The Secret Wife. Gill Paul

forward just a few inches, but it would be presuming too much. He was sure she could hear how hard his heart was hammering in his chest, because he was certain he could hear hers too.

      By mid November, Dmitri could walk across the ward unaided and he wasn’t surprised when he received a letter informing him that he had been passed fit for duty and must report to his regiment by the 12th of December. He kept the news from Tatiana for a while, not wanting to distress her. The thought of causing her pain made his chest tighten and a lump form in his throat, but at the same time he hated to keep such an important communication from her. When there were just two weeks to go, he took her for a walk through the park, past the pyramid where tiny gravestones marked the burial places of Catherine II’s three dogs. Ortipo nosed the frozen earth as if she could detect something, most likely the scent of a fox.

      ‘I knew this day must be close,’ she said bravely and turned her head away, but he could hear that she was choking back tears. ‘I have some gifts for you. You will be surprised how busy I have been.’

      ‘Really? What kind of gifts?’ He glowed at the thought.

      ‘I have knitted you a muffler, gloves and several pairs of thick socks. I don’t want to think of you freezing in some bleak, windswept tent.’

      He was so touched he could barely speak. Was this the moment to kiss her? He hesitated too long and she had turned to call Ortipo, who was chasing a squirrel.

      ‘We must take some photographs,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring my Box Brownie to the ward this evening.’

      ‘You have hundreds of photographs of me already–’ he smiled ‘–and I look ugly in all of them.’ She and Olga were keen photographers.

      ‘Will you write to me?’ she asked, her tone a little plaintive.

      ‘Of course! You shall have a letter every week, which is at least ten times more than my mother gets.’

      ‘I shall write to you every day,’ she declared, her eyes glassy.

      Impulsively he took her slender hand and pressed it to his lips, lingering to savour the sensation and inhale her precious scent. She did not pull it away.

      Dmitri dressed in his navy and yellow uniform and set off early on the morning of the 12th of December, along with two other officers and a dozen soldiers all heading for Poland, where the remnants of the Russian First Army were attempting to hold the German Ninth at bay. Dawn had only just broken but Tatiana appeared in the palace driveway, looking pale in the wintry sunshine, and stood by the gate to wave. As their truck passed Dmitri saw her eyes were red with crying and his heart felt as though it were breaking in two.

       Chapter Five

       London, April 2016

      At first Kitty thought the letter was junk mail and was about to toss it in the bin. It was written on expensive-looking watermarked paper from a company called Inheritance Trackers Inc., and as she skimmed the first paragraph her eye was caught by the name Yakovlevich. She was pretty sure that had been her Grandma Marta’s maiden name, so she went back to read it properly. It said that she was the great-granddaughter and only living descendant of Dmitri Yakovlevich, who had died in America in 1986, and that his estate had not been claimed. Should she wish Inheritance Trackers to reunite her with this fortune, they would handle all the legal work and would take a fee of only fifteen per cent. There was a thirty-year deadline for claiming lost estates and if she did not act soon, the property would be forfeited to the government.

      Kitty was instantly suspicious: this was an era of scams, when you were offered millions of pounds if you would only advance a couple of thousand to help get someone through customs in an African country; when boiler rooms located in the Bahamas claimed they could quadruple any investment within a year. Besides, Grandma Marta had been alive in 1986, so why had she not inherited Dmitri Yakovlevich’s money? Why had Kitty never even heard of him?

      Marta had been a fun grandmother, who kept delicious sweets in her pottery rabbit candy jar, and was always happy to get down on the floor and play Hungry Hippos or Mouse Trap. Kitty couldn’t recall her mentioning her father, but then Marta had died when Kitty was eight. She would probably find pictures of him in the old suitcase of family photos she had stowed in the bedroom closet after her parents passed away. She must take a look some time.

      She rang the number on the company’s letterhead and was put through to someone called Mark, who told her that the inheritance concerned was worth over fifty thousand dollars in cash. There was also a cabin on Lake Akanabee in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York state, which had been uninhabited since her great-grandfather’s death, and royalties for some books he had written. He was an author! How intriguing.

      ‘So what do I have to do to claim it?’ she asked carefully, picking up a pen.

      ‘We’ll send you some forms to fill out,’ explained Mark, ‘and you return them to us, along with a copy of your birth certificate – and a marriage certificate if you’re married – and we’ll do the rest.’

      ‘Do I have to pay anything upfront?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Legal fees or anything?’

      ‘No, we take our cut when the money and the ownership papers for the cabin come through,’ Mark told her. ‘Do you want me to send you the information?’

      ‘Why not?’ she agreed.

      She forgot to tell Tom that evening, but when the paperwork arrived confirming the totals, she showed it to him. He didn’t seem particularly impressed.

      ‘Fifty K minus fifteen per cent is forty-two and a half thousand dollars and at today’s exchange rate that’s about twenty-seven thousand quid. Better than a poke in the eye. Do you want me to give you the number of a financial advisor who can give you some ideas on investing it?’

      She looked at him across the table and wondered about this stranger she had married. The Tom she had known back in college would have suggested blowing the windfall on a round-the-world trip for two, or perhaps buying a yacht and learning to sail. They were only in their mid-thirties, they had paid off the mortgage thanks to the inheritance when her parents died, neither of them wanted to have children, and now all Tom could think of was saving for the future? She felt she was seeing him through different eyes than she had a decade ago; or maybe she was the same person and he was the one who had changed. It was hard to tell.

      Back then he’d wanted to be a composer and had spent most days writing songs on his keyboard and sending demos to record companies. After they failed to leap at the chance of buying his creations, he chucked it all in, took an accountancy course and was now working as an auditor for the City Council. He had become serious and precise, leaving home at the same time every morning in a neat predictable suit, the kind of outfit no one would ever notice. If he committed a crime and witnesses were asked to describe him they’d struggle to come up with anything because he was so nondescript: short brown hair, hazel eyes, medium height, grey-blue suit, no unusual features.

      Kitty made fun of him for his plain ties that were always in the same shade as his plain socks, for his trousers that were hung in a trouser press overnight so the crease fell in exactly the right place. It made her want to raid his drawer and leave only mismatching socks; or to get him drunk and drag him to a tattoo parlour to have a gothic emblem etched on his forearm. She found it irritating that he drank sensible decaf coffee and brushed his teeth for exactly two minutes; she was bored with the weekend sex routine of an orgasm for her, one for him, invariably achieved the same way.

      He was a good provider – they were lucky not to have money worries – but at some point they had stopped having fun and she couldn’t think when that had happened. The holiday in Costa Rica the previous autumn had been glorious; Christmas with his extended family had been nice. But since then life had felt monotonous, with nothing interesting on the horizon.

      It didn’t help that