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Ray replied, ‘Because here copies of someone’s birth certificate can be acquired for a small fee, as long as you have the person’s date of birth.’
Lili stared at Ray. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Nope. And once you’ve got the birth certificate, therein lies the foundation of your new identity. Otto became George – and the rest is history.’
Sarah stared at Ray for a long moment before turning to her mother.‘You knew the truth all this time and let me believe …?’
Elspeth sighed. ‘It was one reason Joseph and I divorced. I thought there were no secrets between us, but then, one day, I stumbled on the old summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. It was normally locked. Joseph had told me that he and his father had once lived there, but that when they’d built the new house in the grounds, they’d started to use it as storage for their antiques business. I believed them. There was no reason not to. What he didn’t tell me was what they were storing in there or why he kept it under lock and key. Then, one day, one of them hadn’t secured the latch properly. Curious, I opened the door …’
Elspeth paused, remembering that day vividly. She knew immediately that she had stumbled on something important. ‘If I could go back in time, I wish curiosity hadn’t got the better of me, and that I hadn’t opened that door. But there you have it. That was the end of my relationship with Joseph, the love of my life. But everything made sense; the way Joseph discouraged friends from visiting the house. The antique shop was a front for Joseph’s travels abroad in search of lost art. In search of Alena.’
Elspeth sighed. ‘For Joseph, he had to keep the secret of who his so-called father really was. In the years following the war, the search for Nazis began, and over time it just intensified. Otto wasn’t a Nazi in the sense that he didn’t send people to their deaths, but he was on those islands when people were being rounded up and put on those boats to be transported to the camps. I don’t know what would have happened to him if his true identity had ever come to light. There was also a tremendous interest in discovering the depositories of lost art. He didn’t know where they were. The art officers weren’t told their eventual destination, but he had meticulously recorded those paintings and other assets, and who they belonged to. The ones he was involved in requisitioning.’
Ray sat bolt upright. ‘You mean those records still exist?’
Sarah was leaning forward in her seat too. ‘They would be invaluable.’
Elspeth nodded and continued, ‘Joseph said he owed Otto for saving his life and that I must keep Otto’s secret. So, I did, because I loved Joseph and I didn’t want to destroy his little world. But it destroyedus.’
She looked pointedly at Ray and Sarah. ‘Do you know how disappointed I was when you told me you were going to work for the Art Loss Register, and to cap it all that you’d fallen in love with an art cop? I knew that the writing was on the wall – to borrow a phrase. The obsession with finding lost artefacts would eventually come between you. It was inevitable, and I knew the repercussions for your son.’
Nate shifted in his seat.
Sarah said, ‘Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?’
‘I wanted them to tell you the truth, but they weren’t having any of it – especially Joseph. He was afraid—’
‘The secret would come out about George’s identity, the Nazi art officer, Otto.’ Ray understood. It was only recently, as time had marched on, that the search for Nazis and uncovering the identities of those who had lived under assumed names, in adopted countries for decades, had stopped. ‘He would have been arrested,’ said Ray.
Elspeth looked at Ray. ‘Yes, he would have been.’
‘And you were afraid of being implicated.’
Elspeth nodded. ‘Very much so. The fact that he’d kept all the evidence of his past so-called war crimes right here made it worse. It meant, if it had been discovered, that we’d all have gone to prison.’
Ray cast his gaze around at the empty walls that had housed one of the biggest depositories of lost art in a single private collection – now crated and housed in the bowels of the local nick. The news reporters were having a field day. The camera crews had accosted Ray, Nate and Sarah as they’d left the little police station. How word had got out so quickly, they did not know.
Even up at the house, while they had been making tea, coffee, and juice before they returned to the old summerhouse, there had been news teams camped out on the front lawn. Everyone in the house had ignored them. It was something they knew would have to be dealt with later, but for now they were safely away from prying eyes in the privacy of Otto’s cabin at the end of the garden – or so they thought.
