The Pilgrim Conspiracy

by Jeroen Windmeijer

  After they had looked around the last temple – or lodge room – Peter asked Walter to take a photograph of him in a small, octagonal room where a real sword had been placed diagonally across a desk. Heavy velvet curtains hung at the windows which would have made the room completely dark when they were closed.

  Walter explained that this was the room where members were initiated. It was also a space where people could retreat to be alone with their thoughts.

  Peter looked at the photo: it could not have come out any better. He was looking at the camera with a resolute expression, like a man on a mission. He held the sword at an angle across his body with the blade’s tip pointing upwards. The ray of sunlight that shone through the window fell precisely on the polished metal of the hilt, making the sword look like a Star Wars lightsabre.

  Walter and Peter went back to the library.

  Two large photographs stood on the mantlepiece, one of an older gentleman and one of a young man. A tealight had been lit in front of each picture. At first glance, the older gentleman looked stern, but the laughter lines around his eyes hinted at an outlook on life that was probably more cheerful than his portrait suggested. He had a large bald spot on the top of his head, but what remained of his silver-grey hair was long and thick and hung down to his shoulders. Together with his neatly trimmed ring beard, it gave him a somewhat eccentric appearance. It was easy to imagine him as a crusading knight in armour going into battle against the Muslims to win back Jerusalem for Christianity.

  The young man had the face of someone whose life had already left its mark on him, who had experienced things that no one should ever experience, much less a man of his age.

  ‘Who are they?’ Peter asked. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Walter said, walking over to the fireplace. ‘You might have heard about them on the news. Sam and George fell overboard on a fishing trip two days ago. At least, that’s what the police think must have happened to them. Their bodies haven’t been found yet.’

  ‘Yes, I did see that on the news,’ Peter said. ‘But the sea was very calm that day, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what’s so strange about it. Sam was – or still is, I should say – the Worshipful Master, our chairman. Neither of them had any family at all, so they’d become like father and son to each other. They were very close friends despite the age difference, even closer than a father and son, really. George was Sam’s protégé. He could have succeeded him one day.’

  Peter felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

  ‘And they don’t know what happened to them?’

  ‘No. It’s a mystery. Maybe one of them fell overboard, and the other one tried to help him? But then you’d think he would have thrown the lifesaver to him, wouldn’t you? Something’s not right about it.’

  ‘Could they have got into an argument? Or been kidnapped?’

  ‘Or … maybe they went swimming. The sea can look deceptively calm. It wouldn’t take long for you to get a cramp or for hypothermia to set in. These things do happen.’

  Peter closed his eyes and shook his head in the hope that it would dislodge the idea that this might be connected to the double murder in Leiden.

  Pure coincidence, he thought, trying to ignore a growing feeling of disquiet. You can’t go around seeing everything as a murder case, Peter. Nobody’s skull was cracked open. Nobody’s hands were tied together. A likeness is not a link. Isn’t that what you always teach your students?

  ‘It’s like a scene in a movie,’ Peter said as they walked back to the corridor.

  ‘I hope they’re still alive,’ Walter said. ‘I know it’s hope against hope, but I do. Some of our members were in favour of temporarily closing the lodge, but personally, it’s made me want to be here all the more. Showing visitors around the building makes me forget what’s happened for a little while.’

  A book on the desk caught Peter’s eye. The title was A Song in Stone, and the name of the author printed on the cover was Walter L. Lunt.

  ‘You wrote that?’ Peter asked, pleased to have found a way to lighten the conversation.

  ‘Yes,’ Walter answered proudly.

  ‘What sort of books do you write?’

  ‘Historical fiction with a helping of religion and intrigue. Knights Templar, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Can you get them in bookstores?’

  ‘You can buy one in the store here if you like,’ Walter said enthusiastically. ‘I’ll sign it for you too.’

  ‘That would be great,’ Peter said, curious to know what Walter had written, and also impressed by his salesmanship.

  He bought a copy of A Song in Stone in the lodge’s small shop, and, as promised, Walter signed it for him on the spot.

  For Peter, my newfound friend from the Netherlands, he wrote elaborately underneath the title on the first page of the book, and then he added his name in swooping, cursive letters.

  ‘Any questions?’ Walter asked as they walked down the corridor towards the lift.

  Although he’d said this in a way that made it quite clear that Peter wasn’t actually supposed to ask any questions, there was something that Peter wanted to know.

  ‘Earlier, you talked about testing all things and holding onto what’s good. Or in other words, not immediately accepting something as truth.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I was wondering … As you know, I’m from Leiden. There seems to be – or to have been – a debate among the Freemasons there. On one side, there are people like you who are strongly committed to the idea of there being “no dogma”. They believe in giving individuals the freedom and responsibility of interpreting the symbols and stories for themselves. They seem to be in the majority.’

  ‘That’s the idea of Freemasonry, yes.’

  ‘But then there’s – or there was – another group who – how should I put this? Who prefer to rely on tradition. They believe in accepting someone else’s explanations for things, in not asking too many questions, accepting the meanings given to you by other people, by higher minds. Standing on the shoulders of giants, or something like that. You could call them literalists.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

  ‘It’s as if there are two factions. One that takes the stories literally and wants to be part of a tradition where there’s very little, perhaps even no room for personal meanings. And then another one that advocates for a more allegorical explanation of the stories and symbols.’

  ‘I know what you mean, Peter,’ Walter said again. ‘That’s something I’m aware of here too. But those people, the literalists, they all leave our ranks sooner or later because … well, because it goes against the whole spirit of Freemasonry, do you see? But we too have members with “unenlightened minds”, as I call them.’

  ‘There was a murder in Leiden six weeks ago,’ Peter said. ‘Actually, there were two murders. The Worshipful Master, Coen Zoutman, and then shortly afterwards, a young man. You might have heard about them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Walter said. ‘I hadn’t heard about the young man, but of course, we’ve heard about the murder of Coen Zoutman. Such an awful thing to happen. Just like in Jerusalem four years ago.’

  ‘What?’ Peter exclaimed. ‘What happened in Jerusalem four years ago?’

  Walter looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Four years ago? You don’t know about it? It was a very high-profile case in Jerusalem. Two of our brothers were killed shortly after each other. They’d both had their skulls smashed with a gavel. The gavel that we use in our Craft, no less.’

  ‘What?’ was all that Peter could manage to say.

  ‘They never found the killer – or killers. The bodies had been mutilated, although that might be overstating it. They’d both had a small piece of skin about the size of a coin cut out from between their left breast and their armpit.’

  ‘But that’s exactly what happened in Leiden! The killer used a gavel there too. Well, in the Worshipf
ul Master’s case at least. I don’t know anything about skin being removed, but Coen Zoutman had a tattoo.’

  ‘A tattoo?’

  ‘Yes, a tattoo. Do you have a pen and paper?’

  They went back to Walter’s desk in the library.

  Peter drew what he could remember of the tattoo that had been on Coen Zoutman’s body.

  Walter picked up the sheet of paper and held it up to his eyes, but then, after staring at it for twenty or thirty seconds, he put it back on the desk. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the All-Seeing Eye, but I’m sure you’ve already considered that.’

  ‘Yes, that’s about as far as the police have got, too. But … that murder in Jerusalem, have you reported it to the police in Leiden?’

  ‘Reported it? No, I’ve not reported it. None of us has, I think. We weren’t even aware of the second murder in the Netherlands. But won’t the Dutch police have made that connection themselves already? I would presume that the authorities all communicate with each other. Don’t they have databases?’

  ‘I don’t think that they … I think they’ve mainly focused on Leiden. It’s very possible that they don’t know about the Jerusalem case and that they haven’t established an international connection. But it looks like they’ve already found the murderer in Leiden.’

  ‘And now … No, that’s not possible.’ Walter sat down at his desk and grabbed the edge of it with both hands. ‘No, that’s not possible,’ he said again, as though he was trying, against reason, to convince himself.

  ‘You’re thinking what I’m thinking?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Well, you know …’ Walter said. ‘In poor Sam and George’s case, we’re still assuming it was a tragic accident. That’s why I didn’t make the connection with what happened in Jerusalem. And what’s happened in Leiden. I don’t think … What do you think, Peter?’

  ‘It could just be a coincidence, but it is bizarre, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll call the police later,’ Walter said. ‘So far, they’ve been treating it as a missing persons case, an accident, like I said. But what if there is a link between all these cases? It’s the kind of thing I might put in one of my books, but the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.’

  I’ll email Rijsbergen later, Peter thought. It’s gone five o’clock here, so it will be after eleven at night in Leiden. Rijsbergen might not read it until tomorrow morning, but this could be useful to the case.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘But I have a bad feeling about it.’

  ‘I must say, so do I.’

  They shook hands and went back to the corridor where Peter pushed one of the illuminated buttons on the lift. He felt like their shared concern had created a bond between them.

  ‘Well, I hope you’ll enjoy my book when you get back to your hotel,’ Walter said, attempting to end their meeting on a positive note.

  ‘Oh, I’m not staying in a hotel,’ Peter said as they stepped into the lift. ‘I’m staying with a friend. She’s got a three-month research grant at Harvard, and she’s staying on the campus. She’s the only person I know here.’

  A thought suddenly occurred to him. Why didn’t I ask about him earlier? He put his hand over the sensor on the lift doors to stop them from closing. ‘Do you know Tony Vanderhoop?’ he asked.

  Peter didn’t need to be a body language expert to be able to tell from Walter’s reaction that he did indeed know Tony – and that he didn’t like being reminded of it.

  ‘Yes, I know him,’ he replied. ‘Why?’

  As if by magic, the friendly, open mood of the last two hours vanished.

  Walter took a couple of steps towards Peter, blocking off the stairs. There was no point removing his hand from the sensor because the lift doors would take too long to close.

  Peter waited to see what would happen next. He felt his muscles tense. Fight or flight, he thought.

  Walter stepped closer, close enough to make Peter feel uncomfortable.

  ‘How do you know him?’ Walter asked. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘He’s … Tony … I don’t know Mr Vanderhoop well,’ Peter said, trying to downplay his connection to Tony. ‘He was in Leiden about a month and a half ago with an American delegation organising some Mayflower 400 events. 2020 is the four-hundredth anniversary of the year the Pilgrims left Leiden and came to America. I only met Tony twice, very briefly. Since I was here in Boston visiting my friend, I thought it would be a good idea to meet up with him. But I hardly know him. Why? Do you have a problem with him?’

  Walter said nothing, but Peter could tell that he was furiously turning this information over in his mind.

  ‘I mean, as a Freemason, he’s—’ Peter began.

  ‘A Freemason?’ Walter scoffed.

  Peter got the impression that if this exchange had been taking place outside, Walter would have spat on the ground.

  ‘Did Tony tell you he was a Mason?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what he said,’ Peter said.

  Walter’s shoulders slumped like he had just decided that Peter was ‘good people’ after all.

  ‘Tony Vanderhoop was thrown out of the Masons years ago.’

  Fragment 7 – From Leiden to America (November 1627)

  I have been sent a letter. The first letter I have ever received.

  I was so moved by it that it took me some time to regain control of my emotions. Just the thought that this little bundle of paper wrapped in nothing more than a simple envelope had travelled so far to reach me was enough to make me feel overcome. Who knows what dangers it met on its journey? It has crossed an entire ocean, but just a few words on the envelope – my name, my address and the name of the city – were enough to ensure that it reached its destination: the only place in God’s great, wide world where I can be found.

  Of course, this letter is not meant only for me but for our whole congregation. I will read it out at our next meeting.

  Inside the envelope, there was another, smaller envelope with a letter inside. This was not addressed to me but to Josh.

  This is not the first letter the congregation has received. We know that some letters are sent and never arrive, their contents forever unread, as if their writers were speaking only to themselves.

  But this letter is from our man, Josh Nunn’s first pupil, the little boy who clung to his side when our ship sailed from Plymouth to Amsterdam. Now he is like a sheep among wolves. I was surprised when he left us to go to America because he appeared to have aligned himself so clearly with the group that chose to stay in Leiden. But I was not privy to everything that was going on then, and there are still things that are hidden to me that have been revealed to others.

  Much has happened there, and here too.

  I will begin with there. In his letter, he tells us what has transpired over the last seven years. Much of what he writes was known to us, but he also tells us things that we did not know.

  He describes the difficulties they faced in England. Deciding to go to America was one thing, but actually getting there proved to be difficult. The travellers were dependent on the will of the state, which grants trading companies the rights to establish colonies. Our group also had to ask permission to go to America because the land is under English rule. They were forced to acknowledge James I as head of the church. But what else could they have done? If they had refused, the entire venture would have been scuppered before their ship had weighed anchor. They also had to accept all the ecclesiastical appointments made by the king. Such a quandary! But just like Queen Esther, who saved her people by hiding her true faith when she married the Persian king Ahasuerus, the Pilgrims held fast to their own beliefs.

  Once permission was granted, they had to find a trading company that was willing to take them to America. William Brewster was prepared to risk going back to England to find one, despite his previous problems with the Pilgrim Press. He negotiated on the group’s behalf, which was
no easy task. They eventually signed a contract with the Merchant Adventurers who financed the voyage. The Pilgrims had to promise them an almost impossible sum in return, but what choice did they have? And if the expedition failed, for whatever reason, not a penny of this sum would be refunded.

  But does not the psalmist sing: ‘The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind. From where he sits enthroned, he watches all the inhabitants of the earth – he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.’

  Be assured, an evil man will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will be delivered.

  The group of one hundred people who had requested – and been granted – permission to settle in the beautiful city of Leiden had grown bigger, much bigger. The Lord had blessed our endeavour. Our group now numbered hundreds of souls. Not everyone was able to go to America, of course, but then, not everyone wanted to. A split had developed in our group.

  I know more now about what was going on then – I was a part of it too … But I’m getting ahead of myself. I will write more of this next time.

  John was going to stay in Leiden, and William would lead the expedition to America in his stead.

  The travellers pooled their resources and purchased a small ship, the Speedwell, to take them to the New World. It was in need of repair, but once this had been taken care of, they were ready to start their journey. When they got to America, the Speedwell would be used for fishing and visiting other colonies.

  In July 1620, I and many members of our congregation travelled to Delfshaven to bid farewell to all those who were about to set sail on the good ship Speedwell. But the ship was overladen, and the captain refused to leave port. Some people would have to stay behind. Heart-breaking scenes played out on the quayside. Families were torn apart … Some of them were able to go while others had to wait here and hope that they would have another chance in the future. Eventually, sixty souls were able to board the ship. The others returned with us to Leiden.

  You can imagine their disappointment. They must have felt like Moses when he saw the promised land but was forbidden to enter it.