by Jay Stringer
The haul was split fairly evenly between Eades’s work and Roberto’s. Most of Roberto’s was in Italian. Chase had a basic enough knowledge to read some of it and used translation apps to pick up on much of the rest. His style was pretty rigid and formal, but that might have just been the translation. There were stories about crime, business, some sports. Nothing of note. Eades’s files were closer to the point. An assortment of published work, unfinished drafts, and notes. Chase got to read three different descriptions of herself, seeing how Eades had tested out the approach to the story that changed everything. There was a document labeled Purity, which Chase took to be a reference to R18, but the pages were blank. Chase dragged the curser across the screen, searching for white text on the white background, but found nothing. She also found a draft of an article on James Gilmore. But there was nothing there of note, no references to the Fountain.
She gave up, settling back in the seat to watch the rolling slopes of Scotland.
Chase felt a bittersweet pang coming back to a place that could have been her home. Her mother had been Glaswegian. Aya Rachel Behr, who went mainly by her middle name, was born to first-generation immigrants. She’d spent her early years in a small Jewish community in the Gorbals, a working-class area on the south bank of the Clyde. By the time Rachel was a teenager, the Behrs had moved to Garnethill, a more affluent residential area just north of the city center. She’d grown up steeped in the city’s left-wing political traditions and was one of the founding protesters at the Faslane Peace Camp, a permanent protest against the nuclear weapons stationed at the nearby naval base. It was here, in one of life’s great little jokes, that she met Noah Chase, an American sailor in the US Navy, and nine months later they were raising a baby daughter together in rural Washington.
After Rachel and Noah both died in a mudslide on the farm, Chase became an argument between her American and Scottish relatives. Both wanted to raise her, and each side knew they didn’t have enough money for her to keep hopping across the Atlantic on visits. The Chases won out, and she was raised American. But each time she visited Glasgow, it was with a feeling of what if.
Shortly before reaching the city, Chase and Hass pulled into a service station just north of Hamilton. It gave them a chance to swap seats again. Chase knew Glasgow far better than Hass, and the M8 could be a confusing stretch of road even if you’d lived there for decades. Once you were off the motorway and into the streets of Glasgow itself, it was easy to get caught up in its one-way system and the warren of roads and lanes that surrounded the center. As with the urban myth about German or Japanese soldiers who got lost during the war and didn’t know it had ended, Chase was sure there were tourists who’d spent years trying to escape Glasgow’s roads.
She took a detour on the way in. The address she had for Eades was in the East End. Mason had given her the journalist’s new workplace, too. It was a bookie’s, one of the countless gambling shops that could be found on busy streets in the UK. Glasgow had more than most, and it never failed to catch Chase by surprise. No matter how many times she’d been here, she was still shocked by the normalization of gambling. Despite this, she drove into Garnethill, her mother’s old neighborhood. She still had family here. Aunts, grandparents, cousins. But, as with most relationships in her life, things had become strained by her career of bad decisions. Now didn’t feel like the time to try to repair the damage.
Hi, Nana. I’ve got five minutes. A spy sent me here on the trail of a missing journalist, who is being hunted by a Nazi. How’s your week been?
She pulled to a stop outside Garnethill Synagogue. She climbed out of the car, leaving the engine running, and looked up at the redbrick building. She’d kicked her heels here as a child, on visits to Glasgow. She’d never felt any need to be there. But now, as she’d headed north toward the city, she’d felt the pull, like a homing beacon. There was something here. An urge. A drive. She was connected to this place and these people. Their history was her history. These bricks were her bricks.
Their Ark was her Ark.
And soon, if all went to plan, she’d get to see it again.
The synagogue’s black gates were closed. There were no lights in the windows. It was well past midnight. There were few things quite like a Glasgow night. When it got dark, it could be as thick as ink, and those shadows now wrapped around the walls. And yet, somehow, it didn’t feel like she was unwelcome. Unlike the first time, outside the synagogue in New York, she felt comfortable. Something had changed.
Chase was pulled from her thoughts by Hass, who opened his door and leaned out of the car to look up at her. “It feels wrong to point this out here, but we’re still in a race against Nazis.”
Chase laughed, nodded, and got back behind the wheel.
Driving to the East End was an interesting experience. Chase thought she knew the area well enough, but things had changed. The city center would always be the same, laid out in a grid, like a smaller version of New York. But once you got past that, all bets were off. Now, attempts at regeneration and gentrification had moved some of the roads around. Chase would know exactly where she was for around two hundred yards; then she’d approach an intersection and find a new main highway or a housing development that hadn’t been there ten years before. She headed for London Road, one of the main streets out of the city, and one that she hoped hadn’t changed all that much. Ahead in the distance, she could see Celtic Park, the large football stadium. It was lit up with green lights, even at this time, glowing like a beacon. Eades’s address was near the stadium, so Chase kept the car aimed in that direction.
Past Celtic Park they turned left, then left again into a quiet cul-de-sac of new buildings. Behind the development was the Eastern Necropolis, a large old graveyard that had been opened to cater to the migrants moving to the area after the industrial revolution.
The first half of the street was lined with tall apartment buildings. From the distances between the windows, Chase got the impression the rooms were small. Moving past those, they came to houses. These looked to be bigger and more comfortable living spaces. The rooms seemed larger, and some had large gardens and driveways big enough to fit three cars. Though it seemed that none of them had been built with the idea that visitors might need to read the house numbers in the dark. The doorways were shrouded in shadows, the numbers obscured. Chase took a guess, hoping the houses were numbered in the traditional way, with odd on one side and even on the other. She headed for the corner, where the cul-de-sac had been expanded with a new row of houses, almost forming a separate road. The bricks looked more recent, and a couple of the houses still had for-sale signs and looked uninhabited. In the far corner, next to a small alleyway, Chase could see one of the front windows had a low light coming from inside, the glow of a television or computer screen.
Eades had always kept odd hours. Writer’s hours, she’d called them, up until three or four in the morning. Chase was confident she would still be keeping to that habit.
They parked several houses away and closed the car doors as quietly as they could. Chase told Hass to hang back a few yards. Eades knew Chase, and that would buy a few seconds’ worth of trust. She didn’t know Hass.
Chase stepped up to the door and rang the bell. She felt, more than heard, an electronic buzzing and looked up to see a camera mounted to the wall, in a corner that kept it out of sight from the road. She’d been spotted. What was the next move? Chase waited a full minute. There was no sound from inside, and the glow in the window was gone. She pressed the button again, and this time she heard footsteps in the hallway behind the door. A chain. The metallic clicks of a double lock. The door opened inward, enough for Chase to come face-to-face with Ashley Eades.
The last few months had changed her. There was a hardness to her face, a cold anger that you only recognized if you’d carried it yourself. Her hair was shorter, and she seemed to have lost weight. Chase smiled, and Eades’s hard front slipped as a number of emotions washed across her face. Fear. Happiness.
Panic. She started to shake her head but stopped. Her mouth opened and closed without words. And then Chase saw it, the decision to slam the door.
Chase put her hands out in a peace-making gesture. “I’m here to help.”
“I—”
“I just want to talk.” Chase took one slow step forward. “I heard what happened to Bobby. I’m sorry.”
Eades’s face twitched through more emotions. Grief. Relief. She turned to look behind her, then down at the floor. Chase didn’t move any closer; she didn’t want to spook her.
“I thought about calling you,” Eades said. “So many times. But I didn’t know if you’d help.”
That cut Chase in half. The thought that someone who needed support wasn’t sure if she’d get it. How did she keep finding new ways to push people away? She tried to think of an appropriate response. Apology? Explanation? She opted for a reassuring smile and silence.
“How’d you find me?” Eades asked.
“The spy who helped you in London, she’s a friend. She’s been keeping tabs on you.”
“I paid to disappear.”
“You did. But she’s good at her job.”
Eades nodded. She sucked her cheeks in thought. “So you know about Caliburn.”
“Caliburn, R18, the Fountain of Youth.”
Eades laughed, mostly to herself, and shook her head. “That’s not… never mind.”
Chase wanted to ask what she meant. But not out here, where they were exposed. “Can we talk? Inside? I do want to help.”
They held eye contact for a long time as Eades thought it over before nodding and stepping back, opening the door fully.
Chase gestured back the way she’d come. “I have a friend with me. I trust him.”
Hass stepped into view. Chase could see Eades hesitate. The door twitched. But once someone has invited you in, it takes a huge psychological effort for them to turn back on that decision. Eades shrugged and nodded for them both to step inside.
The living room, where the glow had been coming from, looked more like a dorm than a newly built house. There was sparse and cheap furniture, piled high with papers and takeout containers. Eades had a collection of mismatched armchairs, and her computer desk held three laptops. She lifted one up to show she’d been watching a teen drama on Netflix.
She flicked a lamp on, filling the room with a dull light. Chase got a better look at Eades now. What she’d taken for weight loss was clearly a fitness regimen of some sort. She’d gained definition, and her shoulders were broader. She’d spent the months since her life fell apart rebuilding herself into someone new. And that someone, from her skinny jeans to her Vans to a leather jacket draped over one chair, looked a lot like Chase.
Nobody moved for a few seconds, standing in an awkward silence.
Chase broke the ice. “How are you?”
Eades’s hardness was back in place. “It’s been tough. Waiting for this. Every day, every time the doorbell goes. Waiting to see who it was that came for me.”
Chase skipped past the implication. “You look good, though. Been working out?”
“Every day. Running, boxing. Started doing Krav Maga. There’s a class in town, twice a week. I felt… When I walked in and found Bobby, when I saw what could have happened to me, I felt so small. So helpless. I never want to feel like that again.”
“That takes guts,” Chase said. “You can’t do that if you’re not already strong. You were never helpless.”
Eades pulled a face that told Chase she’d picked the wrong response. They stood in silence for a few seconds, until Eades said, “And you? How you been?”
I’m tired.
I’m done.
“Good. I’ve got a job waiting for me in New York, and my publisher is expecting a book from me any time now.”
“Have you written it?”
Chase smiled. “Any time now.” She took a step forward. “Caliburn is still looking for you. Do you know who he is?”
Eades snorted. “I knew it. You’re working. You’re here on a job.”
Chase put up a calming hand. “I’m here to help, first, but yes. I was hired to look for the Fountain. I know you talked to James Gilmore about it.”
Eades sighed with frustration. “Then you don’t know anything.”
Chase shot Eades a confused look. Eades dismissing the Fountain. What didn’t Chase know?
Eades waved for Chase and Hass to sit down. She settled into the chair nearest the laptops with a sigh. “James never mentioned the Fountain, or any fountain. It was never about that. He said he’d been to the Garden of Eden.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
I’ll start at the beginning,” Eades said.
Chase put a hand out. “Why don’t you start at the part about the Garden of Eden?”
Eades smiled. It was genuine. Warm. She was easing into the situation, putting her fears on hold. “I think I need to go through it in order. It’s like two different stories came together, and I don’t want to leave anything out.”
Chase waved her hand to say fine.
“Even then,” Eades said, “I’m not really sure where to start.” She leaned back, breathed in and out. “So, ages before I met you, I’d done a story on a care home. There were rumors of abuse, and it kinda tied into the national discussion about the NHS, and the lack of provision for the elderly, and how these homes were being run by private firms. So it was a story I knew I could sell, basically. And that’s where I met James Gilmore. He was a really nice old guy, but he wasn’t all there—his mind would come and go. It was like having a new grandpa to talk to. But one who wasn’t a homophobic old reactionary.” She smiled. “Then I met you and got hooked into your world, and it took over my life. There were so many people, so many stories. And that’s where I met Bobby.” She paused. The smile was bittersweet. She’d really loved him. “We had the same drive, but he had more of an idea of targets. I’d always been more scattershot, you know? I’d find a thing that fascinated me and sink into it and follow it as long as I could, then find a new thing.”
You were looking for an identity, Chase thought. And I think you found mine.
Eades continued. “But Bobby was focused. He knew what he wanted. He was on missions, not experiences. He had this whole story he was working on about Lothar Caliburn and Nazis. I’d always been fascinated by them. Like, the mentality, how people get there, why they believe those things. And I’d dated a guy at uni who was kinda right-wing. I thought he was going through a phase, but I guess it was me going through one. Like I could debate with him, change him, like it was all a game. So anyway, I got back in touch with him and started using his links to do stories on the alt-right, all the young men who were drifting that way.”
“And women,” Chase said.
“Yeah, true. You know, that was the main thing I kept finding. Nobody is writing about the women who prop up all these movements. Anyway. So, Bobby was digging into this story about R18.”
“We’ve crossed paths.”
Eades paused. “Yeah, the thing in London, one part I was never clear on—”
“Back to your story.”
Eades bobbed her head. You got me. “Through Bobby and my ex, I found there was this whole network of actual, real Nazis out there. Not even people who’ve just come along later and adopted the ideas, but groups who were there back in the day and never went away. All those people who felt empowered to speak up during the thirties, who just went quiet again after the war and kept working on the cause. And then there’s all the corporate stuff. You know, companies like Ford and IBM invested heavily in Germany before the war. They stopped after it became clear that shit was toxic over there. I mean, capitalism, right? But there were other companies who didn’t pull out or who disguised the fact they were still financially involved. That led me to Dosa Cola. Which was funny in itself.”
Eades paused, smiled. The silence was long enough for Chase to wonder if she was waiting for the question, but she started again.
“I w
ent to uni with Lauren Stanford,” she said. Chase and Hass shared a look. “She was in the same social circle with my ex, these rich kids who liked to say provocative things, get reactions. But at the time you just think they’re rich kids being rich kids, right? And Lauren was always… she always seemed to be playing games. I don’t think anyone, ever, really met the real person. I always figured she just wanted to be important. The center of whatever scene was happening. And we spent a lot of time together back then. She would patronize me a lot—she thought I didn’t notice. But wherever she went, there would be free drinks, free booze, free parties, so…” She shrugged. “I went. And now I had an in. I knew Lauren would talk to me if I got in touch. But that’s the kind of thing you only get one chance at. If I went straight at her and she figured out why I was asking, she’d shut it all down. I needed to go in a different way.
“That’s when I went back to my ex again, Greg, started using his connections like before. Everyone talks about the official Dosa story, the great-grandfather—or great-great, whatever—who went over to the States and founded the company. They never talk about what he was doing in London before he left. You know, and I can prove this—or I could before I had to run—that he was selling a drink over here called Purity Tea? As far as I could tell, it was exactly the same as his original Dosa Cola formula, just under a different name and not carbonated. And that name. Purity.”
“Reinheit.”
“Right? Look at the early Dosa logos when you get a chance. Right up to the one they still have on the building in New York. There’s a really small number on there. Beneath the Cola bit. The number eighteen. When I asked, they said it was because the version of the drink we know was the eighteenth attempt at the formula. And nobody ever made any negative Nazi connotation, because they were using that number very early on, before Hitler had been heard of in the States.”
“So it could be genuine, the reason for it.”
“Sure, and it could even be that the eighteen in R18 comes from the cola, not the evil guy’s initials. But either way, I don’t believe in coincidence. Purity Tea, formula eighteen, and Purity Eighteen.”
