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Chapter 35
Lili leaned forward in her seat as the car turned up the drive. ‘What on earth …?’
The taxi driver stopped the car. She was the same driver who had driven Lili back and forward countless times when she was looking after Bella and watering Joseph’s plants. She had seen the flashing blue lights too. She glanced at her passenger. ‘It looks as though something has happened up at the house. Do you want me to turn around?’
Lili stared out of the window; she was afraid somebody had had an accident. What if it was Maisie? Lili swallowed as she shifted her gaze to the driver. ‘No, please drive on up to the house.’ She needed to know what was going on.
There were police cars parked haphazardly in front of the property along with a police van. All their lights were still flashing, as though they had arrived at a speed.
The taxi driver glanced in her rear-view mirror. ‘There’s another vehicle coming up the drive. I’m afraid I need to turn the car around and leave now, otherwise I’ll get hemmed in.’
‘Okay.’ Lili opened the car door. She paid the driver, slipped on her coat and got out of the vehicle, heaving her suitcase off the back seat. She watched the taxi driver do a three-point-turn and pass the unmarked van coming up the drive.
Lili walked the rest of the way, the white van passing her. Nearing the house, she breathed a sigh of relief when she realised there wasn’t an ambulance parked outside. However, what she saw surprised her. Police were loading things from the house into the police van. They’d run out of space, so they had started to load up the unmarked van that had just arrived.
Lili stopped and stared at all the activity. Many paintings were being loaded into the vans, some mounted in ornate picture frames. Many looked quite old. They were just the sort of thing she expected to see in a museum or art gallery. She frowned; she didn’t recall seeing them hanging anywhere in the house.
Lili didn’t see all the paintings being brought out; some were covered in dust sheets, just like the sheet that had protected the picture in the basement – the one she’d told the police about earlier in the day.
‘Oh, god!’ Lili connected the dots, remembering the two officers rushing out of the interview room the moment she told them where she’d found the landscape painting. She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. For starters, there was nothing else in the cellar – unless they hadn’t found them all in the house. Her thoughts turned to the old wooden summerhouse in the garden, with the large lock and the curtains closed at the windows so it was impossible to peek inside.
All that time, she’d wondered why it was locked. Now she had her answer. Even so, why were the police so interested in a bunch of old paintings? Joseph was an antiques dealer; it didn’t surprise her that he had stored the canvases, waiting to sell them in his shop.
Lili stepped forward and approached an officer in uniform standing by a car.
The police officer must have heard her footsteps on the gravel drive. He turned around. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Lili, a friend of the family.’
At that moment, Joseph appeared at the front door. He was sitting in a wheelchair and was being wheeled outside. Another detective was carrying two walking sticks.
‘You can’t do this!’ Joseph exclaimed. ‘You don’t understand!’
Lili’s eyes went wide when she saw Ray escorted out of the house in handcuffs. ‘What did you do?’ he shouted at Joseph as an officer led them to a police car.
Lili stepped forward.
The officer held out his arm and barred the way. ‘Please stay back.’
‘What’s going on? Are you arresting them?’
Lili did a double-take when Nate and Sarah emerged, also in handcuffs. They were escorted to the second police car.
The officer looked at the house and lowered his voice. ‘We’ve uncovered one of the largest collections of stolen art in seventy years. I reckon its worth millions.’
‘Stolen art?’ Lili’s mouth dropped open. ‘No, there’s been some mistake.’
‘I’m afraid not.’ He glanced at Lili’s suitcase on the driveway. ‘Were you intending to stay with the family?’
Lili shook her head. ‘No, I’m going to stay at The Harbour Inn.’ At least, that had been the plan until she’d turned up and discovered what was happening at the house.
‘In Aldeburgh?’
Lili nodded.
‘Good. If we have questions, we know where to find you.’
‘But what about Maisie?’
