by Tom Holt
“Just now,” Vanderdecker said, “when you mentioned it. Shows what a good cover-up it was, doesn’t it?”
Danny ground his teeth. “We’ll do that bit again,” he said, and would the tape back. “Look, will you please try and concentrate on what I’m saying?”
“Sorry,” Vanderdecker said, and realised that since Danny was being kind enough to give him a lift to Cirencester, he ought to say something at least. “You mean that cover-up.”
Danny’s hairs bristled. “You mean there was more than one?”
Vanderdecker laughed. “You bet,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Where do I start?” Vanderdecker said. “I mean, we are talking yesterday’s witness here.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “For example,” he whispered. “I bet you still think Columbus discovered America.”
Danny couldn’t believe his ears. “And didn’t he?”
Vanderdecker smiled cynically. “Don’t you believe it,” he said. “The Portuguese landed in what is now Florida seventy years before Columbus left Spain. But there was this…”
“Cover-up?”
“Exactly,” Vanderdecker said. “On the tip of my tongue it was, yes, cover-up.”
“Why?”
“Merchandising,” Vanderdecker said. “I mean, just think for a moment, will you? Think of all the spin-offs from discovering a new continent. America cart bumper stickers, America doublets, the official America cuddly bison; no, as soon as the Portuguese realised what they’d got hold of, they saw that unless they got the franchising side of it sorted out before the story broke, there was going to be absolute chaos, marketing-wise. So they sat on it while the lawyers sorted out the contractual basis. And you know what lawyers are like; by the time they’d got down to a preliminary draft joint venture agreement, Columbus had landed and the whole thing was up the spout.”
Danny’s brain reeled. “How do you know all that?” he said. “That was before your dine, wasn’t it?”
“Or take the Gunpowder Plot,” Vanderdecker said quickly. “I could tell you a thing about that, make no mistake.”
“Go on,” said Danny, changing tapes. “I always thought…”
“I mean,” Vanderdecker went on, “Guido Fawkes was set up. He was the biggest fall guy of all time. You won’t find anything about it down at the Public Records Office, but there was big money involved there all right. Oh yes.”
“So?”
“So it was only a conspiracy by Buckingham and Salisbury to get hold of the biggest monopoly of them all. I mean the big one. None of your fooling about with Rhenish wine this time; I’m talking…” He stopped, and searched for the right word. “…Megagroats.”
“What was it?”
Vanderdecker looked over his shoulder. “Milk,” he hissed. “They were after the milk monopoly. They were going to set up this holding corporation—like the East India Company or something like that—with themselves as the money-men behind it; and this company was going to have the exclusive right to buy all the milk in England and sell it to the ultimate consumer.”
“You mean,” Danny croaked, “like the Milk Marketing Board?”
“Keep your voice down, will you? Yes, just like the Milk Marketing Board. So now do you see why Guido had to take the fall?”
“I see,” Danny whispered. “My God, that explains…But why did they want to blow up King James?”
Vanderdecker sneered. “They didn’t want to blow up the King,” he said. “If they’d wanted rid of Big Jim, do you think they’d have gone about it like that? Gunpowder, treason and plot? Don’t be so naive. Look, just ask yourself this. Why was it that shortly after Guido did the November-the-Fifth bit, the price of clotted cream rose by a factor of seventy-four point six per cent in most of Southern England.”
Danny whistled. “That much?”
“That’s where they went wrong, of course,” Vanderdecker said. “Too much too soon, you see. And when Hampden and Pym found out…”
“You mean the Civil War?”
“Do yourself a favour,” Vanderdecker said. “Take a look at the Putney Debates; you know, towards the end of the War, when all the Parliamentary leaders sat down and tried to make up a new constitution. Is there one mention, one solitary word said about an overall dairy strategy for the 1660s? Nothing. Don’t you find that just a little bit surprising?”
Danny’s mouth hung open like a dislocated letterbox. “So the Restoration…”
“You’ve got it,” Vanderdecker said. “All that stuff with the oak tree was just a blind. And then, when you get on to the Glorious Revolution, and after that the Jacobites, it suddenly starts to fall into place. After all, why do you think they called George III Farmer George? He was as sane as…” Vanderdecker considered for a moment, “…as you are, but…Anyway, there’s the story for you, if you really do want something big.”
Vanderdecker’s mouth felt dry with so much talking, and he turned away in search of whisky, but Danny grabbed him by the arm.
“Listen,” he said, “you’ve got to tell me. Was the Milk Marketing Board behind the Kennedy assassination?”
Vanderdecker raised an eyebrow. “You what?” he said.
“The assassination of President Kennedy. Was it them?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vanderdecker said. “That was Lee Harvey Oswald.” He leaned over, plucked a bottle of Famous Grouse from Pieter’s hand and took a long drink. Danny narrowed his eyes. Was Vanderdecker telling the truth? Or was he in on it too?
Below the helicopter Cirencester flickered dimly, and Vanderdecker wiped the spilt whisky out of his beard. The next hour or so was going to be interesting, and he felt that it was probably just as well that he had stayed relatively sober after all. He glanced across at Danny, who was drawing complicated diagrams on the blank pages at the back of his diary, using one of those pens you get from Smiths which has four different colours in it. He was happy, the poor fool.
The crew were singing again:
We’ve been together now for four hundred and eighty years,
And it don’t seem a day too much.
There ain’t a captain sailing on the sea.
That we’d swap for our dear old dutch…
Vanderdecker winced. He hadn’t thought about that side of it—he hadn’t really thought about any side of it, if he was going to be honest with himself, the implications of getting rid of the smell at last. What was going to happen now? In the end, every community and grouping of human beings (except, of course, the Rolling Stones) drifts apart and goes its separate ways. There was nothing to keep them together now, and God knows, they’d all been getting on each other’s nerves. But actually saying “goodbye—goodbye after so many years…”
“Hey,” Sebastian protested, “give it back.”
“Sorry,” Vanderdecker said, and handed the bottle back.
“Some people,” he said. “That’s how we all got into this mess in the first place, remember, you nicking somebody else’s bottle. You’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson.”
“Still,” Vanderdecker said, “it’s been fun, hasn’t it?”
“No,” Sebastian replied. “It’s been lousy.”
“But we’ve had some laughs, haven’t we?” Vanderdecker said. “A few good times along the way.”
“When?”
“Well…” Vanderdecker shrugged. “Forget it,” he said. “What have you done with the cat, by the way?”
“What cat?”
“Montalban’s cat.”
“Oh,” said Sebastian, “that cat. It’s over there, on the life-jackets, having forty winks. I spilt some whisky, and it lapped it up.”
“Fine,” Vanderdecker said. He rubbed his face with both hands, and tried to think of what he should do next. For over four hundred years he had been doing all the thinking, and he was just starting to get a tiny bit tired of it. Another day, new problems, more of the same old rubbish; and Captain Vanderdecker standing on the quarter-deck tryi
ng to cope with it, with his usual flair. Let Julius do it—that was what his mother used to say, all those many, many years ago: “Don’t trouble yourself with that, dear; let Julius do it. Julius, put that away and…”
The helicopter had stopped flying and was just whirring, hovering tentatively above the grass. Then, with a rather talentless lurch, it pitched down. Suddenly, Vanderdecker didn’t want to leave; he wanted to stay right here and let someone else do the coping with things for a change. No chance of that.
“Hey, skip.” Not you again, Antonius; go away, I died en route, somewhere in the clouds over Smethwick, go ask Danny Bennett or someone. “Is this where we get out?”
“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said wearily. “Right, lads, show a leg, we’re here. Sebastian, bring the cat.”
“Why do I always have to…” The rest of the complaint was drowned out with noise as the helicopter door opened, and Vanderdecker (lead-from-the-front Vanderdecker) dropped out onto the grass. Perhaps he was just feeling tired, but he forgot to duck and the rotor-blade hit him just below the ear. Danny, who happened to be watching, started to scream, but there was nothing to scream about; the Dutchman staggered, swore loudly in Dutch, rubbed his neck and went on his way.
“Well,” he said to Sebastian, “that’s one thing proved anyway.”
“What?” said Sebastian. “You never look where you’re going.” Vanderdecker laughed mirthlessly, shrugged and walked towards the house. Then he noticed a smallish human figure racing across the grass towards him. He narrowed his brows and wondered what was going on.
“Julius!” said the small human figure, and crashed into him like a dodgem car, jolting him almost as much as the rotor-blade.
“Sorry,” he said automatically, and helped the small figure to its feet. The small figure was Jane, and Jane had wrapped her arms around him. He remembered.
“Hello, Jane,” he said.
“Julius, you’re safe!” Jane gasped; but there was already a tiny note of doubt, an inflection so slight you would need high-quality scientific apparatus or ears like a bat to register it, but there nevertheless.
“I think we should have a quiet talk,” Vanderdecker said, prising her off gently. “There’s just a few things I’ve got to do first, and then…”
“Julius?” The inflection was rather more obvious now. Vanderdecker closed off certain parts of his mind, which were getting in the way, and nodded.
“Won’t be long,” he said. “I’ve just got a couple of things to see to first, then I’m all yours.” There was something in his voice which belied the words he uttered, and Jane let go of him. She felt all hollow, like an egg with its yolk blown out.
“Such as,” Vanderdecker went on, “booting a certain professor up the backside. Did you get the policy?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I did. Thank you.”
“What for? Oh, I see, yes, well. Where is it now?”
“I gave it to the pilot who brought the Professor back,” Jane said. “He’s going to post it to my father as soon as he gets to…”
“Very sensible.” Vanderdecker said, nodding. “Perhaps you could just phone your father and ask him to send it to my place in Bridport.”
“Bridport?” Jane gasped.
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said, “the fallen-down old dump where you said you found all the bank statements. It’ll be safe there.”
Jane was about to say something, but she had forgotten what it was. Couldn’t have been important. “Right,” she said. “I’ll just go and do that, then.”
“Thanks,” Vanderdecker said. “Now, then.” He walked off quickly towards the house.
The Flying Dutchman was, when circumstances permitted, a man of his word; and when he said he was going to boot a professor up the backside, he stood by it.
“Ouch!” said Montalban, startled. “My dear fellow, what…” Vanderdecker kicked him again, harder. One of his better ideas, he said to himself. He tried it again, but missed this time and put his foot through a complex piece of scientific equipment disguised as a glass-fronted cabinet full of netsuke. Although he didn’t know it, lights flickered in Montreal, Jodrell Bank and Geneva.
“Captain,” said the Professor, backing away while still trying to remain dignified, “what has come over you?”
“Getting me into this mess,” said Vanderdecker, “I can put up with. Causing me to sail round the world for nearly five hundred years I can take in my stride. Pissing off and leaving me under a ceiling and coming back here and stuffing yourself with macaroons is a bit too much, don’t you think?” He aimed another kick at the Professor; it glanced off the bunch of keys in his trouser pocket and wasted its force in empty air, making Vanderdecker totter slightly. He regained his balance and his composure at about the same moment.
“Well,” he said, “anyway, there we are. You will be delighted to know that that gimcrack Friday-afternoon job of a power station of yours is now safe again, absolutely no thanks to you. And you owe me and my lads for a complete set of clothes each. All right?”
“Yes, most certainly,” said Montalban. “My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you all in one piece. I…”
“I bet you are,” Vanderdecker said furiously. “Because if I hadn’t been, it’d have cost you plenty. Well, let me tell you that…”
“And even more delighted,” said the Professor, with all the smoothness he could manage, “to note that the treatment worked.”
Vanderdecker started. “Treatment?”
“Indeed,” said the Professor. “Just as I had hoped. The radiation charge has eliminated the smell entirely. My experiments are vindicated. You must be very pleased.”
And grateful, his tone implied. So grateful, in fact, that you really ought to do me a little favour in return. Vanderdecker caught the implication like Rodney Marsh fielding a large, slow football. “If you think,” he said, “I’m going to sign over that bloody policy after what you just did to me…”
“And what was that?”
“Leaving me There,” Vanderdecker roared. “Other things too, but just now, mostly that.”
“My dear fellow,” Montalban said. “I imagined you were—well, dead, to put it bluntly. I could see no sign of you; I feared that you and your companions had been simply atomised by the force of the blast. There was nothing I could do, I came away; my presence was needed here…”
Vanderdecker growled softly, but his indignation was leaking away like oil from a fractured sump. The Professor smiled kindly.
“And so,” he said, “everything has worked out for the best. You have no idea how much pleasure this moment gives me. The unpleasant side-effect of my elixir has successfully been counteracted. My work is over…”
The words froze on his lips, and Vanderdecker stared at him as he quietly repeated the words.
“Montalban?” Vanderdecker asked. “Are you all right?”
The Professor stood there like a dead Christmas tree for a moment and then grabbed Vanderdecker fiercely by the shoulders. “Vanderdecker,” he shouted, “did you hear what I just said? My work is over! I’ve finished! I don’t have to do it any more, it’s finished.”
Vanderdecker stepped back, wondering if the kick had affected the Professor’s brain. “Well,” he said, “that’s wonderful for you, I’m sure. Maybe now you can have a lie-in at weekends, read the paper, that sort of…”
Montalban filled his lungs and let out the loudest, least dignified whoop ever heard outside a Navajo encampment. “It’s over!” he screamed. “Yippee! No more work! No more work!” He danced—literally danced—round the room, kicking things as he went.
“Look, Professor,” Vanderdecker said, “I’m delighted for you, of course, but could we just have a quick chat about my policy? Then you can dance about all you like, but…”
“The policy?” Montalban stopped dead, turned round and stared Vanderdecker in the face. “You can stuff your policy!” he squealed. “That’s it, you can stuff it! I don’t care any more, I’m free.
”
Something rather improbable fell into place in Vanderdecker’s mind, like the tumblers of a combination lock. “Professor,” he said, “are you trying to tell me you don’t like being a scientist?”
“My dear fellow,” gibbered the Professor, “I hate it. I hate it, do you hear? It’s horrible. It stinks. I’ve always hated it, even when I was a boy and my mother said I was wasting my time composing madrigals and I should grow up and learn alchemy like my father. I’ve always hated it, and…and I’ve had to do it for five hundred years! My God,” said Montalban savagely, “you think you’re hard done by, do you, sailing round the world with nothing to do all day? You don’t know you’re born. Imagine, just imagine what I’ve had to put up with. I’d have changed places with you like a shot. Day after day after day in a foul, stinking laboratory, fiddling with sulphate of this and nitrate of that, doing equations and square roots and…and now I’m free. I don’t have to do it any more. No more electrons. No more law of the conservation of matter. No more Brownian motion. Dear God, Vanderdecker, you can’t imagine how thoroughly depressing it all was, the endless, endless difficulties, five hundred years of them—having to do it all myself; nobody—absolutely nobody—to help, all up to me, all that bloody, bloody work! I hate…work!”
“Oh good,” Vanderdecker said, calmly, “you won’t have to do that any more.”
“No,” said the Professor, quietly, grinning, “no, I won’t. I need a drink. Will you join me?”
“And the policy?” Vanderdecker said.
“Oh, sod the policy,” Montalban replied. “Now that that’s all done with, I don’t need the bank any more. Just so long as I never have to do another day’s work in my life, the bank can go bust for all I care and jolly good luck to it. Let someone else sort something out, just for once.”
“I know how you feel,” Vanderdecker said gently, “believe me.”
“Thirsty?”
Vanderdecker nodded. “That too. Look, I’ve just got to go and deal with something and then I’ll be right back.”
“You’d better hurry,” said the Professor, pouring whisky into a big glass, “because I’m not going to wait for you. Tea!” he sneered. “The devil with tea! I don’t have to keep a clear head any more, I can get as pissed as a mouse.”
