The Pilgrim Conspiracy

by Jeroen Windmeijer

Fay, Peter, Judith and Mark had planned a leaving dinner for Judith that Saturday.

  I’m glad I’ll get some time with Judith alone tomorrow though, Peter thought.

  They went outside and said goodbye.

  Peter turned right onto the Doelensteeg and headed for Fay’s house. Mark went the other way towards his office on the Witte Singel.

  Halfway across the bridge over the Rapenburg, Peter stopped and idled for a while, not sure that he wanted to go to Fay’s house after all.

  But I can’t keep avoiding her.

  He crossed the bridge and walked along the canalside, dragging his feet. The Dutch expression ‘with lead in the shoes’ suddenly felt very appropriate.

  Fay’s house was quiet and still.

  He knew that Agapé was at korfball training, and Alena often went with her.

  Maybe she’s not at home, he thought hopefully. Then I can at least say I came by.

  He went inside.

  But I still need to tell her that I’m going to Boston in three weeks.

  ‘Are you home, darling?’ he said cautiously as he went into the living room. ‘Fay?’ He called out louder this time.

  He had already turned to leave again when he heard Fay’s voice coming from above him.

  ‘I’m up here!’ she called down.

  He heard her coming down the stairs.

  She stopped on the bottom step, like someone about to jump into a swimming pool but baulking at the thought of the chilly water.

  ‘Why didn’t you reply to my text?’ Fay asked.

  Peter froze in the doorway with his hand on the door handle as though he was on his way out and hadn’t arrived just a few moments earlier.

  ‘I wasn’t sure what it was about,’ he said, closing the door and going back into the living room.

  ‘You weren’t sure what it was about?’ Fay parroted indignantly. ‘You’d been reading my emails, hadn’t you? You even opened one and deleted it afterwards!’

  ‘But how—’

  ‘I saw that there was a mail from Coen yesterday. All his emails automatically get sent to a folder. His are the only messages that go in there.’

  ‘And why—’

  ‘You were completely out of order, Peter. I don’t owe anybody an explanation for what I do. Not even you. And not for this. It’s none of anyone’s business.’

  Peter gulped.

  People often underestimated Fay because of her friendly manner – even Peter sometimes misjudged her – and in discussions, they would frequently be surprised by how remarkably assertive she could be.

  ‘Did you read any of the other emails?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Peter replied.

  I might as well be honest.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Let’s sit down, all right?’

  Fay sat in the armchair and Peter took a seat on the sofa.

  ‘I opened the laptop,’ he said. ‘Your mail client was open. I saw that there was a folder called “Coen Zoutman”. I thought it was odd because you never told me that you emailed each other at all.’

  ‘And I didn’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Peter said, holding up his hands defensively. ‘I saw that there was a new message, and I clicked on the folder. But then, I realised that – and this is exactly how it went – that I shouldn’t be looking at your emails. I meant to close the folder, but then I accidentally clicked on that new email. All it said was “I’ll see you this evening.” Nothing more. And then I thought … It was stupid of me, Fay. I’m sorry. But then I thought: there’s nothing important in this email, so I’ll delete it before Fay sees that I’ve opened it.’

  ‘That was his very last email to me, Peter.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I knew he’d sent me an email, but I couldn’t bring myself to look in that folder. I just slammed the laptop shut when I saw it. It really spooked me. It was irrational, I know, but I didn’t dare to read what he had written to me. And it was like …’ Her voice was suddenly stifled as she choked back tears.

  Should I go over to her, Peter thought. ‘Sorry, darling,’ he said. ‘It was stupid of me. I should have told you straight away.’

  ‘It felt like …’ Fay said, ignoring Peter’s apology. ‘It sounds mad, but it felt like I could make him still be alive by not reading that email. It’s not … I know it’s not rational. It even sounds crazy to me when I say it out loud.’ She sniffled.

  ‘When I finally got up the courage to read it this morning, it was gone. But deleted emails stay in the trash folder for a while, so you still have a chance to recover them.’

  I didn’t think of that.

  ‘So I found the email. And no, there was nothing out of the ordinary in it, but it was his last message to me. And apart from that, I really don’t like you nosing around in my emails.’ She glared at him. ‘Are you sure you didn’t read any of the others?’

  ‘No, honestly I didn’t,’ Peter said. ‘I wouldn’t do that, would I? Not normally, anyway. It’s a strange situation, a strange time … How many times have I worked on your computer? And how often do you just leave everything open? I always close it all without looking at it. You do trust me, don’t you?’

  Fay glared at him.

  ‘Really, Fay, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’

  She appeared to have decided to let it go for now. There’s little point in fighting an opponent who has already given in.

  ‘You could easily have restored the message, you know. You can mark an email as unread. I would have been none the wiser.’

  ‘Ah,’ Peter said, with real surprise. ‘I didn’t know that.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll keep that function in mind for next time,’ he said jokingly. It was an attempt to clear the air, but Fay remained stone-faced.

  ‘Good,’ she said, and there was still a sharp edge to her voice.

  ‘Is there something I should know?’ Peter couldn’t resist asking. ‘Why are you so upset about this? I understand that it’s not nice knowing someone’s been reading your emails when you’d rather they didn’t, but this reaction seems a little bit … Is there something you’re worried I might have read? Something you’re hiding from me?’

  Fay shook her head vigorously.

  She took a fraction of a second too long to deny it, Peter thought. But right now, I’m not in a position to interrogate her about her emails with Coen Zoutman.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Shall we leave it there, then?’

  A silence hung over them, like the two actors in this scene were waiting for instructions from a director.

  ‘I’m over it already,’ Fay said, breaking the impasse.

  They both stood up. Fay went over to hug him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘I do have something to tell you, by the way,’ he said.

  Fay let go of him and took a step back. She looked like she was on her guard. ‘Go on,’ she said, trying to sound light-hearted, but she couldn’t hide the tension in her voice.

  ‘Judith’s asked me to visit her in Boston. I’ve said yes …’

  ‘Oh. Okay,’ she said with visible relief. She smiled. ‘That’s … great, right?’

  ‘I’m staying for three weeks. Or rather, I’ll be in America for three weeks, and I’ll spend some of it with her, a week maybe. They’re giving her a big apartment, she says.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? It’ll be lovely for her, and for you too. It’s been ages since you last went travelling. It’ll do you good.’

  ‘I’m leaving in three weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’ She seemed taken aback. ‘That’s … soon.’

  ‘I’ve just booked it.’

  ‘Right, well … You don’t waste any time, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Peter agreed. ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. She asked, and I said yes. But it felt right. And anyway, you’ve got your book to do.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘I’ll be busy. And it won’t get in the way of our holiday plans this summer. Bett
er that you go now than in the summer, right?’

  A few months earlier, they had booked a three-week holiday to the Greek island of Santorini. Apart from the odd long weekend they’d spent on the Dutch island of Texel, it was going to be their first real ‘family’ holiday.

  ‘I’m so glad you don’t mind, Fay.’

  ‘It’s fine, really. And you’re right. I can work on my book, and you’ll come back refreshed and full of energy.’ Apparently having said all she wanted to say, she went over to the kitchen counter and opened a bottle of wine. She poured two glasses and took them back over to Peter. ‘To Boston, then,’ she said as they clinked their glasses.

  ‘And to us …’ Peter said, more hesitantly.

  ‘And to us,’ Fay said. ‘Now, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ She took two large gulps of wine and went back to the kitchen. ‘Are you going to visit the Freemasons while you’re there?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s a good idea, actually. Why not?’

  ‘I’d love it if you called in at the grand lodge in Boston. Take some photos or a little video or something for me. I’m so curious to see what it looks like, an old lodge like that.’

  ‘I will.’

  Fay appeared to have decided that it was now time to empty the kitchen cupboards and give them a thorough clean.

  Peter picked up her laptop. ‘Just reading your emails,’ he teased.

  He was relieved to see that Fay could already laugh about it. ‘I’ve moved them to a new super-secret program that nobody will ever get into,’ she said.

  Yeah, yeah … Peter thought. It’s all well and good that people have the right to keep some secrets in a relationship, but you’re not being completely honest with me, Fay.

  When the laptop had started up, he saw that Fay’s Outlook program was open, as though she wanted to make it abundantly clear that she trusted him.

  But he could see at a glance that something had changed.

  After a quick glance at Fay fanatically scrubbing in the kitchen, he looked at her email folders.

  The ‘Coen Zoutman’ folder was gone.

  Chapter 21

  Peter and Fay usually made a point of going to bed at the same time, and they would lie next to each other, chatting about their day or reading. But tonight, Fay went upstairs alone.

  When Peter undressed in the darkness of the bedroom later that night, he could tell from the way Fay was breathing that she wasn’t asleep. But they didn’t speak.

  When Peter got up the next morning, Fay stayed in bed. Again, Peter was convinced that she was awake.

  He left the house without eating breakfast. Agapé was already downstairs. He told her that he had to leave early because he had a busy day ahead.

  It wasn’t a lie – he really did have a lot to do. The decision to visit Judith had meant moving a lot of his work forward. He spent most of the morning at his desk marking a large stack of papers. Later that day, he was due to give a guest lecture for his colleague Job Westrate on the history of ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

  He found it difficult to concentrate, and not just because of his spat with Fay. Coen Zoutman’s death weighed heavily on his mind.

  Peter had read on the Leidsch Dagblad’s website that the body of a young man had been found in the Galgewater. Whether or not this second death was connected to Coen’s murder, he found it deeply troubling that a body had been found so close by, under a bridge that he had crossed countless times.

  In their initial press briefing, the police had emphasised that the death was suspicious, and not simply an unfortunate accident in which someone had fallen into the canal and drowned.

  Peter had studied the artist’s impression of the victim, but it didn’t look like anyone he knew. And the name Yona Falaina didn’t ring a bell. It gave him a strange feeling of relief – at least the victim wasn’t one of his students.

  He pushed the pile of unmarked papers aside.

  Peter filled up the coffee machine and switched it on. While he waited for it to percolate, he took up his usual position on the windowsill and lit a cigar.

  There must have been something in those emails, he thought. Do I have anything on my computer that I definitely wouldn’t want anyone to see?

  He couldn’t think of anything.

  Of course, nobody likes the idea of someone digging around in their emails without asking permission. I understand that. It’s a question of privacy more than anything else.

  He had noticed that whenever his students discussed the topic of privacy during their coffee breaks, most of them were worryingly apathetic. None of them seemed concerned that the government was about to introduce a law giving them increased powers to monitor their emails and telephone calls. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ was the standard response. But if he asked them to give him their mobile phones so he could read their chats and text messages, they always refused.

  I don’t suppose I would like it if Fay read my texts and emails either, so she’s hardly being unreasonable. What really bothers me is that I had no idea she and Coen had been emailing each other so much.

  Peter smoked his cigar and let his mind wander until he was suddenly startled by a sharp pain. The stub of his cigarillo had become so short that the glowing ash stack had scorched his fingertips. He still hankered for one last puff, but there was too little left of the cigar now. With a pang of regret, he threw the stub outside.

  He poured a cup of coffee and sat at his computer.

  In just over three weeks, he would be following Judith out to Boston.

  I could make good use of my time there by learning more about the Pilgrims, Peter thought. I might find out something about the possible connection between the Pilgrims and the Freemasons if I visit the Boston grand lodge. I’m pretty familiar with the subject now. Maybe I’ll get to talk to someone who shares my interest in it. It would be great to be able to tell the visitors in the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum some stories that are based on my own experiences.

  Peter opened the files that Piet van Vliet had sent him. He created a blank Word document, then he spent some time cutting and pasting until he had combined all the separate fragments into one continuous text.

  Piet could turn this into a book one day, Peter thought, although the audience for it would be quite small. Actually, this sort of material would make a great novel. It deserves a wider audience.

  He printed everything out and tucked all of the pages into a document wallet, like a student finishing off an assignment.

  There were a few things in the manuscript that had stood out to him. First, the boys whom Josh had taken under his wing like protégés. One of them went to America on the Mayflower, but back in Leiden, he was immediately replaced by another boy. Secondly, the conflict or division that had developed within the group. And lastly, although it was more implied than explicit, the possible connection between the Pilgrims and the Freemasons. Might those three things be linked in a way that had – so far? – always remained hidden?

  He pasted the relevant passages into another separate document and wrote a description above each section to remind himself which part of the manuscript they came from.

  The men watch helplessly from the boat as the women and children are taken away by soldiers.

  As soon as we had boarded the ship, we saw a company of soldiers rushing along the beach towards us.

  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 rough crossing from England to the Netherlands that takes much longer than 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.

  After they have settled in Leiden.

  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.

  After a few years in Leiden.

  The adopted ‘son’, as everyone thinks of the boy whom Josh Nunn has taken under his wing, has grown into a handsome, bright young man, a fully fledged member of our congregation. Sometimes he speaks at Sunday worship, which some members tolerate with a measure of reluctance. Or is it jealousy? People object because he has no formal training in preaching God’s word and correctly explaining His Scriptures. They never do this openly, of course, but only when they think they are not being observed. A more serious objection is that the boy sometimes has the tendency to interpret things too liberally, as though he is looking for the story that might be hidden behind a story. As though he has found an obscure meaning that to us mere mortals remains invisible.

  The group separates.

  We are going to America.

  Although, not ‘we’ exactly. Most of us will stay behind in Leiden. Some of our group have already returned to England. Life in Holland was much harder than they were able to bear, and they chose to go back to Scrooby. Life is not easy there either, but it will at least be familiar. Not even the risk of being thrown in jail as soon as they set foot on shore was enough to persuade them to stay here.

  Shortly afterwards, the author says:

  I am not privy to whatever has caused it, but I can see that the group has split in two. There is no crystal-clear dividing line that might make it clear to outsiders who belongs to which group. Nor are there two distinct factions who stand opposite each other or sit apart from each other during worship …