This reminded Anais of the reason she went to Las Vegas in the first place.
“Did Alex tell you why we had to go to Vegas?”
“No, actually, I’ve been wondering about that. Where is Rafe?”
Anais told her all about Rafe flying to Kenya to meet Judith.
“He didn’t!” Aethelu looked shocked at this new information.
“I’m guessing you’ve not heard from him then. I suppose he must have found her, if he hasn’t come home yet.”
“How could he? The lowdown scum-bucket!” Aethelu raged, “Poor Andrew, he must never find out. This would kill him!”
“I know, but I guess he’s going to have to find out sooner or later, unless it all goes wrong with Rafe and Judith and he flies back home.”
“This is going to sound awful, but we need Andrew right now. He managed to hack into the Kew Gardens database in seconds. I’d never have been able to do it. I doubt even Alex would have managed it.”
Anais squirmed slightly at the mention of Alex but glossed over it.
“I agree. We don’t tell Andrew anything for now. For all we know, Rafe could be on a flight home as we speak.”
She felt awful at keeping something so important from Andrew, but the fate of humanity was at stake and they needed his help.
“Did Andrew find out how we are going to get these Heatherwort seeds? I’m guessing you can’t just call Kew Gardens and ask to borrow them?”
“You guess right! The reason they keep a seed library is to stop any plant from becoming truly extinct. In many cases, the seeds they have are only found there. There is a seed library in Germany, as well, but, thankfully, we don’t need to go that far. Usually, Rafe would be the best person for this job. There’s something about him that makes people believe what he says. He can bend anyone to his own will. Judith didn’t stand a chance, really, but anyway, I digress. It’s down to you and me. The way I see it, we have two options. One, try and ask for the seeds using some cunning ruse such as Rafe would have done, or two. . .”
“Which is?” Anais asked as Aethelu paused.
“We break in!”
“We break in?” Anais wasn’t sure if Aethelu was being serious. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a cat burglar. Let’s go with option one.”
“I knew you would say that, but I think we should forget option one and go with option two, and here’s why. If we try option one first and fail, which we most likely will, then we move on to option two…”
“Which we will fail,” Anais butted in. Aethelu ignored her and carried on.
“Which succeeds. As soon as they see what has been stolen, they will know it’s the two girls that had been asking for the seeds earlier on. They’d just have to check the CCTV footage from earlier and there we would be.”
“But if we broke in, we’d be on CCTV anyway.” Anais grabbed one of the sandwiches that Aethelu had brought up and bit into it. She always felt hungry when she was nervous.
“Yes, but if we broke in, we would be wearing masks to cover our faces.”
Anais didn’t like the logic of this at all. She’d never so much as stolen a candy bar before. Breaking and entering was not an idea she relished.
“I don’t like it. I wouldn’t know how to break in to anywhere. What if we get caught?” she said between mouthfuls.
“We won’t get caught,” said Aethelu, dismissing her with a wave of her hand, “As for breaking into the seed bank, Andrew has come up with a brilliant plan. Here let me show you.”
She ferretted about under the bed before coming up with some rolled up pieces of paper. They were blueprints for all the Kew Gardens buildings plus a printed sheet of access codes to various doors.
“Andrew hacked into their CCTV system a couple of days ago. He’s been watching the security guards for days. He knows all their routines.” Aethelu passed a security rota to Anais who had to change the hand she was holding her half eaten sandwich in.
Her feeling of unease began to increase. According to this, there were at least two security guards, alarms, key codes and then the small matter of keys to the box where the seeds were kept.
“How the hell are we supposed to do this?” She chewed on the last of the sandwich and swallowed. It felt like a brick going down.
“Don’t worry. It’s not like we are trying to rob a real bank. The seeds we need are actually pretty worthless in the eyes of Kew Gardens and have the least amount of security. You should be lucky that we aren’t trying to break in to steal a priceless rare orchid. This should be a walk in the park in comparison.
As Aethelu walked her through the plan, she had to admit, it had all eventualities covered. The only way she could supress the guilt she felt was to keep reminding herself of the reason she was doing it. There was no way Aldrich could make the Elixir without the Heatherwort plant and they needed the seeds to be able to grow it in the first place. She only wished Rafe was here, so that he could do it instead of her.
Hours of planning later and the jet lag began to catch up with her. With a big yawn, she laid her head on Aethelu’s pillow for a couple of minutes. When she opened them, light was streaming in through the open curtains. She’d fallen asleep and had slept the whole night without waking. She could feel Aethelu’s arm wrapped around her middle and the warmth of her body from behind her. She smiled and closed her eyes. Nothing was going to get her out of bed this morning. She snuggled back as far as she could without waking Aethelu and drifted back into a warm and cosy sleep.
All too soon, the noise and bustle of the house became too much and woke the pair up. Anais decided to go for a shower, whilst Aethelu went over a few last minute plans with Andrew. Andrew was not travelling down to London with the girls, but he would be in constant contact thanks to mobile phones. He would also be able to see everything as it was happening through the Kew Gardens CCTV.
As Winnie cooked them breakfast this morning, she made no effort to hide her worry with the plan.
“I’m sure this can wait a while,” she said whilst dishing up bacon and eggs to the two girls. “Rafe should be doing this.”
“Mama. We don’t know when or if Rafe is coming back. We have to do this now because the seeds aren’t enough by themselves. We need time to grow the plant. When the plant is fully grown, we can send them some seeds back to replace the ones we’ve taken.”
Winnie pursed her lips. “You know it’s not the plant that worries me. I’m worried that someone will get hurt. What if you get caught?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”
Anais sat silently through the exchange between Aethelu and Winnie. She wished she had Aethelu’s confidence, but she suspected Winnie was right to worry. What if someone did get hurt? She’d not even thought of that. She and Aethelu were going in unarmed. Andrew had come up with a plan that involved no violence and no threat to anyone, but she had no clue if the guards were armed or not. Still it did her no good to dwell on it. She forced down her breakfast and then went upstairs to pack her overnight bag for the second time in a week.
Chapter Twelve
The traffic was calm, and they made good time down to London. They had purposely chosen the least flashy car that the family owned, a blue Ford Mondeo. They didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves so driving one of the sports cars was out of the question. Andrew had made reservations at a small boutique hotel on the outskirts of London for them both. The plan was to get the tube into London. This meant that their car would be nowhere near Kew Gardens when the alarm was raised. It also meant that there was no getaway car and they would have to rely on their own feet to get them away from the crime scene. As one of Anais legs wasn’t working particularly well, she wasn’t too sure it was the best idea. Aethelu had told her not to worry so many times that she didn’t dare mention her bad leg again. At least she didn’t need the cane anymore. She had a slight limp but could walk reasonable distances now with only minimum pain.
The hotel was part of a terrace, nestled in b
etween two great red bricked houses. They had obviously been built for wealthy families, but now the houses on either side had been converted into many apartments judging by the number of buzzers on each door. The hotel looked to be the only house on the street that had remained as one building. A smart white welcome sign hung on the door next to a sign that read ‘No Vacancy.’
They checked in under the false names that Andrew had provided and went to their room. It was clean and tidy but very bland compared to Audsley’s ranch. The walls were painted in a magnolia colour and a framed picture of a London bus hung on the wall. The only furniture in the room was the bed and a writing desk and chair. A ‘Welcome to London’ pack was laid neatly on the desk next to a small kettle and sachets of coffee. Anais flicked through it. The first few pages were rules of the hotel (Keep quiet after 10pm, no visitors, etc.), the meal times and a printed map of the hotel showing the fire route. After that, was a printed brochure of London sights. She sat on the bed to read through it, as Aethelu went into the tiny en suite bathroom for a shower.
Flicking through the brochure, Anais felt so excited to be here. She had dreamed of visiting London all her life. Back in Los Angeles, when she was growing up, whenever her parents had talked about their homeland, she envisioned London. Despite the fact that her parents had lived in York and described it to her well, she still had images of Buckingham Palace and The Queen in her head. She had visions of princes walking corgis down streets guarded by men in red uniforms and bearskin hats, a place where everyone stopped for a cup of tea at eleven o’clock and the only way to get from A to B was a red bus or a black taxi. Aethelu had already explained that they would, in fact, be using neither of these modes of transport and would instead be doing all of the travelling on The Tube, London’s underground train system. Even that sounded exciting to Anais. Every page in the book showed a familiar sight that, although she had not seen it in real life, she knew it so well from TV shows set in the city: Nelson’s Column, Harrods, the Royal Albert Hall, the Tate Galleries. She could spend a month here and still not see everything.
She made herself a cup of coffee and opened a packet of biscuits that she found next to the kettle. Drinking it, she dove back into the magazine, all the while, munching on the biscuits.
It was as she was reading an article on Selfridges that she noticed the time. She’d been so engrossed in the magazine that she’d not realised how much time she’d spent reading it. Aethelu had been in the bathroom nearly an hour. Anais put down the magazine and listened. It was awfully quiet in there. She couldn’t hear the shower running.
“Aethelu, are you ok?”
The bathroom door handle turned and the door opened.
A dowdy looking woman with mousy brown hair and a prominent nose stepped out, raised her hands in the air and using Aethelu’s voice, proclaimed “Ta dah.”
“Aethelu?” She sounded like Aethelu and she was wearing Aethelu’s clothes, but she looked nothing like the raving beauty that Anais knew.
This woman had no trace of the pixie features of her girlfriend, instead, her cheeks were puffy and undefined. Her eyes were a dim green and her complexion was at least three shades darker than Aethelu’s porcelain skin tone. Bushy brown eyebrows covered Aethelu’s neatly defined ones completing the look.
“Yep, good huh.” Aethelu did a twirl. “Andrew designed it all. He made the prosthetic nose and gave me something to fill out my cheeks. The wig was an old one of Arcadia’s that he dyed this colour and styled it to suit. It’s amazing isn’t it? I almost didn’t recognise myself in the mirror.”
“Why are you in disguise? I thought we were going to wear masks and hoodies and go in tonight.”
“Ah, change of plan. Andrew had a brain wave last night and told me all about it this morning. He was up all night getting stuff ready.”
“You didn’t think to tell me about this before now?” Anais was incredulous.
“I didn’t want you to worry. It actually means you’ll have less to do.”
“So where is my disguise?”
“If all goes to plan, you won’t need one.”
“If all goes to plan?” Anais was almost shrill. What were the chances of that happening?
“Come on then., time to go.” Aethelu picked up a carrier bag and headed for the door.
“Now? It’s still daylight. The Gardens don’t shut for hours.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s another change to the plan. We are doing this in the daytime whilst it’s still open to the public.”
“In broad daylight?” This time, Anais voice did reach the heights of shrillness.
“Yup,” said Aethelu and winked before leaving the room with a grin on her face.
The nearest tube station was situated only a couple of minutes’ walk away from the hotel. It was one of the reasons why this particular hotel had been chosen.
Anais had expected to have to walk down hundreds of steps, so she was surprised to find that the station was above ground. Aethelu assured her that by the time they got to Kew, the train would be underground. It was nothing like she imagined. Her imagination had run away with her slightly, and she knew it was unrealistic to expect red velvet covered seats with gold armrests and butlers to cater to your every whim, but she had expected more than the stuffy grey train in which she found herself. Every carriage was packed with people, so they both had to stand. It wasn’t long before they did, indeed, enter a tunnel and everything went dark with the exception of the train itself, which was internally lit.
At each stop, more and more people got on, to the point that Anais thought that if one more person joined the carriage, she’d very probably be crushed to death. Her head was stuck in the rather dubious smelling armpit of a business man in a suit whilst a harassed woman with a baby was being crushed into her on the other side. The baby didn’t seem to mind and was quite happily drooling all over Anais’ coat. She couldn’t move her hands to wipe it off, and it was far too noisy to ask the mother to move the baby, not that she’d be able to move, anyway. Just when Anais thought she could breathe no more, Aethelu yelled, “Our stop,” grabbed her hand and pulled her through the doors to the underground station.
A cool breeze flew down the tunnel, for which Anais was grateful. It was anything but ‘fresh’ air but it cooled her down all the same.
She followed Aethelu through what felt like miles of tiled tunnels, each covered with colourful posters advertising West End Musicals and other things to do in London. After travelling up many escalators, they finally reached the surface and emerged into the daylight. Anais breathed in a couple of lungful’s of air and looked around. There was a sign pointing to Kew Gardens, but she didn’t need it. She could see the gardens from where she stood. Throngs of people bustled up and down the street and the traffic roared past her. She had started to follow the sign when Aethelu grabbed her hand and started to pull her in the opposite direction. She was so surprised that it took a few moments for her mind to register the tingles racing up her arm.
“Where are we going? Kew Gardens is over there.” She pointed in the direction that the sign pointed.
“Yeah, I know. The main gardens are, but the seed bank is this way near the back of the building.”
Anais had to let go of Aethelu’s hand. The tingles were getting stronger, and she couldn’t concentrate.
The seed bank was actually not too far from the main Kew Gardens entrance. Aethelu, having been there before, knew the area and directed Anais to a side entrance.
The entrance was open to the public and led them to a huge vestibule area with a café, gift shop and toilets. Doors led off in all directions. Aethelu moved toward the café and sat down at one of the few unoccupied tables. Anais took her coat off and hung it on the back of the chair, but Aethelu kept hers on. A big red fur-lined hood covered her hair.
“Coffee? Do you want some cake? I’m famished.”
Anais frowned. The place was packed with visitors. Families enjoying a day out, foreign tourists seeing the s
ights and couples with a day off work were all milling around the space. On top of that, Anais could count at least two different school groups.
“What are we doing? This place is packed. We will never get away with this. There are hundreds of potential witnesses here, not to mention the CCTV cameras that are dotted around.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all planned. All these people will help us. Now just sit back, relax and I’ll bring you a piece of cake and for goodness sake, stop fidgeting and take that scared look off your face before someone suspects something.”
It was easier said than done. She was scared. It didn’t help that she had no idea what Aethelu was going to do or what the plan for her was. She was actually beginning to get annoyed with Aethelu’s lack of concern and the lack of information.
Aethelu came back to the table with two cups of coffee and two slices of cake, one of which she placed in front of Anais.
Anais drank the coffee, but even though she’d not eaten since breakfast time, she was not hungry and her cake went uneaten.
Aethelu looked at her watch and then around at the entrance hall.
“Just a few more minutes,” she said, before checking her watch again.
“A few more minutes until what?” Anais turned her back to look where Aethelu had been looking but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, Aethelu pulled her hood further over her head, so it obscured her face.
“Showtime!” She was looking over Anais shoulder at something.
Anais once again turned her head. She still saw nothing except for the throngs of people milling around. Then she spotted her--a woman with mousy brown hair and a prominent nose. The resemblance was uncanny. Aethelu was disguised to look just like her.
“Who is she?” Anais turned back to Aethelu.
“She is the guard. Her shift starts in fifteen minutes, just enough time for her to go to the staff changing rooms and put her uniform on. Here…” She handed Anais a map of the gardens. “Talk to her. Stall her.”
Infinite Spring Page 12