The tattoo was of a triangle pointing upwards. Just above the base of the triangle, on the right and on the left, were two short, horizontal lines that led to the two sloping sides of an inner triangle positioned parallel to the outer edges of the larger triangle. It looked like a peak on a hospital heart monitor. A small circle had been drawn over the apex of the inner triangle.
‘That is indeed … unusual,’ Rijsbergen said slowly. He handed the magnifying glass to Van de Kooij, who was hopping impatiently from foot to foot.
‘I’ve photographed it,’ Van Eijk said. ‘I’ve had it enlarged to make the detail easier to see when you show it to people.’
‘Could you give me a piece of paper?’
‘Sure. Come over here.’
Van Eijk walked over to an oak desk in the corner of the room. It was sturdy and old-fashioned and looked out of place in such sterile and utilitarian surroundings.
Rijsbergen made a sketch of the tattoo with a pencil, hoping that copying it might bring some knowledge or memory to the surface of his mind. He showed the drawing to Van Eijk.
Van Eijk nodded. ‘It looks a bit like a pyramid,’ he said.
‘Yes, or …’ Rijsbergen said thoughtfully ‘Or two pyramids, one inside the other. Or two mountains with a … a sun in between them?’
‘Yes, that’s what it makes me think of too. A sun.’
‘You really need to …’ Rijsbergen started, still sounding irritated. He held the sketch of the tattoo at arm’s length. ‘It reminds me more of …’ he continued, more calmly now. ‘It reminds me of the All-Seeing Eye that we saw in the temple. Remember? It was on the wall behind Zoutman’s chair. Anyway … we’ll show it to the experts. Maybe they can tell us more.’
It was only now that he noticed the clothes rack in the room. It looked like it belonged in a dry cleaners – a free-standing rail with plastic covers on hangers dangling from it. The blood on Coen Zoutman’s clothing was clearly visible, even through the plastic.
‘And what was the other thing you wanted us to see?’ Van de Kooij asked.
‘Ah, that’s in here,’ Van Eijk said, and he picked up a heavy envelope from his desk. He opened it and removed a sealed plastic evidence bag.
‘This is from his jacket, all found in different pockets. It looks like he wasn’t carrying a wallet or a phone.’
He passed the bag to Rijsbergen who saw immediately that as well as a business card, some bank cards and bits of paper, it contained a long, white envelope.
‘Did you open the envelope?’
‘No, it wasn’t sealed. We read the letter inside. But it’s not actually a letter. It’s Bible stories. We found fingerprints on both the envelope and the paper, but they all belonged to the victim. The contents of the letter might be useful to you.’
‘Maybe he wanted to give the envelope to someone that evening,’ Van de Kooij suggested. ‘But didn’t. Or couldn’t.’
Without removing it from the evidence bag, Rijsbergen looked closely at the business card that Coen Zoutman must have used as chairman of the lodge. It gave his name, his title, and the website and contact details of the Masonic Hall on the Steenschuur.
His attention was drawn to a sort of logo or symbol that filled the entire left half of the card.
He held his sketch of the tattoo next to the business card.
‘They’re similar, right?’
Van Eijk and Van de Kooij leaned forwards to study the two images.
‘Yes, they are,’ Van de Kooij admitted somewhat grudgingly.
‘I see that they’re both triangles, yes,’ Van Eijk said. ‘With circles inside them … It could be a variation on the same theme.’
‘Yes,’ said Rijsbergen.
He opened the evidence bag and shook the contents out onto a table: the business card, the bank cards, the pieces of paper and the envelope.
Van Eijk passed a box of latex gloves around, and they all pulled a pair on. He took the sheets of paper out of the envelope. The pages were densely covered in writing in an ornate, unmistakably old-fashioned hand.
Rijsbergen read out the text at the top of the page. It appeared to be a motto that Coen Zoutman had given to his writing, like an epigraph in a book.
Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear?
MARK 8:17–18
‘This is …’ Rijsbergen leafed through the rest of the pages. ‘This is quite a lot of text. Could we get a copy?’
‘There’s a copy in the file that I’m going to give you,’ Van Eijk said. ‘Along with the autopsy report, photos of the tattoo, copies of the business card and the bank cards and so on. Everything’s been scanned, so I’ll send you everything via email later, too.’
‘Thanks,’ Rijsbergen said, giving the letter back to him. ‘This only seems to deepen the mystery further, but there’s a good chance that there’s something in here that will help us to complete the puzzle at some point.’ He took off the latex gloves.
Van Eijk handed Rijsbergen a folder.
They all walked back to the exit together.
‘Those poems on the corridor …’ Rijsbergen said. ‘They’re a nice touch.’
Van Eijk beamed.
‘Yes,’ he said brightly. ‘My pet project. Poetry and love go hand in hand, but there’s poetry in death too.’
Fragment 5 – William Brewster and the Pilgrim Press (1619)
The other person to whom I would like to dedicate a few pages in this account is William Brewster. He was born in Scrooby, so he knew everyone in the group, some literally from the day they were born. The same was true of his father. He was the postmaster in Scrooby, which meant that he knew all the families in Scrooby and the surrounding areas too.
The Brewster family lived in Scrooby Manor, a fortified manor house that had hosted kings on their journeys through England. The postmaster’s job came with a generous salary, so Brewster Snr was able to send William and his brothers to a good university. William studied at the University of Cambridge, and by 1583, he had advanced to the position of personal assistant to Sir William Davidson, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State. William had already visited the Netherlands on diplomatic missions between 1584 and 1587. He also visited Leiden on those trips. So, when we were searching for a new home after our unhappy sojourn in Amsterdam, he was the first to suggest the city of Leiden.
He was always reluctant to speak of it, but his employer, Sir William Davidson, had somehow been involved in a failed plot to assassinate Mary Stuart. Whether this was the case or not, the suggestion alone was enough to cause Sir William to fall out of favour with Queen Elizabeth, who punished him by fining him so heavily that he was ruined.
Because of this, William lost his job as Davidson’s assistant. He returned to us in Scrooby, where he was eventually able to succeed his father as postmaster. One of the rules imposed on every civil servant was the requirement to conform to the state religion, the Church of England. At first, William did so faithfully, or at least he kept up the appearance of doing so. But as time went on, he became increasingly troubled by it.
Our region was known to be sympathetic to the Puritan and Separatist ideas that William had learned about at Cambridge. It was at this time that I truly got to know him. Of course, I knew of him before then, but this was when he began to attend the sermons given by Separatist preachers. Eventually, he invited Reverend Richard (Clyfton – PvV) to visit him at Scrooby Manor.
Reverend Richard visited often, and this led to the manor house becoming the principal meeting place for all the Separatists in the area.
I also regularly attended the meetings at Scrooby Manor. Somewhat to our surprise, the authorities did not bother themselves with us for the first year or two. We did nothing to undermine the state, naturally. But William was still an official in the service of the government who was very conspicuously not observant of the state religion. Perhaps we should have been content with what we had. Pe
rhaps we should have kept a low profile. But in 1606, motivated by our fervent desire to practise our faith in the way we saw fit, we established the Scrooby Separatist Church.
Unfortunately, the founding of our church coincided with the appointment of a new Archbishop of York. Like anyone in a new role, he was eager to demonstrate that he was the right man for the job. He made it his immediate mission to shut down all of the non-conforming churches.
When the closure of our church was announced, we realised that we could have no future in England. William told that there was freedom in the Netherlands and that the Dutch were tolerant of other faiths. We started to make plans to escape to the Low Countries.
The new archbishop summoned William before the ecclesiastical court for his role in founding our church. He failed to appear, but he could not have done so even if he had wanted to. He was in Boston prison after our first failed attempt to leave the country.
He was sentenced in absentia and ordered to pay a fine. A warrant was issued for his arrest. However, the officer charged with arresting William could not find him and had no idea where he was. Unbelievably, the authorities were not aware of the fact that William was already under lock and key!
When William was finally released, we made a second attempt to leave the country. This time, we succeeded.
William lives close by now. His front door is on the Stinksteeg, but his home is officially part of another house on the Pieterskerk-Choorsteeg. There is such a great shortage of housing in Leiden that the house where William lives was built right behind another house. The new part continues behind the house next door so that it is shaped like the letter ‘L’. It is an unusual construction, but it has been most advantageous because, in 1616, William came up with the idea of setting up our own printing house, the Pilgrim Press. The building’s odd shape meant that the press could be concealed away from prying eyes.
More and more people were asking John to set his ideas down on paper, which he eventually agreed to do. He could have had his book printed at one of the many presses here in Leiden instead of setting up his own. However, there was another reason for us to have our own printing house. Publishers in England are still subject to strict censorship laws, which makes it difficult to obtain books that contain non-conformist ideas.
If a government is afraid of ideas that are different from its own, surely that means that it is aware that its own ideas are wrong? That is what John always says. If they are so convinced that they alone have the truth, and that nothing is superior to their beliefs, then why are they afraid of us and what we believe? By definition, the absolute truth will always withstand any challenge from an idea that is less true, so wouldn’t our false beliefs doom us to failure?
If our plan is of man, it will fail. But if it is of God, they will not be able to defeat us. In that case, they may even find themselves to be fighting against God. So where did this fear of us and of our ideas come from?
And so, we decided to start our own press. I write ‘we’, but my role in this operation is modest, of course. At the same time, the word is a sign of our group’s unity and shows how much we all have an interest in the endeavours of each member of our community, whatever they might be.
Now that we have our own typesetting equipment, we can print books that are banned in England. Sometimes, not even Dutch printers will dare to publish the most inflammatory works. The Netherlands may be a liberal country, but printers must still include their name and address in everything they publish so that they can be called to account if necessary. And this is why the unusual construction of William Brewster’s house is perfect for us. He gives his home address as the Stinksteeg, but his house is officially part of the house on the Pieterskerk-Choorsteeg, and that is where he has registered the Pilgrim Press. It won’t fool many people in Leiden, but it will not be easy for the authorities in England to find out who or what is behind the press.
I have lost count now of how many books we have printed since we started the press. Somewhere between fifteen and eighteen, I think. They include volumes that anyone could have printed without calling trouble upon themselves, but there have also been works that would be seen as pernicious in England.
I think we may have overplayed our hand by publishing our last book, Perth Assembly by David Calderwood, which, put simply, gives a very different view of the Articles of Faith than the official view dictated by James I. This book could not have been printed in England, so David Calderwood came to us, or rather, to William. They eventually smuggled the book to Scotland in wine barrels, an adventure worthy of its own book! But when the English authorities found out that the book had been printed and distributed, the wrath of the king himself was brought down upon us. An investigation was launched to discover where the book had come from. It reached a dead end in England, but the trail soon led to the Netherlands, the usual suspect for any book of suspicious origin. I do not know how they discovered William so quickly, but I know that it did not take long for them to ask the Dutch authorities and then the Leiden city council to find him. We understand that this has created a huge dilemma for the Netherlands because they want their relationship with England to remain cordial. But at the same time, what is all their talk of freedom worth if they allow those freedoms to go by the board at the first sign of a storm? If they hand over a man who sailed to the free port of Leiden in search of those freedoms? Isn’t the freedom to say and write and print and publish what you want of great importance to the Dutch? It is an essential part of who they are!
William’s business partner, Thomas (Brewer – PvV), was summoned to the town hall. He told them honestly that William was in Leiden. The authorities asked William and Thomas if they would surrender themselves, to which the men agreed. They hoped that this would help to defuse the situation. Soon afterwards, they were voluntarily imprisoned in the town hall. They were prepared to suffer for a nobler, more worthy cause rather than deny their most deeply held beliefs purely to prolong their temporary existence here on earth by a few breaths.
And, yes, they did knowingly and wilfully disobey the law by not stating the name and address of the printer in the book. The Synod of Dordrecht (1618–1619 – PvV) brought an end to the absolute freedom of the press in the Netherlands: it was now forbidden to publish literature that was not in accordance with the official teachings of the Dutch Reformed Church. All of this ultimately led us making the decision, with pain in our hearts, that the Pilgrim Press must be shut down.
William asked the city’s officials to allow him to end his voluntary detention. Permission was granted, but now he is in hiding, afraid that sooner or later, he will be extradited to England. He seems to have judged the situation very well; the English ambassador was beside himself when he learned that William had escaped his clutches. He even issued an official warrant for his arrest, but William remained untraceable.
The English government next focused its anger on Thomas, whom they held responsible for William’s escape. To make the investigation into the affair easier for the English, the Dutch government was prepared to surrender him to England for questioning on the strict condition that he was to be returned to the Netherlands within two months. England agreed. The Netherlands offered more security to a subject of the English king than the English king himself was prepared to offer. We think that were it not for this agreement, Thomas would not have survived his stay in England.
It is clear that our time here is coming to an end …
Chapter 15
Peter looked at the clock radio. It was after eight o’clock. Whenever possible, he liked to start his working day at 8 a.m., so he usually got up at around seven.
He’d been staying at Fay’s a lot recently, but now, for the first time in weeks, he’d had a good night’s sleep.
Maybe I should spend the night in my own bed more often, he thought. And it might actually be a good idea for me and Fay to give each other some space for a while.
Spending so much time together in her little house was lov
ely, but with four people living there, it often felt crowded.
He grabbed his phone to see if he’d had any messages while he’d been asleep. He had sent Judith a WhatsApp message before he went to sleep, asking about the graffiti over the Sionshof door. Sometimes they texted each other in the mornings while they were both still in bed – Mark was usually downstairs working already or making coffee.
But Peter could see that she hadn’t been online since the previous evening.
Just as he was about to put his phone down again, he noticed that the little checkmarks next to his message to Judith had turned blue. Her status changed from ‘Last seen yesterday at 23:17’ to ‘Online’ and then to ‘Typing …’
It appeared that she had a lot to say because it took a while for her message to appear.
Judith
Hey! Good morning! Everything’s fine here. Someone came to clean the wall. It turned out to be the sort of paint that’s easy to remove, probably something water-based, but I wouldn’t know. Police said that their chances of catching whoever did it are practically zero. They’ll make some house-to-house inquiries, but none of the neighbours has a view of that door from their own houses. Someone passing by might have seen something, but the culprits will no doubt have had someone on the lookout.
8:04
Peter
Good morning, Gorgeous.
8:04
Peter
Glad it’s being taken care of. Still annoying, though. Worried?
8:04
Judith
Yes, it’s just annoying, a stupid stunt like that … So no, not really worried. Fairly sure they wouldn’t have known someone Jewish lives here.
Peter
No.
8:05
Judith
They want to make a statement about the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Fine. I’d probably agree with their arguments. But to vandalise a courtyard wall because it happens to have the word ‘Zion’ over the door is plain idiocy.
The Pilgrim Conspiracy Page 14