breath. ‘It feels like the three of us have been heading downriver in a boat and Marty’s got out and stood on the bank, while we sail on, looking back at him as he slowly fades from view.’

Eusden pats her hand. ‘I’ll miss him too.’

‘He so wanted his life to… add up to more than it did. I suppose that’s why he wouldn’t leave the mystery Clem bequeathed to him in that attaché case alone. It gave him…a high to go out on.’ She half-turns in her seat to look at Eusden. ‘All those things you told me when I visited you in Finland…’

‘What about them?’

‘Were they really true?’

‘I didn’t lie to you, Gemma. I can assure you of that.’

‘No, but…’ She opens the small rucksack that doubles as her handbag and takes out a newspaper cutting, which she unfolds and lays on the table between them. ‘Did you see this?’

Eusden looks down at the Guardian headline from a few weeks ago. BONES FOUND BY RUSSIAN BUILDER FINALLY SOLVE RIDDLE OF THE MISSING ROMANOVS. He remembers it well, as a Guardian reader himself. He was wandering out of his local newsagent’s in Chiswick one Saturday morning in late August when he opened the paper and saw the faces of the Romanovs staring at him from a 1915 photograph: the Tsar and Tsarevich in imperial navy uniform, the Tsarina and her daughters in the dresses of a bygone age, all solemnly unsmiling, as if oppressed by foreknowledge of what history had in store for them. The two bodies missing from the burial site near Ekaterinburg had finally been found, the article declared, by a local builder on a speculative weekend root-around; case closed at long last. ‘I saw it,’ Eusden says quietly.

‘So, this proves Tolmar Aksden’s father wasn’t the Tsarevich.’

‘Does it?’

‘Well? What do you think?’

‘Not sure. But I can tell you what Marty would say.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘First, DNA isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Second, the Guardian’s man in Moscow falls for the Russian claim that the missing sister was Maria, whereas all the neutral pathologists agreed at the time it was Anastasia. Third, we’re supposed to believe this guy with a prodder found what a whole team of archaeologists failed to find in years of systematic digging. Fourth, the 1991 excavation was patently a put-up job, so you’d have to reckon this was too. Fifth, it comes within months of Tolmar Aksden’s death, unpublicized details of which could conceivably have reached the ears of those who arrange such things in Russia. And sixth, only people who know none of the details – which is more or less everybody, of course – would be convinced this settles a damn thing.’

Gemma smiles at him. ‘I thought you’d say something like that.’ ‘I said it’s what Marty would say. I don’t have an opinion.’

‘There speaks the civil servant.’

‘Not any more.’ He grins.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ve resigned. I finished at the end of August.’

Gemma looks genuinely astonished. ‘You’re having me on.’

‘No. I quit. Handed in my security pass. Cleared my desk. Sloughed off my Whitehall gravitas.’

‘Why?’

‘I got a better offer.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I’ll be working for an aid organization in Denmark called Uddanne Afrika. I start next week.’

‘In Denmark?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I…’ Gemma shakes her head in wonderment and sips her spritzer. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Does this…’ She frowns thoughtfully. ‘Does this have anything to do with Pernille Madsen?’ She carries on before he can devise an evasive answer. ‘It does, doesn’t it? This isn’t just about a job.’

‘Maybe not.’ He shrugs diffidently. ‘We’ll see.’

Gemma’s astonishment has by now turned to delighted disbelief. She smiles broadly. ‘In that case, I wish you all the luck in the world.’

Two hours later, Eusden is sitting alone in a coffee shop in the Fountain Arcade, sipping an americano and watching the quayside world go by before boarding the Southampton ferry. Gemma is long gone. There is nothing to keep him here now, on this island where he and Marty were born. He will return occasionally, of course, to visit his sister and her family. Or maybe they will visit him, wherever he may be. Either way, it will be a long time before he is here again. That much seems certain.

A bus from Newport pulls in as he gazes through the open doorway. The past does not arrive with it. His boyhood self does not step off into the mellow sunlight. And Marty is not waiting for him, chewing gum, hands in pockets, lolling against the nearest pillar. The memory of those times is so close he can almost touch it. But it will never be quite close enough. That much is also certain.

The ringing of his phone plucks him back to the present. He takes it out of his pocket and smiles when he sees who the caller is.

‘Pernille?’

‘Hi.’

‘Hi, yourself.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Fountain Quay. Waiting for the ferry.’

‘So, it’s done?’

‘Yes. It’s done.’

‘Did it… go well?’

‘Yes. I think it did.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing you too.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine. Though…’

‘What?’

‘I have some news for you. It’s not urgent. It can wait until tomorrow if you like.’

‘Not sure I could bear that. What is it?’

‘Something Michael found while he was sorting through Tolmar’s things. I was happy he finally did it. And I guess I should be happy he wanted to share this thing he found with me.’

‘And this thing is?’

‘A telegram. A very old telegram. Kept in a locked drawer of the desk in Tolmar’s study. It was sent to Paavo Falenius in Helsinki from somewhere in Russia. I can’t read the name of the place. It’s in the Russian alphabet. But the message and the sender’s name are in English. It’s dated twenty-fifth September, 1918. Falenius must have given it to Tolmar as… some kind of proof, I guess. Though it doesn’t prove anything actually.’

‘Is it from Karl Wanting?’ Eusden asks, knowing already there really is no one else it could be from.

‘Yes. It is.’

‘What’s the message?’

‘Just one word. And the sender’s name. Found. Wanting.’

AUTHOR’S NOTE

None of the universally acknowledged facts concerning the ultimate fates of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and their children have been misrepresented in this novel. The same is true of the life of the woman who later claimed to be their daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Readers who care to consult the archives of the Isle of Wight County Press will find a contemporary report there of the visit of the Russian imperial family to Cowes in August 1909. As to what really happened at the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg in the early hours of 17 July 1918, the most accurate statement that can be made is that those who believe they know the course of events for certain can surely never have seriously attempted to learn what the course of events truly was.

I am indebted to Andrew Roberts for suggesting it was time I tackled the subject of this novel. For help generously given to me while I was planning and writing it, I am very grateful to my good friends Susan Moody and John Donaldson, to their good friend Iver Tesdorpf and to my wonderful Danish translator, Claus Bech (whose family secret regarding Tsar Alexander III’s walking stick I have vowed to keep). Thanks to them, location research was not merely fruitful, but a lot of fun into the bargain. Skål!