Infinite Spring

by J. A. Armitage

  When they finally pulled up outside The Manor three hours later Anais jumped out and ran up to the front doors. They were locked so it took a few moments of fumbling in pockets to find the keys and open them. They found Winnie in the parlour along with Alex, August and Andrew. Her eyes were red rimmed and teary.

  Aethelu ran to her mother and gave her a hug.

  “How is he?”

  August answered, “He’s still the same. Aldrich and James are with him now.”

  “Can we see him?” asked Anais.

  Alex spoke for the first time, “Father has told us that we can’t visit at the moment. The surgery just isn’t big enough for too many people to crowd in. He said that he’d come and update us as soon as anything changed.

  “I can’t believe this is happening again. I’ve only just gotten over the shock of Aethelu and Anais being hurt. Now he’s gone after my son. What more does he want? We are making the Elixir, for goodness sake.”

  Anais sat beside Winnie and held her hand.

  “He doesn’t know that though, does he?” Alex said, causing everyone to turn and look at him. He carried on, “We have no way to contact him. How does he know that we are now doing what he wants?”

  “That’s a good point,” Aethelu chipped in. “Does he know now?”

  “How should we know what he does and doesn’t know?” sniffed Winnie. “He comes and goes as he pleases. Nothing can stop him. I don’t feel safe anymore. I’m worried all the time about all of you. I feel sick with the pressure of it all.” Winnie broke down in tears and was immediately comforted by Aethelu.

  “What actually happened?” Anais was just about to ask about Judith, but then realised that Andrew probably still didn’t know where Rafe had been. “Did any of the security cameras pick anything up?”

  She looked toward Andrew who looked surprised at being addressed. He moved his long hair out of his eyes before he spoke.

  “I had all the screens tuned in to the Kew Gardens CCTV system, so I’m afraid I didn’t see anything. Jago picked just the right moment to strike. We don’t know where Rafe came from and we don’t know how he got there. I probably would have picked him up when I changed the screens back to our system, but August found him first.”

  “I was just out walking Baker,” said August “I’d barely left the house when Baker shot off down the driveway. I followed him and found Rafe unconscious on the driveway with a note pinned to his lapel saying ‘Jago.’ There were no footprints, tyre tracks, anything. I don’t know how long he’d been lying there before Baker found him.”

  “It can’t have been more than an hour,” cut in Andrew. “I’d have picked him up on the cameras before that.”

  “I’m just glad you did find him,” smiled Winnie through her tears.

  Suddenly, the door opened and Aldrich and James walked in with matching gloomy expressions.

  Winnie jumped up. “What is it? Aldrich?”

  “He’s ok, there’s no change, but he’s stable. He’s breathing on his own. His heart rate is normal. In fact he’s perfectly healthy apart from the fact he’s not responding to anything.”

  “I’m going to see him!” Winnie rushed past Aldrich, with Alex hot on her heels.

  ‘Of course Alex would be upset,’ thought Anais. He was Rafe’s twin, after all.

  “Is there anything we can do, Aldrich?” she asked.

  “No, thank you. I’ll keep monitoring him and run some more tests tomorrow.” He looked weary.

  James took over from his friend. “It’s very late. I suggest we all go to bed and reconvene in the morning, when we are all less tired. Andrew, are the cameras turned on?”

  “Yes, security is up at maximum. The cameras are on.”

  Aethelu grabbed hold of Anais hand and led her towards the door.

  “Goodnight, everyone.”

  Anais struggled to sleep that night, despite her exhaustion. The day had been so busy that everything was swirling around in her head. When she finally did fall asleep, she dreamed about Aethelu trying to find seeds in Las Vegas, whilst Jago flew past on horseback throwing cherry blossoms and orchids at her.

  What a week it had been!

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, everyone was in a dour mood. Winnie had spent the night in the surgery next to Rafe. It was only when Aldrich had demanded that she get some sleep that she had finally retired to their bedroom. Alex was still there and refused to be moved.

  Anais decided to make breakfast for everyone with help from Aethelu. She did her best to make a cooked breakfast as good as Winnie’s, but failed miserably. Her eggs were over-cooked, the bacon stringy, and the baked beans were not as warm as they should have been. Still, everyone was grateful for a hot meal. Aethelu took a plate over to the surgery for Alex and returned teary-eyed.

  “No change?” asked Anais.

  “No, still the same,” she replied.

  Winnie was also absent from the table as they ate. As she’d only gone to bed a couple of hours before, they decided not to wake her.

  Aldrich sat at the end of the table with James at one side and August at the other. Andrew sat between August and Aethelu.

  They all ate in silence, and it wasn’t until the last of them had finished that anyone said anything.

  It was James that spoke first. “I checked on Rafe an hour ago. The good news is that he hasn’t deteriorated over night. Unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten any better either.”

  “So, where are we now?” asked Andrew.

  “We managed to get the Heatherwort seeds,” said Aethelu, without much enthusiasm.

  “You got them!” interjected August. “Fantastic! Give them to me. I’ll grow them.”

  Aethelu pulled them out of her dressing gown pocket, still in their plastic bag, and passed them across the table. August picked them up and placed them in his own pocket.

  “We have all the pendants apart from Amber’s and Abel’s, and we have a lead on that,” Anais said. She told them all about her theory that they were in Egypt.

  “Do we have a lead on Sabine?” asked James hopefully.

  “I’m afraid not,” replied Anais, “We’ve been so busy trying to track down the pendants and get the seeds that I’m afraid we got side-tracked. I’m so sorry James.”

  “No, I understand. There is a lot going on.” But he looked downhearted all the same.

  “Andrew?” Anais turned to him. “Can we look into Sabine’s disappearance today?”

  He looked a little unsure. “Surely, we would be better served putting our efforts into finding the last two pendants?” He looked over at James. “Ok. I guess we could put that back a day or two.”

  “I’ll help if I can,” added Anais.

  “Well. I don’t see that there is anything else we can do at the moment. If you don’t mind, I’m going to check on my son.” Aldrich stood up and left the kitchen via the back door.

  After the breakfast things had been cleared, Anais headed down to the cellar with Andrew. Aethelu wanted to come with her, but Anais refused, telling her that she should be with the rest of her family, at Rafe’s bedside.

  The cellar looked exactly as it had before they had captured James. All the screens were on, showing various parts of the grounds and house.

  Anais could see Rafe in the surgery. Alex and Aldrich were with him. As she watched, Aethelu and August turned up and a space was made for them round the bed. The surgery was not big enough to occupy so many people, so the result was they all had to stand. Anais knew that Aldrich would let them all have a few minutes with Rafe, then send them away so he could perform tests.

  Suddenly, something caught her eye on one of the other screens. James was back in the Kitchen waving his arms frantically at the camera to try and catch their attention. At first, Anais thought he was in some kind of trouble but looking more closely she noticed he was smiling.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said to Andrew, who had positioned himself in front of the computer and was pay
ing no attention to the screens. She made her way through the big steel door and up through the lift in the Larder.

  “Oh, good,” James stopped waving at the camera and turned to her. “I hoped you’d see me. If you are looking for Sabine, I want to come and help you. I don’t know much, but I can speak Italian fluently, and Italy is probably where we should start, as that is where she was taken. I would have come down, but I don’t know how to work the lift and I don’t have access to the door at the bottom.”

  “That’s a good idea. You can tell us more about the day she was taken. We have so little to go on that any little detail could help.”

  She took him into the lift and showed him the mechanism to make it work. Once at the bottom, she told him the code that was one part to opening the door, but she had to use her own thumb print to finish the sequence off, as his had not yet been registered in the system.

  Andrew seemed surprised to see James with Anais but carried on at his computer nonetheless.

  “I’ve done a basic search for Sabine that brought up a few hits, although nothing that would help us. The name Sabine is common in Italy, coupling it with Cutter makes it certainly rarer, but it hasn’t helped with the search. I’ve found a few photographs of what I assume to be her. I wonder if you can identify her for us, Mr Cutter.

  He brought up the photo onto the screens. It was a copy of her driving licence. The picture was obviously taken in a photo booth with a generic pose. Anais couldn’t help but notice how attractive she was. She had long chestnut hair, a Mediterranean complexion and a beautiful smile. Just like Anais, herself, it seemed she had inherited her looks from her mother’s side.

  “That’s her.” James pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the corner of his eye.

  “I have a few more. I’ll put them up.”

  The first one was a photo of a group of ladies helping out at a church event. It was part of a newspaper article on the community coming together to feed the poor.

  “She helped out in the community a lot. I told her that she should keep a low profile as people would become suspicious that she never aged, but would she listen? That was taken about twenty years ago, but she still looks the same now.”

  The last photo, another news clipping, was much more recent, judging by the clothes she was wearing. This time, she was holding a trophy.

  “Last year, she won first prize in an art competition. She takes after me and is good with a paint brush. It was a local community affair, nothing major.”

  She was beaming with pride in the photo. Her hair lay in waves around her face. She was a very pretty lady. Anais hoped for James’ sake that she was still alive somewhere. The question was, where?

  “I’m afraid, that is all I could find on her, apart from a couple of mentions in local parish newsletters. Now that you have identified her, I can start my search properly. If you can give me the date she was taken, I can hack into the nearest airport security cameras and see if we can spot her.”

  “Really? That’s marvellous. You can do that?”

  “I can, but I suspect it won’t be much help. It was so long ago that I doubt the airports still have that particular date recorded. Most companies with CCTV record a day and then reuse the tapes the next day. Some keep the tapes a little longer, like a week. As airports are extremely strict on security, they may keep them longer in case of terrorism threats. We shall see.”

  “Can you check if her passport has been used?”

  “I already checked. No one by the name Sabine Cutter has travelled anywhere in the world in the last year. I suspected as much. Jago isn’t stupid enough to use her real documentation. I’ve checked for all other id under the name Sabine Cutter and nothing comes up. It’s possible that she is still in Italy, in which case she would not need any id to go anywhere, saving Jago the problem of making her some. Of course, she could have been smuggled out in much the same way you were.”

  “She could have left by car also,” added Anais.

  “That is another possibility, yes,” answered Andrew. “The likelihood of us finding the way she was taken out of Italy is slim, that is if she ever left Italy, which we don’t know she did.”

  “She is all I have. Please do whatever you can.” James sat down on the raggedy sofa and massaged his temples.

  Anais sat next to him. “Can you tell us about the last time you saw her? Include any small detail, no matter how insignificant it may seem. There might be something you missed when you told us last time. Plus, Andrew hasn’t heard it yet. He has a brilliant mind. Perhaps he will pick up on something the rest of us missed.”

  “I’m not sure what I can tell you. The day started the same as any other. I had plans to go into the centre of Florence, to a gallery to pick up some commission as they had sold a couple of my paintings. I had also taken a couple more to replace them. Sabine offered to come with me, but at the last minute she changed her mind.”

  “Why did she change her mind?” asked Anais.

  “She didn’t say. Come to think about it, she did seem a little off.”

  “Off?”

  “Distracted, not quite herself. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but perhaps something was going on, even then. I made my way into town, collected my commission and handed over my next two paintings. It had been a good month sales-wise, so I treated myself to some gnocchi at a local restaurant. After that, I went to the market and bought some fruit and vegetables. Then I made my way home.”

  “Was that an ordinary trip for you?” Anais couldn’t see how any of this would help them find Sabine. Jago had obviously waited until James went out and then taken Sabine. “I mean was it routine? Did you go out on the same day every week?”

  “Yes…well, no. I often went into town and to the market. I didn’t go on any specific day, just when we needed something. There was one strange thing, actually.”

  “What?” Anais listened intently.

  “I’m not that good of a painter. I’m not bad, but in a city such as Florence, which is filled by the work of the masters, my work did not compete. I very rarely sold any paintings, one a month, at best. The gallery was a small gallery, but they had been threatening for months to stop displaying my work unless I sold something soon. That morning, I had a phone call to say that two of my paintings had sold to a foreigner for double what they were worth on the proviso I bring more paintings to the gallery for him to look at. Of course, I was ecstatic. I’d made quite a considerable sum in commission and had the potential to make more.”

  “It was Jago. He bought your paintings to get you out of the house.”

  “It certainly seems that way.” He seemed dejected. “I guess they are right when they say, ‘Pride comes before a fall.’”

  Anais had a thought. “Perhaps we can call the gallery. They might have some information on Jago, what he looks like at the very least.”

  “It was called Galleria David, not the most imaginative name, but then it wasn’t the most imaginative gallery.”

  Andrew did a quick search on his computer. “Got it! You can use my phone.”

  James took the phone and dialled the number as Andrew called it out. It rang a couple of times before anyone answered. There followed a lengthy conversation in rapid Italian. Anais couldn’t understand much of what was being said, but by the look on James’ face, he wasn’t getting anywhere. When he finally hung up and passed the phone to Andrew, Anais asked him what he had learnt.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. You were right about it being Jago, though. The buyer never returned to look at my next two paintings which, I think, proves it.”

  “Did the owner remember what Jago looked like when he came to see the first paintings?”

  “No, apparently the owner never even saw him. He called and asked to reserve the paintings. He sent the money by post and then called again and asked to see more paintings by me. That’s all he said on the matter.”

  “It was a long phone call!” remarked Andrew.

  James gave a w
ry smile. “He was dumping me. He told me that my work was rubbish and that the two paintings of mine he sold were a fluke. He wasn’t very happy!”

  Another dead end. The three of them sat in silence, each consumed by their own thoughts for five whole minutes before Anais had another idea.

  “Andrew, can you somehow hack into the phone records and print out a list of phone calls to the gallery? Maybe just the two weeks prior to the kidnapping. It will come up twice and will quite possibly be a foreign number.”

  “I will try my best, but it will take some time,” he answered.

  “What else can you remember of that day?” she turned back to James.

  “I came home in a great mood, ready to share my news with Sabine, but when I unlocked the door and went in, I could see there had been a struggle. Sabine was gone, and there was the note I told you about before, about not contacting The Guardians.”

  “You unlocked the door? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I remember quite clearly.”

  “Mmm. Why would Jago bother to lock the door behind him as he left? Surely, he would have been in a hurry to get Sabine as far away as possible.” She pondered this new information for a few moments. “Did Sabine have an email address?”

  “Yes, of course, hasn’t everyone? I don’t know her password, though.”

  “Andrew?”

  “I’m on it. Hang on.” He tapped on the computer for a few minutes before coming back with Sabine’s email address and password. “Ok I’m in. Let’s see. In the weeks prior to her disappearance, she had a few emails from a Mark, and a couple from Katerina, both of whom emailed her a few times after her disappearance too. Do you know of these people?”

  “Yes, she has known them for years. My, how they must be worried. I suppose I should contact them and tell them the situation. Are there any more?”

  “Some from what I assume to be a church and some spam. Not much else, I’m afraid. She hasn’t accessed her email since the day she left, though. Did she have a phone?”

  “Yes. I tried calling it but it just went to voicemail. I have nothing left to tell you. I spent the next few days frantically searching the streets for her. I was too scared to contact the police or tell anyone. I was hoping that I would get a ransom letter. At least then, there would be hope.” He closed his eyes. “She is dead, isn’t she?” He didn’t cry, but his voice was strained.