The Pilgrim Conspiracy

by Jeroen Windmeijer

  2 Chronicles 25: 1–2; 11–12

  The good king Amaziah

  Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord …

  Amaziah took courage and led out his people; he went to the Valley of Salt and struck down ten thousand men of Seir. The people of Judah captured another ten thousand alive, took them to the top of Sela, and threw them down from the top of Sela so that all of them were dashed to pieces.

  Mark passed the last page to Peter and waited for him to finish reading. Neither of them had needed much time to read the texts. There was nothing in them that they weren’t already familiar with. Just as the title had announced, it was the story of the Exodus from Egypt in a nutshell – plus a brief outline of its prehistory. And they both knew the stories that Coen Zoutman had ended the letter with. They described how, with their God’s help and approval, the Israelites had committed unimaginable atrocities when they conquered Canaan: how entire nations were wiped out, how only virgins were spared, how defeated cities were burned to the ground, and how the Israelites made off with the spoils, the cattle, the harvests. And how the ten thousand enemies who had survived the battles were thrown to their deaths from the top of a rock.

  ‘Well?’ Rijsbergen asked, hopefully. ‘I mean, obviously, I’ve read them myself, and I already knew the basic stories, but … Do you have any idea why Meneer Zoutman has chosen these stories in particular?’

  Peter put the pages on Rijsbergen’s desk. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Everything in that letter was written two and a half thousand years ago, so there’s nothing new to be discovered from them.’

  ‘Those stories at the end are quite strange,’ Rijsbergen said. ‘I mean, I’m from a Catholic family, and I’m reasonably familiar with the Bible, but I didn’t recognise them. Is that really what it says in the Bible?’

  Mark nodded, almost apologetically, like he had been caught in a lie that he would have preferred to keep covered up.

  ‘I mean …’ Rijsbergen said. ‘The International Criminal Court in The Hague would have their hands full if those events were to take place today: invading a country, full-blown genocide, the destruction of entire peoples along with their culture and religion, razing their temples to the ground, murdering prisoners, carrying off virgin women as the spoils of war … all of those things would be classified as crimes against humanity these days. But that’s all in the Bible?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mark said, ‘it’s all in the Bible, the book that many people still say should be our guide to leading a moral life in modern times … That claim doesn’t seem to hold much water when you read those stories. But you know, Meneer Rijsbergen, the Exodus from Egypt …’ He let out an ironic laugh, as if he was recalling some lark from his youth. ‘It’s always been a mystery to me why people still take that story literally.’

  ‘I don’t really believe it happened either, at least not exactly like that,’ Peter said. ‘But the story must contain a grain of truth. Maybe it was a smaller group of people or a few families that left Egypt. And later, they merged that story with other, older stories. Who can say?’

  He glanced at Rijsbergen. This may not have been quite the right time or place to have this discussion, but Rijsbergen looked fascinated.

  ‘Go on,’ Rijsbergen said, nodding at Mark. ‘It won’t do me any harm to learn more about it, and you never know, you might tell me something that will help with the investigation.’

  ‘That’s good, because look …’ Mark said. ‘To start with, it couldn’t have been six hundred thousand men. That’s the number explicitly stated in the Book of Exodus. But when you include all the women and children, the old men and the servants – yes, the slaves apparently had their own staff – it soon adds up to two and a half million people. Other historians estimate that there were three or even four million. There weren’t even that many people living in Egypt at the time! Surely there’d be evidence of such a massive depopulation in the Egyptian historiography. They were known for recording everything accurately. When the vanguard of those four million people reached the promised land, the rear guard would still have been in Egypt! Despite centuries of searching, there’s not a scrap of archaeological evidence to support the presence of such a large group of people in the desert. And how did so many people survive in the hostile desert environment? Yes, manna fell from heaven, and they ate quails, but how much manna and how many tens of millions of quails would there have had to be to feed millions of people for forty years?’

  ‘The manna and the quails, yes. Those are a bit problematic,’ Peter admitted.

  ‘Around the time of the supposed Exodus, there were only around two to two and a half million people living in Egypt,’ Mark continued. ‘That narrow strip of green along the Nile couldn’t possibly sustain more people than that. So how could the Israelites grow enough food on an even smaller, much less fertile piece of land?’

  Mark was well and truly on his soapbox now.

  ‘And then there’s the fact that the Promised Land they were “fleeing” to was actually occupied by the Egyptians. That would be like if a group of Jews were to escape Nazi Germany, and then, at the end of their arduous journey, heave a huge sigh of relief at having reached Nazi-occupied France! Where they then go on to murder everyone living there. With impunity!’

  ‘That’s why I say,’ Peter repeated, ‘that I don’t think that’s exactly how it happened. They’re parables. It’s not what we would consider to be a factual historical account.’

  This is precisely what I was just talking to my students about, Peter thought.

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ Mark said, ‘but this parable is the story of Israel. The state of Israel was founded on it. Take that foundation away, and the whole thing collapses.’

  Isn’t that what Sven said, Peter thought. ‘Haven’t entire nations been built on a combination of truth and fable?’ he’d said. ‘Stories like these are obvious fabrications, but they’ve always been important for creating a feeling of unity in a society.’

  All three men were quiet for a moment.

  ‘Is any of this useful?’ Peter asked Inspector Rijsbergen.

  ‘I find it interesting whether it’s useful or not,’ said Rijsbergen. ‘Especially this idea of a story like this not being a literal account. I think that Mevrouw Spežamor mentioned something similar in our conversation yesterday when she was talking about the internal conflict at Loge Ishtar. You know, an investigation like this … In some ways, it’s not so very different from the scientific research you do at the university. That can sometimes lead to dead ends too, can’t it? At times, you might feel like you’re on a road to nowhere, but then you’ll unexpectedly get a positive result. So initially, everything is potentially relevant because you don’t know what the scope of your investigation will be. I sometimes compare it to walking around in a place you’re not familiar with: you don’t know what the quickest route to your destination would have been until later.’

  Peter and Mark both nodded.

  ‘So …’ said Rijsbergen. ‘In summary, neither of you have any idea why Zoutman might have had these stories in his pocket? You don’t think there’s anything new in them? The stories haven’t been retold in a particularly unusual way. Nothing has been left out or added to them?’

  Peter and Mark shook their heads.

  Just then, the telephone on Rijsbergen’s desk rang.

  He gestured for Mark and Peter to remain seated.

  Peter picked the pages up again. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Coen’s neat, regular handwriting, hoping he might discover a hidden message somehow, perhaps by focusing only on the initial letters of each sentence. But he couldn’t see anything unusual in it.

  ‘What?’ Rijsbergen exclaimed. It almost sounded like a cry of despair. Then he listened as whoever was on the other end of the line spoke. He hung up, then sat in his chair with the tele
phone receiver in his hands.

  ‘What is it?’ Peter asked, alarmed. ‘Has something bad happened?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rijsbergen said. ‘This case has just become much more complicated.’

  Chapter 19

  A body had been found in the murky waters of the Galgewater canal. The victim’s body had drifted against the wharf and been found floating halfway under the Rembrandt Bridge. His hands had been tied together.

  Starting at the low wall around the De Put Windmill, tall white screens had been erected in a wide semi-circle around the scene to keep curious spectators away. A similar construction had been set up on the opposite side of the canal, near the place where Rembrandt had been born. However, it was impossible to prevent onlookers from videoing the scene from further along the wharf.

  Who on earth would you want to show the video to, Rijsbergen thought irritably. ‘Have you had fun today?’ ‘Oh, yes! There was a dead body in the canal, and I got a video of it. Look, it’s got a hundred and fifty likes already!’

  Two officers were waiting in a police boat for further orders.

  An ambulance was already at the scene when Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij arrived with a fleet of police cars.

  Willem spotted Anton Dalhuizen, the Public Health Department’s forensic physician who usually carried out the initial examination of the deceased in the event of a suspicious death.

  They went to talk to the man who had found the body. His face was ashen. A dog sat waiting patiently at his feet in the middle of the pool of water that had formed around it.

  The officer who had been speaking to the witness gave Rijsbergen and De Kooij a brief summary of events. The man had been standing on the lower section of the wharf throwing a tennis ball into the water for his dog. Usually, the dog would bring its ball straight back, but on the last throw, the ball had drifted a little. Instead of retrieving the ball, the dog had barked loudly and swum frantically back to his owner. When he saw what had upset it, the man had immediately called 112.

  ‘What do you think?’ Van de Kooij asked as they descended the steps to the wharf.

  ‘It’s very … unusual,’ Rijsbergen said hesitantly. ‘I mean, it’s unusual to have two murders in Leiden in such a short time. You’re automatically inclined to think …’

  ‘That the two are connected.’

  ‘Yes, precisely.’

  The two police officers in the boat looked up at Rijsbergen and Van de Kooij, who seemed to tower above them like harbour masters.

  ‘Get him out of the water, boys,’ Rijsbergen told them.

  They pushed the boat off from the side of the wharf. Its motor chugged softly as it moved towards the floating body.

  ‘And for God’s sake, get rid of that lot on the other side!’ Rijsbergen shouted to nobody in particular. Five or six officers instantly jumped to attention, and within a few minutes they had cleared the area – although they had no control over the people peering from the windows of their own homes.

  One of the officers in the boat grabbed the victim by his collar. The boat reversed, and they towed the body slowly along the canal to the wharf where their colleagues helped them to haul it out of the water.

  ‘Look,’ someone said. ‘His legs have been tied together as well.’

  ‘You’d think there would be witnesses,’ Van de Kooij thought out loud. ‘You couldn’t do this without someone seeing you …’

  ‘He could have drifted here from somewhere else,’ Rijsbergen suggested. ‘Or maybe he was dumped off a boat. You could probably do that without being noticed.’ He sighed deeply.

  Two members of the ambulance crew placed a stretcher on the ground and lifted the body onto it.

  Dalhuizen joined the two detectives. ‘The pathologist will have to establish whether he drowned or if he was already dead when he went into the water,’ he said, kneeling down by the stretcher. For formality’s sake, he pressed two fingers to the dead man’s neck.

  ‘Any idea how long he’s been in the water?’ Rijsbergen asked.

  ‘Hard to say exactly … The skin looks fairly normal, no discolouration, no signs of blistering or slippage, no bloating, eyes still in the sockets. He can’t have been dead for long. The hair follicles are still firmly attached … As an initial estimate, I’d say he’s been dead less than twenty-four hours, so he’s not been in the water any longer than that. Maybe less if he died elsewhere.’ He stood up again. ‘As I said, Van Eijk will give you a definitive answer on that, but I don’t expect that he’ll come to any conclusions that are spectacularly different from mine.’ He pulled off his latex gloves.

  ‘Thanks, Anton,’ Rijsbergen said. He smiled. ‘You’ve already been very helpful.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Dalhuizen said. Evidently, this cursory greeting was as far as Dalhuizen’s cordiality extended; he went back to his car without another word.

  Rijsbergen looked down at the body.

  ‘Could you give me some gloves?’ he asked one of the paramedics. The man produced a pair of latex gloves from his overalls and gave them to Rijsbergen.

  Rijsbergen put them on and searched the victim’s pockets. He pulled out a wallet, a smartphone, and another phone, a simple, old-fashioned Nokia.

  Brown water streamed in a thin trickle from the wallet and phones and pooled on the ground.

  Rijsbergen opened the wallet, looking for a driving licence or anything with the victim’s photo on it.

  There was a student card inside.

  Rijsbergen removed it and held it up to his eyes to read the name on it. ‘Y. Falaina,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Sounds like that Belgian footballer,’ Van de Kooij said. ‘Come on, what’s he called again? Big, curly head on him.’

  ‘Is this really important right now, Bergkamp?’ Rijsbergen asked.

  ‘Well, yes, maybe they share the same nationality.’

  That’s true, Rijsbergen thought.

  ‘Fellaini,’ Van de Kooij said. ‘Marouane Fellaini. Plays for the Red Devils, Manchester United. His parents are Moroccan.’

  North African … He does look like he could be North African. Or South European or maybe Middle Eastern.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ Rijsbergen said. ‘We’ll find out who he is, or rather … who he was. Go and get some evidence bags out of the car, and we’ll take these things with us now. Forensics can deal with the phones, and we’ll have a look at whatever’s in the wallet when we get back to the station.’

  Rijsbergen waited for Van de Kooij to return.

  The paramedics strapped the body onto the stretcher and pulled a thick plastic cover over it.

  An image flashed in Rijsbergen’s mind’s eye.

  Might he also have …

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted.

  He squatted down next to the stretcher and put the wallet and phones on the ground. Then he drew back the plastic sheet, carefully unzipped the man’s jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. The young man was wearing a vest. Rijsbergen used both hands to pull the vest, shirt and jacket aside so that he could see the skin on the left side of the man’s chest.

  There, in exactly the same place that Coen Zoutman’s tattoo had been, between the nipple and the armpit, a small section of skin about the size of a five-cent coin had been cut away.

  ‘What can you see?’ Van de Kooij asked impatiently.

  ‘Something that’s not there …’ Rijsbergen said, straightening the victim’s clothes up again. With a quick nod to the ambulance crew to let them know that they could take the victim away, he stood up again. He put the wallet and telephones in the bags that Van de Kooij held out for him.

  They took a few paces backwards together, away from everyone else who was working on the crime scene.

  ‘And?’ Van de Kooij asked again.

  ‘A piece of skin cut away from the same place where Zoutman had that tattoo,’ Rijsbergen said in a half whisper.

  ‘Bizarre,’ was all that Van de Kooij managed to say. ‘Just … Bizarre.’

  ‘Let’s go back,’ Rijsbe
rgen said. ‘Tell the rest of the team to get started on the house-to-house straight away. Make sure they knock on every single door in the area. And have someone contact the media, Leidsch Dagblad, Leiden TV, TV West, Sleutelstad FM, et cetera. Keep the details vague, obviously, but have them appeal for witnesses on their websites, Facebook, radio, whatever. Anyone who saw anything unusual over the last twenty-four hours, around the Galgewater or anywhere else.’

  ‘Will do,’ Van de Kooij said, and bounded over to a group of police officers, clearly enjoying being in a position to give orders to other people for a change.

  The police officers separated into teams and spread out over the neighbourhood as the paramedics quietly closed the ambulance doors.

  Van de Kooij drove them back to the station. In the narrow streets around the Galgewater, his car seemed even more out of place than it did on the main roads.

  The evidence bags containing the dead man’s wallet and mobile phones lay in the footwell next to Rijsbergen’s feet.

  The tattoo and the excised skin clearly showed, without a shadow of a doubt, that Coen Zoutman and this Y. Falaina were connected in some way.

  But how, Rijsbergen wondered. Was this young man a Freemason too? Do the other Masons have the same tattoo? Or is this a special group of initiates?

  They drove over Oude Singel canal via the Blauwpoortsbrug and turned left onto the Turfmarkt. In the distance, the mighty De Valk windmill towered over the main route into the city centre.

  When they arrived back at the station, Van de Kooij took the mobile phones to the digital forensics team. They didn’t expect to encounter too many problems with unlocking them. Generally, only hardened criminals protected their devices with the sort of encryption that was nearly impossible to crack, and Rijsbergen surmised that this was unlikely to apply to the young man they’d fished out of the Galgewater. Water damage was more likely to be the issue.