“Can you leave them with me?” he asked. “Meet me for lunch in the canteen tomorrow and I’ll have the translations for you.”

“You speak Russian yourself?” Val asked.

“White Russian parents.” He grinned. “I had no choice!”

* * *

“This is particularly odd,” Bill said the next day, pointing at the leaflet with the grainy picture of Maria, the third Romanov daughter. He’d brought his own lunch with him in a Tupperware box: a mountain of cheese sandwiches, which he was devouring in huge bites, as if ravenous.

Val had bought herself a tuna sandwich and a black coffee into which she stirred a sugar cube. “What is?”

Bill swallowed a mouthful. “Whoever wrote it clearly believed that Maria had escaped from Ekaterinburg. It gives her description alongside the photo and offers a reward for information leading to her discovery. It doesn’t say she is a Romanov; just that she’s a person of great interest.”

“Maybe it’s not her.” Val took the leaflet and had another look.

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Bill said. “Especially given the fact that it was found with a Romanov photo album. I’ve been thinking about it overnight and I’ve come to the conclusion that the leaflet must have been produced by someone working for the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police force between 1917 and 1922, and one of their successor organizations thereafter. Just imagine: if one of the Romanovs had escaped, they wouldn’t want to publicize it because it would make them look inefficient, but they would have been at great pains to prevent her traveling overseas and telling her story to the outside world.”

Val frowned. “Do you think my father was working for the secret police?”

“Either that or he was helping them. One of the accounts books gives the names of people working in different soviets around the country, and there are sums of money as well as dates listed. To me, it looks as though they were on the payroll, being bribed to look out for Maria.” He caught her eye. “Stop me if I’m being presumptuous. I don’t mean to criticize your father.”

“No, not at all. Growing up, I assumed he was a White Russian who fled after the Revolution, but the more I learn, the more I realize I didn’t know him at all.” Val sipped her coffee. Had he been on the Bolshevik side? It was beginning to sound that way.

Bill pulled out another accounts ledger. “This lists letters received at the house of a family called Vasnetsov in Ekaterinburg.”

Val recognized the name. “I have a photograph of Peter Vasnetsov. Remember? He was in one of the shots developed from my dad’s camera.”