The Pilgrim Conspiracy
JEROEN WINDMEIJER

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.’

They returned to the landing where Peter was still hovering.

‘Thanks, Anton,’ Rijsbergen said.

Dalhuizen pulled the blue covers from his shoes, crumpled them up and put them in his bag.

‘You can dismiss the ambulance crew when you get back downstairs. And send someone in to block these stairs off, if you don’t mind.’

Dalhuizen gave them a thumbs up. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said by way of goodbye before he left.

‘I don’t think it’s going to be easy,’ Peter said. ‘So many people in one place.’

‘Right,’ Rijsbergen said. ‘We’ll wait for forensics. They’ll be here soon. Van de Kooij, could you give the public prosecutor a call?’

Peter had seen enough Dutch true crime shows to know that the public prosecutor – the officier van justitie – was officially responsible for leading the preliminary criminal investigation. The police worked in close consultation with them, and their permission had to be obtained before the police could use more serious investigative tools like phone taps.

Peter was about to go over to Fay when Rijsbergen asked abruptly, ‘Would anyone be able to confirm that you were both downstairs all evening? And that you only went upstairs when this gentleman was already dead?’

Peter hesitated before answering. The thought had struck him that he might be an obvious suspect. ‘Um … Yes, of course. Lots of people saw me. Saw us. Fay and me. When we came upstairs, he was already dead.’

‘How much time was there between you discovering the body and calling 112?’

‘That was … That can’t have been more than a minute.’

‘All right,’ Rijsbergen said. ‘The time of the call will have been logged, naturally, and the conversation will have been recorded. The problem, Meneer De Haan, is that the pathologist will shortly establish a time of death. That’s always going to be an estimate, so we’ll never know the time to the minute. But it’s clear that he died somewhere between the presentation finishing at about ten o’clock this evening and about eleven o’clock when you made the call.’

‘Yes, but …’ said Peter, who was not only beginning to get angry now but also growing increasingly concerned by how easy it was to follow the detective’s logic. ‘You surely aren’t suggesting that you suspect Fay and me of …’

A smile appeared on Rijsbergen’s face that seemed to be an attempt to convey both fatherly reassurance and incredulity at Peter’s apparent naivety. ‘Don’t take it personally, Meneer De Haan,’ he said. ‘At this stage, as I’m sure you’ll understand, we can’t rule anything or anyone out.’

‘Shall I have them taken to the station?’ Van de Kooij cut in eagerly.

‘Just take it easy, Van de Kooij. No need to be hasty.’

‘I’m not a suspect, am I?’ Peter asked.

‘It would be a very devious murderer who called the police,’ Rijsbergen said, ‘but I’ve seen stranger things.’

Peter didn’t find this answer particularly reassuring.

‘You and your girlfriend found the victim, so …’ He left the rest of the sentence hanging. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Meneer De Haan,’ he said wearily. ‘As I said, at this stage, we need to consider all possible theories.’

Suspects? Us? Thoroughly unsettled, Peter shook his head. He could imagine how the idea would seem reasonable from a policeman’s point of view, but to him, the mere thought of it was too absurd for words.

But not even I could say that I knew where Fay was for the entire evening.

He heard movement on the staircase.

Two men and two women came up the stairs, each carrying a briefcase-sized evidence kit. They wore baggy white crime scene suits made of a thin, papery material. All four had pulled the hoods of their suits over their heads and covered their mouths with face masks.

‘We’re going in,’ the woman at the front said curtly before pushing past them.

‘Hey, Dexter,’ Van de Kooij greeted the man at the back who raised his free hand in a salute.

Rijsbergen sighed.

‘I think, perhaps, that it might be a good idea to do what my colleague suggested.’

He looked at Peter almost triumphantly, like he was ready to slap the handcuffs around his wrists there and then.

‘What do you m-mean?’ Peter stammered.

‘I think we ought to have you and your girlfriend taken to the station. Separately.’

Peter was dumbfounded.

‘Until then, the pair of you are not to speak to each other.’

Chapter 2

Earlier that day

Despite being turned up to full blast, the space heater didn’t give off much heat. By the time Peter had managed to warm up one side of his body, the opposite side had already cooled down, and he had to twist around to warm it up again. And so he sat, uncomfortably turning this way and that while he tried to read a copy of Mayflower, Christopher Hilton’s comprehensive history of the Pilgrims. The situation hardly lent itself to quiet study, but Leiden’s American Pilgrim Museum was far from busy that afternoon, and there wasn’t much else for him to do.

Peter had met the museum’s director Jeffrey Banks some time back, an American with a dark sense of humour and a slightly wry smile that seemed to play permanently on his lips. This veritable walking encyclopaedia had originally been an art historian, but now he delighted in showing visitors around the little museum that was really just two rooms: the ‘living room’ and the ‘kitchen’.

In anticipation of the upcoming four-hundredth anniversary of the English Pilgrims’ journey from Leiden to America, Jeffrey wanted to expand the museum’s opening hours beyond its current limited schedule of 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Peter had volunteered to cover two afternoons a month, and that was why he now found himself sitting here, surrounded by original seventeenth-century furniture and other objects in the museum’s living room. Visitors to the modest little museum could almost literally step back into the 1600s – with the obvious exception of the space heater, of course.

The only entrance to the living room was via a stable door that opened onto the street. The top half could be opened independently if someone rang the bell or knocked on the window.

The room had a terracotta flagstone floor and was dominated by a large table covered in history books about the American Pilgrims. Several wicker chairs, all from the seventeenth century, were arranged around the table.

In front of the window was another table stacked with more books, one of which had been left open. A chair had been pushed back from the table at an angle, making it look as though the book’s reader had just popped out on an errand and would be back at any moment.

The sturdy, thick wooden beams on the ceiling and the original tiles that decorated the wall and box-bed all added to the rustic ambience.

There were moments when Peter imagined that he really had travelled back in time here, especially at the end of the afternoons when the daylight faded. Then he could sit in complete silence and let his eyes wander around the dim room that was lit by three large candles.

There had been a noticeable increase in the number of tourists streaming through the museum lately, more than half of them from the United States, the New World that the Pilgrims had set out for in 1620 after an eleven-year stay in Leiden.

But there were very few of them in today.

Peter de Haan, fifty-eight years old, lecturer in Archaeology and History, had – if you counted his time as a student – been at the University of Leiden for exactly forty years. Two years ago, he had missed out on a professorship after the sudden death of his boss, Arnold van Tiegem. The board had chosen another candidate over Peter, just as they had done years earlier when his old mentor Pieter Hoogers had retired. He knew that some people looked on him with a certain amount of pity because of this, but he had never actually been very interested in a professorship at all.

However, after the snub, Peter had decided to work one day a week less, which gave him more time for volunteering, and, more importantly, time for the great love of his life.

Fay Spežamor.

He and Fay had met in the National Museum of Antiquities. Fay complemented her work as a lecturer in Greek and Latin Language and Culture at the university with the post of Curator of Roman and Etruscan Art at the museum. They had formed a friendship which, to their mutual surprise, had blossomed into romance.

Fay had been widowed when her husband had died of cancer shortly after the birth of their daughter, Agapé. She was an extraordinarily vivacious woman in her early fifties who had an inexhaustible fascination for everything related to the classical era. Her shoulder-length hair was more grey than black, and she had a petite frame and unmistakably Slavic features with a narrow face and eyes that blazed fiercely whenever she was trying to make a point. Those same eyes could smoulder with love when she looked at Peter, a love that neither of them, after so many years of being alone, had ever expected to find.

Peter shivered.

Although spring had officially arrived almost a month ago, it was still cold, especially in this old building with its single-pane windows where the sun’s rays never quite reached.

There was a knock on the window.

Peter turned the heater down, tucked the ribbon marker into his book and put it aside. He stood up, and a twinge of pain in his shoulders made him realise how awkwardly he had been sitting in the wicker chair for the last hour. He hobbled stiffly over to the door and opened the top half.

Willem Hogendoorn’s cheerful face beamed back at him.

‘A very good afternoon to you, Peter,’ he said.

A small group of people was waiting behind him.

Peter had got to know Willem quite well. He was a tall man, almost entirely bald except for a wispy ring of hair around his skull. His open face had the healthy glow of someone who spent much of his life outdoors. After his retirement, the former detective had devoted his time to providing guided walks around the city, and he regularly called in at the museum with his tour groups. He had devised the walks himself, and they covered a wide variety of themes. The Pilgrims tour started at the museum, and it was enjoying an increasing popularity.

‘Come on in,’ said Peter, opening the bottom half of the door.

The visitors each paid the five-euro entrance fee, and Peter dropped the money into a tin on the table.

The group of eight, including Peter and Willem, was really the maximum number of people that the tiny museum could accommodate – in such a small space, visitors soon found themselves bumping into each other.

‘This house, ladies and gentlemen,’ Willem said, launching straight into his talk, ‘is furnished as it would have been in the time of the Pilgrims. The building itself is from the fourteenth century and was built between 1365 and 1370. It’s been rebuilt and remodelled over the years, but everything you see here is authentic. Every chair, table and cabinet dates from the seventeenth century.’

Willem took a couple of steps away from the group and stood next to the historical map of Leiden that was hanging on the wall above the desk.

‘In the sixteenth century, there were various Puritan groups in England who thought that the Anglican Church hadn’t taken the Reformation far enough. To put it simply, they felt that England wasn’t Protestant enough. The whole hierarchical system of bishops and archbishops was still in place with all its incense and robes and so on. So they wanted to separate themselves from all of that, become their own, autonomous religious community.’

‘That was in the time of King James, wasn’t it?’ one of the tourists asked.

The slightly mousy woman spoke Dutch, but she had the typical accent of someone who had lived in an English-speaking country for a long time.

In response to her question, the man next to her began to nod enthusiastically. He had a full, grey beard and an enormous belly upon which rested an expensive-looking camera that was hanging from a strap around his neck.

‘Exactly,’ Willem confirmed. ‘That was in the time of King James I. Or Koning Jacobus, as we called him in Dutch. Jacobus de Eerste, to be precise. After his accession to the throne in 1603, the situation in England became unbearable for the Puritans. King James was very much against the separation, and he began to persecute them.’

‘Puritans,’ the fat man said with a smile. ‘Music to my ears, that word.’

Peter raised his eyebrows slightly, but Willem ignored the man’s comment and continued.

‘It became difficult for them to find work,’ he said. ‘Travel was forbidden unless you had official permission, and it was quite common for people to be accused of crimes they hadn’t committed. In 1608, a group of Puritans from Scrooby in Nottinghamshire decided to leave England. These people, who later became known as the Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers, fled in secret and went to Amsterdam. The Netherlands was a land of religious tolerance, and it was also increasingly prosperous. Above all, there had been a truce between the Spanish and the Dutch for twelve years, so it was a peaceful country too. After a short while …’ Willem tapped the old city map with his right hand ‘… the group’s religious leader, John Robinson, decided they should move from Amsterdam to Leiden. There was a lot of work available in the textile industry here, and you could get a job even if you had no previous experience. All you needed was physical strength. They lived here …’ he circled his hand over the map ‘… around the Pieterskerk, including the area where the Pesijnhofje is now. It’s a little courtyard with almshouses around it. We’ll be visiting that later.’

The tourists, who had arranged themselves in a semi-circle around the table, were spellbound.

‘They stayed here for eleven years. During those eleven years, they worked hard and saved hard. Then, part of the group decided to go to America. Most of the group stayed here, so in Leiden, you’ll still meet people who are descended from those Pilgrims in one way or another. They have typical Leiden names like Cooke, Cooper and Turner.’

‘Are we allowed to take photos?’ someone asked Peter, who nodded in reply.

Evidently, this was the moment the visitors had been waiting for; they immediately took out their cameras and were soon busily absorbed in taking photographs. In such a small museum, it was almost impossible to take pictures with no other people on them, so a complicated choreography of stepping aside and squashing together had to be performed to give everyone room.

‘The kitchen is next door,’ Willem said. ‘We’ll have to go outside to get there because there’s no connecting door between the two rooms.’

He nodded at Peter, who took some keys from a drawer and handed them to Willem.

‘Follow me,’ said Willem.

‘So what made them leave Leiden?’ Peter heard another woman ask when they were outside.

Peter smiled.

They always asked the same questions. It was understandable, of course. He could probably have given a guided tour himself by now, just based on everything he’d picked up from Willem’s answers.

‘That’s an excellent question,’ Willem said to the woman, whose face lit up at the compliment. ‘There were lots of reasons. It was clear that the English king would punish them for leaving England, so there was a fear that they would be prosecuted, even here. In addition to that, the truce with Spain was coming to an end, and there was already growing unrest in the Netherlands. What else might have played a role is that some members of the group didn’t want to integrate into Dutch society. They wanted to stay pure, not mix. There were religious disputes, too complicated to go into now, but they didn’t want to get involved in them. All sorts of things played a role, actually. Many of the Pilgrims just wanted to make a fresh start in a new country without any interference from others, so that they could practise their religion the way they thought was right.’

‘Very good,’ the fat man butted in again. ‘That’s why apartheid was a great system for us,’ he said, his words a jumble of Dutch and Afrikaans. ‘It’s a great pity that this is over. You see, South Africa is a mess now.’

An awkward silence fell over the group.

His wife looked around the room, her face grim, like she was preparing herself for a discussion that she’d had many times before.

‘If you’d all like to come with me,’ Willem said, breaking the impasse.

With apparent relief, the others followed their guide to the second entrance on the corner of the street.

‘Am I right in thinking that you’re from South Africa?’ Peter asked the couple, who had now dropped to the back of the group. They looked like they weren’t sure if they wanted to go on with the tour.

‘Yes, of course, we’re from South Africa. At home, we speak Afrikaans, but I’ve always spoken Hollands too. This is very important.’

‘Your ancestors—’ Peter began to ask, but the man didn’t allow him to finish the question.

‘More than a hundred and fifty years ago, my own ancestors went to South Africa. They were Huguenots. That is why we’re here, to find our roots. They were Voortrekkers, pioneers. My oupa’s oupa was one of the founders of the Orange Free State. They left the Cape Colony with the other Boers when the English came. That was the Great Trek. They were also like Pilgrims.’

Peter nodded. Although the man’s earlier comment had made him feel uncomfortable, as a historian, he always found it interesting to talk to people whose ideas were radically different from his own.

‘That’s why we live in Orania now. It’s independent and slegs vir blankes, whites only,’ the man said, unabashed. ‘We have made our own free state, like my oupa’s oupa. We have our own money, our own school, our own judges. Nobody tells us what to do. We also want to stay pure.’

‘It’s …’ Peter began and then realised that he didn’t have a clue how he should react to this last statement.

‘Just like those Pilgrims,’ the man continued. ‘They also wanted to stay pure. They also left and went to a new land, a land full of savages, to make a fresh start as true Christians. But they did this better than us. They got rid of the natives, like Joshua in the promised land.’

‘I don’t think we …’ Peter began hesitantly. ‘In the Netherlands, we see that differently. We think …’

The man stared at him. He tilted his head upwards and stuck out his bottom lip as if he had already formulated an answer to what Peter was about to say.

‘Come on, let’s join the others,’ Peter said, cutting the conversation short.

They would only find themselves mired in a pointless argument if he responded to the man’s comments – although now he felt like he had merely chosen the path of least resistance.

‘Yes, good,’ the woman said.

The man looked like it had just dawned on him that the conversation – on this particular topic at least – was over.

Peter and the two South African tourists joined the rest of the group who were already in the other side of the museum. They entered a narrow hallway where a set of stone steps led to the kitchen about a metre and a half below street level. An assortment of items like tools and kitchen utensils had been laid out on a long, rough wooden table. Next to them was a large, antique Bible with decorative metalwork corners and clasps.

There were logs and large turves of peat stacked in the corner of the kitchen and in the hearth. Hanging over the ashes in the fireplace was an old cooking pot. It was empty, but it looked like it was still perfectly usable.

‘The English colonies,’ they heard Willem explaining to the group, ‘had very high mortality rates caused by hunger and disease, and there weren’t enough new people arriving to replace those who died. So the Pilgrims were more than welcome in America. As I said, not all the Pilgrims left Leiden – only those who were brave enough and healthy enough, and who had enough money for the journey. They had one last meal together in the home of their leader, Pastor John Robinson. Then, on July 21st, 1620, they travelled to Delfshaven, where a small ship, the Speedwell, was waiting for them in the harbour. The men, women and children sailed to Plymouth in England, and from there, they started the long crossing to America with the Mayflower.’

Peter walked over to the fireplace.

‘This is clever,’ he said, putting his hand on the hook that the cooking pot was hanging from. ‘You can hang a pot on this pothook by its handle on these things sticking out here. Then you can raise it and lower it. As you might imagine, metal hanging above a fire would get extremely hot. So hot that you wouldn’t be able to touch it. So, in Dutch, we say something is a heet hangijzer – a “hot pothook” – when it’s a sensitive issue, like the Dutch slave trade or war crimes in Indonesia … or apartheid in South Africa.’

The South African couple’s expressions remained blank, but the other members of the group smiled at the sly jibe.

‘Anyway,’ Willem said. ‘As I was saying, on September the 6th, 1620, the Mayflower left England with fifty-seven people from Leiden on board. The journey was beset by problems, and it was only two months later, on November the 6th, that the passengers saw land again. On November the 11th, after a few reconnaissance expeditions, the Pilgrims found a suitable area for their settlement in New England. They called their new home Plymouth Colony. It would become the first permanently inhabited colony in America.’

‘True pioneers,’ said the South African man.

‘Indeed,’ Peter agreed, ‘but without help from the natives, they would all have died within the first few weeks. It was winter when they arrived, and they couldn’t find enough food. The severe frost and snow made it impossible for them to build houses. In those conditions, the weaker and younger ones were especially vulnerable, and half of the passengers and crew died. But their fortunes changed when the Wampanoag tribe helped them. They brought the Pilgrims food and tools and showed them which plants could be cultivated and where they could catch fish. But we all know how the colonists repaid those Native Americans for their help because—’

‘Right,’ said the South African man, who had now clearly had enough. ‘We’ll be off now. Thanks, that was very interesting.’ He extended his shovel-sized palm and shook Willem’s hand. Then he pumped Peter’s, hand squeezing much harder and longer than was necessary.

Peter tried to hide his annoyance, but he was deeply irritated by the way the visitor seemed to be trying to exact some sort of revenge.

‘Baie dankie, seun,’ the man said with a grin. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘Baie dankie,’ said his wife, avoiding shaking Peter’s hand.

Without waiting for a reply or saying goodbye, they went up the steps and left the building.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, a few of the visitors let out audible sighs.

‘Goodness, what horrible people. I’m glad they’ve gone,’ said the woman who had asked a question earlier. The rest of the group nodded in agreement.

Willem gave them another opportunity to take photos, which they all gratefully made use of.

After the group had left, Peter returned to the living room and reinstalled himself next to the space heater, turning up the heat as far as it would go.

He rubbed the sore spot on his right hand.

They also wanted to stay pure. Peter mulled over the South African man’s words. But they did this better than us …

Fragment 1 – Flight from England (January 1609)

We made it. We’re safe.

For now.

In the year of our Lord 1608, John (Robinson – Piet van Vliet) and William (Brewster – Piet van Vliet) led us to freedom. We cried out ‘Let my people go!’ but it did not soften the hardened heart of the king. And so we were forced to leave our beloved England, creeping away in secret, like thieves in the night. True, the seas did not part for us, and the king’s soldiers were not drowned, but we were able to escape on a ship sent by God. However, at first, it was only the men who escaped.

We had been betrayed a year earlier. We had paid an enormous sum to an English captain to take us to the Netherlands, a country where religious liberty still prevails. To avoid drawing attention to ourselves, we walked in small groups from Scrooby to Boston on the east coast. Once we were on the ship, we found out that we had thrown in our lot with a monstrous man. The devil take him! We had barely even set sail before a ship of the king’s fleet appeared. The captain had reported us. They arrested all sixty of us, the men, the women and even the little children. To amuse the public – and, I am quite certain, to also make them afraid – we were made to walk through the city in a long procession. The crowds pelted us with rotten fruit and eggs … They threw us into prison, a dark, filthy dungeon infested with rats. The bread they gave us to eat there was mouldy, and the water they gave us to drink was foul, but even there, we gave each other strength. Even there, we found comfort in singing and prayer.

John spoke so beautifully when he quoted Paul’s famous words, saying to us: ‘But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.’

After a month, it was decided that we had been sufficiently punished. We were sent home, burdened with shame and bereft of all else.

But if they had thought that this defeat had put an end to our desire to leave, they were wrong.

A year later, in the year of our Lord 1608, we tried again. Our group had grown and now numbered at least one hundred souls. The blessing of the Lord was upon our work.

Or so it seemed.

We men went on foot. We started in Scrooby in Nottinghamshire and went over the border to the neighbouring county of Lincolnshire and the stretch of shore between Grimsby and Hull that we had chosen for its remoteness. The nearest settlements, Immingham and Killingholme, were no more than a few farm cottages. We were so vulnerable, all too visible to anyone who was paying attention. Leaving the country without permission was forbidden, and a watchful shepherd boy or farmhand pausing to rest could easily have brought an end to our second attempt to escape. On the way, we drank from streams, catching the water in our cupped hands, and we ate the meagre rations that we had brought with us.

It had been arranged that the women and children would make the journey by water. Their boat, with all our possessions on board, arrived before us. But it ran aground in the shallows, and they were forced to spend the night on shore.

When we were reunited with our families early the next morning, we saw the Dutch captain’s ship sailing into the estuary. But the tide was too low for him to reach us, and time was running out. As many people as possible were ferried to the ship by boat. The men went first, a decision that we came to regret because no sooner had we boarded the ship, a company of soldiers came rushing along the beach towards us. How we despaired, we men, when we saw our women and children being dragged away by the merciless soldiers of King James’ army. We could only watch from the deck as our ship was tossed about on the surf. One man wanted to jump overboard to rescue his wife and children, but he would surely have been drowned by the powerful waves. And what could he have done if he had reached the shore? One man against the might of so many soldiers, all armed to the teeth?

I write ‘men’, but there was also a boy among us. He was under the special protection of Josh Nunn, one of the other leaders of our group. The boy never left Josh’s side, often keeping tight hold of his hand – and when that was not possible, he held onto his coat.

The captain ignored our pleas and weighed anchor. And so, cowards that we were, we watched our wives and children being roughly led away as the ship sailed towards the open sea.

Not long afterwards, we were caught in the most horrendous storm. Many of us were convinced that this was where our story would end. We were blown adrift almost as far as Norway, and our journey took two weeks instead of the two days that the crossing should have taken.

All of us on board were despondent, praying, sick, nauseous, vomiting incessantly, growing weaker each day, roaming like ghosts over the deck and through the holds while our little ship was at the mercy of the elements. We had not brought enough supplies for such a long crossing. Our salvation was that there were fewer of us on board than we had initially planned.

Josh shared his food with the boy, the same scanty ration that had been given to the rest of us, which made the lad the best-fed passenger on the whole ship. No one knew who the child was, and no one dared to ask where he had come from. We knew that he was an orphan and that just like Josh, he did not have another living soul in the world, but we knew no more than that.

They often retreated to a quiet spot belowdecks where Josh talked to the boy endlessly, like a seller on a market stall persuading a customer to buy his wares. The boy appeared to repeat his words, nodding his head earnestly as he spoke.

Then, after our terrible journey, we finally arrived in Amsterdam. News of what had happened to our women and children eventually reached us: they had been dragged from prison to prison because nobody had been able to decide what should be done with them. After all, hadn’t their only crime been a desire to be with their husbands and fathers? So, at long last, they were given permission to leave England and allowed to join us.

By August 1608, we were all together again, around one hundred and fifty men, women and children. In Amsterdam, we joined John Smyth, a good friend of our own John. You see, we are not the first Separatists to flee England because of James I. But our peace was short-lived; here too, we found discord. John Smyth felt increasingly drawn to the ideas of the Mennonites, who only baptised adults and not children, and he wanted to impose these ideas on us.

‘Our’ John decided that it was time to go, to leave Amsterdam behind us. He wrote a letter to the council of the city of Leiden.

The year of our Lord 1609 had only just begun.

Chapter 3

Peter closed the museum and went to the Lipsius Building to get a coffee and something to eat in the university’s restaurant. Then he took a slow bike ride to the Jean Pesijnhofje near the Pieterskerk where Fay opened the massive courtyard door just as he arrived.

‘Hey, sweetheart,’ she said, her voice warm, as always. She brushed his cheek lightly with her lips, like a butterfly’s kiss, and put her arms around him. ‘I’m so glad you’re going with me tonight,’ she said.

He locked his bike, and they headed for the Rapenburg canal, arm in arm.

They were going to the open evening that night at Loge Ishtar, a Masonic lodge that accepted both men and women. Fay had joined the lodge three years ago. Every two weeks, its members met in the Masonic Hall on the Steenschuur canal where they not only learned to understand themselves better, Fay had explained to Peter, but also guided each other on a path of contemplation, reflection and self-improvement. Together, they thought about how they related to each other and to the world around them.

Peter knew that Fay had felt a sense of belonging in this community right from the start. She had told him about its members’ genuine commitment to each other, and their shared desire to work on their own personal development and use this as a foundation from which to help create a better, more beautiful world.

‘I had a very odd visitor in the museum today,’ Peter said.

‘Another direct descendant of the Pilgrims?’ Fay asked wryly.

‘No, actually,’ Peter replied, laughing. ‘This one was actually descended from a Huguenot from Leiden who emigrated to South Africa in the nineteenth century.’

The Huguenots were Calvinists, Protestant followers of the Swiss religious reformer John Calvin. They were persecuted on a massive scale in sixteenth-century France. After the horrific St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre on the night of August 23rd and 24th in 1572 when countless Huguenots were murdered, a great number of Calvinists fled France. Many of them settled in the Netherlands, where names like Montanje, Parmentier and Labuschagne are still common in Leiden.

‘Do tell,’ Fay said invitingly.

‘Like I said, it was very odd,’ Peter went on. ‘Willem Hogendoorn came in with a group of tourists. There was a South African couple with them who come from Orania. I googled it on my phone when they left. It’s a sort of free state that was set up by whites after apartheid ended. Black people are absolutely not welcome there. They have their own money, schools, newspapers, legal system, their own local government, you name it. His oupa’s oupa, as he said – his grandfather’s grandfather – left Leiden in the early nineteenth century. He was one of the original founders of the Orange Free State, which was similar to what Orania is now. And he saw a lot of that same pioneer spirit in the Pilgrims, people who move somewhere else to make a fresh start and build their own community in a place that they believe God has chosen for them.’

‘Well, that’s not so unusual, is it?’

They walked along the Rapenburg. The evening was still light, and the air was crisp. Reflections of the trees and grand townhouses shimmered in the tranquil water of the broad canal.

‘No, that’s not really what was unusual,’ Peter said. ‘It was that the man was so blatantly racist … He said it was a shame that apartheid had ended because South Africa was a mess now. And that the Pilgrims and the other American colonists had gone about things in a much better way than the South African colonists because they had wiped out the indigenous people there.’

‘You’re right, that is unusual. You don’t often hear people say that sort of thing quite so brazenly.’

‘That’s what surprised me,’ Peter said. ‘Of course, I know that there are people who think like that, but I was quite shocked, to be honest, that he had no qualms about saying it so candidly, especially to someone he’d only just met.’

‘I’m sure there are plenty of people who really do still think like that,’ said Fay.

‘Anyway … I didn’t call him out on it. I suppose I was a bit of a coward, but I didn’t want to get into a pointless argument with him.’

‘That was very sensible, darling,’ Fay said, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

They passed the Van de Werfpark and crossed the canal via the Groenebrug before turning left onto the Steenschuur, where the door of the Masonic Hall stood invitingly open.

The building was also home to an all-male Freemason’s lodge. Loge La Vertu, or the Virtue. It had been established in 1757, making it one of the oldest groups of Freemasons in the Netherlands. The lodge’s national serial number was 7. The lodge with serial number 1 was the oldest in the Netherlands, L’Union Royal in The Hague, founded in 1734.

An elderly man was waiting in the open doorway to greet them. Dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a red bow tie, with a neat grey goatee, he looked every inch the proper gentleman. All that was missing was a monocle.

Fay gave him a quick hug. The gesture seemed a little over the top to Peter, but once they were inside, he realised that this was how the lodge members usually greeted their Masonic brothers and sisters.

They hung up their coats in the entrance hall and went into the spacious function room. The room was painted the mint green of a hospital ward. Mounted on the walls were display cases containing awards and insignia, along with objects that Peter couldn’t even recognise let alone guess what they might be used for. Pride of place had been given to a large official portrait of King Willem-Alexander.

The room looked dated and old-fashioned, like a 1980s-era social club. Simple tables had been arranged in groups with a doily and two freshly cut carnations in a small vase in the middle of each one. Plain but functional chairs had been placed around them, as though ready for the imminent arrival of a bridge club.

Peter got two cups of coffee from a small bar in the corner. He carefully carried them over to Fay, keeping his eyes on the tray like a child taking part in an egg and spoon race.

He handed a cup and saucer to Fay, who was chatting to some of the other visitors. Since he’d so far not had a chance to smoke his daily cigarillo, he decided to take the opportunity to slip outside for a few minutes.

The double doors that led to a tiled-over back garden were open. A few people were smoking under a large, sloping glass roof that looked a little like a conservatory without walls.

Sven, one of Peter’s students, was standing among them. He was wearing a T-shirt with the words WE WILL NOT DANCE ON THE GRAVES OF OUR FATHERS printed in faded letters over an image of a stern-looking Indian. Every now and then, he pushed a pair of diminutive but showy, round spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. He was accompanied by a larger young man whose undersized shirt strained across his muscular torso.

The two young men crossed over to Peter. Sven looked ill at ease, as if he was in no mood for a conversation just then but realised that he couldn’t ignore his lecturer.

‘Hello, sir,’ said Sven. ‘Are you a member here?’

‘No, I’m not a member. My girlfriend is. I just came along with her tonight out of curiosity. What about you two?’

‘Just curiosity for us, too,’ Sven replied and then introduced his friend in the same breath. ‘This is Erik, by the way. We’re both in the Catena student society.’

Without being asked, Sven took the cup and saucer from Peter’s hand so that he could light his cigarillo.

The man standing next to them appeared to be lost in thought, as if he was mentally preparing himself for what was about to come. When the first wisps of smoke from Peter’s cigar curled past the man’s face, he gave Peter a brief sideways look.

‘Is the smoke bothering you?’ Peter asked, quickly taking a couple of steps away from him.

The man looked at him amiably enough, but he clearly had no idea what Peter had just said. He was very tall, well-built and looked to be in his fifties. His hair was remarkably long for his age and curled out from under a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. His face was so smooth that it looked like he had shaved only minutes earlier.

He said ‘Hello’ in English with an unmistakably American accent and shook Peter, Sven and Erik’s hands with the enthusiasm of someone at a high school reunion greeting old classmates from half a lifetime ago. ‘I’m Tony. Anthony Vanderhoop, to be precise.’

He pronounced his name the Americanised way, as ‘Venderhoop’.

‘But you can call me Tony. And you are?’

‘I’m Peter de Haan, and this is Sven, and this is Erik.’

It must be great to be able to speak your own language wherever you are in the world, Peter thought.

‘You don’t speak Dutch?’ Sven asked. ‘Everything will be in Dutch tonight, won’t it?’

‘No, I don’t speak Dutch, sadly. But my family goes all the way back to the very first Dutch colonists who went to America. One of my uncles researched it all. The way our last name is pronounced has changed over time.’

‘We would pronounce it “fon-der-hope”,’ Erik said, overemphasising each syllable.

‘Yes, just like that,’ Tony said, but when he tried to repeat what Erik had said, it still came out as ‘Venderhoop’.

‘I’m from Boston,’ Tony continued, ‘I’m a member of a Freemasons’ lodge there. We’re a worldwide fraternity, as I’m sure you know, so whenever I’m abroad, I like to visit my brothers … and these days, my sisters too.’

When he said the word ‘sisters’, his mocking smile suggested that he did not entirely approve of female Masons.

‘But will you be able to understand what’s being said later?’ Peter asked.

‘Not entirely,’ said Tony. ‘But I still enjoy meeting my fellow Freemasons. I don’t understand everything that’s being said, but the words and phrases in the rituals are more or less the same, and I know all the gestures and actions too. I understand the meaning behind them, so the words aren’t so important. If you’re a Catholic, you can take part in a mass in a language you don’t know and still understand what’s going on in front of you. In your heart, you still feel like you’re a part of it all.’

Peter, Sven and Erik all nodded.

‘Well,’ Tony said, suddenly bringing the conversation to an end. ‘It was nice meeting you guys. I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.’

He turned around and went over a group of people who looked like they had been waiting for him. As soon as he joined them, they all started to make their way back inside.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said a loud voice. ‘We’re about to begin.’

Standing in the open doorway was a tall, strikingly beautiful woman with short, straight hair, slicked neatly to one side.

‘If you’d all like to come inside, then we can begin.’

Once he was inside, Peter saw that many more people had arrived while he had been in the garden. He had trouble finding an unoccupied chair.

Fay and some of her Masonic brothers and sisters were sitting on a row of tall stools next to the bar.

Fay had told Peter that one of the items on the evening’s programme would be a series of interviews with lodge members, talking about their backgrounds and their reasons for joining the Freemasons. The organisers had found a good mix of members, not only of different ages but also from the different degrees of Freemasonry: Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason.

When they were asked why they had joined the Freemasons, they all spoke of a strong feeling of comradeship. Working on yourself as part of a group – ‘the Craft’ as they called it – was what created a bond between them.

Peter found the atmosphere extraordinarily warm and friendly but, at the same time, a little oppressive too.

It was all so very … nice.

It made him think of an evening in his student days and a service he had attended at a Baptist church. A study partner he’d since lost touch with had converted to Christianity. As part of their preparation for baptism, he and some of the other new members had had to introduce themselves to their congregation. He had asked Peter to provide moral support, which Peter had provided by sitting in a pew at the back of the church. When it was his friend’s turn to step forward, he had made eye contact with Peter, and Peter had given him an encouraging thumbs up. There had been many stories that evening, told by people who spoke, often too candidly, about their personal journeys. They revealed the mistakes they’d made – complete with clichéd accounts of addictions to drink and drugs, how they had found the way to Jesus at last, and how the church had become their haven of peace. One by one, they opened up about their feelings of being immersed in a warm bath, of coming home, of finally being able to be themselves, of no longer having to wear a mask …

The very same atmosphere hung over this evening, and there was even the obligatory addiction story.

Naturally, Peter paid the most attention when it was Fay’s turn to speak. She talked about her background in the Orthodox Church, a story that Peter already knew. She said that what she liked about Loge Ishtar was that nobody was asked to renounce their religious beliefs. One member’s guiding principles might come from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while another’s might be based on the Bible, the Torah or the Quran. And there were even people for whom nature was the greatest source of inspiration.

Eventually, the Worshipful Master – as the chairman of the lodge, Coen Zoutman, was officially addressed – spoke to the audience. He likened his brothers and sisters to travelling companions. Each of them took their own steps on their journeys, but the others gave them support where the path was difficult, and so they made the journey together. He sincerely invited everyone present to travel with them and join them as fellow pilgrims.

‘Well then, ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, but he was interrupted by a woman who suddenly jumped up from her chair. She bumped into the table in front of her, sending her coffee cup clattering to the floor.

She was a tall, heavy-set woman with long hair scraped back into a ponytail, accentuating the roundness of her pudgy face. There were red spots around her neck that had spread up to her chin and cheeks, and there was an embittered look on her face.

A man on the chair next to her raised himself half out of his seat and tugged at her arm in a desperate attempt to make her sit down again.

The whole room seemed to hold its breath.

The Worshipful Master looked at the scene with thinly veiled irritation. Before the woman could say a word, he said, ‘I don’t think this is the right moment, Jenny.’

The man managed to get the woman back onto her seat. She looked around her, appearing to be confused, as if she couldn’t remember why she had been standing up. Her face had turned completely red.

Her companion leaned over to her and spoke in what looked like a gentle but stern voice.

The woman’s shoulders sagged, and she bowed her head, like an athlete who had just lost a race.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the Worshipful Master began again, in a tone that was no less calm than the one he had used before. ‘The moment has arrived that I’m sure many of you have come here for tonight: a visit to our temple.’

Peter smiled. This had indeed been his main reason for coming with Fay: the opportunity to look inside the Masonic temple that was still a place of such mystery to him.

Because however you looked at it, although the Freemasons might no longer have been a secret society, they were still a society with secrets.

Chapter 4

A broad, winding staircase took the visitors up to the first floor of the Masonic Hall. The landing was too small to accommodate them all at once, and a few people had to stand on the stairs. An expectant hush fell over the group.

In the hallway, three loud knocks sounded on a tall door. It opened almost immediately, swinging outwards and forcing the people on the landing to squeeze even closer together. Shortly afterwards, the hallway emptied as they all surged through the door, like water flowing from a bath after the plug has been pulled.

Peter walked into the long hall.

Inside, a man and a woman sat at triangular tables placed on either side of the door. A candle on a tall stand stood in front of each table. A third stand was placed a few metres away, just in front of a large, cube-shaped object that Peter knew was referred to by the Freemasons as the ‘Perfect Ashlar’.

Fay had told him that the Freemasons spoke of God as the Master Builder of the whole universe. They saw themselves as rough building blocks that needed to be smoothed and dressed so that they could become part of the Temple of the Great Architect of the Universe. The Freemasons’ entire philosophy was based on the pursuit of self-improvement.

Lying on top of the cube was an old book – a Bible, Peter assumed – on top of which was what looked like a carpenter’s set square, and a pair of compasses. On the floor, which was divided into black and white squares like a giant chequerboard, were a rough block of stone and what looked like a heavy mallet.

Running along both sides of the hall was a double row of chairs where the guests sat with their backs to the wall, facing the open space in the middle of the room.

Peter chose a chair on the front row so that he would have an unobstructed view of the proceedings. Before he sat down, he picked up the evening’s programme that had been printed out on A4 paper and placed on the seat.

Because Fay was taking part in the ritual that was going to be performed that evening, she wouldn’t be able to sit next to him. Peter saw her come into the temple, but she was staring straight ahead so intently that he couldn’t make eye contact.

Classical choral music filled the room, which, according to the programme, was an excerpt from The Magic Flute by Mozart.

Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn,

Doch musst du, Jüngling, männlich siegen.

Drum höre unsre Lehre an:

Sei standhaft, duldsam und verschwiegen.

Sitting directly opposite Peter were Sven and Erik, and a few chairs away from them was Tony Vanderhoop, who had taken off his cap.

Above them, tiny, subtle lights had been inserted into holes pricked in the vaulted ceiling. The room’s walls were panelled in wood and painted green, and the signs of the zodiac had been painted on them at regular intervals.

Peter’s eye was drawn to the motto painted over the door, KNOW THYSELF, the Ancient Greek maxim that was inscribed over the entrance of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. The concept behind it was that all humans possess innate wisdom: you already know everything that you need to know, but you would only find that knowledge by looking inside yourself.

The woman next to him whispered – a little too loudly, as though she wanted everyone to know that she was already very well-informed about Freemasonry – that the man and woman next to the entrance were the Senior and Junior Warden who acted as the Worshipful Master’s left and right hand.

At the far end of the temple, another table and a chair stood on a platform where the Worshipful Master had taken his seat. The All-Seeing Eye was carved in relief on the wall behind him.

Like a king sitting on his throne, he stared impassively out over the temple, occasionally stroking his full, grey beard with his right hand.

Just before the doors were closed, the lady who had caused the commotion downstairs came into the temple followed by the man who had calmed her down again. They sat on the chairs furthest away from the chairman, near the door.

The music faded gently away, and the chatter in the hall died down.

The lights were dimmed, transforming the ceiling and its little lights into a starry night sky.

That would look good in my bedroom, Peter thought.

He recognised the constellations Orion and Ursa Major. It reminded him of a night he had spent on the banks of the Sea of Galilee with a group of backpackers he had met in Jerusalem. It had been much colder than he had been expecting and he had slept badly. Even with all his clothes on, he had shivered in his damp sleeping bag. He hadn’t been able to sleep for more than fifteen minutes at a time, but what a view he’d had of the night sky and its countless stars. It had been an almost mystical experience.

The Worshipful Master opened the meeting with a sombre rap of his ceremonial gavel, which was immediately followed by raps in turn from the gavels of the Senior and Junior Wardens.

Worshipful Master: ‘I give notice that I am about to open this lodge. All rise. Brothers and sisters, adopt the sign of fidelity.’

The members of the lodge stood up and placed their right hands over their hearts.

Worshipful Master: ‘Brother Senior Warden, why have we come together this evening?’

Senior Warden: ‘Worshipful Master, you have convened us with our guests for this special meeting, this special lodge.’

Worshipful Master: ‘Brother Senior Warden, on what basis are we gathered tonight?’

Senior Warden: ‘On that of mutual respect and that of Brotherhood, Worshipful Master.’

Worshipful Master: ‘Sister Junior Warden, for what reason have we invited our guests?’

Junior Warden: ‘Our wish is to make them aware of our Craft.’

Worshipful Master: ‘Sister Junior Warden, what does our Craft entail?’

Junior Warden: ‘Continuous work on the self in order to develop as a harmonious person truly fit to become a living stone in the Temple of Humanity.’

Worshipful Master: ‘With these thoughts in mind, let us work together to make this evening a fruitful one. Brother Senior Warden, Sister Junior Warden, assist me in supporting this work by lighting the Three Lesser Lights and allowing the Three Great Lights to shine.’

Worshipful Master: ‘Wardens and Director of Ceremonies.’

The wardens and Fay, who was the Director of Ceremonies, stood up and walked towards the Worshipful Master, who lit a taper on the Master’s Light and gave it to her. This would be used by the ‘Triangle’ – the Worshipful Master and the two wardens – to light the three candles, known as the three Lesser Lights, one by one.

Fay had gone over the basics of the ritual with Peter the night before, so he was already familiar with some of the Masonic terminology.

The Junior Warden lit the first candle, the Pillar of Wisdom.

Junior Warden: ‘May Wisdom guide the construction.’

The Senior Warden lit the second candle, the Pillar of Strength.

Senior Warden: ‘May the temple be established in Strength.’

The Worshipful Master lit the third candle, the Pillar of Beauty.

Worshipful Master: ‘May it be adorned in Beauty.’

Then the Worshipful Master, the two wardens and the Director of Ceremonies gathered next to the Perfect Ashlar on top of which lay the square and compasses. The Worshipful Master opened the book and placed the square and compasses on its pages.

Peter knew that the compasses symbolised the spirit and that the square represented the material world. The position of the compasses indicated the different degrees within Freemasonry. When the lodge was working in the first degree, Entered Apprentice, the compasses lay underneath the square: man’s spiritual nature was still hidden by physical matter, trapped in the material world. At the second degree, Fellow Craft, one arm of the compasses was placed under the square: man’s spirit was overcoming his physical nature, wrestling itself free from the material world. During the third degree, Master Mason, the compasses lay on top of the square: the spirit now reigned over the physical and had separated itself from the material world.

Worshipful Master: ‘I thank you, brothers and sisters. With this gavel, I duly declare this special lodge open.’

Once again, the rap of the Worshipful Master’s gavel was echoed by both wardens.

Worshipful Master: ‘This lodge is now open. You may all be seated.’

The eagerness in this room to hear what’s about to be said is almost tangible, Peter thought.

He looked at Fay. The look of concentration she had worn as she carried out her duties was still visible on her face. She stared down at the floor like she was afraid a spell would be broken if she looked at anyone.

The music started again. Peter recognised it as baroque. It was a beautiful piece, the sort of music he could play on Spotify while he was working without being distracted by what he was listening to.

When the last notes of the music had died away, the Worshipful Master spoke again.

‘Esteemed brothers and sisters, honoured guests, dear people …’ he began. ‘What a pleasure it is to be able to speak to you this evening. I must be perfectly honest with you and tell you that I feel that I have been charged with no small task tonight. Let me explain. When we, as brothers and sisters, were preparing for this open evening, we decided that the programme should include a concise introduction to some of the symbols we work with as Freemasons. Of course, that’s a very nice idea in principle, but in practice, not quite so simple. And why is that? Because what characterises Freemasonry is its use of a very wide range of symbols. It would be quite a challenge to choose just a few of those to give you an initial impression of Freemasonry, while still honouring the rich diversity of symbols that are important to us. Nevertheless, I hope that we have succeeded in creating a meaningful selection that will lift the veil a little for you and hopefully pique your curiosity. May it lead to the planting of a seed that spurs you to further exploration. And if it indeed does, please know that we would be delighted to assist you as you discover the possible meanings behind this wonderful symbolism.’

Fay looked up at last. She smiled at Peter, and an intense feeling of love flowed through him.

‘However, I shall refrain from launching straight into a description of the major symbols,’ the Worshipful Master continued. ‘To begin, I would like to speak briefly about meanings and interpretations. I’ve given this presentation a title, and with good reason. The title is: “Wisdom, Strength and Beauty: Feeling with your mind, thinking with your soul …” Certainly, Freemasonry has a rich tradition of symbols. I can share the meanings behind some of them with you and, of course, I will do just that, but I would first like to make you aware of the fact that Freemasonry has no dogmas. Freemasonry gives everyone complete freedom to carry out the search for meaning in their own way. And while Freemasonry provides tools and symbolic sustenance for the journey, it has no universal truth or truths. The search for meaning is entirely personal. It’s up to us as individuals to find the meaning or meanings that will help us to achieve deeper insight – into ourselves, into the world around us and into what moves us, especially in our interactions with others. The search for meaning is a challenge that requires bravery. Perhaps it requires a disposition and an openness that we rarely achieve in our daily lives, too. It might also ask us to take a different approach from what we are used to. That is why I speak of feeling with your mind and thinking with your soul. Because that is how we might be able to reach other, deeper layers. Layers which are still uncharted territory – terra incognita – but within which we may well find insights that will help us to become better people …’

The absence of dogmas was precisely what had initially attracted Fay to Freemasonry. Peter could understand why. She had been raised in the Eastern Orthodox Church, a branch of Catholicism based entirely on doctrines that had been set in stone centuries ago.

Her father and pregnant mother had fled to the Netherlands during the Prague Spring and brought their ancestral faith with them. Fay had struggled to leave her Orthodox upbringing behind her. The agonising suffering and eventual death of her husband Petr had been the final push she had needed to be able to let go.

‘Does this mean that, as Freemasons, we stand utterly alone?’ the chairman asked, looking out over the room. ‘Certainly not. We are part of our lodge, part of a close-knit community of brothers and sisters who travel with us, who search with us, and who join together to try, little by little, to make the world a better place. We are part of what we like to think of as a universal chain of brothers and sisters that spans the entire globe.’

The Worshipful Master gave a friendly nod to Tony Vanderhoop, who smiled and nodded back.

‘Each of us is a unique and, at the same time, essential link in the chain,’ he continued. ‘And so ultimately, we form a whole that is many times greater than the sum of its parts. Please keep this in mind later when you hear me speak about symbols. Perhaps my words will be the prelude to a personal search for what they might mean to you. And before I begin, let me give you one more piece of context. I’m sure you already know that we work with and within a threefold progressive degree system of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason. When a Freemason has made enough progress on their journey in the Craft, they’re allowed to advance to a higher degree. I would like to emphasise that this is a process of continuous development. By no means is it so that the Master Mason possesses absolute wisdom and can end their search once they have been raised to the third degree. We remind ourselves constantly that we must never stop learning. This means that the process of finding meaning in the symbols we work with can be a unique, ongoing, and ever-expanding developmental path. That might be one of the most wonderful aspects of becoming and being a Freemason …’

Peter saw that a few people were smiling like they couldn’t wait to join the Freemasons’ ranks. Or perhaps they were already members of the lodge.

Fay often spoke in glowing terms about the brotherhood and sisterhood of Freemasons, but Peter imagined that you would feel a similar sense of belonging in any other community that you were enthusiastic about and dedicated to, like a sports association or a chess club.

In his speech, the chairman expounded on the meaning of some of the Masonic symbols, although he was very careful to reiterate more than once that everyone was always free to interpret them in their own way.

‘What we’re actually trying to do is chisel away at the rough stone to free the perfect block from within, to reveal it in all its glory.’

Peter thought that this was a beautiful idea. How did that famous quote from Michelangelo go again, he wondered. When he was asked how he created such magnificent sculptures from marble, he replied, ‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it …’

The act of freeing oneself from unnecessary ballast in order to find out what really mattered … or to find God. That was a recurring theme in all belief systems, from Hinduism to Buddhism to the Abrahamic religions.

Hadn’t Jesus told people not to store up treasure for themselves on earth? ‘Where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

Ultimately, it wasn’t about the physical world, nor about the earthly possessions that you couldn’t take with you, but about your immortal soul that needed to be freed from the mire of material things.

Peter was suddenly startled by the music that came unexpectedly from hidden loudspeakers, and he realised that he must have been lost in thought for quite some time.

When the music ended – Maurerische Trauermusik in C minor (K. 477) by Mozart – the Worshipful Master concluded his talk.

‘And so, we reach the end of this short presentation. I have, of course, only been able to touch on a just a few points, give you only a brief insight into a much larger subject. But I hope that I have given you an impression of all the wonderful tools that Freemasonry can offer. And of course, I would be delighted if it has left you wanting more. I’d like to thank you for coming along and listening this evening. After this lodge has closed, you’ll have an opportunity to share your questions, thoughts and insights with us and with each other. Allow me to end this talk in the traditional way: so mote it be – I have spoken.’

The Worshipful Master let his gavel fall, which was echoed by the Senior and Junior Wardens.

A third piece of music was played. A magnificent choir singing in what sounded like French. Peter recognised the tune and could even hum along. He looked at the programme and saw that it was Pavane, Op. 50 by Fauré. He closed his eyes. The power and intensity of the music rose to a crescendo and then ebbed away. The sound washed over him like the waves of a calm ocean. It was hypnotic.

When the music ended, the Worshipful Master spoke again.

Worshipful Master: ‘I give notice that I am about to close this lodge. All rise. Brothers and sisters, adopt the sign of fidelity.’

The members of the lodge stood up to make the sign of fidelity. The Worshipful Master and the two wardens closed the book and placed the square back on top of it.

Junior Warden (She extinguished the candle on the Pillar of Wisdom): ‘May Wisdom guide us.’

Senior Warden (He extinguished the candle on the Pillar of Strength): ‘May Strength support us.’

Worshipful Master (He extinguished the candle on the Pillar of Beauty): ‘May Beauty reside in our hearts.’

They all returned to their former positions.

Worshipful Master: ‘Thank you, Brothers and Sisters. How should Masons meet, act and part?’

Junior Warden: ‘By the principles of the level, the plumb and the square, Worshipful Master.’

Worshipful Master: ‘What are these principles, Brother Junior Warden?’

Junior Warden: ‘To meet in harmony, to act according to the highest law, and to part as equals, Worshipful Master.’

Worshipful Master: ‘So should we ever meet, act and part, so that our labours may progress. Brother Senior Warden, have we come closer to our goal?’

Senior Warden: ‘Our desire was to share knowledge with our guests and that the evening would be fruitful. It was good.’

Worshipful Master: ‘Then let us return, well contented, to whence we came. With this gavel, I declare this special lodge duly closed.’

The rap of his gavel was repeated by the wardens.

Worshipful Master: ‘This lodge is now closed. I wish our guests a safe journey home.’

After a moment of hesitation – it appeared that no one wanted to be the first to leave – a few people all stood up at once.

Soon, ten or fifteen people had gathered around the Worshipful Master’s chair, waiting to ask him questions.

Peter saw his student Sven among them, together with his brawny friend who had been in the garden earlier that evening. They hung back from the others but looked like they were listening in on the conversation. The American visitor, Tony, was there too, patiently waiting his turn.

The only people still in their seats were the man and woman who had come into the temple after everyone else.

One by one, the visitors shuffled out of the room. Someone gave Peter’s hand a gentle squeeze. It was Fay. He hadn’t noticed that she had come to stand next to him.

‘And?’ she asked softly.

‘You did brilliantly,’ Peter said. ‘And I thought it was wonderful, really special.’ He decided that it would better to keep the fact that he had drifted off for some of it to himself.

Chapter 5

Downstairs, a handful of guests were already putting on their coats – a bitterly cold wind gusted through the entrance hall each time one of them opened the door to leave – but most of the people who had come to the open evening stayed for the drinks reception in the function room.

In the cramped space behind the bar, four volunteers bustled around, smiling and apologising every time they bumped into each other. Peter eventually managed to order two glasses of red wine.

Fay’s cheeks were flushed, but Peter couldn’t tell whether it was from the warmth of the room or from relief that she had acquitted herself well.

He took a sip of wine.

It was of an exceptionally good quality, something he hadn’t expected at such a simple event.

Noticing the look of pleasure on his face, Fay said, ‘The Worshipful Master is a wine expert. He’s won prizes in international wine tastings. He’s even beaten renowned French tasters. The wine here is always excellent.’

‘I am the true vine,’ Peter said, quoting the words of Jesus from the Gospel According to John, ‘and my Father is the vinegrower.’ He took a second sip of the wine, swirling it around in his mouth appreciatively, like an experienced connoisseur.

‘Yes,’ Fay said, ‘Jesus did rather like a tipple.’

Peter smiled.

‘He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit,’ he said, finishing off the quotation. ‘It would be a good motto for the Freemasons.’

‘It could be,’ Fay said. ‘That scripture is about examining yourself critically, getting rid of your bad character traits, of your nasty habits, of your ballast. Pruning here and there so you can reach your full potential and really thrive. But if I recall correctly, there’s a bit that comes after those verses that’s about the punishment for people who don’t follow Jesus, isn’t there?’

‘There is,’ said Peter. ‘It goes on to say: “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Fay said. ‘That’s what I meant. And that’s why I never felt like I belonged in the Christian Church. That idea that you deserve eternal punishment for not following someone else in the right way. And the fact that other people are allowed to point out your faults, to tell you that you’re doing it wrong, and then shove a book in your face and show you a passage that explains how you haven’t been acting in accordance with doctrine. What I like about Freemasonry is that everyone can give their own meaning to the symbols. Nobody ever says to you, “Look, you’ve got it all wrong, and actually, it’s like this or that.” That’s why I feel so comfortable here. There’s no judgement.’

The room was still busy with clusters of people standing here and there, all talking animatedly to each other. The American Tony Vanderhoop was at the centre of a small group that appeared to be hanging on his every word. Jenny was sitting in a far corner, engaged in what looked like a serious conversation with the people around her.

‘What did you think of it?’ Fay asked.

‘It was really interesting, amazing to watch,’ he answered. ‘How do you think it went?’

‘It went okay, mostly. My part, I mean. I only made a couple of little mistakes.’

‘Mistakes?’

‘Hardly worth mentioning, really. I took too many steps here and not enough steps there. It wasn’t quite right. Concentrating too hard, I think. There was one bit where I presented the candle a moment too soon, but it’s all minor details. I’m not unhappy with how I did, but I want to do it better next time.’

‘I thought it was fascinating,’ Peter said. ‘I realised that I knew much more about it all than I thought I did, because of you. I hardly heard anything new tonight, but I still enjoyed listening to the chairman’s talk. I mean the Worshipful Master’s, sorry. He explained everything clearly, made it easy to understand.’

Peter saw Sven and Erik come into the room. They went to the bar and then headed straight for the garden with their beers.

‘Would you be interested in becoming a—’ Fay began, but she didn’t get a chance to finish her question.

The man with the bow tie who had greeted them at the front door came over and stood next to them.

‘So,’ he said simply, and then went silent.

Not exactly the best opener, thought Peter.

He gave Peter a friendly look, like a teacher patiently waiting for a pupil to answer his question.

‘Hi, Johan,’ Fay said. ‘Let me introduce you to my boyfriend, Peter.’

The two men shook hands.

‘Have you been a member for long?’ Peter asked eventually.

‘More than twenty-five years now. Not at this lodge, but Loge La Vertu, the boys’ club, you might call it. Not that I’ve anything against women joining, you understand, but I do prefer being able to talk man to man, now and then. I think you have different conversations with each other when there are women around.’

‘Slegs vir mannen,’ said Fay, glancing at Peter and grinning.

‘I was just talking to the American visitor,’ Peter said, changing the subject. He had noticed Fay’s irritation when Johan admitted his preference for unmixed lodges.

‘Ah,’ Fay said, ‘the gentleman from Boston?’ She laughed at Peter’s apparent surprise. ‘I just talked to him. But we knew he was coming; we were told about it at the meeting last week. He sent an email asking if he could come to a lodge meeting, and the open evening seemed like the perfect opportunity. He’s from the grand lodge of Massachusetts in Boston. They say they’re the third oldest lodge in the world, after the one in England that was founded in 1717 and the one started in Ireland in 1725. Their lodge was set up in 1733, so they seem to be right, on paper at least.’

‘That’s right,’ Johan said. ‘But Peter, I’m sure you’re familiar with the stories about how the Freemasons originated with the Knights Templar, or to give them their proper name, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. They were a Christian military order, Knights of the Cross. You’ll come across that fable very often in books and on websites about conspiracy theories. In the time of the Crusades, the Templars were one of the military units in the Holy War against the Muslims in the Holy Land. Some conspiracy theorists go even further back, all the way to 1000 BCE, to King Solomon and his architect Hiram Abiff, the man who built the first Temple in Jerusalem. Solomon’s master architect was thought to have secret knowledge, and it’s believed that he hid it in his buildings. Some say that this knowledge was then passed down from generation to generation all through the centuries. And people think that the Freemasons hid secret messages and codes in cathedrals, like Chartres in France, or the Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh, messages that would only be understood by its initiates. But, dear Peter, I can assure you that this is all utter hogwash. People who believe that sort of thing are just a few steps away from believing that there’s a secret government out for total domination over the entire world.’

For someone who started with such an unspectacular opener, Johan is quite the chatterbox, Peter thought.

‘It’s a subject that’s close to my heart, Peter,’ Johan continued. ‘If you only knew how often I’ve had to listen to that drivel, how often I’ve had to defend my membership of the Freemasons. Yes, that’s how it feels. We Freemasons are simply descended from the masons’ guilds from five hundred years ago. That’s all. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. Those masons were free to travel from town to town throughout Europe so that they could build cathedrals. Yes, they did have secret handshakes, and they did have passwords, but that was simply their way of proving that someone was a member of the guild. The masons invited other people to join them, and they gradually formed a brotherhood. It was only during the Enlightenment that Freemasonry became a more philosophical movement. They were probably the first group to organise themselves separately from any religion, without, by the way, actually renouncing their religious beliefs. That really is the most remarkable thing about them: they were free thinkers and tolerant of opinions that were different from their own. That was unusual.’

Peter listened to Johan in wonder. He was amazed by the man’s ability to tell such a coherent story off the top of his head.

‘Thank you, Johan,’ Fay said, ‘for that clear and comprehensive explanation.’

Little laughter lines crinkled at the corners of her eyes. It looked like she had forgiven Johan for his earlier remarks about single-sex lodges.

‘Well, anyway, Peter,’ Johan said. ‘It was good to see you here this evening. Perhaps we’ll meet again. In any case, you are always very welcome. And it doesn’t matter if you join a mixed lodge like Ishtar or one that’s “slegs vir mannen”.’ He gave them both a twinkling smile and said goodbye.

The room was growing quieter now. Peter saw Sven and Erik leaving. Shortly afterwards, Jenny, the woman who had caused such a commotion earlier in the evening, left with the man who had been with her. Tony and his group had gone without Peter noticing them leave.

‘Do you want to go soon?’ Fay asked. ‘Or stay a bit longer?’

‘Let’s stay,’ said Peter. ‘I’m going to get another glass of wine. Shall I get you one?’

Fay shook her head. ‘I’m just going to pop to the loo. But I don’t want to stay too late, okay?’

‘That’s fine. We’ll leave soon.’

Peter went to the bar and picked up a glass of wine from a tray. He took a few sips, then absent-mindedly crammed three handfuls of peanuts into his mouth. He was filled with instant regret. He had been paying more attention to his weight since meeting Fay, which had led to him losing a few pounds.

He had also been playing water polo for a couple of years. It wasn’t a sport he’d ever considered trying until he’d seen some water polo players practising at his local pool, De Zijl, while he was doing lengths. After seeing the way they combined playing a game with intensive physical training, he had been keen to give it a go.

At the moment, two glasses of wine a day were his only sin – and, not to forget, his daily cigarillo.

Fay came back from the toilet in the corridor and walked over to Peter, hugging people here and there on the way. ‘Hey, darling,’ she said when she eventually reached him. ‘Do you mind if we go now?’

She suddenly looked exhausted, like she had just realised that she’d had quite enough of smiling and being friendly with everyone.

‘Of course,’ Peter said and drained his wine glass.

‘I just want to say goodbye to the Worshipful Master,’ Fay said. ‘Do you think he’s still in the temple? I haven’t seen him down here.’

‘Why don’t we check upstairs?’

‘Come, let us return to the West and prove ourselves to be Freemasons.’

This was one of the often-used phrases in Dutch Freemasonry, Fay had told him. When the Worshipful Master closed a lodge, he always ended the meeting by saying: ‘Return to the West and prove yourself to be a Freemason.’ The West was society, the material world, as opposed to the East, the spiritual or intellectual world, where wisdom came from. It was a reminder that Masons should apply the lessons they had learned in the lodge to their lives outside it, so that they could make a contribution, however modest, to building a better world.

Fay said goodbye to a few more people.

‘I’ll go to the loo, too,’ Peter said.

‘I’m so glad you came, Peter.’

‘I was happy to come, darling,’ he said. ‘It was an interesting evening.’

‘And who knows, maybe we’ll find ourselves here together more often,’ she said hopefully.

I suppose it’s quite an inspiring place, Peter thought. I’m sure it’s easier to have decent conversations with people here than it is in the outside world.

‘Who knows, darling,’ he said.

Peter left the function room and went to the toilets, a shabby area with dated tiling that was desperately in need of refurbishment. It was cold and smelled unpleasant, like the men’s toilets in a student union bar. He tried to breathe through his nose so that he would take in as little of the foul air as possible. He washed his hands and went back out into the corridor where Fay was waiting for him.

They went upstairs.

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.

Fragment 2 – From Amsterdam to Leiden (spring 1609)

Our group had now shrunk to about one hundred souls. John Robinson wrote a letter to Leiden’s council on our behalf asking for permission to settle in their beautiful city. We only wanted to be left in peace, he said, and he promised that we would cause no trouble. To our immense joy, the council decided in our favour on February 12th. For the second time in two years, we packed up our few possessions and prepared to resettle somewhere new. The council’s only conditions were that we would behave honestly and obey all the laws and ordinances of Leiden. The city had surely never received a group of new residents more prepared to respect these conditions.

The foxes have holes, and the birds have nests, but will we ever have a place to rest our heads?

During the last service before we left Amsterdam, John gave an inspiring sermon urging us to stay on the right path. He cited the words in 1 Peter: ‘Beloved, I beseech you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul. Conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. For the Lord’s sake, accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.’

Strengthened by these words, we said goodbye to the friends we had made, and with joy in our hearts, we went on our way, relieved and happy to leave the squabbles and infighting of this great city behind us.

We knew that the English ambassador had immediately submitted an official protest on behalf of King James I when he heard that the city of Leiden had agreed to take us in. So it was not without a measure of unease that we set off on our journey. We English had provided much support to the Netherlands during their heroic resistance against the Catholic oppressors from Spain. The Dutch would therefore not want to offend our king. There had been a twelve-year truce with the Spanish, but of what value were the promises of godless, untrustworthy Catholics? And might the Netherlands once more need English support, perhaps much earlier than expected? But the city of Leiden, which had survived the Spanish Fury less than thirty-five years earlier with such heroism and great loss of human life – a third of the city had died in the Spanish Siege of Leiden – lived up to its motto: Haec Libertatis Ergo (All for the sake of Liberty – PvV). And hadn’t the university, the reward that Prince William of Orange had given to the courageous people of Leiden to thank them for their efforts in the struggle for independence, chosen as its motto: Praesidium Libertatis? (Bastion of Liberty – PvV). The city council therefore decided not to give in to pressure from the English, proving that these mottos were not just hollow words. They would be honoured!

Leiden is like a city built on a hill that cannot be hidden!

When we arrived in Leiden, we learned that the city’s magistrates had been so bold as to not allow the ambassador’s protest to go unanswered. They wrote him a letter explaining that no one was refused entry to the city as long as they behaved honestly and obeyed all its laws and ordinances. However, they also expressed the hope that this position would not lead to a deterioration in their relationship with England.

As I wrote earlier, never had a more grateful group sailed into the city of Leiden! We moored our little ship on the wharf outside the Weigh House, and that is where we first set foot in this true bastion of liberty. And what a splendid city Leiden is!

We saw its splendour immediately. Leiden is a city all bustling with activity and trade. Everyone seems to be in motion, on their way from here to there, dragging huge loads on carts. Boats sail up and down the canals laden almost to the point of sinking with grain, peat, hay and all manner of things. We see the city’s wealth in her citizens who wear fine clothes and love to show them off. The textile industry which has brought Leiden such great prosperity is a blessing to us. There is so much work on offer, and all you need is strength and a willingness to work hard. There’s no real need to speak the language – the heavy work can be done without words – although most of us are growing more fluent by the day. But for us, of equal importance is that we are free to practise our religion in our own way, just like many others who have fled persecution and found a safe haven here. We have seen Walloon Protestants, other Separatists from England, Huguenots from France, Mennonites, Baptists, Lutherans and even Jews. We are told that a third of the city’s population is made up of people who have fled to Leiden from elsewhere.

This will be our home. At least, for now.

I do not believe that even Leiden is meant to be our final destination.

Chapter 6

Naturally, the murder of the chairman of the local Masonic lodge was the talk of the small university town – and beyond. In a short item on the national news, a journalist stood on the Steenschuur to report ‘the mysterious death of Lodge Chairman Coen Zoutman, a man known for his warm and friendly character’. The Masonic Hall could be seen in the background; the street was cordoned off, and two police cars were parked at an angle on the kerb.

According to the reporter, the police were utterly in the dark as to both the identity and motive of whoever had committed the murder. As yet, no details had been released, but it was rumoured to have been a savage and brutal killing. One of the investigators’ immediate priorities was to compile a list of everyone who had been at the lodge that evening.

Anyone who had attended the open evening was asked to make themselves known. There was also a general appeal for anyone who had seen anything in the vicinity of the lodge that night, no matter how inconsequential it might have seemed, to come forward.

The police force was on high alert. Although the constabulary in the usually quiet town of Leiden had little experience in dealing with murders, they knew that the first twenty-four hours after the crime were of vital importance.

Detective Chief Inspector Rijsbergen clicked the X on the browser window in which he’d just watched the news report on the broadcaster’s catch-up service.

The chief inspector was a remarkably calm man, with short, grey, wiry hair and a well-maintained moustache. His carefully shaven face with its strong jawline was on the lean side. Combined with his toned, muscular body, it gave him a somewhat martial appearance, more like that of a professional soldier than a police officer.

Now he sat at his desk in his well-ordered office, where earlier that morning he had written a brief report of the murder. He stared at his computer screen.

Peter de Haan had not been amused when he and his girlfriend Fay Spežamor had been separated and taken to the station to be interviewed. Hadn’t they been the ones who called the police after they’d found Coen Zoutman’s lifeless body, De Haan had repeatedly asked on the way there. But Rijsbergen knew no one could be ruled out at this stage.

Although it had been close to midnight, Rijsbergen had decided to question them straight away. Peter de Haan had, understandably, looked tired when Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij interviewed him.

Peter had told them that he had met Coen Zoutman a few times. These occasions had always been chance encounters on the street when he had been with Fay Spežamor.

He had spoken calmly, telling them that he’d gone to the open evening with his girlfriend. That Coen Zoutman had given a talk about Freemasonry. That after the presentation, he and most of the other people present had gone downstairs to the drinks reception.

He had told them about everyone he had seen or spoken to that evening: his student Sven who was there with his friend Erik, and the American man, Tony Vanderhoop, who had come to Leiden with some other Americans who were making preparations for Mayflower 400.

It was estimated that between sixty and seventy people had been in the lodge building when Coen Zoutman was murdered, and moreover, the front door had been unlocked the entire time.

We must put the little grey cells to work, Rijsbergen had thought. Despite the horrific nature of the murder, he was looking forward to solving the puzzle before him.

They had taken Fay Spežamor’s statement next, and her account had been almost identical to that of her co-suspect except that she showed no trace of irritation at being questioned at all. She had appeared to accept the situation she had found herself in.

But a veil of immense grief had seemed to hang over her, a sadness that had spoken silently from her red-rimmed eyes. She’d sat in the interview room like a pitiful little bird, sometimes speaking so softly that Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij had barely been able to make out what she was saying.

She had talked about Coen Zoutman only in superlatives: he was the wisest man she had ever met, with the strongest and most loveable of characters and a great sense of humour. She had praised his encyclopaedic knowledge that he had gained not only from books but also from his many travels all over the world. Fay had told them about his retreats to a monastery where he often went to study and meditate for weeks at a time.

She had burst into tears several times during her interview.

These were either the two most cunning villains that Rijsbergen had ever encountered – so cunning that they had managed to perfectly align their stories in the short amount of time between committing their heinous crime and being bundled into separate police cars – or they were completely innocent citizens who had had been in the wrong place at the wrong time but had done the right thing by immediately calling the police.

Strictly speaking, there were insufficient grounds to hold them any longer, so they were both taken home after midnight, this time in the same car. It had been made very clear to them before they left that they were not to reveal to anyone the details of their discovery of Coen Zoutman’s body.

Rijsbergen shut down his computer. He’d only had a couple of hours’ sleep. His wife Corinne had still been sleeping when he’d left the house to come back to work this morning. But, strangely, he didn’t feel tired at all. There was a large, steaming mug of coffee next to his keyboard, already his second one of the day.

He drank his coffee pensively, blowing over the edge of the mug before each sip to cool it down.

Peter de Haan and Fay Spežamor’s interviews had not yielded much.

Mevrouw Spežamor’s white blouse and Meneer De Haan’s pale blue shirt had been spotless, as if they had just come from the dry cleaners. Their hands and nails had been clean with no lingering scent of soap – although they had both looked at Rijsbergen strangely when he’d asked if he could smell their hands.

The only possible lead is Fay’s casual comment about Coen Zoutman’s election to the chair, Rijsbergen thought. Might the election have created bad blood between Zoutman and one of the other candidates?

Rijsbergen planned to speak to both her and Peter de Haan again later that day to see if a night’s sleep had helped them to remember something they hadn’t mentioned in their interviews.

A forensics unit had been at the scene all night taking photographs and collecting evidence. They hadn’t finished their work until the early hours of the morning. Rijsbergen expected the report of their findings to appear on his desk at any moment.

He wanted to visit the Masonic Hall again before the body was removed from the temple and taken to the morgue. After that, a team of specialists would move in to clean up the crime scene.

There was a knock on the matte wired glass window of his office door.

The door opened before he’d had a chance to say ‘Come in.’

‘Are we going out?’ Van de Kooij asked eagerly, as though they were about to go on a staff outing.

Detective Sergeant Van de Kooij, his right-hand man, was a balding thirty-something, a whole head shorter than the oak-like Rijsbergen.

‘Yes, all right, Goldilocks,’ said Rijsbergen, draining his mug in two overlarge gulps. He enjoyed teasing Van de Kooij about his premature baldness, mostly because his colleague’s usual easy wit always failed him at such moments, and he seemed to resign himself to being the butt of Rijsbergen’s jokes.

They went out to the car park behind the police station and got into Van de Kooij’s car. Van de Kooij was a keen driver, and they often took his car whenever they went anywhere together. It was a somewhat oversized SUV that resembled a small Hummer. Rijsbergen always felt a bit silly sitting in it as it drove smoothly over the well-maintained Dutch roads, but he had to admit that it was comfortable. Its height meant that you could look down on the other motorists around you with a certain feeling of superiority. In Rijsbergen’s opinion, that was the real reason his colleague had bought it.

‘I want to go and see De Haan later, and that woman with the unpronounceable name, Fay,’ Rijsbergen said as they arrived at their destination.

‘Fay Spežamor.’

‘Precisely. She said something yesterday about Zoutman being elected chairman of the lodge. There might be something in that. We need to find out who the other candidates were, what happened, who supported who … That sort of thing.’

With the street blocked off, they were able to park right in front of the door.

‘Inspector.’ The officer who was guarding the door greeted them and tapped his hat in a salute. He held up the red and white tape that was blocking the entrance so that Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij could step under it and into the building.

They took the winding staircase upstairs. The door to the temple was closed but not locked. Inside, they found the room exactly as they had left it.

But now, Zoutman’s lifeless body lay under a white sheet.

They approached the victim but stopped a few metres away.

Rijsbergen crouched down, and Van de Kooij immediately crouched down next to him.

‘They’ll never get those bloodstains off the white tiles, you know,’ Van de Kooij remarked.

Rijsbergen nodded absently, as if he hadn’t heard what his partner had said. ‘It’s not …’ he began. ‘This murder wasn’t committed in the heat of the moment. I think someone came here intending to take his life. It wasn’t done on impulse or in a fit of rage. It wasn’t an argument that got out of hand. The blow to his skull alone would have been enough to kill him. They didn’t need to put that set square through his heart or the compasses through his hands.’

‘Dexter said that Zoutman was already dead when that was done,’ said Van de Kooij.

‘Dexter’ was the blood spatter analyst attached to the forensic investigation unit. His real name was Martin Garens, but everyone called him ‘Dexter’. Few people in the force actually knew what he was really called.

Rijsbergen himself had never watched Dexter, the American TV show about the FBI blood spatter analyst who moonlighted as a serial killer.

‘I just called Dexter for an initial update,’ Van de Kooij said. ‘Zoutman was hit on the back of the head with a huge amount of force. He would have been killed instantly.’

‘Exactly what Dalhuizen concluded,’ said Rijsbergen. ‘So to ram the set square into his chest afterwards … And then go to the trouble of forcing those compasses through his hands. Making the incisions with a knife beforehand … Those were all gratuitous acts. Or at least, they weren’t necessary to make him deader than he already was, and they weren’t used to torture something out of him either.’

Rijsbergen stood up, stroking his chin with his right hand. ‘It must be something symbolic,’ he thought out loud. ‘Maybe there’s someone in this club who can tell us more about it. Have you heard anything else?’

‘Yes, that it’s not looking good evidence-wise. They said there were no fingerprints on the gavel or the compasses or the square. Looks like they’ve been wiped completely clean.’

‘Hmm,’ Rijsbergen muttered. ‘That was to be expected. Or the murderer wore gloves. Or murderers, of course. One keeps him talking, the other one sneaks up behind him.’

‘And something else …’ Van de Kooij said. ‘They found loads of shoeprints, obviously, but they’re essentially useless because there were dozens of people walking around in here yesterday. It’s completely impossible to get anything from them. The murderer’s prints are bound to be among them, but they can’t identify them. There were no hairs found in the blood and no accidental footprints left in it either, so none of it leads anywhere.’

‘No cameras, obviously,’ said Rijsbergen. ‘No photos taken … Nobody who knows who was in the building when, or who spoke to Zoutman last. We don’t actually know who was in the building at all. So all we can do now is talk to everyone whose name we have. See if anyone noticed anything.’

They returned to the landing as two men and a woman came up the stairs carrying a stretcher.

‘Is it all right if we take him now?’ the woman at the front asked.

‘Go ahead,’ Van de Kooij said. ‘We’re finished here.’

They manoeuvred the stretcher past them and into the temple.

Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij watched from a distance as they removed the white plastic sheet, coldly exposing the dead man’s corpse.

There was no privacy in death.

The woman closed Coen Zoutman’s eyes, but his mouth still gaped half open. He looked like a drunkard who had passed out on the floor.

They carefully moved his body onto the stretcher. Left behind on the tiles where his head had lain was a semi-circle of blood spatters, like a diabolical halo.

To meet your end like this, Rijsbergen thought. To have gained all that wisdom, studied all those books, travelled half the globe, only to end up in a little hall in Leiden with your brains smashed in.

‘Chief Inspector!’ A shout came from downstairs. ‘Could you come here a moment, please?’

‘We’re on our way down!’ Van de Kooij replied on his behalf.

The two men and the woman zipped up the black body bag containing Coen Zoutman’s body. They strapped it onto the stretcher and carried it out of the temple with careful, shuffling steps.

Rijsbergen took a last look at the body shrouded in black.

It looked like they were carrying the giant cocoon of some strange insect. An insect that would eventually hatch out and reappear in an entirely new form.

Chapter 7

Peter let the heavy door of the Jean Pesijnhofje fall closed behind him, something that always made him feel like he was leaving an oasis of peace and calm. The original meaning of the word ‘paradise’ came from the old Iranian word ‘pairidaēza’ – ‘walled garden’ – and this small, enclosed courtyard illustrated that perfectly. Beyond its walls was the big, bad world, the West, as the Freemasons called it, with all its problems, jealousy, greed and deceit.

Occasionally, he managed to hold onto the feeling of serenity for a while, but more often than not, it vanished before he reached the end of the street. Either a cyclist brushing past him, furiously ringing their bell, or an idiot on a noisy moped barely avoiding mowing him down, or sometimes just a cold, miserable drizzle would bring him abruptly back to the here and now.

He went left and walked around the Pieterskerk.

After the police had brought them home, Peter and Fay had sat on the sofa for a while. They had sipped at their tea without saying very much to each other.

Fay and her twelve-year-old daughter Agapé shared their home with Fay’s mother, Alena. She had come downstairs in her old-fashioned nightdress and sleepily asked them what they were doing up so late. Fay told her she would explain everything in the morning.

Coen Zoutman’s murder had naturally affected Fay more than it had Peter. She had spent so much time in his company, had so many conversations with him, and heard him speak so often at the lodge’s fortnightly meetings. He had been her mentor.

‘Who would do something like this?’ she’d asked herself out loud, again and again. ‘Such a lovely man. Such a lovely man.’

When they’d gone to bed, Fay had lain awake in Peter’s arms for a long time. Her tears had left a large damp patch on his T-shirt. Peter hadn’t been able to erase the image of Coen Zoutman’s shattered skull from his mind, nor that of the man’s hands, pierced clean through like a modern-day Christ.

Peter had been woken by the familiar sound of Alena pottering in the kitchen. As usual, she had been up early, making coffee and setting the table. Very carefully, so as not to wake Fay who was still fast asleep, he had crept out of bed and gone downstairs.

He had told Alena about the dramatic events of the previous night. As he spoke, unfolding the story of their grisly discovery in the temple, she’d had to sit down. She had perched on the edge of the sofa, fidgeting with the tea towel in her lap, and suddenly, she’d looked very old, as though the lines around her mouth had grown deeper.

Agapé had come downstairs too and soon lightened the mood with her cheerful chatter.

While Peter was drinking his coffee, a message arrived from Jeffrey Banks, the director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, asking if he had time to come to the museum that day. He was expecting a visit from a delegation of Americans who were organising events around the upcoming four hundredth anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in America.

That must be Tony Vanderhoop and his group, Peter thought. Who else would it be?

In a small place like Leiden, coincidences like this happened all the time, and paths crossed with surprising frequency. During the forty years he had lived in the town, Peter had found that, sooner or later, every new person he met would reveal that they had an acquaintance in common.

There was just one lecture on his schedule that afternoon, so he had sent a message back to say that he would be happy to drop by.

Even if it’s just to take my mind off last night, he had thought to himself.

Peter walked along the Pieterskerkhof and into the narrow alleyway of the Pieterskerk-Choorsteeg.

My God, I’m so tired, he thought.

He’d had very little sleep, understandably, but he never really felt fully rested after spending the night at Fay’s anyway.

Fay’s bedroom was too small for an actual double bed, so they’d bought a trundle bed at IKEA in Delft. It had turned out to be so uncomfortable that staying at Fay’s always felt like being at a teenage sleepover.

Fay’s mother, who had spent her entire working life teaching classical languages at a high school, also had a room in the little almshouse. After the death of Fay’s husband, Alena had moved in with her and Agapé, making it a household of three generations of women.

They had worked out the perfect arrangement with each other. Alena was there when her granddaughter came home from school. She cooked dinner and made sure the house was clean and tidy when Fay finished work at around five. And if Fay spontaneously decided that she wanted to go out, she never had the hassle of trying to find a babysitter at the last minute.

The third bedroom in the house belonged to Agapé. Her name was the Greek word for ‘love’. But hardly anyone ever pronounced her name correctly and most people simply shortened it ‘Aggie’ or ‘Aagje’ – ‘little Agatha’. She was a bright, lively girl who had inherited her mother’s beauty and intelligence.

Peter walked along the Breestraat, past the imposing Stadhuis. The town hall’s façade was bathed in golden, springtime light.

He turned left into Koornbrugsteeg and crossed the Nieuwe Rijn canal via the roofed bridge. Then he immediately turned right and took a left into the Beschuitsteeg.

As soon as he rounded the corner into the lane, he saw a group of people gathered by the museum door. Among them, he spotted the tall form of Tony Vanderhoop wearing his ever-present baseball cap.

Jeffrey was there too, standing between the group and the front door like a bouncer who hadn’t yet decided if he was going to let people inside.

Peter and Jeffrey never socialised with each other outside the museum, but they had developed a good rapport. While not quite friends, their relationship was something that resembled a friendship.

Jeffrey had once confessed to Peter that, although he welcomed the increasing interest in the Pilgrims and Mayflower 400, he had strong objections to the way in which the English colonists’ history had been mythologised. He was a scientist and preferred to concentrate on the verifiable facts. True, they weren’t the stuff on which nations were usually built, but they were closer to what had actually happened. He rejected the oversimplified image of the Pilgrims as courageous men and women who had left Leiden and gone to America because they were afraid of losing their identity, heroes who started out with nothing and built their ideal of a pure, Christian community from the ground up.

Tony raised his eyebrows when he saw Peter coming towards him, but he smiled and looked genuinely pleased to see him again.

Up close, Peter recognised some of the other members of Tony’s group, two men and three women, but none of them gave any indication of remembering having seen him at the Masonic Hall.

Jeffrey’s face lit up. He was clearly relieved that he wouldn’t be giving the tour on his own.

Peter shook hands with everyone.

‘What a terrible business that was yesterday,’ Tony said. ‘Coen’s death … Please accept my condolences.’

‘Thanks,’ said Peter. ‘I didn’t know Coen very well myself, but my girlfriend Fay is a member of the lodge, and she’s devastated.’

‘I can imagine,’ Tony replied. ‘I’ve been pretty shaken up by it myself. We Freemasons are all brothers and sisters. Even if we’ve never met each other, we are one.’ He fell silent, as if the subject was something he’d rather not talk about for now.

‘Come on,’ said Peter. ‘Let’s go inside.’

They entered the room that had been set up as a living room.

‘What a lovely place this is,’ said a woman whose name Peter couldn’t remember. ‘This should definitely be one of the highlights of our programme.’

None of the Pilgrims ever lived here, Peter almost blurted out before deciding that it was Jeffrey’s job to reveal that sort of information.

‘As you probably know already, they’re hard at work in Plymouth, Massachusetts, restoring the Mayflower II, a replica that was built during 1955 and 1956. If it’s declared seaworthy again, they hope it’ll be able to sail to England’s Plymouth and to Delfshaven in the Netherlands in 2020.’

‘And that’s just one of the many things that are being planned,’ the woman next to him continued. ‘The list of events taking place in Leiden, Boston and Plymouth is huge. The list of events that are still at the planning stage is possibly even longer. And there’s going to be quite a big celebration around the opening of the new research centre. Well, “research centre” might be overstating it a little, but there will be a research department dedicated exclusively to the history of the Pilgrims. It’s going to be a branch of the Leiden Heritage Organisation.’

This last detail appeared to be news to Jeffrey. He looked around the group with a delighted expression, as if he had actually been the one to reveal it. Now that he knew that he had something real and long-lasting to look forward to as a result of the delegation’s visit, he immediately appeared more at ease.

‘And of course,’ the woman went on, ‘Jeffrey will have a vital role to play.’

A boy unwrapping the most longed-for item on his birthday wish list could not have looked happier.

Jeffrey went around the circle and shook everyone’s hand enthusiastically, which they all tolerated with weak smiles.

They visited both rooms briefly, and since the American visitors were already well-versed in the history of the Pilgrims, Jeffrey focused on the history of the building itself.

After the requisite photos had been taken, the group went back outside.

‘Are you coming with us, Peter?’ Jeffrey asked. ‘We’re going to take a short walk around town and see some of the other places that are associated with the Pilgrims. It shouldn’t take more than an hour.’

Peter looked at his watch. He still had plenty of time before his lecture was due to start. ‘Yes, all right, Jeffrey,’ he said.

They walked along the Nieuwstraat and past the public library towards the Burcht, which always made a huge impression on everyone who saw it for the first time.

The town centre was dominated by the Burcht. It was an enormous ninth-century motte, a man-made hill that rose twelve metres above ground level. On top of it was a tall shell keep with a circular, crenellated stone wall that was six metres high. Inside, a wooden walkway had been constructed along the castle’s battlements, giving visitors fantastic views out over the city with its medieval houses, churches and narrow streets.

The Americans took photos of the castle with the eagerness of photography students who had been told to capture every detail of the building’s construction.

Afterwards, they crossed the Oude Rijn canal and walked along the Haarlemmerstraat to the Vrouwekerkhof where the remaining walls of the Gothic Vrouwekerk still stood. Before it was renamed after the Reformation, this church had been called the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, or Church of our Lady.

Jeffrey told the group that ruins of the church, which had been attended by the Pilgrims, had almost been demolished by an overzealous city council. One phone call to the American State Department had been enough to have the plans to bulldoze it cancelled.

Philippe de la Noye had been baptised here in 1603. A Huguenot born in Leiden, he had sailed to America on the second Pilgrim ship, the Fortune. His descendants had anglicised their name to Delano, and one of them would eventually become the President of the United States of America: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

On the little square in front of the remaining walls of the church, Jeffrey pointed out the long, dark stones laid out in a geometric pattern representing the graves that would have been there centuries ago.

They went back to the Harlemmerstraat and crossed the canal via the renovated Catharinabrug at the point where the Oude Rijn and Nieuwe Rijn rivers meet. They paused in front of the Waag, the seventeenth-century weigh house built in the Dutch baroque style where goods were once weighed for the market.

According to legend, the Pilgrims had first set foot in Leiden near the Waag. Jeffrey pointed out the exact spot opposite the building, and the members of the group all took turns to pose for photographs.

It’s really all just a matter of faith, Peter thought. As long as you say it convincingly enough and often enough, you can tell people that anything happened anywhere, and eventually, everyone will believe you. After a while, nobody will dare to question whether or not the story is true.

As they were making their way along the narrow Mandenmakerssteeg towards the busy Breestraat, Tony began to slow down, apparently on purpose. Peter slowed his pace to match Tony’s so that he wouldn’t be left alone at the back of the group.

‘You know, Peter,’ Tony said when they were out of earshot of the rest of the group, ‘Coen Zoutman’s murder last night … His death has shocked me in so many ways. It’s not just because it was so brutal and so unexpected. I feel like I’ve lost a friend, which is absurd, I know. I only met him for the first time yesterday.’

Peter nodded sympathetically.

‘I can only imagine how awful it must be for you. And for your girlfriend.’

‘It’s such a tragedy. As I said earlier, I didn’t know him well myself, but I’m shocked by how violent the murder was.’

Tony had grabbed Peter’s arm as if he thought he might be about to walk away. It created a physical intimacy between them that made Peter feel uncomfortable.

‘But I mean, you were the one who found him, right? That’s what I heard this morning.’

It’s astonishing how quickly news like this gets around.

‘That’s right. Fay and I found him. It was horrible, a nightmare. I don’t know how else to describe it.’

Tony shook his head in a way that suggested that he would have preferred it if Peter didn’t describe it at all.

Then Tony said something in a whisper. Peter had to incline his head and lean sideways towards him to hear it.

‘We’ve been the target of an increasing number of … threats, lately. The Freemasons, I mean … In the States too. I often wonder … Our grand lodge in Boston has been getting anonymous letters and emails. Sometimes, Peter, it feels like we’re in a movie. We get letters in the mail where the words have all been cut out of newspapers, very old-school. We don’t know who’s behind it all.’

‘And do you think it might be connected to what happened here?’

‘I don’t know. That’s for the police to figure out, I guess.’

‘Have you told the Dutch police about all of this yet?’

‘I’ll go to the police station this afternoon. The police want to talk to us, but we’re flying back to the States tonight.’

At last, Tony let go of Peter’s arm.

‘There are a lot of crazy people around, especially back home, as I’m sure you know,’ Tony said, and he smiled. ‘There are conspiracy theorists who think that the Freemasons have been involved in pretty much all the evil in the world. They think we had a hand in 9/11, that we’re responsible for just about every financial crisis there’s ever been, that we started the French Revolution, that we were behind the attack on Pearl Harbor, you name it. The Illuminati, Novus ordo seclorum, the so-called New World Order, all the Masonic symbols on the dollar bill, the All-Seeing Eye and the unfinished pyramid. Oh, I’m sure you know all the stories. I’d probably think it was funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.’

The group stopped on the Langebrug, the five-hundred-metre-long street that had once been a canal. The famous painter Jan Steen had lived here. It was also the street where Rembrandt van Rijn had taken his first painting lessons with Jacob van Swanenburg.

Jeffrey told the group the story of James Chilton, a Pilgrim who was pelted with rocks by a group of boys in 1619 because they thought that he had been holding Remonstrant church services at his home. The Remonstrants were a group of mostly Protestant Christians who disagreed with the doctrine of the Dutch Reformed Church, the prevailing church in the Dutch Republic at the time.

So the much-vaunted Dutch tolerance wasn’t really all it was cracked up to be, Peter thought. This was something he regularly tried to impress upon his students. The myth of total religious liberty was so deeply ingrained in the story that the Netherlands told about itself that it would be an uphill battle to convince anybody that it wasn’t true.

‘But why now?’ Peter asked Tony. ‘Why are the Freemasons getting so many threats right now?’

‘Why now? We live in strange times. People feel like they don’t understand the world any more. They feel powerless. Maybe the world has just gotten too big. We’re bombarded with terrible news every day, on the internet, on our smartphones. Whenever people suffered in the past, they could blame the gods for every sickness, every bad harvest, every child’s death, every shipwreck. People of faith were actually the first conspiracy theorists. Something didn’t just happen. Someone made it happen, someone with a set plan. It was punishment for not following God’s rules, or because a sacrifice hadn’t been made, or even because two gods were warring with each other or whatever. But terrible things still happen in the world, utterly senseless, random disasters that have absolutely no purpose. If you don’t believe in God, then the only possible cause of all these awful events is man. And the most convenient culprits are secret societies who are all hellbent on world domination.’

‘And you think it has something to do with all that?’

Tony shrugged and stuck out his bottom lip to show that he didn’t know.

They stopped at the former Stinksteeg, an alleyway that was now called the William Brewstersteeg after the Pilgrim whose printing shop had been here. The shop was closed down, Jeffrey explained, by none other than the English King James I, who was furious about a pamphlet Brewster had printed called Perth Assembly. Brewster fled to Leiderdorp, where he stayed until his departure for America. All this upheaval and disruption eventually led to the Pilgrims deciding to seek refuge elsewhere.

The group made its way along a winding route through streets and alleyways to the Lokhorststraat. They stopped at the Latin school where, Jeffrey told them, Rembrandt had studied as a young boy.

Rembrandt was three years old when the Pilgrims arrived and fourteen when they left again, so he was very likely to have bumped into John Robinson and the other Pilgrims in Leiden’s small town centre at some point – a detail that seemed to delight the American visitors.

Walking ahead of the group, the expert guide led them to the Gerecht square. They turned left into the Muskadelsteeg and then left again around the Pieterskerk towards the Jean Pesijnhofje, where Fay lived.

I’ll pop in and say hello to Fay, Peter thought. Make sure she’s okay.

‘We’ll visit the Pieterskerk on the way back,’ Jeffrey said. ‘We can stop for coffee in the café there, but I want to show you a few other things first.’ He opened the large, heavy door that led into the hofje. The Americans gasped in surprise as they went through the vestibule and realised that it led to an inner courtyard with a garden surrounded by what looked like little fairy-tale houses.

‘John Robinson lived here, as did many of the other Pilgrims,’ Jeffrey told them. ‘Sadly, the original compound was demolished, but it stood on this exact spot.’

Peter noticed that Fay’s bike was gone.

Maybe she’s gone to her office at the university after all.

When they returned to the street, Jeffrey pointed towards the Pieterskerk. ‘You might be interested to know,’ he said, ‘that they recently opened an escape room in the Pieterskerk.’

‘Oh, with puzzles?’ one of the women in the group asked. ‘I love those!’

‘Yes, exactly. But the fun thing about this one is that it has a Pilgrims theme. I’ve done it myself, and I must say it’s quite ingenious. And the fact that it’s such an old building adds to the whole experience, of course.’

‘And did you manage to escape?’ the woman wanted to know.

‘I think that’s for me to know and you to wonder about,’ Jeffrey said, laughing. ‘But I will tell you that I can highly recommend it. You should have a go if you have time. They have an English version, so we could ask if they have any slots available later. The theme changes every year or two, but for now, it’s the Pilgrims.’

They moved on to a famous spot on the Rapenburg canal. It was here in front of the old university library in 1620 that the Pilgrims boarded boats bound for Delfshaven, where they would eventually set sail for England.

The tour ended on the Vliet, the canal where the Pilgrims finally left Leiden forever. A statue of a man waving a final farewell to the travellers had been erected on the canalside.

The group walked back towards the Pieterskerk.

Peter’s conversation with Tony had left him feeling unsettled – as if their conversation had been unfinished.

‘Tony, getting back to what we were talking about earlier,’ said Peter, ‘do you really have no idea where these threats are coming from? And why do you think that they might be connected to what happened here?’

‘It’s just a hunch,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t know. I’ll tell the police this afternoon. But you know, and this is just speculation, really, but maybe they should be looking at the Catholic Church. There are plenty of orthodox Catholics who still haven’t accepted that Rome’s word is no longer law. They see us Masons as godless devil-worshippers. But the States are home to an enormous number of different groups. We’ve got radical evangelists, trigger-happy born-again Christians who would happily annihilate everyone who isn’t pro-life. We’ve got fascist white supremacist militias. And we’ve got tree-hugging hippies who see the Pilgrims – and maybe the Freemasons too – as the start of where it all went wrong in America, the beginning of the end for the indigenous population. I could go on, I really could. It’s no wonder the Freemasons are usually the first organisation that dictatorships decide to ban.’

‘Who could say?’ Peter mumbled to himself. ‘Who could say?’

But that’s all in the USA, he thought. How on earth can events over there be linked to Coen Zoutman’s tragic death here?

They reached the university’s Academy Building near the Nonnenbrug Bridge.

Although he’d not actually spoken to any of them, Peter said goodbye and shook hands with everyone in the group. He waved at Jeffrey.

‘Well, Peter,’ Tony said. ‘I’m sorry our meeting was in such unpleasant circumstances. But I hope that we’ll meet again in better ones someday.’

‘I hope so too.’

‘If you ever decide to attempt the “great crossing” yourself,’ Tony said, ‘feel free to come visit me. Or us.’ He gave Peter his business card.

Peter smiled. According to one of his colleagues who had lived in the States for a while, it was advisable to take such remarks with a grain of salt. ‘You can visit me anytime’ was more polite small talk than an invitation to actually visit someone.

But who knows, Peter thought.

Before Peter left, Tony gave him the sort of brotherly bear hug that Americans were famous for.

As he walked away, Peter wondered why Tony had taken him aside to tell him what he had told him, but it would have looked odd to go back and ask him.

I suppose you’re inclined to be more candid than usual when you’re talking to people you think you’re never going to see again. It can be cathartic to tell your story to an outsider, someone who’ll listen to you like a confessor.

Peter couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he had a strange feeling that something else had been going on, something that transcended the simple conversation they’d had. Like he’d been watching a subtitled film in which the lines spoken by the actors had been entirely different from the words on the screen.

Chapter 8

Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij followed the coroner’s team as they carried Coen Zoutman’s body down the stairs.

The building manager, Frank Koers, was waiting for them in the function room. He had spread out a floor plan of the building on one of the tables and placed glasses on the four corners to stop it from rolling back up.

They stood around the table like generals studying a terrain map to devise a plan of attack.

Frank traced a finger over the floor plan. ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘in the temple itself there’s only one way in and out: this door here. No hidden escape routes, no secret tunnels or doors. The city architect, Jan Neysingh, designed an initiation chamber that was added to the first floor in 1950.’

Rijsbergen nodded. He blinked slowly, like he was taking a mental photograph of the plans in front of him.

‘And here,’ Frank Koers said, sliding his finger over the paper again, ‘on the ground floor, we have the main entrance, the hall with the toilets. Then the entrance to this room with …’ he pointed with his left hand at a door in the corner of the room ‘… a smaller room next door. That room leads to a large extension that runs the length of the garden. These doors …’ he pointed to the two sets of double doors at the end of the function room ‘… take you outside to the garden. It’s an enclosed yard with high walls. Not easy to get over.’

‘But what if you did manage to climb over them?’ asked Van de Kooij, who was furiously scribbling notes. ‘Where would you end up?’

‘Then you’d come out in the back gardens belonging to the houses on this block,’ Frank said. ‘And if you climbed over all of their walls, eventually you’d end up behind the synagogue on the Levendaal. But I’ve never gone beyond the garden myself. You’d have to take a look for yourself.’

‘Well, let’s do that then,’ Van de Kooij said eagerly as he emphatically underlined the last few words on his notes.

Rijsbergen rolled his eyes, just briefly enough for his partner not to notice.

They opened the garden doors and went into the back yard. It was clear that it was rarely used. The tiles were edged in moss, the plastic chairs were coated in green algae, and there was a pile of sand in which a few overgrown but withered weeds had taken root. A metre-wide border ran along the wall, filled with little more than soil, and covered for the most part with a thin layer of moss.

‘Your technical team was in here yesterday with floodlights,’ Koers said. ‘They took a lot of photos, so if someone left shoeprints, I’m sure they’ll have found them. But I think you’ll see straight away …’ he pointed to the strip of soil ‘… that nobody has set foot there for a very long time.’

‘But if you were a bit of an athletic type, you could get over that easily, couldn’t you?’ Van de Kooij said to no one in particular. To demonstrate that he fit this description himself, he took off his jacket.

‘Stop right there, Spider-Man,’ said Rijsbergen.

‘It doesn’t seem likely that the killer left the building this way,’ said Koers. ‘It would attract too much attention, and you wouldn’t get very far anyway because there’s another garden behind here with yet another wall. The only way to get back onto the street is by going through a house. And that’s what this person has done; they’ve simply left the building through the front door.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Van de Kooij. He put his jacket on the ground and took a run at the wall. With one enormous stride, he leapt over the border and grabbed onto the top of the wall with both hands. He used the bricks that stuck out here and there as footholds, like a free climber gripping onto a cliff face.

He managed to reach the top of the wall surprisingly quickly. He looked down at the other two men triumphantly before turning around to assess the area behind the wall.

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘I can see gardens.’

‘Come on, get down,’ Rijsbergen said.

He smiled at Frank Koers, silently apologising for his colleague’s behaviour.

Van de Kooij gave the impression that he would gladly tackle the walls in all the other gardens on the block to hunt for possible clues. He looked behind him one more time, like a general on horseback surveying the battlefield, and then he jumped down.

They went back inside.

‘We’ll knock on some doors on this block,’ Rijsbergen said, an announcement that seemed to be intended for both Koers and Van de Kooij. ‘And they’ll all get an official letter from the police asking them to contact us if they’ve seen anything unusual. Will you still be here later?’

‘Yes, it’ll take me a while to tidy up here. Your colleagues have been through everything, emptied the bins, taken even more photos. They weren’t pleased that we had washed all the crockery and glasses. But yes, I’ve enough to keep me busy here all morning.’

They said goodbye to the building manager. Once they were back outside, they walked along the Steenschuur towards the Korevaarstraat where they turned right.

There was no one home at most of the houses they called at. The handful of people who did open their front doors claimed not to have seen or heard anything. Some of them hadn’t even been aware that a murder had taken place so close to their homes.

One resident allowed them to take a look in her back garden, which only confirmed Rijsbergen’s opinion that the murderer could not have escaped that way.

‘Let’s go back to the station,’ he said.

They exchanged very few words as they walked back to the car on the Steenschuur.

Just as Van de Kooij was about to drive away, the door to number 6 flew open.

Frank Koers ran towards the car and knocked urgently on the window, which Van de Kooij immediately opened.

‘I thought I heard your car. I was waiting for you. Can you come back inside? I’ve found something.’

Van de Kooij parked the car again.

Koers waited for them in the doorway, hopping impatiently from foot to foot.

He led them back into the function room where everything had been put back in its place, and went over to the building plan that was still unfurled on the table. As they got closer, Rijsbergen noticed a creased napkin made of thick, almost linen-like paper on the table that hadn’t been there earlier.

‘Here,’ Koers said. ‘They must have missed this when they were going through the bins. It was crumpled up in a ball.’

Rijsbergen leaned forwards to examine what was on the smoothed-out napkin.

‘I was going to throw it away, but then I suddenly saw …’ Koers pointed at a corner of the napkin ‘… that there was something on it. I opened it up and … look!’

They found themselves staring at what looked like a hastily sketched map with the names of various rooms written on it in tiny letters.

It was a map of the Masonic Hall.

Chapter 9

The long walk had made Peter hungry. He decided to have lunch in the university restaurant in the Lipsius Building on the Cleveringaplaats.

He had just one lecture on his schedule that afternoon, ‘An Introduction to the History of the Golden Age’. It was actually more of a seminar than a lecture, one of a series of twelve sessions in which Peter delivered a mini-lecture introducing the theme, and then, after a short break, gave the floor to two students who took over the session and explored the material in a practical way. They were free to do this however they chose: a debate with controversial propositions, a game, or perhaps a discussion of a current event related to the contents of the lecture.

Many of his students dreaded having to coordinate the second half of the session. Some of them were so wracked by nerves that they blushed from the neck up. But afterwards, they always admitted that it hadn’t been as difficult as they’d thought it would be.

The Archaeology department had recently moved to the Bio Science Park, a nondescript and rather dull site on the outskirts of town. The faculty shared the park with several businesses linked to the university, including many pharmaceutical companies.

Peter had the good fortune to be associated with two faculties, one of them being Humanities, which included the History department. This had allowed him to take an office in the building that housed the History department, although he made sure that he showed his face in the Archaeology department a couple of times a week.

To describe the view from his new office window as less attractive than the one he had previously enjoyed would have been something of an understatement. The window faced a solid brick wall that belonged to the Botanical Gardens. But the many advantages of working in the centre of town – close to the university library and the Lipsius restaurant, and near to where Fay, Judith and Mark worked – made up for the uninspiring view.

Peter had met Judith Cherev more than twenty years ago when he had supervised her PhD thesis on Judaism in Leiden. She had been a student in her early twenties, and he had been a lecturer nearing forty. In the years since, they had developed a close friendship. These days, Judith worked at the University of Leiden’s Religious Studies department as a lecturer in Judaism, and she freelanced as a researcher for the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

Her partner Mark Labuschagne was a professor in New Testament Studies who specialised in early Christianity, but he was equally at home in the study of ancient religions. He read Greek, Latin and Aramaic with the same ease that most mere mortals read English. His own history included multiple stays in a secure ward in Endegeest psychiatric hospital in Oegstgeest. As was often the case with brilliant minds, the line between his genius and his madness was thin.

Peter, who for an atheist had an unusually keen interest in Christianity and more than a passing knowledge of the Bible, enjoyed talking to Mark about anything that was related to the Christian faith.

Judith and Mark lived in a little house in the Groot Sionshof, one of the dozens of courtyards in Leiden, green oases of tranquillity in the urban desert of stone and concrete.

Peter’s new office was the same size as his old one, which meant he had been able to set it up in exactly the same way. The bookcases, his desk, the long sofa and the coffee table all stood in their usual places, and the same three pictures that he had always had in his office hung on the walls here too: Pope John Paul II in his popemobile; Gustave Wappers’ painting of Burgomaster Van der Werff suggesting to the starving citizens during the Spanish Siege of Leiden that they kill him and eat him rather than surrender; and a reproduction of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.

Peter greeted a few students as they passed by. He didn’t actually know any of them, but since they appeared to recognise him, he returned their hellos.

He ate lunch in the Lipsius restaurant – soup with a bread roll and a salad – reading the university’s weekly newspaper, the Mare, as he ate.

He had been at the university for so long now that he knew many of the people featured in its pages.

Peter glanced at his watch and realised with alarm that it was almost one o’clock. His lecture was officially supposed to start in just a minute or two. Luckily, he could fall back on the tradition of the ‘academic quarter’, which meant that a lecture always began fifteen minutes after the hour, but even so, he still needed to hurry.

He cleared his tray away and went to the History department next door to the Lipsius Building to drop by his office and pick up everything he needed for the lecture.

When he checked his phone, he saw that he had missed a call. The caller had left a voicemail.

He listened to the message as he jogged back to the Lipsius Building, where the lecture rooms were located on the first floor.

‘Hello, Meneer de Haan.’ Peter was surprised to hear the voice of the police detective he’d met at the Masonic Hall the night before. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Rijsbergen. We’d like to come by this afternoon to speak to you and your partner.’

Rijsbergen left his telephone number and asked Peter to call him as soon as possible. Peter shoved his phone into his pocket. He didn’t have time to call him back now.

The corridor was deserted when he arrived. He grumbled under his breath, thinking that the students would all have left as soon as they had realised he wasn’t there. But when he looked through the window next to the door, he saw that they were all patiently waiting inside the lecture theatre. He muttered a brief apology, and not wanting to lose any more time, jumped straight into his lecture, shrugging off his jacket, taking his things out of his bag and turning on the computer as he talked.

Peter spoke from memory, broadly outlining the early history of the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, while the students industriously typed his words on their keyboards. Or at least, that was what he hoped they were doing. Almost all of them took notes on their laptops, and usually, all he could see were the backs of their screens, row upon row of them like black gravestones.

They could be chatting on Facebook or watching their favourite series on Netflix for all I know.

He briefly went over the history of the Dutch West India Company or WIC, which was organised similarly to the VOC. He explained that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the WIC had a state-sanctioned monopoly on trade and shipping in West Africa south of the Tropic of Cancer, and in the Americas, and on all the islands between Newfoundland and the Strait of Magellan.

After the coffee break, two students took over the session. One of them was Sven, the student who had been at the Freemasons’ open evening.

He was wearing the same T-shirt he’d worn the night before. Peter again noticed that he repeatedly pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the index finger of his right hand. Peter couldn’t tell whether this was out of necessity or if it was just a tic he had developed.

The young man next to him had shoulder-length hair, and he was wearing a faded black T-shirt with the name of a band on it that Peter had never heard of.

‘Today, Stefan and I have decided not to focus on the Dutch West India Company’s despicable slave trade, which was the source of the money that built all the grand canal houses in Amsterdam,’ Sven said, pulling no punches as he started his presentation. ‘We all know that story well enough already.’

‘In our presentation,’ Stefan continued, taking over from Sven, ‘we want to focus on how the colonists’ arrival in both North and South America had disastrous consequences for the native people there. The T-shirt that Sven is wearing today refers to the Native Nations’ protests on the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the Bahamas in 1492. They oppose the celebration of this event because, in the five hundred years since his arrival, the indigenous population has been decimated. That’s why they chose “We will not dance on the graves of our fathers” as their motto.’

‘But ultimately, the blame lies with all colonists,’ Sven said. ‘The French, the English, the Dutch and the WIC, the Irish … everyone who went to the Americas to steal the land and dispossess the indigenous populations – with no other purpose than to line their own pockets. That’s why Stefan and I have joined a protest group dedicated to drawing attention to the history of the North American Indians during the four hundredth Anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in America.’

‘In our opinion,’ Stefan continued, ‘the American Indians were the victims of an act of genocide. It was a deliberate attempt to eradicate what was considered to be an inferior race. This genocide, which was largely successful, was given a biblical justification. America was seen as the new promised land.’

There was murmuring and shuffling at the word ‘genocide’.

‘Obviously, we’d like to hear your opinions on this,’ Sven went on, ‘but I already know that some of you will say: “But they didn’t set up concentration camps. They didn’t have a conference where they decided on a Final Solution.” However, we cannot discuss the settlers without also addressing the devastating effect they had on the Native American population, America’s original inhabitants. The history books describe these colonists as intrepid pioneers, bravely seeking a place where they would be free to follow their faith. But the liberty they were seeking – the liberty to practise their own religion, to have self-determination free from state interference, to no longer fear for their lives, liberty that they eventually found there – came at the cost of the lives and liberties of hundreds of thousands, even millions of other people. American history books cultivate the myth of the empty frontier, the promised land, as I just said, that had only been waiting for the God-fearing Pilgrims to flee persecution in Europe and come and exploit it.’

Stefan took over.

‘As Sven just mentioned, the idea of it being empty was a myth. In fact, it had been inhabited for thousands of years. The indigenous Americans hadn’t built cities or cultivated vast swathes of land. They didn’t even have the concept of land ownership as we know it. But there were territories that tribes believed they had a right to, and there were wars over them – there’s no need to portray them as noble savages – but they didn’t build fences around them. They hunted, but only killed what they needed for their own immediate use. They lived in harmony with nature. They didn’t exhaust her resources. In his famous speech in response to President Franklin Pierce’s call for the purchase of tribal lands, Chief Seattle, the chief of the Sioux Indians, said …’

He looked down at his notes. ‘“How can you buy or sell the sky – the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.”’

Stefan looked back up at the room.

‘And that’s why—’ he said, but he didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence.

‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to stop you there for a moment,’ Peter said. ‘We can discuss the serious subject of genocide shortly, but let me just say this. It’s very noble, that Chief Seattle speech, but as a historian, I want to make sure you’re aware of something. Or were you already planning to tell us that it’s highly unlikely that Chief Seattle ever said those words?’

‘No, uh … what do you mean?’ Stefan asked, slumping his shoulders.

‘Listen, Stefan,’ said Peter, getting up. ‘I looked into this once when I was supervising a student’s dissertation. It’s like this, and I’ll try to make it brief. Chief Seattle actually did make a speech in 1854, but it’s doubtful whether anyone wrote it down at the time. A journalist who was there, Dr Henry A. Smith, wrote a report about it in his newspaper in 1887, almost thirty-three years later. Yes, that’s thirty-three years later. In principle, nobody really doubts that a speech was made, but it would have been made in the language of Seattle’s tribe, Salish, and that was not a language that Smith was familiar with.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw that some of the students were looking at him with obvious admiration.

‘You can carry on shortly. But I wanted to interrupt you because this is a valuable lesson for you as historians. Smith didn’t understand Seattle’s language, so someone else must have told him about the contents of the speech. He didn’t publish anything until thirty-three years after the event. Then, in the 1960s, the poet William Arrowsmith brought out another version of the speech based on the one published by Smith. He copied large parts of it, but he added some of his own ideas. Another version emerged in the 1980s, which is the version you’ve just quoted from, the one that you’ll see most often on the internet and on those beautiful posters. That version bears little resemblance to the words originally spoken by Chief Seattle. It was written by Ted Perry, a teacher in Texas, and it was originally intended to be used in a film about ecology. The text he wrote struck a chord with the growing number of people interested in the environment, people who believed that the Indians were the original protectors of Mother Earth. It was a romantic image that easily caught on with environmentalists. So I have no problem with you quoting Chief Seattle. It’s an inspiring speech. Even I think it’s an inspiring speech. But I would advise you to bear in mind that you should take those words with a grain of salt and ask yourself how likely it is that they were spoken by an Indian chief.’

Peter sat down again.

Stefan suddenly looked lost. He stood with his little sheet of notes in his hand like a disappointed customer in a newsagent’s clutching a losing lottery ticket.

‘But even so,’ one of the other students said, putting her hand up as she spoke, clearly more for form’s sake than actual politeness, ‘the chief probably did say something like that. Maybe not in so many words, but we know that the contents of the speech reflect the Native American view of the world in which everything in nature is believed to be alive, to have a spirit. So does it really matter, in principle, what his exact words were?’

‘Right,’ Sven said. ‘It’s about the power of stories. It doesn’t matter if a story is true or not as long as people believe it could be true.’

‘That’s a very interesting point, Sven,’ Peter said. ‘But then you’re getting away from historiography and entering the completely different area of mythology or the world of alternative facts.’

Some of the students grinned at his use of the phrase ‘alternative facts’.

‘Yes, but,’ Sven said, ‘isn’t that an equally legitimate field of study? Or am I mistaken? Haven’t entire nations been built on a combination of truth and fable? In Leiden, we have the story of Burgomaster Van der Werff offering his body to the people of Leiden during the Spanish Siege. Or you could take another story from the same period: Cornelis Joppenszoon, the orphan boy who found a still-warm cooking pot filled with hutspot in the Spanish army’s deserted army camp here on the Lammenschansweg at the end of the siege of Leiden, and realised that the Spaniards had fled from the Sea Beggars. Stories like these are obvious fabrications, but they’ve always been important for creating a feeling of unity in a society.’

‘That’s true,’ Peter said.

‘In the end, the majority decides whether a story is believable enough to be passed on,’ Stefan said. ‘History is always written by the victors, right?’

‘But still,’ Peter argued, ‘it’s up to the historian, to us as historians, to separate fact from fiction, truth from fabrication.’

‘But that …’ said Sven, clearly pleased to have found a segue that led back to what he wanted to say, ‘that is what Stefan and I were going to talk about. On the one hand, you’ve got the story of the winners, like the one told by the colonists—’

‘Could you maybe explain,’ said the female student who had spoken earlier, ‘what you meant when you used the word “genocide”? That seems like quite a strong word to use.’

‘It is,’ Sven said. ‘And it’s justified. The United Nations defines genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups”. There are reliable estimates that the number of Native Americans decreased from about twelve million in 1500 to about two hundred and fifty thousand in 1900, making it the biggest mass extermination in the history of mankind. Of course, many Indians died from sicknesses because they were exposed to germs that they weren’t resistant to, but many more died as a result of direct confrontations with the whites. We cannot go on talking about the history of the WIC without talking about its significant dark side.’

Peter stood back from the discussion that followed, but he listened to his students with a measure of satisfaction.

The argument about genocide was unsophisticated, but it had led to a lively exchange of ideas.

It was now just gone three o’clock, and a few of the students were starting to pack up their things. Peter put away his notes too. He would turn them into a short report to use in the students’ assessment interviews at the end of the course. Alongside their exam grade, they would be given a checkmark for having delivered successful presentations.

When he looked up again, Peter realised that everyone had left except for Sven and Stefan. They were looking at him expectantly.

‘Your presentation was fine. Perhaps a bit on the reductive side here and there, but that can sometimes lead to interesting discussions. It was good to talk about fact and fiction and our noble task as historians to differentiate between the two.’

They nodded.

‘If you like,’ Sven said, ‘you could come along to one of our meetings. On the Haagweg.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Peter. ‘Your protest group.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t mean this to sound disparaging, but I think I can guess how your group’s discussions go. In my experience, the discussions in groups like yours tend to be a bit unsophisticated. There’s rarely anyone who’s prepared to offer an opposing point of view or who really understands the topic that’s being discussed. I’m sorry, Stefan, but the way you brought up Chief Seattle’s speech without having looked into its background … It’s not such a huge problem when you do that here. I mean, you’re here to learn. But a protest group, well that’s real life, and the combination of emotions and a lack of knowledge can be a dangerous one.’

Sven and Stefan looked genuinely offended.

‘But …’ Sven began, clearly trying to come up with a way of saying what he wanted to say without seeming disrespectful. ‘I’m sure you’ll see that it’s not as bad as you think. And you can hardly make a judgement about it when you’ve not seen it for yourself, can you? You could be the one to voice that opposing point of view.’

‘Exactly,’ Stefan continued. ‘Then we could spar with you in a proper debate. Ultimately, what we want to do is gag our critics with the power of our arguments. To try to muzzle them any other way would be a sign of weakness.’

‘Well, maybe, gentlemen. Who knows?’ Peter said, attempting to end the conversation.

‘It was horrible, wasn’t it?’

Peter looked at him quizzically.

‘That business yesterday, I mean,’ Sven said, surprised that Peter hadn’t instantly understood what he meant. ‘At the Freemasons, the chairman’s murder.’

‘Oh, yes, absolutely. Awful,’ said Peter.

Sven had been there too, of course.

Sometimes Peter was inclined to compartmentalise all the worlds he lived in – the university, home, his relationship with Fay, the city – as separate things with no connection to each other. When the different worlds collided, it gave him the same feeling he got when he saw someone he only knew from, say, the ticket office at the cinema, and didn’t quite recognise them outside of their usual environment.

‘I saw it on the news this morning,’ Sven said. ‘Erik and I had already left by the time the police came.’

‘Ah, okay. We were still there. Yes, it was all very distressing. A great tragedy, of course.’

Sven nodded.

‘Shall we get going?’ Stefan said, tugging at Sven’s jacket. ‘We said we’d go for a drink.’

When they were gone, Peter tucked his bag under his arm and walked back to his office.

Stefan’s words about gagging and muzzling their critics throbbed in his head like the nagging pain of a slowly emerging toothache.

Fragment 3 – The Pilgrims as citizens of Leiden (summer 1611)

The last three years have been difficult ones. Our two attempts to escape from England stripped most of us of every last penny we had, so we came to Leiden with little more than the clothes we were wearing and the few belongings that we could carry.

We have been fortunate that there is no shortage of work here, and that we were able to find lodgings quickly, albeit in the rougher parts of town and having to cram many families under one roof. Daylight struggled to make its way into the first homes we had here, but the same cannot be said of the rainwater, nor the countless rats, mice, lice and who knows what other vermin we shared our dwellings with. Walking through the narrow streets regularly led to the loss of a shoe in the thick mud.

Most of us are employed in the textile factories. It is filthy, backbreaking work. Our paltry wages must pay for the food in our bellies as well as the roofs over our heads. Others work in the city’s brewery, or as opticians, joiners, pipemakers. Some do well, very well, and have set up their own businesses, or even, in one case, teach at the university. Nicholas (Claverly – PvV) is making a name for himself as a pipemaker, and William has developed a method for teaching people English. Students from Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands are queuing up to take lessons from him. It is marvellous to hear people from all four corners of Europe speaking to each other in the language that we learned at our mothers’ knees. The ease with which people master English using William’s system is most impressive. How convenient it would be if the whole world spoke English one day! How much easier it would be to converse with each other. There would surely be many fewer misunderstandings, fewer conflicts and perhaps even fewer wars. Latin is for scholars, but anyone of average intelligence can learn to speak our English!

We try to assemble at John’s house every Sunday, whatever else may be going on in our lives. A short time ago, he bought a house in the Kloksteeg, opposite the Pieterskerk, together with some other members of our group. The house has been converted into a home – for John and his family – and a meeting room and church for our congregation. Out of the goodness of his heart, John has had twenty little houses built in the garden for the poorest among those who originally came with him from Scrooby. I am not ashamed to say that my family and I belong to this group. For us, the move to the Netherlands was even more of a wrench than it was for the families with whom we share the garden. I received a good education in England. My family and I were not wealthy, but neither were we without means. We had a house, land, cattle, servants … We had some capital. I had a secure job as a town clerk. But we lost everything we owned. Our own hands are all that we have left now, and with these, we try to earn our daily bread. Did we make too great a sacrifice? Do we regret our decision to leave behind our life in England? No, of course we do not! We left hearth and home so that we could finally be free, truly free to lead our lives as we wished and to serve our God as we wished!

There is such an enormous difference between our first home in Leiden and where we live now. Instead of the gloom of a leaky house in one of the city’s dark alleys, now I am sitting at a table as I write this, in front of a house set in an enclosed garden with green all around me. We work just as hard as before but coming home afterwards is very different now.

This is where we go to church too. As Separatists, we do not belong in the Reformed Church, and we are not welcome in the other churches in Leiden. This means that we mix less with the rest of Leiden’s citizens, but I wonder whether that is such a very bad thing after all. A handful of people from our group have applied for ‘poorterschap’ which allows them to become official burghers of Leiden. Burghers have more rights and more opportunities, which makes life here easier, especially since poorterschap is compulsory for merchants. But we prefer to remain English subjects, like children sent away by a hard-hearted father, ever hopeful that we might one day return to his good graces.

We have two services on Sundays. The first service is very early in the morning before we have broken our fast. We do not take communion every Sunday, but when we do, we make sure that the sacramental bread, the body of our Lord and Saviour, and the wine, his precious blood that takes away the sins of the world, do not mix with the profane food in our stomachs. We begin by saying a long prayer together. We do this standing up, like loyal subjects standing out of respect for their king. We enjoy singing psalms, without the accompaniment of any instruments. The words soar from our hearts and rise up to God. John reads a passage from the Bible and interprets it for us. He gives us advice and encouragement about how to live a good life. Because choosing the right path is not always easy. He always knows how to find just the right words to send us out of church feeling stronger than when we arrived. Sometimes we feel like sheep among the wolves who need to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Because even here in Leiden there are quarrels, the same quarrels that we thought we had left behind in Amsterdam! The arguments about predestination – has God already set down the fate of every man in the Book of Life, or can we still control our own destinies? – usually go over my head. Tensions sometimes run high, but I hope that we might be kept out of it all.

Afterwards, we eat a meal together as brothers and sisters. This is the best meal of the week for many of us, although some would be ashamed to admit it. We contribute food for the table according to our means, just as each of us contributes what he can to our shared funds. None of us thinks of it as private property. The smallest coin from a poor widow means as much to us as a larger sum of money from the richest man in the group!

John has prepared us for the possibility that this may not be where we belong, that the day may come when we leave this city. There are other places, other worlds where we could go, must go, if we are to be free, freer than we are here.

We hold a second service in the afternoons. This service has a different character. Naturally, it opens with prayer, followed by a reading from the Bible with commentary and explanations, but afterwards, we have the opportunity to share our thoughts and concerns with each other as equals. What has been happening? What are our difficulties and worries? Are we all still able to afford food? Does everyone have work? Is anyone struggling with the language? Have there been confrontations with other believers? The women listen to these conversations so that they can learn from what the men discuss with each other. There are no secrets between us.

Sometimes we welcome guests from outside our group. We want them to know that we have nothing to hide. On the contrary, in fact! Occasionally, someone from the university will come to speak to us. And several people have joined our congregation already! The Walloons – the people of the Southern Netherlands – feel especially at home with us.

The little fellow who seemed to be particularly favoured by Josh Nunn is growing into a boy who rarely speaks in public but who seems to increase in confidence by the day. He is a member of Josh’s household. Although he still stays close to Nunn’s side, I have recently seen him walking through town, usually alone. Sometimes he joins the other boys, but he walks apart from them. The boy’s private instruction continues unabated. Perhaps Josh sees in him a future leader of our community and is preparing him for that role.

Chapter 10

The surface of Chief Inspector Rijsbergen’s desk was awash with paper: neat stacks of A4, lists of the names of people who were at the Masonic Hall on the Steenschuur on the day of the murder, the building plans, some printouts of the Masonic Hall’s website and Wikipedia pages about the Freemasons, and, neatly stored in a clear plastic sleeve, a copy of the napkin that the building manager Frank Koers had found.

Rijsbergen picked the napkin up to take another close look at it. It showed the layout of the Masonic Hall sketched in pen and drawn with such untidy lines that it must have been done in great haste. Thicker lines marked the front and back doors. The almost indecipherable numbers on it appeared to denote distances.

There were actually two drawings: rough outlines of each of the two floors. The temple itself had been drawn in great detail. It showed exactly where everything in the room was, with the correct name scribbled next to it. The nib of the pen had pierced through the paper here and there like it had been resting on something soft.

Like someone’s lap?

There were question marks next to some of the places where a door had been drawn; the draftsman probably hadn’t been able to access whatever was behind them.

He stared at the napkin, wondering what on earth the drawing could mean.

The sketch was thrown away during the open evening, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was made that same evening, Rijsbergen thought, putting it back on his desk.

The Masonic Hall was kept locked when it wasn’t in use, and only a small number of people had a key to the front door.

Anyone who did have a key would be free to come and go as they chose. There would be no need for them to draw a map of the building, quickly and in secret – only to throw it in the bin afterwards … So who would make a sketch like this? Why would they emphasise the front and back entrances – as possible escape routes – so clearly? And why would they dispose of it so carelessly when it could be used as evidence? It didn’t make sense.

The original sketch had been sent to the lab to be tested for traces of DNA. It was obviously a long shot, but it might lead to some usable evidence. As a last resort, they could take a cheek swab from everyone who had been in the building. That might reveal the identity of the mapmaker.

It’s a shame we didn’t find the map ourselves before the building manager had a chance to smooth it out so carefully and smear his DNA all over it.

Rijsbergen shook his head as the cogs in his brain whirred. What if the killer – or killers – had had the map in their hands? Throwing it away afterwards would be evidence of an unbelievable level of stupidity. Criminals often did stupid things, of course. For some, it was the DNA on a casually discarded cigarette butt that led to their capture. For others, it was the analysis of bite marks on an apple core found near the scene of a crime. But this? Wasn’t it just as easy to shove a paper napkin in your pocket as it was to throw it in the bin? Had they panicked? Had someone seen them doing something?

Rijsbergen could make neither head nor tail of it.

The best they could hope for was that there would be traces of DNA on the napkin, even the smallest amount. On TV trace evidence was enough to put the murderer behind bars in the space of a fifty-minute episode, including the adverts. So these days, it wasn’t always easy to make the general public or the victims and their relatives understand why a criminal was still on the loose a week after a crime.

But even if they did find the person the DNA belonged to, they still had to prove that they had drawn the map. Their DNA could have been transferred to the napkin in all sorts of ways. And they also had to prove that the map had been left behind by the suspect rather than by someone else who had been trying to set them up.

He turned on his monitor to reread the notes he had made during his conversation with Tony Vanderhoop earlier that afternoon.

Van de Kooij and some of their colleagues had spoken to the other members of the American delegation. They hadn’t been formal interviews, just conversations that were part of the standard procedure of talking to everyone present at the crime scene. Vanderhoop and the others were flying back to Boston that evening.

Vanderhoop had walked into Rijsbergen’s office with an air of confidence that seemed typical of Americans. ‘Good afternoon,’ he had said brightly, shaking Rijsbergen’s hand for far longer than was necessary, like he was trying to give an unseen photographer ample opportunity to capture the moment on film.

They took their seats, and Rijsbergen got straight down to business.

‘Did you notice anything unusual yesterday?’ he asked. ‘Anything that might help us with our enquiries?’

Vanderhoop considered the question seriously for a moment, pausing exaggeratedly like an actor who had been directed to look grave and contemplative.

‘No, not really,’ he said at last. ‘We’ve talked to a lot of people. I’ve been introduced to a lot of brothers and sisters. Of course, I’ve forgotten most of their names already. I’m afraid I might not be of much help to you, but …’

‘But what?’

‘But you should know that there have been a lot of threats made to the Boston lodges recently, specifically aimed at the Freemasons. Perhaps it’s worth looking into whether something similar is going on here?’

Rijsbergen made a note of this, but he didn’t see how threats made so far away could have anything to do with something that had happened here in Leiden. Then his gaze fell on the plastic sleeve with the map inside. He picked it up and showed it to Vanderhoop, who indulged him by examining it but appeared not to recognise it.

‘I understand from my colleague that you were in the back garden with several other people on the night in question. Is that correct?’

‘That is … correct,’ said Vanderhoop, on his guard suddenly, like he was considering his answer carefully to avoid walking into a trap. ‘We were in the garden talking to people. As I just said, I’ve forgotten most of their names. I might recognise some of their faces, but I couldn’t tell you everyone who was there. It was a pretty big group. Some of them were smoking. Filthy habit … I chatted to Peter de Haan. He was with two young men, but I don’t remember their names. We went back outside again after the presentation.’

Rijsbergen paused, allowing a meaningful silence to fall between them, giving the impression that he was on to something but wanted to play his cards close to his chest.

‘But what are we looking at here exactly?’ said Vanderhoop, who had regained his earlier self-confidence.

‘A paper napkin with a map of the building on it. It appears to have been drawn in great haste. The building manager at the Masonic Hall found it in a bin in the refectory.’

‘Someone drew a map of the building and then threw it in the trash?’

‘That’s what it looks like, yes.’

‘That’s weird, don’t you think? Why would someone make this and then throw it away?’

‘You tell me.’

Vanderhoop had been staring at the napkin intently, but now he looked up abruptly, as if he had smelled something unpleasant. ‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked. There was a sudden edge to his voice.

‘I’m not suggesting anything at all,’ Rijsbergen replied calmly.

‘No. Sorry. I’m drawing a total blank here. As I’ve already said, we were outside drinking coffee with a bunch of other people. After that, we went inside for the presentation. Some of the brothers and sisters talked about why they became Freemasons. Well, according to what I was told afterwards, because obviously the whole thing was in Dutch. I didn’t notice anything odd about any of it.’

He stared at the map again.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really can’t help you.’

Vanderhoop and Rijsbergen had parted warmly in the way you might say goodbye to someone you’ve met on holiday – with a certain detached cordiality that comes from being confident that you’ll never see each other again.

Vanderhoop had given Rijsbergen his business card which the detective had taken carefully between his thumb and forefinger. The moment Vanderhoop had left the room, the detective pushed the card into a plastic evidence bag with his pen. He sealed the bag and attached a label with the date and the name ‘Tony Vanderhoop’.

When the Americans had left, Van de Kooij had come into Rijsbergen’s office with some sheets of paper in his hand. He’d yanked out the chair that Vanderhoop had been sitting on and perched on the edge of the seat like he was trying to avoid sitting on the warm spot left by Vanderhoop’s backside.

‘Are you any the wiser after talking to him?’ he asked. ‘Do you think he had something to do with it?’

‘Who? Vanderhoop?’ Rijsbergen asked in reply. ‘I don’t know. I think he’s a bit of an oddball, but that’s not much to go on. The only thing he’s really got going against him is that he was in the Masonic Hall last night. But so were sixty or seventy other people. I’ve yet to see anything that looks like a motive. So at the minute, we only know enough to be able to speculate. The same goes for that Peter de Haan fellow and Fay Spežamor … it looks like they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But who knows what might still turn up? Anyway …’

He made a few notes and then put down his pen.

‘What about you? Are you any wiser?’

‘No, not really,’ Van de Kooij replied. ‘They were all very nice people, very helpful. Couldn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. Took down all their details, obviously, made copies of their passports and so on.’

‘Good. How many names do we have now?’

‘About sixty, I think. That means we still need to find ten, maybe twenty of them.’

‘Well, that’s great progress. There’s not much more we can do now than go down the list and talk to the people whose names we do have. We’ll start with Peter de Haan and his partner. You and I will do them and a couple of others, and you can give the other names to the rest of the team. If we all do five or six, then we’ll get through everyone in two or three days. And we’ll have the test results for the map back from forensics either tomorrow or the day after.’

Van de Kooij jumped up from the chair. ‘Great. I’ll get that organised then.’

At least there was one person who was enthusiastic about the task that lay ahead of them.

Chapter 11

Peter sat in his office. Although it was strictly forbidden, he’d lit one of the five cigarillos he habitually smoked each week. Every Sunday evening, he put five of them in a silver-coloured cigar case, one for each weekday. He’d opened the window wide, and now he sat on the windowsill, blowing the smoke outside. It was a pointless exercise because as soon as he blew the smoke out, the wind blew it right back in. But he hoped it would fool the smoke alarm on the ceiling above him.

He mulled over that afternoon’s lecture. His response to the use of the term ‘genocide’ should probably have been more rigorous. Although you could certainly call what happened to the indigenous population a decimation, the word ‘genocide’ was problematic because it suggested a deliberate plan.

He took a drag on his cigar, held the smoke in his mouth and blew it out through his pursed lips in a long streak.

He was pleased that the other side of the story would also be presented as part of the commemoration of the Pilgrims’ departure from Leiden four hundred years ago. It was an opportunity to show the uglier side of history and to highlight the conditions that the Native Americans were living under now.

Peter had called Chief Inspector Rijsbergen as soon as he’d got back to his office.

Rijsbergen had told him that he would be visiting Fay between five and six and that it would be most convenient if Peter could be there at the same time.

It was almost half past three. Peter usually worked until around six, but right now, he couldn’t focus at all. He felt an overwhelming need to be with Fay.

There was a knock at the door. It opened before he could answer.

Peter hurled the stub of his cigarillo outside and grabbed the aerosol that was on the windowsill. He always sprayed a few puffs of air freshener around the room to mask the smell after he’d had a cigar.

When the door was fully open, Peter froze with the aerosol still in his hand, like a graffiti artist caught red-handed by the police.

It was Mark. He burst out laughing. ‘You know you can smell that cigar smoke all the way down the other end of the corridor, don’t you?’ he said. ‘That air freshener is useless.’ He closed the door behind him. ‘I just came by to see how you were doing. I heard about what happened last night. Judith told me you and Fay went to that open evening.’

‘Thanks, Mark. That’s very thoughtful of you.’

There was a three-seater sofa in Peter’s office that gave it a homely feel. Mark sat down on it.

‘It was awful,’ Peter said. ‘In one word, awful.’

‘Bizarre, too. A murder committed at an open evening with so many visitors.’

‘You’re right, it was bizarre, but … Did you know that Fay and I were the ones who found him?’

‘Seriously? Wow!’ Mark, who had been sitting on the edge of the sofa, fell backwards so that he ended up looking oddly slumped. ‘That’s awful,’ he said. ‘Fay knew him quite well, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, she did. He was the chairman of her lodge, so she’d spent a lot of time talking to him. I only met him a couple of times myself, but still … To find him like that …’

Stop talking, Peter told himself sternly.

But Mark didn’t seem very interested in hearing about how he and Fay had found Coen Zoutman.

‘How’s Fay doing?’

‘Oh, just as you’d expect.’ Peter said. ‘Badly, of course. It’s really shaken her. She’s got no idea who could have done it. A good man, Zoutman. He wouldn’t have hurt the proverbial fly.’

‘So it’s a mystery.’

Peter told him about the Americans he’d met at the American Pilgrim Museum.

‘I came straight back here after the tour. Apart from that man, I haven’t talked to anyone about it … Actually, that’s not entirely true. One of my students was there yesterday too. I talked to him about it, but only briefly.’

‘And what are you going to do now?’

‘Now? I’m going to head home. Well, to Fay’s. See how she’s doing.’ Peter went over to his desk chair to put on his jacket. ‘How about you?’

‘Back to the office, do an hour there, and then I’ll go home too, I think. I want to do a bit of work at home, and then it’s my turn to make dinner. Judith cooked last night.’

Peter was very happy with Fay, but even after all these years, he couldn’t help feeling a hot, almost visceral stab of jealousy at moments like this. He could try all he wanted to resist it, try to reason the feeling away, bring to mind the cosy domesticity he enjoyed with Fay, sitting outside together in front of her house with glasses of wine in their hands, watching Agapé play with a ball in the little courtyard …

But despite all of that, at moments like this, when Mark spoke so easily of cooking for Judith, Peter saw himself in Mark’s place, stirring various pans on the hob with a cold beer next to him on the kitchen counter, condensation glistening on the glass. And Judith, coming in rosy-cheeked from the cool air outside, wrapping her arms around him and leaning into his back, tenderly kissing his neck …

But anyway …

Mark started to get up, but just then, his mobile rang, and he crashed back onto the sofa. He leaned to one side so that he could fish his phone out of his trouser pocket.

‘Hello,’ he said. Then he listened to the person on the other end of the line for what seemed like an unusually long time.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Peter heard him say.

‘Hmm … of course. The Sionshof … Yes, that’s where I live.’ He looked at Peter with furrowed eyebrows, not sure where the conversation was heading. ‘What?’ he said suddenly, raising his voice. ‘They’ve what?’ He listened again as the person explained, then said, ‘Right. I’m on my way.’

‘What was that about?’ Peter asked when Mark hung up.

‘There was something … Uh … It was someone from the housing association that manages the complex. I’m their contact person for the Sionshof residents.’ He paused. ‘Someone’s daubed red paint on the outside wall.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No. But it’s not just that. That would just be a random act of vandalism. This is something else.’

‘Meaning?’

‘They’ve turned the word “Zion” over the doorway into “Zionists”, and above that, they’ve written “Death to the”.’

‘Where’s the sense in doing that?’

‘It doesn’t make any sense, of course. It’s called the Groot Sionshof, for heaven’s sake.’ Mark hissed the first ‘s’, like a snake. ‘Supposedly, the stonemason who was supposed to chisel the name over the door made a mistake, and that’s why it’s written with a “z”’ rather than an “s”. If protestors wanted to make a point about Israel, doing this makes no sense at all. The Sionshof’s got nothing to do with Jews. There’s nothing Jewish about it.’

Then they looked at each other in horror. They had both just had exactly the same terrible thought. So it was no surprise when they both said the same name.

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