Free Found Wanting by Robert Goddard Page B

Anastasia, despite attempts by the Russians to prove it was Maria. As for Anna Anderson’s DNA, they extracted that from an intestine sample they found at the hospital in Charlottesville where she’d been operated on a few years before her death. Nobody could say it was exactly tamper-proof.’
    ‘What are you suggesting, Marty? The KGB crept into the hospital and planted a false sample?’
    ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I only got involved in this because . . .’ Marty broke off. He groaned and pressed one hand to his forehead.
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Nothing. I . . . get these pains from time to time.’ He grimaced. ‘They’ll get worse, apparently, as the tumour grows. It could affect my vision, hearing, speech. It could trigger fits and God knows what. Oh, there’s a lot to look forward to.’
    ‘Listen, Marty, I—’
    ‘It’s all right, Richard. It really is all right. I’m dying. But not today. Or tomorrow. Probably not this week. Or even next.’
    ‘Even so . . .’
    ‘Yes? Even so what ?’
    ‘Why don’t we forget Werner and his machinations? You’ve got your pay-off. Why not spend it . . . having fun?’
    ‘It’s spoken for.’ Marty smiled. ‘A debt to a friend.’
    ‘Forget that too.’
    ‘OK. If you insist.’
    ‘I do.’
    The smile broadened. ‘We’ll see. But Werner? No. I can’t let that pass.’
    ‘What can you do?’
    ‘Try to put a spoke in his wheel.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I’ve got an idea. And you promised to help me, as I recall. It’s time we were moving.’
    ‘Where’re we going?’
    ‘A department store, to start with. I can’t be seen with you in that suit, Richard. It’s bad for my image. Besides, I assume you’ll want to put some clean clothes on eventually. After that, the station. We have a train to catch.’

ELEVEN
    ‘Why Århus?’ asked Eusden, glancing down at his ticket. He and Marty were sitting next to the fruit machine in a small bar above the platforms at Hamburg central station, lunching on beer and bagels in the half-hour at their disposal before they boarded the slow train to Denmark. They had already missed the fast one.
    ‘You remember they ceremonially reburied the Tsar and his family in St Petersburg after the pathologists and the geneticists had finally finished with them?’
    ‘Yes.’ Eusden could only assume Marty’s response would ultimately lead to an answer to his question.
    ‘St Peter and Paul Cathedral, seventeenth July 1998: the eightieth anniversary of the massacre at Ekaterinburg. The priests didn’t refer to the deceased by name during the service, you know. They called them ‘Christian victims of the Revolution’. The Orthodox Church never formally acknowledged that they were burying royalty. And none of the crowned heads of Europe turned up to see them do it. Anyway, last September, they got round to reburying Dagmar there as well. No one doubted who she was and she’d always said she wanted to be buried with her husband, Nicholas the Second’s father, Tsar Alexander the Third. So, she was disinterred from Roskilde Cathedral – traditional resting place for Danish royals – and shipped off to St Petersburg. But there was a strange incident during the disinterment. A man rushed into the crypt and tried to stop it happening. As protests go it was pretty half-baked. He was arrested and later released without charge. It was never clear what he was protesting about . It probably wouldn’t even have been reported in the papers but for the fact that he’s a reasonably well-known artist. In Denmark, at any rate. Lars Aksden.’
    ‘Never heard of him.’
    ‘No. Nor had I. But Werner had. Lars Aksden, it turns out, is Hakon Nydahl’s great-nephew.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. Really. Nydahl’s sister married into a Jutland farming family: the Aksdens. Lars is her grandson. His elder brother is Tolmar Aksden. Heard of him?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘Think again. Mjollnir, the Scandinavian conglomerate.