EDGAR ALLAN POE
T here may still be people alive who were complicit in this macabre tale. If that is so, then it is just possible that, after all these years, they may feel some regret at the hurt they inflicted, though I certainly will not expect any letters of apology and heartfelt sorrow. Such people have no conscience.
Rather, this story is dedicated to the memory of Tatiana Nicolaevna Romanova, brutally murdered before her twentieth birthday.
Her mysterious presence throughout this sad tale has been explained by those who sought to help me (and, indeed, did so) as a figment of my fevered imagination – a by-product of chemically induced hallucinations. If that is so, as well it may be, it has been a very long and convincing ‘trip’, for she is with me still and I feel her presence beside me now as I write these last few lines. Perhaps now we shall both find peace.
VAN REENAN
September 2017
Tatiana Nicolaevna Romanova
Acknowledgements
With heartfelt gratitude to the late Dr Marie-Claire Gröller and her father, who saved my sanity and probably my life.
Many thanks to Clare Christian, Anna Burtt, Heather Boisseau and Linda McQueen for believing in me and making this book possible.
To Sue Jeffery, who struggled so valiantly with my scrawl to type the manuscript.
To Patrick Knowles for his beautiful cover design.
To Sara Findlay, Paul Phelps, Vickie Butcher-Phelps, Sarah Weeks-Jones and ‘Lady’ Polly Aldous for their support and encouragement, without which I would never have completed this book.
And to my daughter Claire and son Michael, for loving such a weird father.
About the Author
Collin Van Reenan was born in England but has spent considerable time in Western Europe, particularly France. Educated both in Paris and in London, he has had an eclectic selection of jobs and has worked, inter alia, as a labourer, driver, teacher, tour guide, immigration officer and police officer (the Met). Bilingual in French and English, he also speaks some Dutch and Arabic and worked until recently as an official police and court interpreter at Bow Street and the Old Bailey, until increasing deafness and a disliking of political correctness prompted him to retire. In 2012, he inherited his family’s French title and is the 5th Count Van Reenan, the earlier counts having left France in 1870 after local accusations of vampirism (!).
Currently sharing his time between a small apartment in Paris and his home in Essex, he pursues his interest in the occult and paranormal.
Please email [email protected] should you have any information regarding the story or any of the characters discussed in this book.
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