'Yes. Which he must have hung on to, since Dad was only six years old in 1927. He didn't get into stamp collecting until his early teens.'

'OK. But-'

'Did you know Clem spoke Danish?'

'What?'

'Well, spoke might be an exaggeration. But he certainly read it.'

'You're having me on.'

'No. You asked me what's in the attache case. The answer is a collection of letters, written to Clem over a period of ten years or more in the nineteen twenties and thirties. In Danish. Now you can see why I couldn't make head or tail of the contents of the case.'

'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 Anna Anderson, as the woman came to be known, died in 1984. But it hardened in the 1990s, when the remains of the imperial family were excavated from their burial site near Ekaterinburg and verified by DNA analysis, a test which Anna Anderson's remains subsequently failed. Seventy years' worth of books, films, lawsuits and conspiracy theories foundered on a simple matter of genetics. The claimant to Anastasia's identity was found to have been a fraud.

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 scanned various newspaper reports of twists and turns in the affair. He well recalled swapping theories with Marty after they had speed-read a sensationalist work called The File on the Tsar, published while they were at Cambridge, even though he could not recall what those theories were. Their interest had been heightened by Clem's airy claim to have met Anastasia the real Anastasia during his brush with the Russian imperial family in Cowes in August 1909. He had supposedly visited the imperial yacht to receive the thanks of the Tsar and Tsarina for saving their eldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana, from assassination and Anastasia had briefly spoken to him. 'A forward little girl', was his later summation. She would have been eight years old at the time, so perhaps it was not surprising he had no more to say about her than that.

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 Anna Anderson's civil action for recognition as sole surviving child of the last Tsar of All the Russias.

'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. Anna Anderson had gone public with her claim to be Anastasia by then, but Dagmar dismissed her as an impostor without even bothering to meet her. There's not much more to say about Nydahl, if you trust the official accounts. He died a bachelor in 1961, aged seventy-seven.'

'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 connection. But clearly there was one. Why else would Clem go to the bother of learning Danish?'

'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 Anna Anderson court case. Apparently, the judges wanted to hear testimony from Nydahl about Dagmar's attitude to the claimant. Nydahl said he was too ill to appear, but suggested Clem could tell them all they needed to know. Otto Straub, like most other observers, couldn't understand what this retired British police officer had to do with it. And they never found out. Because, when Clem came over, he was heard in camera. To this day, no one has any idea what he said.'

They left the cafe 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 Anna Anderson trials,' said Marty. 'I expect you've forgotten the ins and outs of her story. I certainly had. She burst on to the public stage in 1922 and spent the next ten years or more badgering members of the Romanov family for recognition and living off supporters who were either genuine believers or after what they hoped to get out of her. Berlin, Paris, New York, assorted German Schlosses: she was always on the move, charming and convincing some, offending and alienating others. She also fitted in a lot of physical and mental illness. There were several interludes in hospitals and asylums along the way. Finally, in 1938, she instituted legal proceedings in Berlin to claim any money left by the Tsar in German bank accounts. There was certainly some, possibly a lot. If she'd succeeded, she'd no doubt have moved on to other countries. The Bank of England, for instance, was rumoured to be holding a sizeable sum deposited by the dead but officially merely missing Tsar.'

'I do remember that,' said Eusden. 'The Tsar's missing millions.'

'Yeah. Well, pounds in the bank or pie in the sky, we'll never know now. The case was chucked out. Anna's lawyers appealed. The appeal was suspended because of the outbreak of war. The court papers ended up in the Soviet sector, which effectively blocked all progress. Her lawyers eventually decided to sue the Romanovs for recognition. The chosen defendant was a great-niece of the Tsarina, Barbara, Duchess of Mecklenburg, who happened to live in Germany, making her a convenient target. Hamburg suited all parties as a venue. The case opened in January 1958 and dragged on, thanks to various delays, adjournments and illnesses, for three years. In the end, Anna's claim was dismissed. Her lawyers appealed again. Another three years passed waiting for the appeal to be heard and yet another three actually hearing it. It was finally turned down in February 1967. All this time, Anna had been leading the life of an eccentric recluse in a chalet in the Black Forest with half a dozen dogs and two dozen cats. She never came to court. One of the judges went to question her during the first trial, little good that it did him. A year after losing the appeal, she shoved off to the States and married an oddball well-wisher called Jack Manahan, Professor of East European history at the University of Virginia. She spent the rest of her days as Mrs Manahan in Charlottesville, Virginia. A lot of people, including her husband, went on believing she was Anastasia. But the DNA experts tell us she was actually a Polish factory worker called Franziska Schanzkowska, who exploited a physical resemblance to Anastasia to reinvent herself as a Russian princess with astonishing success.'

'Did Clem ever say whether he thought she was genuine or not?' asked Eusden.

'Not that I can recall.'

'Do you think he told the judges what he thought?'

'Must have, I suppose. If they asked him. But we don't know what they asked him.' Marty squinted across at the court building. 'Or what he said in reply.'

They retreated through the smart shopping streets of the city centre to the Jungfernstieg, on the shores of Hamburg's answer to Lake Geneva: the Binnenalster. Marty steered Eusden into the imposing Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten for mid-morning coffee and cake. He was still making up for his enforced fast, he explained, as he forked down a gooey slice of torte. 'Besides,' he went on, 'this is where Anna's legal team put up prize witnesses and either licked their wounds or toasted their minor triumphs. I don't know if Clem stayed here. Depends who was paying his bill, I suppose.'

'And who might've been?' asked Eusden.

'Good question. According to Werner, his father said Nydahl's testimony was called for after the Danish government turned down a request from the court for access to a document known as the Zahle Dossier. Herluf Zahle was Danish ambassador to Germany when Anna first came forward. King Christian instructed him to establish whether she really was Anastasia. I imagine he was trying to decide what line to take on his aunt Dagmar's behalf if there was any substance to the claim. Anyway, Zahle seemed to think Anna was the real deal at first. He covered all her medical expenses she was seriously ill with TB for several years and helped her out on numerous occasions. He only backed off when the Schanzkowska allegation surfaced in a Berlin newspaper and even then he made it obvious he didn't believe it. The dossier contained all his papers relating to the case. Crucial material, which the Danes held back. Who knows why? Nydahl was a friend of Zahle's and the courtier charged with looking after Dagmar's interests. He must have known what was in the dossier. Hence the attempt to get him to testify. But he pleaded illness, which may have been genuine, since he died the following year. Clem was his chosen substitute. A bizarre choice on the face of it. Strings must have been pulled somewhere, though, to ensure he was heard in camera. Clem obviously was the natural choice. For reasons you and I can only guess at. Werner, on the other hand, will probably know what those reasons were, as soon as he has the letters translated. Unless he's done a crash course in Danish on the sly and can read them himself, which I wouldn't put past him.'

'Who's he meeting off the plane at Frankfurt?'

'An eccentric American millionaire who's distantly related to Jack Manahan and is prepared to pay through the schnozzle for evidence that Jack's wife was the true-blue Anastasia.'

'But she can't have been. The DNA evidence ruled that out. You said so yourself.'

'Ah, Richard, you always were too much of a determinist.' Marty gave him a benignly superior smile. 'She can be whatever people persuade themselves to believe she was. The DNA technique they used back in the early nineteen nineties has been discredited now, anyway. It produced far too many false positives and false negatives for comfort. Besides, why trust DNA results which you and I, and everyone else bar a couple of boffins in lab coats, haven't a hope of understanding over hard physical, visible evidence? Anna Anderson was the wrong height, shoe size, ear size, to be Franziska Schanzkowska, but right for Anastasia. She had a scar on her shoulder exactly where Anastasia had a mole removed. She had the same deformity of the big toe as Anastasia and her sisters. Besides, everyone who met her agreed she was an aristocrat, a difficult trick for a Polish factory worker to pull off. And let's not get into all the things she knew that only Anastasia could know. A graphologist testified at the trial that there was no doubt Anna's handwriting and Anastasia's were those of the same person.'

'Fine. But why didn't they have the same DNA?'

'How should I know? The excavation of the remains at Ekaterinburg was a suspect business anyway. The authorities had obviously known where they were for years if not the whole time since 1918 before they chose to dig them up. And DNA only proved they were Romanovs. It was down to pathologists to say which Romanovs. The Tsar and his family, obviously. But unfortunately they weren't all there. The Tsarevich and one of his sisters were missing, almost certainly the youngest sister, 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 rhus?' 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. Shipping, timber, hotels, electronics... Ring any bells now?'

'OK, Marty, you've had your fun. Of course I've heard of them. Mjollnir buys X; Mjollnir sells Y. It's difficult to flick through the business pages in the paper without seeing a headline like that sooner or later.'

'Tolmar Aksden is chairman and chief executive of the company. He owns it. He is Mjollnir.'

'So, I'm guessing he didn't appreciate his brother's antics at Dagmar's disinterment.'

'Probably not. No way of knowing for sure. The guy's notoriously reticent. He lets Mjollnir's share price do the talking for him.'

'No good asking him for the lowdown on his great-uncle, then.'

'None. But other members of his family might prove more... talkative.'

'Any of them live in rhus?'

'As a matter of fact, yes. His sister still lives on the family farm, south of rhus. She and her husband run the place. Tolmar's son, Michael, is a student at the University of rhus. And Lars divides his time between Copenhagen and the farm. Well, farm's an understatement. More of a country estate, actually. Since his escapade at Roskilde, he's mostly been lying low there, apparently.'

'How convenient.'

'It's worth a try, isn't it? Werner will have his hands full for the next couple of days translating the letters and negotiating a price for them. We can steal a march on him.'

'If Lars or any of the others know what their great-uncle's secret was. And if they're willing to share it.'

'Don't be so pessimistic. My bet is Lars is itching to share it.' Marty grinned. 'We just have to ask nicely.'

They finished their beers and went out on to the walkway serving the steps down to the platforms. A clamour of PA announcements rose with the rumble of arriving and departing trains towards the station roof. Their train was up on the platform indicator, but had not yet pulled in. Marty lit a cigarette and leant on the railings, gazing down at the comings and goings.

'I love stations,' he remarked. 'Big ones, I mean, like this. Everyone going somewhere. Converging and diverging. North, south, east, west. Endless... possibilities.'

'How long will it take us to get to rhus?' Eusden asked.

'About six hours.'