The Pilgrim Conspiracy

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

First published in Holland in 2018 by HarperCollins Holland, as Het Pilgrim Fathers Complot

Copyright © Jeroen Windmeijer 2018

Translation copyright © HarperCollins Holland 2019

Cover Design © Wil Immink Design

Cover image © red_moon_rise/Getty Images

Emojis © Shutterstock.com

Illustrations throughout text © Shutterstock.com and Wikimedia Commons

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jeroen Windmeijer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008379179

Version: 2020-10-05

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Preface

Part One: The Old World

Chapter 1: Leiden

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Exodus: The story in a nutshell

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Part Two: The New World

Chapter 25: Boston

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Part Three: The Promised Land

Chapter 33: Sinai

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Eisodus

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Consulted literature

Afterword by Piet van Vliet

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Jeroen Windmeijer

About the Publisher

To Dünya

After Moses and Aaron arrived, they told Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD God of Israel says: ‘“Let my people go so they may make a pilgrimage for me in the desert.”’

Exodus 5:1

Preface

In the spring of 2017, linguist Piet van Vliet found a unique manuscript in the archives of Leiden’s Heritage Organisation. It offers a rare glimpse into the lives and minds of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Seeking a home where they would be free to practise their faith, these Puritan English Protestants came to Leiden in 1609. No longer safe or welcome in England under King James I, they stayed in the relatively tolerant Netherlands for eleven years. In 1620, part of the group boarded the Mayflower and set sail for the New World where they became the original founders of the United States of America. They took with them many seventeenth-century Dutch ideas that we might think of as being modern, such as the separation of church and state, civil marriage, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Principally, the manuscript tells the story we already know about the Separatist Christians who were persecuted for their faith. Nonetheless, its discovery is sure to generate great excitement in academic circles – and far beyond. Any manuscript written by an ordinary citizen reporting on historical events in a personal way is a valuable resource for historians, providing insights into how major events affected the lives of common people. Often, such documents paint a different picture to the one that we see in the historiography. But this personal document – the writings of an anonymous chronicler of the Leiden Pilgrims’ daily lives – is much more than that. It not only contains crucial information that will allow historians to add nuance to some of the assumptions that have been made about the Leiden Pilgrims in the past, but it also brings to light new details that could explain why one part of the group eventually chose to emigrate to America while the majority stayed behind in the Netherlands. As a result, it is likely that the history books will, at least partially, need to be rewritten.

It is not immediately apparent who the intended audience for this document might have been. It is obviously not a journal. Did the author want to record the Pilgrims’ trials and tribulations for posterity? Was it intended for personal use? Was he the group’s historian? There are large gaps between entries, often spanning many years, and it seems probable that the author’s accounts of the intervening episodes have been lost.

But the discovery of a manuscript hidden for almost four centuries is the stuff of adventure tales, a find that every historian hopes to make at least once in his life. In their documentary, New Light on the Pilgrim Fathers, Leiden TV’s Lisette Schouten and Guido Marsman have created a fascinating reconstruction of this extraordinary story. It is a story that I will explore in detail later in my book.

Does this manuscript answer all our questions? Can we now write a definitive history of the Mayflower Pilgrims?

The answer is … no.

What is certain to frustrate anyone with even a passing interest in the Pilgrims, from the academics at home and abroad who specialise in the period to the curious layman, is that the final pages of the document appear to be missing. Did the author omit them intentionally? Or did someone else decide that we could read up to this point and no further?

The author makes a promise on the last pages – the last pages that we know to exist – that certain secrets will soon be revealed. The idea so appeals to our curiosity and imagination that we can safely assume that the dust that has literally been stirred up by this ancient manuscript is unlikely to settle any time soon.

The translation from old English and Dutch has been executed by the inimitable Piet van Vliet himself. Thanks to his smooth conversion into modern language, we feel as though we are being addressed from the distant past by a fellow human being who, with all his quotidian worries and ordinary cares, is more like us than we could ever have thought possible.

The resulting document was the inspiration for this novel in which I have attempted to fill in the gaps of history in a plausible way. I am extraordinarily grateful to Piet van Vliet for choosing this novel as the platform for his manuscript. After all, an article in a historical journal would only be read by a few specialists, but now, the information contained in this unique text can be made available to a wider audience.

Jeroen Windmeijer

PART ONE

THE OLD WORLD

LEIDEN

Chapter 1

Peter de Haan gripped the handle of the door that led to the lodge room, as the Freemasons called their meeting place or temple. The open evening at which the lodge’s chairman, Worshipful Master Coen Zoutman, had told visitors about ‘his’ lodge, Loge Ishtar, was drawing to a close. After his presentation, guests and lodge members had gathered at the drinks reception in the function room downstairs while the chairman himself had stayed upstairs in the temple to answer the questions of curious visitors. The event had, after all, been a unique opportunity for outsiders to see inside the Masonic Hall on the Steenschuur canal, a building that was usually shrouded in mystery.

Peter and his girlfriend Fay Spežamor were ready to leave, but Fay didn’t want to go without saying goodbye to Coen. Fay had been a member of Loge Ishtar since its foundation in 2014. As a lodge made up of both male and female Masons, Ishtar was very unusual at a time when Freemasonry was still almost exclusively male and had only recently started to accept female members.

A sudden feeling of dread washed over Peter, making him reluctant to push down on the door handle.

Fay, who was right behind him and not expecting him to stop, bumped into his back. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, startled.

‘I don’t know,’ Peter answered. Then, very slowly, he opened the door.

The main lights in the temple had been switched off. A single spotlight blazed in the darkness.

Peter and Fay followed the widening ray of light.

Suddenly, they both held their breath as though they had just jumped into the freezing water of an ice-cold river together.

In front of them, perfectly illuminated on the black and white tiles like a toppled king on a chessboard, lay the body of the Worshipful Master.

Fay let out a scream then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it.

Peter ran over to the chairman. His head was surrounded by a pool of blood. On the tiled floor next to him was a gavel, bloody and covered in hair. Sticking out of his chest was a set square that looked like it had been put there with tremendous force. But strangest of all was the pair of compasses that had been stabbed through his clasped hands.

Although he knew it was pointless, Peter pressed the index and middle finger of his right hand to the man’s neck. There was no sign of life.

Peter turned to Fay who stood motionless in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hand still pressed over her mouth. In a daze, he shook his head, then stood up and took his phone out of his pocket to call 112.

Do I ask for the police or an ambulance, he thought.

He keyed in 112, and the screen lit up. The call was answered on the first ring.

‘Do you require police, fire or ambulance?’ The voice was friendly but slightly brusque.

‘Police,’ said Peter. ‘In Leiden.’

He was transferred immediately.

‘Leiden Police,’ said a female voice a few seconds later. ‘What’s your emergency?’

He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘Hello. This is Peter de Haan. I, uh … Someone has been murdered … I …’

‘Sorry, could you repeat that please?’

Peter composed himself. ‘We need the police, and I think we need an ambulance as well, but the victim is already dead.’

‘Where are you now, sir?’

‘I’m … We’re in Leiden, on the Steenschuur. Steenschuur number 6.’

‘Hold the line please while I request those services. They should arrive within the next ten minutes.’

There was a short silence.

Then the woman asked, ‘Can you tell me what’s happened?’

‘We’re in the Masonic Hall. There was an open evening. I’m with my girlfriend in one of the rooms, the temple, and the chairman of the lodge is lying on his back on the floor. It looks like he’s been attacked with a large Masonic gavel.’

‘You’re sure he’s not alive?’

‘Yes. I checked his pulse. There’s no sign of life.’

Peter stared down at the man whose friendly face had looked out over this room just a short while ago. He walked slowly backwards towards Fay, keeping his gaze fixed on Coen’s lifeless body.

‘What’s the victim’s name?’

He reached Fay’s side, and she put her hand lightly on his back.

‘He’s called Coen …’ He looked at Fay enquiringly.

‘… Zoutman,’ she said.

‘Zoutman,’ Peter said. ‘Coen Zoutman. Coen with a “C”.’

He heard the staccato rattle of a keyboard.

‘The police will be with you shortly, Meneer De Haan,’ the woman said. ‘Please don’t touch anything, and make sure that nobody else enters the room. Are you listening, Meneer De Haan?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Peter replied distractedly.

‘There’s an ambulance on the way too, sir,’ the operator said. ‘Again, don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone else into the room. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘When assistance arrives, I’ll disconnect this call. Is that clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘The number you’re calling from, is that your own phone?’

‘Yes, it’s mine. Peter de Haan.’

She asked him for his address, and he told it to her.

‘Could you please also make sure that no one leaves the building?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Lots of people have left already,’ Peter said. ‘But I’ll let everyone else know.’

The other end of the line was quiet for so long that Peter began to wonder if the operator was still there at all.

Then she spoke again. ‘I’ve just received a report that the police are outside Steenschuur 6. They’ll take over from here.’ She said goodbye and hung up.

Peter stared blankly at the phone in his hand as though he hoped that it could provide answers to the tornado of questions in his head.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to Fay, who still hadn’t spoken.

Fay left her hand on Peter’s back even as they left the temple as if she was afraid she might fall if she let go.

Just as he closed the door behind them, the doorbell rang in the hall below.

‘Come on. Let’s go back downstairs,’ Peter said.

Fay nodded and moved her hand away. The warm spot where it had been cooled instantly.

‘Peter?’ she asked him.

He turned towards her, and she put her arms around him. ‘This … is … crazy,’ she said shakily.

They let go of each other and went downstairs.

The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

Peter opened the door.

Two young police officers – one male, one female – stood in front of him. They were visibly nervous.

‘Good evening,’ the policewoman said. ‘My name’s Dijkstra, Leiden Police. Are you Meneer De Haan?’

‘Yes.’

‘You reported that you found a body. Where’s the victim?’

‘Upstairs, in the temple.’

Without waiting to be invited in, the two police officers entered the front hall.

‘Van Hal,’ the male officer said as Peter politely shook his hand.

They went upstairs.

‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ Peter called after them. ‘I’m just taking my girlfriend into the other room.’

Neither of the police officers responded.

Fay stood perfectly still. She only seemed to come to life again when Peter gently touched her. She smiled at him vacantly, as if she was trying to remember who he was.

Peter held her tightly as they walked into the function room together. Everyone in the room lifted their heads to look at them, sensing that something unusual was going on. The chatter stopped abruptly as if the sound had been muted with a remote control.

Peter settled Fay onto a chair and brought her a glass of water which she drank with tiny sips. Then he addressed the group that had gathered in a semi-circle around him. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’m Peter de Haan, Fay’s boyfriend. I’m afraid something terrible has happened. A few minutes ago, Fay and I went upstairs to say goodbye to the Worshipful Master. We found him lying on the floor. He’s dead.’

Cries of horror filled the room. A few people started to cry.

‘I’ve called 112. There are already two police officers upstairs in the temple. I’m going to go up to talk to them now, but until we hear otherwise, no one is allowed to leave the building.’

Peter wanted to check on Fay first, but she appeared to be in good hands. Some of her Masonic brothers and sisters had gathered around her like a protective shell.

Back upstairs, he hesitated in the temple doorway.

When she saw him hovering there, the female police officer, who was crouched down beside Coen Zoutman’s body, got up. Her male colleague was talking into his radio.

‘So you were the one who found him?’ she asked as she walked towards Peter.

Her blue plastic shoe covers rustled on the tiles.

‘That’s right,’ Peter said. ‘Me and my partner, my girlfriend. You just saw her. Fay Spežamor. I was a guest here tonight. There was an open evening. The chairman gave a talk, an introduction to Freemasonry. After it finished, we went downstairs. That was at about ten o’clock, I think. There was a reception down in the function room, but he spent the rest of the evening up here, talking to people and answering questions. Fay and I wanted to say goodbye to him before we went home. That’s why we came back up.’

‘Do you know who saw him alive last?’

‘No … There was a big group of people still up here waiting to talk to the Worshipful Master after we’d gone downstairs.’

‘The Worshipful Master?’

‘I mean the lodge chairman. Sorry. Coen Zoutman. Inside this building, he’s addressed as “the Worshipful Master”. But … look, there were a lot of people coming and going up here. Downstairs too. It was an open evening. I think it’s going to be very difficult to—’

‘The Duty Officer has been informed,’ the policeman said, interrupting him.

‘He’s calling in the Forensic Investigations Unit. They’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.’

‘Right then,’ said the woman who had introduced herself as Dijkstra. ‘We’ll get this lot cordoned off here and outside as well. Nobody will be allowed to leave the building until we’ve taken everyone’s name and address.’

Peter looked up at the All-Seeing Eye above the chair where Coen Zoutman had sat earlier that evening, so relaxed and completely absorbed in his role.

Was the All-Seeing Eye the only witness to this murder? How ironic.

‘No security cameras here?’ Dijkstra asked. It sounded more like a statement than a question.

‘I doubt it,’ Peter said. ‘Only initiates are allowed to see the rituals that are performed in here.’

‘That sounds creepy,’ Van Hal said. ‘Secret rituals … in Leiden of all places.’

‘There’s nothing else we can do here for now,’ Dijkstra said. ‘We’ll go down and cordon everything off.’

Peter needed some fresh air. He followed the two officers outside. While Dijkstra and Van Hal were blocking off both ends of the street with red and white tape, two more police cars arrived, followed by an ambulance and a car from the coroner’s office.

Behind them was a large SUV that pulled up outside the Masonic Hall and parked on the kerb. Two men dressed in civilian clothes got out. One of them was an older man with short, grey hair and a neatly trimmed moustache, and the other a younger man who was completely bald.

Dijkstra strode over to the two men to report her findings. She looked over her shoulder at Peter, and he heard her saying his name.

The three of them approached him.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Rijsbergen,’ the man with the moustache said, shaking Peter’s hand. ‘Willem Rijsbergen. This young man here is my “partner”, as we’re apparently calling them these days.’

The younger detective introduced himself. ‘Van de Kooij. That’s just my surname, not where I’m from,’ he added with a grin, referring to De Kooi, a neighbourhood in Leiden Noord that was known for its colourful character and salt-of-the-earth residents.

‘Right, well …’ said Rijsbergen, rolling his eyes. He had clearly heard this ‘joke’ many times before.

‘Willem!’ someone shouted. It was a slim man in his fifties with dark curls and narrow, trendy-looking glasses.

‘Ah, here comes Anton,’ Rijsbergen said to no one in particular. ‘Anton Dalhuizen.’ He turned to Peter. ‘Dalhuizen is the forensic physician from the Public Health Department. In cases of unnatural death, which is what we appear to have here, they perform the autopsy.’

Dalhuizen jogged over to join them, clutching an old-fashioned black doctor’s bag.

‘I understand there are still people inside the building?’ Rijsbergen asked.

‘There are still some visitors downstairs,’ Peter said. ‘There was an open evening tonight, and it was very busy. But quite a few people have already left.’

‘Guestlist?’

‘I don’t think there is one. There were at least sixty or seventy guests. I’m not sure exactly. There were about twenty members of the lodge, so forty, maybe even fifty people were non-Masons.’

‘And you’re a member?’

‘No, I’m not a Mason. My girlfriend is. I came with her.’

‘Excellent,’ Rijsbergen said under his breath. It wasn’t clear to Peter whether this was meant ironically; there was absolutely nothing about this situation that could be described as ‘excellent’.

They went into the function room.

‘Right,’ Rijsbergen said to Dijkstra. ‘If you and Van Hal get started with taking the names of the people who are still here, we’ll have a look upstairs.’

Peter followed them, but once he reached the landing, he wondered why he was there. Right now, what he wanted more than anything was to go home with Fay, get into bed next to her and hold her tight.

Dalhuizen produced some blue plastic covers from his bag, which he, Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij pulled over their shoes.

‘Dear God,’ Rijsbergen exclaimed when they opened the temple door and saw Coen Zoutman lying on the floor.

‘It looks just like a film set,’ Dalhuizen remarked.

They lingered at the door for a few moments, like they actually were afraid that they might be interrupting a take on a film set.

Van de Kooij entered the room first. ‘See if you can put the lights on, Curly,’ Rijsbergen told him, and Van de Kooij felt along the wall for a switch. He soon found it, and the whole temple was flooded with bright light.

The staged lighting had seemed to cast an eerie enchantment over the temple. Now the spell was instantly broken.

Dalhuizen crouched next to the body and felt Coen Zoutman’s neck with his index and middle fingers, just as Peter had done earlier.

‘The manner of death looks pretty clear to me,’ he said, loud enough for Peter to hear. ‘Severe blunt force trauma to the back of the head caused by a heavy object – presumably, this mallet here. I expect the victim would have been killed instantly. Whoever did it …’ Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij moved closer to the body ‘… would probably have had to make an incision with a knife before they could insert this set square into the heart. You wouldn’t be able to get it through the bone and muscle tissue otherwise. The same goes for the compass through the hands … And even then, they would have had to use considerable force. But anyway …’ Dalhuizen stood up. ‘That’s my initial assessment. I’ll leave the rest to the pathologist. My job’s done. I’ve confirmed his death, and there’s nothing else for me to do here.’