‘It cannot have been until much later that the girls heard of the deaths of the Tsar and Tsarevich. By then, they had been split up. A quartet of pretty girls with aristocratic ways travelling about Russia would not have got far. They were moved about singly with escorts, dressed in nun’s clothes or as nurses. Now, from our geographical perspective we see Russia as Moscow and St Petersburg – a sort of exotic but civilized offshoot of Europe. We forget that thousands more miles of it run east, right over to Japan. And Ekaterinburg is in the middle of this land mass. With access to the Trans-Siberian railway … The Romanovs didn’t go west to the capital – they went east, further into the wilderness.
‘There was a British frigate – yes, we did not abandon the family’ – he flicked a quick glance at Lily – ‘patrolling on the China station – you will know the one, Bacchus – and it made a pick-up later that year at Vladivostok on the east coast. Thirty-nine packing cases of Romanov goods and a few passengers. It sailed away. To Hong Kong? Possibly. I’ve not been able to track it. Its log is mysteriously under wraps even to men with more clout than I have. But you can probably see that if you plot a straightish course across the Pacific ocean, you fetch up in California. San Francisco. The shipping port for the armaments that were being sent by the Americans to Russia in support of the Czech contingent and the White Army. Having unloaded their guns, the ships often returned to the home port with a human cargo – refugees. The Vladisvostok–California route has been a very busy one.’
‘Good Lord!’ Bacchus breathed. ‘So that accounts for … But how the devil …?’ Frowning, he turned a mutinous face on Sandilands, incredulity, resentment and deference doing battle for his tongue. Joe well understood his officer’s dilemma. Bacchus was aware that Sandilands, with his Military Intelligence background, had access to sources he would never reveal. The information he came by was as likely to be acquired over dinner at the Vineyard or lunch at Buck’s as garnered from official files.
Resentment won. ‘You can’t possibly know this!’ Bacchus spluttered. ‘That’s the log of HMS Kent you’re on about … How did you get access to it? Sir, you exceed your … Who’ve you been talking to?’
The challenge amounted to indiscipline and he fell silent, seething with indignation and awaiting the commander’s set-down.
Joe grinned and playfully poked a finger at his lieutenant. ‘Gotcha! You walked right into it, Bacchus. Well, what do the rest of you make of my story? Easy enough to get a pair of old romantics like Bacchus and Fanshawe worked up, but will the Russian ladies be deceived? What I’ve just handed you is a load of cobbled-together nonsense. A thumping great lie! Full of holes, I confess. But I find the best way of getting someone to swallow a lie is to season it well and stick it between two thick slices of truth. Worth a try?’
There followed a ruminative silence. Joe followed his audience’s reactions through from sharp anger at being deceived to disgruntlement, puzzlement and finally a cynical acceptance. He pressed on. ‘There you are then – I’ve given you the imaginary skeleton so to speak, now help me put some real flesh on it.’
‘Oh, no. Another corpse that’s going to get up and dance,’ Lily muttered.
‘Exactly that. We’re going to resurrect a princess of the blood royal. Tatiana lives! We’ve got to make them believe that. Get your box out, Bacchus, and let’s see what we can use. Unless I’ve been misinformed, there’s a very particular relic of the second daughter in there.’
Mumbling and mistrustful, Bacchus pulled the box into the centre of the table and opened it up.
Inside was a perfectly ordinary Gladstone bag, its leather stamped with the emblem of the United Kingdom. Bacchus took it out and opened it up. ‘Our man – one of our men – in Ekaterinburg owned this bag. He had it with him when he made a consular call on the villa in the aftermath of the shootings. In the chaos that reigned – there was a squad still mopping up the pools of blood, retrieving shell cases and looting – he quietly helped himself to some Romanov goods. Not the obvious valuables of which there were plenty lying about the place. He went for the more interesting stuff – letters and diaries. He found things hidden behind water cisterns and under the bath – places the guards hadn’t thought to ransack. The outside world had managed to keep in touch with the Romanovs for many a month. Better that such incriminating documents did not fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks, of course.’