He was a little deaf now. She blamed the sixteen years he had spent laboring in a mine in Siberia for all the infirmities he suffered—arthritis, poor hearing, shortness of breath—but he put them down to old age. Mentally he was sharp as a pin. He hadn’t been broken by the experience the way her neighbor Viktor had. “It happened but now it is over, and there is no point dwelling on it,” he said if she ever raised the subject.

“Peter!” She had to raise her voice to get his attention, even once they were in the kitchen. “I’ve got something to show you! Guess what?”

* * *

A few days later, Stepan came home from work and gestured to Maria to follow him to the sitting room.

“I’ve had a letter from her,” he whispered, although Peter was the only other person in the flat and he could never have heard what was being said from a different room. “Sent to me at the palace. Here it is.”

Maria took the single page, written on stationery from the Astoria Hotel on Bolshaya Morskaya, just a few minutes’ walk from the Winter Palace.

Dear Mr. Dubov,

Many thanks for revealing the secrets of my Fabergé box yesterday, and for the cup of tea. Perhaps I am imagining it, but I sensed our meeting ended with some ill feeling. I was certainly stunned to hear that my father was among the Romanovs’ executioners. He was a cold man who did some very cruel things in the time I knew him, but I would not have believed him capable of murder. Still, you are the expert and I must accept that you know your subject.

I have fallen out with my partner, who is cross with me for telling you about my background. He seems to think we could get into trouble with the authorities here. I have assured him that you did not seem like a government informer, but he tells me I am naïve and do not understand the Soviet system. Anyway, I am writing to beg you not to take this matter any further. We fly home on Saturday and I hope that will be an end of it.

I thank you again for your time and send all my very best wishes.

Val Scott

Maria looked up at Stepan. “She sounds anxious. Will you reply?”

He shook his head. “No point. They go home tomorrow.”

“You could telephone the hotel and leave a neutral message: something like ‘Good to meet you, have a safe journey.’” She raised an eyebrow. “It would set her mind at rest.”