The Strain: Another Season
Episode 8

Four Nervous Vendors
Chapter Five

Fet's Place, Red Hook, Brooklyn – the Present

The group are still gathered around watching Dutch and Sandra's heart-searching exploration of the past. For mother and daughter no-one else exists. Everyone else except the Goodweathers (father in the lab and son in his room, ostensibly asleep but actually obsessing about his mother to such an extent that he needs to use his salbutamol inhaler) are enthralled with the spectacle. Angel so much so, that he's put his feet up and is munching the remains of the popcorn.

'What did you have engraved on the locket?' asks Dutch, curious despite herself.

'Didn't you ever examine it?' asks Nora.

'Never struck me as important,' shrugs Dutch. 'Mum never mentioned it.'

Sandra opens the back window and calls outside, 'Mr Fitzwilliam.'

'Are you fucking kidding me?' protests Dutch as Reggie Fitzwilliam unfolds out of the FinchCorp limo's driving seat and makes his way round to the kitchen.

'Mr Fitzwilliam works for me now,' announces Sandra as her sole explanation. She holds out her hand to him and says, 'My locket, if you please.'

He obeys with an "I don't have to explain myself to you" look at Dutch and Fet. Sandra gives it to Dutch, who has to use Setrakian's loupe to read out and translate the script.

'Niet alle Duitser zijn Nazi, not all Germans are Nazis; Niet alle Amerikanen zijn helden, not all Americans are heroes; Niet alle Arabieren zijn terroristen, not all Arabs are terrorists. Sorry, I'm a bit rusty,' she says. 'And finally… in English… But all vampires are evil.'

She returns the locket with a dismissive shrug. 'At least, you learnt something. But I still don't understand how you dragged Dad into it, persuaded him to marry you?' Dutch presses.

'Yeah, that's right. I'm still calling him Dad,' she adds defiantly.

'He was your Dad,' agrees Sandra firmly. 'No father ever loved a daughter more than he loved his niece. And I loved him because of it. You were so close, and so alike, you even shut me out sometimes.' She gets a bit misty at the memory but Dutch brings her back.

'Mum?' Dutch prompts again.

'After…after Berlin, he was the only one in his family who kept me at arm's length - who treated me as I felt I deserved. One night, I went to his room hoping he'd shout at me for getting his brother killed. Instead, Sarah was right - he proposed. I accepted of course - it was going to be so much easier to raise a child with a partner, no matter what the old lady thought - but I felt I had to explain some things to him. I looked around the walls at all his geekery - the comics, vampire books and monster videos, and I knew he'd be able to believe. We married. We became the Henkes and then, for safety, almost immediately the Velders'. We settled in London. His family was happy and so were we. He was besotted with you from the first moment you opened your eyes.'

There is silence again. Apart, that is, from the banging, crashing and swearing sounds issuing intermittently from the makeshift laboratory.

Dutch is the first to break it. 'But I was born in New York. What about the phreakers Dad was investigating for NYNEX, before I was born?'

'We lied to you, in order to protect you. I don't have time to explain everything now. But you weren't born in New York. You were born in London. We emigrated when you were only a few weeks old because of the Tunnel. Your father, Corey, died for you - for us. But Bart…your Dad - he lived for you. You were his whole world.'

Sandra smiles sadly again as she remembers…

London, United Kingdom - 1 December 1990

The Velders' first family home is a pretty shabby affair – small and sparsely furnished. The radio is on while Sandra is nursing baby Cornelia/Dutch and Bart is half watching the news on television, half trying to work on the computer. He keeps being distracted by the maternal cooing and contented baby gurgling. He looks over at his beautiful young insta-family and grins like he can't believe his luck as Vanilla Ice invites them to "check out the hook while my DJ revolves it... Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice Ice Baby Vanilla". Sandra senses his eyes on her and smiles back. When the baby finishes, Sandra puts her to bed and sashays over to Bart. She massages his shoulders and whispers seductively in his ear, 'Six weeks is up tomorrow.' She turns his chair away from the computer desk and straddles his lap. Putting her arms around his neck, she kisses him slowly. By sheer coincidence, the Righteous Brothers are now crooning Unchained Melody.

'I'm sure one day won't make a difference,' she murmurs, flirtatious. Bart is a little shy and unsure but her persistence pays off. He kisses her experimentally and, encouraged by her response, starts to kiss her throat.

She freezes instantly and pushes away. 'Not there, Bart,' she says coldly. 'You don't want to remind me of the monster.'

Then she catches sight of the news over his shoulder and leaps up screaming.

The television has been showing live coverage of the ceremonial breakthrough of the Channel Tunnel. Now, each side is interviewing hard-hatted dignitaries who have gone underground to witness the momentous event first-hand. The song on the radio has changed again. EMF are singing Unbelievable.

"...The things, you say
You're unbelievable

Oh!
(What the?)
(What the fuck was that?)"

On the television news, subtitles translate as a French reporter asks a grey-haired gentleman on the continental Europe end what he is most looking forward to about the improved connection to le Royaume-Uni. Clad in the smartest day-glo boilersuit ever sewn, Eichhorst replies in flawless French, 'It will make it easier for me to keep in touch with the whole family.' He subtly emphasises the last few words and smiles straight down the camera.

"You're unbelievable."

Sandra has a total meltdown. She sets baby Cornelia off screaming and Bart does his bewildered best to calm them both down.

'That's him. He's coming for her. Oh God, oh God, Bart look at him. He knows. He's coming for our baby. We're not safe here anymore.' She claws frantically at her husband and falls to the floor, curled in a sobbing ball.

Fet's place, Red Hook, Brooklyn – Present

Everyone is staring at Dutch and Sandra with open mouths. Dutch has finally softened her attitude towards her mother and sympathetically takes her hand. Sandra suddenly enfolds her in a hug and she doesn't resist.

Meanwhile, in the lab, Eph has been making the noise of a man ineptly trying to find something without actually searching for it. Now, he flies out of it in high dudgeon and demands, 'Where's the solution I've been testing?'

He pulls up as he runs into this affecting scene. Everyone ignores him.

Dutch pulls away and looks at her mother, still puzzled. 'Why did you go back to England? I don't understand any of it. Why didn't you just let me stay with Nanny and Granddad when I ran away from home? I mean, now I understand why I wasn't allowed to go on the school skiing trips or to France but surely I was safe with my grandparents in Suffolk. Why did you need to force me out of the country?'

'We returned to the UK when you were four and a half. Bart's grandfather Pieter had had a stroke, Great-grandma Sarah had had a fall and his mother Gude begged him to go and visit. I refused because the Channel Tunnel had effectively opened the gate to any vampire to stroll over at will. But Bart had thought of that…'

Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan – July 1995

Bart and Sandra Henke – now known as Velders – are discussing the possible return to the UK with the radio on in the background. Or rather, Bart is pleading and cajoling while Sandra is digging her heels in because she keeps having visions of her toddler daughter chained like a dog in Eichhorst's feeding dungeon.

"All you hoes callin' here for my daddy - get off his di..."

Bart thumps the radio into silence, cutting off The Notorious B.I.G. before he really gets into his explicit stride, because the daughter in question, Cornelia – the future Dutch Velders - runs into the apartment's kitchen giggling. The heart-meltingly cute little girl has long white-blonde hair and is wearing only a pair of Pocahontas knickers in the sweltering heat of a New York summer. She runs up to Bart and announces proudly in a broad Noo Yoik accent, 'Look, Daddy, I've gotten all wet.'

Bart picks her up and says, 'And in Dutch for Daddy?'

Full, ruby lips pout in concentration. 'Kijk, Daddy. Ik ben helemaal nat.'

'Good girl,' beams Bart and rewards her with a kiss.

'And in English for Mummy?' mutters Sandra. Poor little Cornelia's tiny brow furrows in confusion.

Bart places the girl carefully on the ground and addresses her mother. 'I see you wince at every "twenny" instead of "twenty",each "inside of me" or "I hate when that happens" and especially every "gotten".

'I'd rather hear her speak Wookiee for the rest of her life than put her within reach of that monster,' Sandra says defiantly.

'You know what a Wookiee is?' says Bart, pleased as well as surprised.

'One of those great hairy things from Star Trek,' says Sandra with an airy wave of her hand.

'Close enough,' murmurs Bart pulling his wife to him. She resists for a second, for the look of the thing, before kissing him back. After a while, Bart says, 'This city is no place to raise a child, she has nowhere to run and play and look at this…' He leads her to his computer. '…It's a simple program to access the passenger manifest of each Eurostar departure. We'll check every day. Do you think this Eichmann guy would use an alias?'

'Eichhorst? God, no,' snorts Sandra. 'Not a chance in hell. And he'd travel first class or nothing… And he'd make sure he travelled at night – always in darkness.'

'So we're looking at winter journeys only then,' says Bart, giving a "case closed" gesture. He pulls up a map of the Norfolk Broads and points at all the water. 'We could live here. The water would protect us and I'd only make day trips back home.'

'Home,' repeats Sandra in a whisper.

There's another bout of tapping and a video news report of the atrocities at Srebrenica appears. 'Your professor said they're attracted to human misery…' adds Bart gravely, '…a Nazi should feel right at home in those camps.'

'That's where he'll be, Bart,' she says looking at him, eyes wide. 'I know it. Maybe we can go home…'

The solemn mood is broken by a little blonde angel running in shouting, 'Mommy, where're my Princess Jasmine pants?'

'I don't know honey but your Princess Jasmine trousers are in the wash.'

'Actually, my love,' Bart says with a cheeky wink. 'I believe the correct term in any English language is harem pants.'

Fet's place, Red Hook, Brooklyn – Present

'How did your husband die?' asks Nora sympathetically. 'Was it Eichhorst?'

Sandra nods curtly and snaps, 'I…I don't want to talk about it.' She's a bit moist around the eyes and tetchy in her sadness.

'Dutch said she took it hard,' Fet tells Nora.

Sandra laughs harshly. 'She got that right. I nearly lost my mind. I'd run out of Henke boys to protect us, so I had to find another way to be strong. And most importantly to keep Cornelia safe. Did Neels say anything about her stepfather? About Fraser Mills?'

'She said you re-married too soon. To a shit-head,' says Fet.

'Oh yes. He was - a total shit-head,' she agrees fervently. 'Cornelia's an excellent bad-guy detector.' She smiles proudly at her daughter.

'She didn't say a shit-head billionaire,' Eph points out.

'He wasn't at the time. He was the sub-editor of a big tabloid newspaper. Back in England, I'd been writing some articles freelance and I asked for a permanent position, preferably overseas. He took me to dinner, leered and postured for an hour or so - then he said he was thinking of moving to DC himself to set up his own paper and he wanted to take me too. This sounded perfect – an entire ocean between the Velders girls and Eichhorst – so I bit his hand off.

'Naturally, I had to sleep with him to seal the deal but I'd do much worse to ensure Cornelia's safety. I have done worse. Surprisingly, it was he who pressed for marriage and, as he was prepared to take on a fiery teenager as stepdaughter, I accepted. I also thought another name change couldn't hurt.

'Of course, the transatlantic move was either wishful thinking on his part or complete bullshit but the new paper was real. And, like I told you this afternoon, I'd discovered how to access mobile phone voicemails…'

'Were you really never caught?' asks Nora.

'No one ever found me out - not even Fraser. Even when people cottoned on to the risks of keeping their default security number, I became really good at guessing their new pass codes.

'I gave Fraser a couple of massive exclusives on celebrity break-ups within the first year and the paper's circulation took off. As he became more successful he got pompous and controlling.'

'Nothing like you then,' mutters Eph.

'One summer holiday,' she continues, ignoring Eph, 'Cornelia's hatred of her stepfather, Fraser, came to a head and she ran away from home. I was frantic, of course, and he was furious. We tracked her to my parents' house and brought her home...' Sandra looks as ashamed and sickened as if it had been her.

'And he spanked me. I was fifteen years old, Mum,' says Dutch angrily. 'Fifteen! He pulled my pants down, put me over his knee and spanked my bare arse! And you left us alone for him to do it.'

'I couldn't watch,' Sandra says - a picture of remorse. 'But I stayed close enough to make sure he didn't do anything else. I still felt every blow myself. I hated him and I hated myself more. I knew then at the first scream that I was going to have him killed.' Everyone gasps at that cold statement but Sandra carries on oblivious. 'It was because of Eichhorst that I needed you out of Europe, because of him that I permitted this abuse and it is him I owe, personally, for each blow you endured, each cry you uttered and each tear you shed. I know you owe him too, Professor, but I'll be the one to pay, be certain of it.'

There is silence except for the Ping! of the microwave as Angel replenishes his popcorn.

'What happened to you, Dutch?' asks Nora with horrified compassion.

'After three…' she says, 'Three…hits, I got over the shock, twisted round, kicked him in the plums and ran. I stayed with Nikki and her family until they came back here, to New York.'

'Finally, Neels was out of Eichhorst's reach and Fraser realised he'd have to make a grand gesture to keep me and my supernatural celebrity sense on the team,' says Sandra. 'He gave me a 49% share in the business, by then called AFM - Alexandra and Fraser Mills, and willed me the rest. When he died, I changed my name, the company's name and moved everything over here. I knew the secrets and lies of everyone in power in the media and politics. I've manipulated so many people, broken up marriages, brought down governments. I built up a fortune to rival Eldritch Palmer's by eavesdropping on city traders and, like him, I knew enough to invest it in silver, gold and other durable commodities. Unlike him, I valued the freedom that anonymity brings. I knew everyone and no one knew me – it's an extraordinarily powerful position to be in. It was a wrench to reveal myself but sacrifices will have to be made now that we're in the end game.'

Mansion House, London - 1888

Sir James Whitehead, the current Lord Mayor is flicking through the morning papers from around the country and a headline in the Liverpool Echo catches his eye.

'Spring-heeled Jack sighted in Everton,' he reads aloud to his secretary. 'I say, Finsbury, do you recall the "Spring-heeled Jack" scandal in London many years ago?'

'No, sir,' replies Finsbury politely.

'Seems the fellow gradually moved north. He was seen in Northamptonshire in '43, Lincolnshire in '77 and now in poor old Liverpool. Wonder where he's heading?' and he laughs at his own non-joke.

Hamilton Palace, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland - 1892
The lasting resting place of Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, 7th Duke of Brandon

Hamilton defied the doctors for fifteen more years but better taste than his has prevailed and, instead of a pyramid, he has had a grand Roman-style mausoleum constructed in the grounds of his ducal palace.

Inside this magnificent mausoleum, his mummified remains lie sealed in the massive Egyptian sarcophagus he bought from Paris. They are accompanied, rumour has it, by the ancient silver book known as the Occido Lumen. Hamilton could hardly bear to be parted with the book in life and apparently requested it be entombed with him for all eternity. Thus far, it has only been forty years.

Through the window at the apex of the dome, the night sky is clearly visible. It is pouring with rain but it is not, I repeat, NOT, continually and gratuitously flashing with lightning in an attempt to create artificial drama.

The mausoleum interior is eerily silent as Spring-heeled Jack opens the apex window and jumps to the floor. He smiles evilly as he approaches the sarcophagus and easily raises the massive lid. The Lumen is indeed clutched in Hamilton's withered embrace and Jack's eyes glow red as his Master anticipates his imminent triumph.

Jack uses the mummy-Duke's facecloth to lift the Lumen and the Master's voice sounds a rich, bubbling laugh of exultation.

'Mine! The book is mine at last. Now nothing can prevent my assumption of absolute power, complete domin…'

The victory monologue is abruptly curtailed as a silver sword from behind him severs Jack's head from his body.

Hostia, the…woman who advised Gabriel de la Reynie to take himself and the Occido Lumen to Jamaica nearly two hundred years ago, cleans and replaces her blade without ceremony and retrieves the Lumen.