Found Wanting

‘Who were the letters from?’

‘A guy called Hakon Nydahl. Captain – or Kaptajn – Nydahl, as he signed himself. Ever remember Clem mentioning the name?’

‘No.’

‘Nor me. What about Copenhagen? Did he ever admit to going there?’

‘Not sure. There weren’t many European cities he didn’t claim to have visited at some point.’

‘True. But we know he was corresponding with someone in Copenhagen, so it seems a good bet, doesn’t it? As to what they were corresponding about, you’d need a Danish translator to tell you that. Werner’s probably contacting one even as we speak.’

‘Why’s it so important?’

‘Ah, that brings us to Werner’s father: Otto Straub. Thanks to him we know Clem came to Hamburg in the spring of 1960. It’s not something I ever remember my parents talking about. Maybe he didn’t tell them where he was going, or even that he was going. But yes. Clem was here. And why? To testify in a court case Otto was covering for his paper. Clem let us believe he came just after the War, if you remember, before he retired from the police. But that was eyewash. He’d have been seventy-three in 1960.’

‘What was the court case about?’

‘Anastasia.’

‘Sorry?’

Marty chuckled. ‘You heard.’

TEN

Anastasia. A legend in her own death-time. Eusden knew what history said of her. Born 1901, fourth and youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. Murdered by Soviet revolutionaries in 1918, along with her parents and siblings. He also knew of the persistent legend that she had survived the climactic massacre at Ekaterinburg. A woman claiming to be Anastasia popped up in Berlin a few years later and spent the rest of her life convincing many and failing to convince others, notably most of Anastasia’s surviving relatives, that she was indeed Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna. Opinion was still divided when A

This much Eusden remembered, though he was aware there was also much more he had forgotten. He had read a book on the subject, seen a couple of television documentaries purporting to tell the full story, flicked through several magazine articles probing the mystery and sca

But perhaps, Eusden was now forced to consider, Clem’s dismissive attitude was a smokescreen. It was otherwise hard to account for his presence in Hamburg in the spring of 1960 as a witness in A

‘I had no idea trying to find out who Clem’s mysterious Danish pen pal was would lead to Anastasia,’ said Marty as he lit a third Camel from the end of the second. ‘I was just looking for something to take my mind off… well, death, frankly; specifically, my own. Anyway, I went to Copenhagen to get the goods on Hakon Nydahl. He was a Danish naval officer who graduated to a number of confidential court appointments. Gets a shortish write-up in the Danish DNB. Born 1884, which makes him just a few years older than Clem. His bit-part in history comes in 1920, when the Tsar’s mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, arrived back in her native Denmark, where she was known by her original Danish name, Dagmar. She’d been in the Crimea when the Soviets started rounding up royals after the October Revolution and was evacuated on a British warship. Her sister was Edward the Seventh’s widow, Queen Alexandra. After staying with her for a while, Dagmar headed for Copenhagen and moved into a house in the seaside resort of Klampenborg, which she and Alexandra kept as a holiday home. King Christian the Tenth, her nephew, appointed Nydahl to manage her affairs. And that’s what he did, dutifully and diligently, until her death in 1928. A

‘How come he was in touch with Clem, then?’ asked Eusden, when no explanation was immediately forthcoming.

‘That’s what I wondered, obviously. There’s no apparent co

‘Why would he anyway? A courtier like Nydahl must have spoken English.’

‘Secrecy, maybe? Clem could be sure no one in our family – or in Cowes, come to that – was going to be able to read letters written in Danish.’

‘But what was there to be secret about?’

‘That’s what I tried to find out. I hit a brick wall at first. Then I did what I should have done earlier: look for Nydahl on the Web. He gets a single mention, in one of the hundreds of Anastasia-related sites. Needless to say, there are a lot of people out there in cyberspace convinced she was the genuine article and the DNA results were faked. I put out some feelers and Werner responded. It was my name that did it. He’d been trying to discover who Clem Hewitson was for years because of his father’s account of Clem’s mysterious participation in the A

They left the café and, at Marty’s suggestion, walked up to the ring road skirting the city centre, on the other side of which, beyond a stretch of landscaped greenery, stood Hamburg’s courts complex: three mansarded neo-Gothic blocks, with modern extensions. The view was blurred by mist and sleet, dampness deepening the prevailing chill, the stud-tyred traffic rumbling rhythmically past.

‘That’s where it all happened in the A