Page 83 of The Unseen
“Mum led a charmed life until she was eighteen. She was a Russian countess, you know. She was born in St. Petersburg, as it’s called now, and brought up in luxury and comfort in a house on the bank of the Neva River. She was engaged to marry the scion of another titled, wealthy family. She’d have had a very different life had the Revolution not destroyed everything she held dear. The night Petrograd fell to the revolutionaries, my mother lost both her father and her fiancé, as well as her mother, in a way. My grandmother never quite recovered from the terror and uncertainty of those events. She withdrew, leaving my mum to become the head of the family.”
“Why did your mother choose to immigrate to England when most Russian émigrés were flocking to France?”
“My grandmother had a cousin here, someone she’d been close to when she was a girl. The house in Belgravia actually belonged to him, and to his wife’s family before that. Grandmother said that Dmitri saved them from utter ruin. He was her guardian angel,” Natalia recalled with a warm smile.
“In what way?”
“Well, when they finally arrived in England after months of travelling, they were frightened and bedraggled. There was nothingand no one waiting for them here. They spoke practically no English, and had no possessions beyond what they could carry. My mother’s fiancé, Count Alexei Petrov his name was, had advised her to sew some valuables into her garments, and it was the money from the sale of those valuables that sustained them during the initial months. Mum got cheated blind, of course, when she tried to sell the jewels, but she got enough to pay for lodgings and food. They were running low on funds when Cousin Dmitri finally found them. He took them in.”
“And what happened to Cousin Dmitri?” Quinn asked, all innocence.
“He went missing, actually. Left the house early one morning and vanished into thin air.”
Quinn patiently waited for the penny to drop. She could almost hear Rhys’s glee as he stood next to Darren, watching the interview.
“It must be him that you found, mustn’t it?” Natalia asked, her eyes wide with shock. “Golly. How did he wind up there?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you think your mother knew about the secret room behind the wardrobe?”
“I can’t imagine that she did. She would have never left him to rot in that bathtub had she known,” Natalia replied, squaring her shoulders and staring angrily into the camera. It was time to take a step back, so Quinn changed tack.
“What was your mother like, Natalia? What type of person was she?”
Natalia shrugged, still a bit defensive. “Mum was quite forward-thinking for her time, but at home she was very proper. Everything had to be just so. Once I got older, we were constantly at odds. Mum’s refusal to let go of the old ways drove me mad. It was a new world, a new life, but she clung to her Russian roots, and the morals of the previous century, despite being an advocate for women’s rights. I swear, if she could have had me chaperonedevery time I left the house, she would have. I don’t think Mum ever did an improper thing in her life. It was difficult to imagine her ever acting on impulse or doing anything racy.”
“She was married twice. Was she not?”
“Yes. Her first husband was Cousin Dmitri. She said they fell in love once they moved into his house, but she was afraid my grandmother would disapprove, so they married in secret. Mum mourned him for a long time. She married my father after Dmitri was declared legally dead. It took seven years. My dad was Stanley Swift, of Swift Publishing. Mum met him while working as a reporter.”
“What do you think happened to Dmitri?”
Natalia giggled like a schoolgirl, her earlier pique forgotten. “How would I know? If the remains are really those of Dmitri Ostrov, well, that just raises a million questions, doesn’t it? He didn’t seal himself in that bathroom, so someone had to know something.”
“Can you conceive of your mother having had anything to do with Dmitri’s death?” Quinn asked, keeping her voice soft and neutral.
“No, absolutely not.” Natalia shook her head stubbornly. “Mum was the least devious person I’ve ever known. She just didn’t have it in her to hurt anyone.”
“How would you feel if you discovered your mother was responsible for her husband’s death?” Quinn asked. She had no desire to shatter Natalia’s view of her mother, especially without tangible proof, but the story would have to be told, and Valentina would be implicated regardless. The world believed her to be Dmitri’s wife, and his remains had been discovered in the house. It wasn’t very likely, even without definitive forensic evidence to support the facts, that Valentina would not have known her husband was still in the house, especially since the bathroom had been sealed from the outside.
“Let me tell you something, Dr. Allenby. If my sweet, guileless mother killed her first husband and hid his remains from the world, all I can do is applaud her because if that man drove her to such depths of despair, he deserved whatever he got. My mother and I didn’t get on, and I’d be lying if I said we ever understood each other, but there’s one thing I can say with certainty. My mother was a woman of great strength and impeccable character. If she was driven to murder, then she must have been dreadfully wronged and most likely abused. I’m sad to say that now I’ll never know, since I can no longer ask her, but I would like to see Mum vindicated.”
“Do you think Dmitri could have been capable of causing such irreparable damage?” Quinn asked, hoping for family gossip.
“I couldn’t say with any certainty, but my aunt Tanya did say there was something off about him. She said he was too smooth, too nice almost, as if there were someone quite different lurking just beneath the surface.”
“Were you close with your aunt?”
“She died twelve years ago. Lived to a ripe old age, Tanya did. She was a pistol. Unfortunately, I didn’t see her often after I went off to uni. She and her husband lived in the south of France. Mum used to send me and my brother there for the summer when we were kids. Those were enchanted days.”
“Your mother never went with you?”
“She only came for a week at the end of August. She had a job and couldn’t get the whole summer off.”
“She became a journalist, you said?”
“After her husband went missing, she went to school. She wished to become a journalist, but her English wasn’t good enough to write for any reputable paper. It took her about five years to get her first piece published, but once she did, she began to make a name for herself. She changed her name to Tina Swift after she married my dad. She said Valentina sounded too foreign.”
“And your Uncle Nikolai, what became of him?”
