by Tom Holt
“So what is the secret, exactly?” Jane asked.
“I’m coming to that,” said the senior partner. “I was just trying to put it off for as long as possible, because it’s so…so silly, I suppose is what you’d have to call it, if you were going to be savagely honest. I’ve lived with this for thirty years, my entire life and phenomenal successes in my career are built around it and I’ve never ever told anyone before.”
Jane looked him in the eye. She was sorry for him. “Go on,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Mr Gleeson. He was probably quite nice when you got to know him, should you live that long. “The policy that the manager sold Captain Vanderdecker—the sea-captain’s name was Vanderdecker—was a perfectly standard policy specially designed to meet the needs, or rather the gullibility, of sea-captains. You had the choice of paying regular premiums or a single lump-sum premium—the sea-captains found it difficult to pay regular premiums in those days, you see, because they rarely knew where they’d be at any given time from one year’s end to the next—and in return you got an assured sum on death. It wasn’t exactly a fortune, but it would tide your nearest and dearest over until the plague or the Inquisition finally finished her off, and since there was no income tax in those days it was guaranteed tax free.”
“The sting in the tail was this. Because sea-captaining was such a risky job in those days, it was a virtual certainty that the policyholder wouldn’t make sixty years of age. This is where the sucker-bet part of it comes in. Because of this actuarial semi-certainty, the policy contains the proviso that the sum assured—the payout—will increase by fifty per cent compound for every year that the life assured—the sucker—survives over the age of seventy-five. Seventy-five, mark you; those Fuggers were taking no chances. It made a marvellous selling point, and the age limitation only appeared in very tiny script on the back of the policy, just underneath the seal where you wouldn’t think of looking. They sold tens of thousands of those policies, and for every one sucker that made seventy-six, there were nine hundred and ninety-nine that didn’t.”
Mr Gleeson stopped talking and sat very still for a while, so still that Jane was afraid to interrupt him. It is very quiet indeed in a soundproofed office on the fifteenth floor of an office block at two in the morning.
“Talking of sucker bets,” Mr Gleeson finally said, “this one was the best of the lot. You see, Captain Vanderdecker didn’t die. He just went on living. Nobody knows why—there are all sorts of far-fetched stories which I won’t bore you with, because your credulity must be strained to breaking-point already. The fact remains that Vanderdecker didn’t die. He is still alive, over four hundred years later. Please bear in mind the fact that the interest is compound. We tried to calculate once what it must be now, but we couldn’t. There is, quite literally, not that much money in the whole world.”
“So, you see, if Vanderdecker dies, the whole thing will go into reverse. All the money which has gone into the sock—and that’s every penny there is—will have to come out again, and it will all go to Mr Vanderdecker’s estate. This is of course impossible, and so the bank would have to default—it would have to welch on a sucker bet. And that would be that. End of civilisation as we know it. You know as well as I do that the economies of the major economic powers are so volatile that the markets collapse every time the Mayor of Accrington gets a bad cold. The faintest hint that the National Lombard was about to go down and you wouldn’t be able to get five yards down Wall Street without being hit by a freefalling market-maker. And that is the basic story behind the Vanderdecker Policy.”
That same long, deafening silence came back again, until Jane could bear it no longer.
“But surely,” Jane said, “if Vanderdecker is going to live for ever, he’ll never die and the problem will never arise.”
Mr Gleeson smiled. “Who said he was going to live for ever?” he replied. “All we know is that he hasn’t died yet. It’s scientifically impossible for a man to live for ever. Logically, he must die eventually. And every year he doesn’t die, the problem gets inexpressibly worse. You see the trouble we’re in. We can’t afford for him to die, any more than we can afford for him to live any longer. Fifty per cent compound. Think about that for a moment, will you?”
Jane thought about it. She shuddered. “So where is he now?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” said Mr Gleeson. “We lost track of him in the 1630s, and then he kept turning up again. He turns up once every seven years or so, and then he vanishes off the face of the earth.”
Suddenly Jane remembered something. “You mean like the Flying Dutchman?” she said.
“Vanderdecker is the Flying Dutchman,” said Mr Gleeson. “The very same.”
“I see,” Jane said, as if this suddenly made everything crystal clear. “So where does Bridport come in?”
“I was coming to that,” said Mr Gleeson, “just as soon as I’d given you time to digest what I’ve just told you. Obviously you’ve got a remarkable digestion. Or you think I’m as mad as a hatter. Bridport comes in because that’s where Vanderdecker was last recorded in this country. He opened an account at the bank’s Bridport branch in 1890-something. I believe you found it.”
“I did,” Jane confirmed. “Why on earth haven’t you closed it?”
“Easy,” replied Mr Gleeson, “we can’t close it without either his instructions or sight of his death certificate. Rules are rules.”
Jane was astounded. The last thing she had expected was integrity. “But what about bank charges?” she said. “Couldn’t you just write it off against those?”
“No bank charges in eighteen ninety-thing,” replied Gleeson. “It wouldn’t be right. There would be an anomaly which would have to be noted in the accounts. As the bank’s auditor, I would have to insist on it.”
“I see,” Jane said again. “I didn’t realise the rules were so strict.”
“All we can do,” said Mr Gleeson, “is keep very quiet about it. The only people who know the significance of that account are me, the chairman of the bank, and now you. Obviously the local manager doesn’t know. And if anyone finds out apart from us, of course, we hound them to insanity and have them locked up in a mental hospital.”
“That’s within the rules, is it?”
“I’ve read them very carefully,” Mr Gleeson replied, “no mention of it anywhere. Therefore it stands to reason it must be legitimate.”
“In that case,” Jane said slowly, “why haven’t I…”
“Because,” replied Mr Gleeson, “you have no sense of smell.”
For the third time, Jane asserted that she saw. She lacked conviction.
“Let me explain,” said Mr Gleeson. “There’s one other thing we know about the Flying Dutchman. He smells. Awful.You’ve heard of the Marie Celeste?”
Jane said that she had.
“National Lombard were part of the syndicate insuring her, so it carried out its own investigation. It found the only survivor.”
“Ah.”
“Well might you say Ah,” replied Mr Gleeson. “As soon as the managing director found out what was going on, he cleared everyone else out of the way and spoke to the man personally, just before he died of acute bewilderment. He reported how they were all sitting there minding their own business when this old–fashioned sailing ship came alongside. There was this smell, the survivor said. It was so bad, he said, everyone jumped into the sea and was drowned. Except him. The old–fashioned ship picked him up just before he was about to drown and took him on board. He was on the ship for three weeks before it dropped him off. He described the smell in detail; that bit of the report runs to four hundred and seventy-nine pages, so you can see it made quite an impression.”
“Anyway, it turned out that the name of the ship’s captain was Vanderdecker. Since the name is not common and the survivor said the whole crew were in sixteenth-century costume, it’s a fair assumption that it was him. There have been other incidents since which corroborate the s
tory, but the names won’t mean anything to you because they happened in remote places and the bank managed to cover them up in time. It is an undoubted fact that Vanderdecker smells so horrible that nobody in the world can bear to be in his presence for more than a few seconds at a time. This,” said Mr Gleeson, “is where you come in.”
“I see,” Jane said, for the fourth time.
“What we want you to do,” said Mr Gleeson, “is find Vanderdecker and reason with him. Tell him he can’t take it with him. Negotiate with him to surrender the policy in return for an annuity—a million pounds a year for life or some such figure. It’d be worth it, the bank can afford it. You’d be on commission, naturally.”
“But how do I find him?” Jane said. “If it was possible, surely you’d have done it by now.”
“We haven’t dared try,” Mr Gleeson replied. “In order to find Vanderdecker, we’d have to let too many people in on too much of the secret. Far too risky. Sucker bet. Only someone like you can do it, because you know already. And you only know because I’ve told you, and I’ve only told you because you have no sense of smell. Do you follow me?”
“I think so,” Jane said, “more or less. Actually, I might have a lead already.” And she told him about Lower Brickwood Farm Cottage, and the invoices. When she had finished, Mr Gleeson nodded and smiled, a you-can-call-me-Bill sort of smile that he usually reserved for Prime Ministers.
“Will you help us, then?” he said. “If you succeed, you can name your own fee.”
“Well…” Jane hesitated, genuinely doubtful. If she accepted the job, she would have to find some way of coming to terms with what she had just been told, and that would not be easy, not by a long way. On the other hand, and bearing in mind all the material circumstances, with particular regard to the section of the rules which said nothing at all about locking people up in lunatic asylums, she felt she didn’t have much choice.
“Yes,” she said.
Mr Gleeson grinned at her. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “May the Sock be with you.”
SIX
Cheer up, for God’s sake,” said the other man in Quincy’s, with his mouth full, “you’re putting me off my asparagus quiche.”
His companion scowled at the little cardboard square under his glass. For reasons which it would be counterproductive to rehearse, he knew that the jolly little cartoon on the beer that of a Viking warrior drinking lager was completely inaccurate, but that wasn’t the thing that was upsetting him.
“I don’t want to cheer up,” he said. “Cheerfulness would be very strange behaviour just now, don’t you think?”
Suspense is a legitimate literary device only if responsibly handled. Know, then, that the other man’s name is Gerald.
“You always were a gloomy sod,” said Gerald, his jaws temporarily free, “even when we were kids. You had this knack of always looking on the black side. And what good does it do? Tell me that.”
“It enables me,” said Gerald’s friend, “to harmonise with my karma. My karma is presently as much fun as a traffic-jam on the M6. Therefore I am gloomy. If I were to cheer up now, I could suffer severe spiritual damage.”
“Funny you should mention the M6,” Gerald replied. “I was three hours—three whole hours out of my life—getting between Junctions Four and Five the other day. And you know what caused it all? Changing the light bulb in one of those street-lamp things. Pathetic, I call it, absolutely bloody pathetic.”
“Tell me all about the M6,” Gerald’s friend said savagely. “I’m sure it’s incredibly relevant to my getting the sack.”
“You have not got the sack,” Gerald said. “How many times have I got to tell you? You’ve been moved sideways, that’s all. It happens to everyone. I got moved sideways last year, and it’s been the making of me.”
“Gerald,” said his friend, “how long have we known each other?”
Gerald’s friend thought for a moment. “Good question that,” he said. He put down his fork and began to count on his fingers. “Let me think. Seventy-three, was it? Seventeen years. My God, how time flies!”
“I’ve known you for seventeen years?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why?”
Gerald frowned. “What do you mean?” he said.
“Why?” said his friend angrily. “I mean, what has been the point? Seventeen years we’ve been meeting regularly, sending each other postcards from Santorini, inviting each other to parties, having lunch; you’d think it would count for something. You’d think it would go some way towards creating some sort of mutual understanding. And now you sit there, drinking a glass of wine which I paid for, and tell me that getting transferred from Current Affairs to Sport is a sideways move.”
“Well it is,” said Gerald. He had grown so used to this sort of thing that he took no notice whatsoever. “More people watch sport than current affairs, it’s a known fact. Call it promotion.”
“Will you be able to get me seats for Wimbledon, do you think?”
“What’s Wimbledon?” asked his friend.
Gerald frowned. He didn’t mind Danny trying to be amusing, but blasphemy was another matter. “Doesn’t matter if it’s behind a pillar or anything like that,” he said. “It’s the being there that really counts.”
Danny Bennet ignored him. “Anything but Sport,” he said, “I could have taken in my stride. “Songs of Praise.” “Bob’s Full House.” “Antiques Roadshow.” Take any shape but this and my firm nerves shall never tremble. Sport, no. At Sport I draw the line.”
“You never did like games much,” Gerald reflected, as he cornered a radish in the folds of his lettuce-leaf. “Remember the lengths you used to go to just to get off games at school? You just never had any moral fibre, I guess. It’s been a problem with you all through life. If only they’d made you play rugger at school, we’d be having less of these theatricals now, I bet.”
“Have you ever tried killing yourself, Gerald? You’d enjoy it.”
“If I were in your shoes,” Gerald continued, “I’d be over the moon. Plenty of open air. Good clean fun. What the viewer really wants, too; I mean, quite frankly, who gives a toss about politics anyway? Come to think of it, maybe you could do something about the way they always put the cricket highlights on at about half past three in the morning. I’m not as young as I was, I need my eight hours. And it’s all very well saying tape it, but I can never set the timer right. I always seem to end up with half an hour of some cult movie in German, which is no use at all when I come in from a hard day at the office. My mother can do it, of course, but then she understands machines. She tapes the Australian soaps, which I call a perverse use of advanced technology.”
“Isn’t it time,” Danny said, “that you were getting back?”
Gerald glanced at his watch and swore. “You’re right,” he said, “doesn’t time fly? Look, I hate to rush off when you’re having a life crisis like this, but the dollar’s been very iffy all week and God knows what it’ll get up to if I’m not there to hold its hand. You must come to dinner. Amanda’s finally worked out a way of doing crême brulée in the microwave, you’ll love it. Thanks for the drink.” He scooped up the remaining contents of his plate in his fingers, jammed the mixture into his mouth, and departed.
With Gerald mercifully out of the way, Danny was able to enjoy his misery properly. He savoured it. He rolled it round his palate. He experienced its unique bouquet. It is not every day that a living legend gets put out with the empty bottles and the discarded packaging; in fact, it would make a marvellous fly-on-the-wall documentary. For someone else.
Perhaps, Danny said to himself, I am taking it rather too hard. Perhaps they were right, and I was getting a bit set in my ways in current affairs. Perhaps it will be an exciting challenge producing televised snooker in Warrington. Perhaps the world is just a flat plate spinning on a stick balanced on the nose of the Great Conjuror, and my fortunes are so insignificant as to be unworthy of consideration. Perhaps I should pack i
t all in and go work for the satellite people.
In the three years since his story (the details of which are not relevant hereto) Danny had often considered leaving the BBC and signing on under the Jolly Roger, but only when he was in no fit state to make important decisions. He had come as close as typing his letter of resignation on that day which shall live in infamy when they told him that they had no use for his searing revelations of corruption in the sewage disposal department of a major West Midlands borough, provisionally entitled “Orduregate”. That same letter had been typed and stamped when “Countdown to Doomsday”, his mordant exposé of the threat posed by a popular brand of furniture polish to the ozone layer, had ended up on the cutting room floor; while a third edition brushed the lip of the post-box after the top floor suspended filming of the script which would have unmasked a hitherto-respected chiropodist in Lutterworth as the Butcher of Clermont-Ferrand. But he had never done it. The final Columbus-like step off the edge of the world and through the doors of the South Bank Studios was not for him, and he knew it.
The fourth edition of his resignation letter, therefore, remained unwritten, and when he left Quincy’s he returned to the studios and went to see the man who was going to tell him everything he needed to know about sports broadcasting in twenty-five minutes.
“The main thing,” said the expert, “is to turn up on the right day at the right place and keep the sound recordists out of the bar. Leave everything else to the cameramen, and you’ll do all right. That’s it.”
Is it like this, Danny asked himself, in death’s other kingdom? “That’s it, is it?” he said.
“Yes,” said the expert. “Apart from the commentators, of course. They’re a real pain in the backside, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about them, so don’t let it worry you. It’s basically a question of hanging on and not letting it get to you.”