St Paul's Labyrinth

by Jeroen Windmeijer

  At first, he thought that the banging was part of his restless dreams, but he realised that the noise was coming from the real world. He glanced at his phone to check the time. Half past seven.

  He switched the light on and off three times to let whoever was outside know that he had heard them, a signal that the organisation had established over time. A small number of people in the group had a copy of the key to the courtyard door.

  He pulled on his dressing gown and went into the kitchen, where a Soldier, a man in his late twenties, was waiting for him after letting himself in.

  There were three glasses on the counter, each with a half-moon of lemon at the bottom, two still half-full of cola. They’d had to carefully research the amount of GHB it would take to knock someone out without killing them. They’d used an estimated body weight to find the right dose, which had worked perfectly in the end. They had been able to mask the drug’s bitter taste with cola and lemon.

  ‘What’s so urgent?’ Tiny said calmly.

  ‘There’s been a rebellion,’ the young man said nervously. ‘What we know so far is that there are six men who are refusing to go ahead with your plan and are actively trying to stop you.’

  Six men out of eighteen, Tiny thought. Typical … ‘The dragon’s tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven,’ he murmured, ‘and cast them to the earth … And the great dragon was thrown down to the earth …’

  The young man gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘Who are they? Are you sure?’ Tiny asked him.

  ‘Two Soldiers, two Lions, a Persian and …’ The young man was clearly reluctant to reveal the identity of the sixth.

  ‘And who?’

  ‘The Sun-Runner, Father. I’m sorry.’

  Tiny needed to sit down. The Sun-Runner, his intended successor … Had he really been so wrong about these men? Or had he simply asked them to do something they weren’t ready for yet?

  ‘Mani wasn’t one of them?’

  ‘No, not Mani. You know how loyal he is. He even went to the police station when he heard that Peter de Haan had been arrested.’

  ‘Arrested?’ Tiny said, horrified. ‘And how do you know all this?’

  ‘After you left the meeting yesterday, we stayed behind. There was quite a heated discussion … most of the group was in favour of your plan, but the six men I just told you about, they got up and walked out. I don’t know what they’re going to do exactly, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I understand from Mani that there was a confrontation with De Haan in the Hortus.’

  ‘The Hortus?’ Tiny repeated pensively. ‘Then he’d made very good progress. I’d sent Raven there …’

  ‘According to Mani, someone was there shooting with a bow and arrow. Peter de Haan apparently told the police that there were two victims. We don’t know who they are yet, but we’re afraid that Raven was one of them. We’ve not heard from him since then. De Haan managed to escape. He hid in the Observatory, but they got inside there too. A member of staff was taken to hospital with an arrow in his shoulder. And De Haan was arrested.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Arnold van Tiegem is dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After the tunnel collapsed—’

  ‘Yes, but that was the plan …’

  ‘After the tunnel collapsed, Peter de Haan and Arnold van Tiegem went to have a look inside it. The rebels had two Soldiers down there waiting for them. Van Tiegem was the only one who went far enough into the tunnel. They knocked him out, and then they dumped him in the canal. He drowned.’

  ‘And how do you know all this?’ the priest asked, with a trace of scepticism in his voice.

  ‘I talked to Mani.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘They were trying to get Mani to join them, so they told him everything. They pretty much poured a whole bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau into Van Tiegem.’

  ‘ Beaujolais Nou … why, in heaven’s name?’

  ‘Young wine … they stuffed a note into his mouth. It said “New wine in an old skin.”’

  Tiny knew how significant these words were. In a discussion with John the Baptist’s disciples, Jesus told a parable about not putting new wine into old wineskins. The brittle leather bags would tear, the wine would be spilled and both wine and wineskin would be lost. But if the new wine was put into soft, new skins, then both would be saved. Metaphorically, it meant that you shouldn’t preach new ideas in an environment that was unable to make effective use of them.

  In the case of Mithras, Ane had turned the parable around: old wine in a new skin. In other words: the old stories of Mithras recast as new stories of Jesus. You were using new ways to present something that everyone was already familiar with, but essentially, nothing had changed.

  ‘Why did they do that?’

  ‘Maybe it was meant to be a red herring. Like that note, they’ll drive themselves mad trying to work out what that means. They stuck the empty wine bottle in the waistband of his trousers.’

  Tiny sighed deeply. ‘And the phone? You’d put an app on it, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Cerberus …’

  Cerberus was an app that allowed you to remotely control your mobile phone. It could read contacts, track its location, turn on the microphone, record videos and take photos.

  Tiny smiled at the name that had been chosen for this anti-theft app. Cerberus, or Kerberos, the monstrous hound of Greek mythology with three heads, a serpent for a tail, and the heads of countless snakes on his back. He guarded the underworld, making sure that the dead could not leave and the living could not enter.

  ‘The phone went quiet for a long time at the Hortus. It’s at the police station on the Langegracht now. They must have found it when they were looking for the bodies. We could see that it got there after De Haan arrived. He must have thrown it away or lost it. It means we can’t follow De Haan now, in any case.’

  ‘The camera?’

  ‘It looks like the camera on the phone is broken, probably got damaged somehow. We’re just getting a black screen.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Go to our house on the Rapenburg? We can discuss it there.’

  Tiny dashed upstairs to his bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time. He quickly put on his trousers and shirt, and pulled a warm jumper over the top.

  When he got back downstairs, they both went down to the basement where they pushed aside a cupboard. They rolled away the rug that it had been standing on. Tiny used a long, iron crowbar to loosen a large flagstone. They pushed the stone aside to reveal a wooden hatch with a rusty metal ring.

  Tiny found two flashlights and gave one to his helper. He opened the hatch and they descended into the darkness together.

  They walked along the tunnel in silence until they came to a blank, stone wall. Tiny deftly pushed some of the stones inwards, and pulled others forwards. Then, with palms flat on the wall, the two men moved the wall aside. It scraped over the tiled floor, creating an opening just big enough for them to pass through.

  They walked on.

  ‘Father,’ the young man said hesitantly, ‘what if De Haan fails?’

  ‘Listen,’ Tiny said, ‘if he’s unsuccessful, it’s a sign that the hour has not yet come. That I was wrong after all. It’s simple: if we are striving to do the work of man, it will come to nothing. But if we are doing the work of the Lord, their opposition will achieve nothing, and they may even find that they are in opposition with him. Whichever it is, there’s …’ The priest stopped and turned around. ‘There’s no way back now. The die has been cast.’

  After opening two more walls to clear their way, they arrived in a part of the tunnel that was different to the one they had just walked down. The ceiling was much lower and they had to stoop to avoid banging their heads. The tiled floor was replaced by a layer of sand on top of compacted soil and clay. Somewhere, water was dripping and puddles had gathered here and there on the ground. The passageway w
as much narrower here and the two men had to hold their arms out straight in front of them so that they wouldn’t get stuck. The walls and ceiling were braced with wooden beams, a construction that looked makeshift and slipshod in sharp contrast to the well-made tunnels that had led them here. This space had not been part of the original design.

  The tunnel branched off in different directions at regular intervals, but Tiny strode though it, confidently finding his way in the labyrinth. Whenever he came down here, he was filled with enormous pride in this underground city of theirs that the people above them knew nothing about. He was part of an ancient tradition, the latest in a long line of wise men who had passed their secrets down through the generations. It was a proud heritage.

  Tiny and the Soldier slowed their pace when the way ahead of them changed again and resembled the tunnel where they had first entered the labyrinth: a higher, vaulted ceiling and a tiled floor. They stopped at a stone staircase.

  The Soldier waited while Tiny climbed the stairs and rapped out a sequence of knocks on a wooden hatch above him.

  The sounds of shuffling and banging came from behind the hatch before it opened.

  They blinked in the light that suddenly illuminated their underworld.

  ‘Hello Father.’ The man in the room greeted Tiny with reverence.

  ‘Hello Daniël.’

  31

  Saturday 21 March, 8:00am

  Peter was woken from a dreamless sleep by someone shaking him vigorously. He drowsily opened his eyes and found himself looking directly at Mani, whose face hovered alarmingly close to his own.

  ‘Come on,’ Mani whispered, quietly but urgently. ‘We have to—’

  Peter shot upright. ‘What?’ he said sleepily. ‘I need to … What time is it? I don’t have time for this. I can explain it all later.’ He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, massaging his eyelids in circles. ‘So you did know what I was talking about,’ he said. ‘Do you know where Ju—’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock,’ Mani said, cutting him off. He was still whispering but he sounded determined. ‘Come on, we need to get a move on. I’m going to help you get out of here, but please, you have to do exactly what I say. In a moment, we’re going to leave this cell together. As soon as we reach the desk, break free and run. Go out through the back door, the one you came in through. Here’s your wallet.’

  ‘And then? Where do I go then?’ Peter asked, putting the wallet in his trouser pocket.

  ‘There’s a fence between the car park and the back gardens of the houses on the Oude Singel. Climb over it and try to go—’

  They heard a voice. ‘Hey, Mani, what’s taking so long?’ There was another officer standing in the doorway. ‘Get a move on, they’re waiting for you.’

  ‘I was just telling him his rights. We’re coming now.’

  Peter stood up and put his arms behind his back.

  ‘No need for that,’ Mani said affably. ‘It’s only a short walk.’ He allowed Peter to walk ahead of him and asked his colleague to close the cell door behind them.

  Peter frowned and tried to look behind him, but Mani pushed him forwards. Peter didn’t think his plan had a chance of working. He also didn’t completely understand why Mani was helping him, but it seemed important to him that Peter completed his quest. It was worth a try. The worst that could happen would be that he’d fail and they’d arrest him again.

  As they approached the desk, Peter saw the door to the car park on his left. The only other person in the hall was a female police officer, who looked at him curiously and gave him a friendly smile.

  ‘Now,’ Mani whispered, almost inaudibly, behind him.

  Peter froze. Then he launched himself backwards, ramming his whole body into Mani. Mani crashed to the floor immediately, knocking over the female officer behind him as he fell.

  She got back up again. ‘Hey!’ she shouted indignantly.

  Peter ran to the door, flung it open and went outside, squinting in the bright morning sun. He sprinted to the back of the car park and found that, just as Mani had said, it was surrounded by a high fence. He heard the door open again behind him. Someone shouted at him to stand still. Without looking back, he jumped onto the bonnet of a parked car, then scrambled onto its roof. He gripped the top of the fence with both hands and launched himself over it. It was just like leaping over the vaulting horse at school, except that his landing was two metres lower and much harder. He was grateful for the bushes in the garden that broke his fall. Without thinking, he ran over the lawn to the back door of a house where a man, woman and two children were sitting in the kitchen eating breakfast. The children were dressed in football kits, ready to go to a match.

  Four startled faces looked up when Peter opened the door. By the time the man had got to his feet, Peter had already reached the other side of the room.

  ‘Sorry, so sorry,’ he said as he ran into the hall. There was a bunch of keys hanging in the front door. In one fluid movement, he took them out, opened the door and closed it behind him. Then he locked it to make it more difficult for them to follow him. He threw the keys into a flower pot next to the front door.

  He turned left and shot over the Janvossenbrug and onto the Vollersgracht. When he reached the end of the street, he slowed his pace to a walk. A running man was likely to draw too much attention. But he was also aware that the police would come out in full force to find him now.

  He feverishly tried to think of what he should do next. He was three steps away from finding Judith: the Persian, the Sun-Runner and the Father … And he had just under six hours left.

  ‘Collection, collection,’ he said to himself.

  The first thing he thought of was a church. It was obvious, yes. But which one? Leiden was full of churches: the Marenkerk, the Coelikerk, the Hooglandse Kerk, the Waalse Kerk, the Lutherse Kerk, there were two Pieterskerks, and that was just in the town centre.

  Everything came back to Paul … Saint Paul.

  The Pieterskerk, he thought suddenly. It had to be! Although everyone knew that the church was named for Saint Peter, few people knew that it was also dedicated to Saint Paul. Its full name should really have been the Pieter en Pauluskerk.

  He had to keep moving. He decided to stick to the narrowest alleys and took a zigzagging route to the Pieterskerk, with his head down, eyes to the ground.

  When he arrived, he found the side door open. Inside, the church was bustling with people unpacking boxes of books onto trestle tables for what looked like a book fair.

  He started to walk over to the other side of the nave where a large, antique wooden chest had stood for many years as the church’s permanent collection box. The money inside it was no longer used for religious purposes – the church had been deconsecrated in 1975 – but for the maintenance of the church itself.

  There was a man standing next to the collection box. Peter wasn’t sure who he was or what he was doing there, so he changed direction in a way that he hoped would look casual to anyone who might see him.

  He tried to conceal himself behind the copper bars of the colossal choir screen, the oldest in the Netherlands. A pointless exercise, since the wide gaps between the bars made it useless as a hiding place.

  Above the screen’s gates, a wooden panel in the form of two tablets proclaimed the Ten Commandments. On the reverse, there was a quotation from the eleventh chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians about the institution of the Lord’s Supper. That man was everywhere once you were aware of him, Peter thought with wonder. He was ashamed to admit that he’d not noticed these words before, even though he had walked past them dozens of times.

  As always, it struck him as odd that so few believers were concerned by the absurdity of the request made by a Jewish rabbi that they should drink his blood to remember him after his death. There was no greater blasphemy, no greater violation of the kosher laws and their prohibition of the consumption of blood. And that was apart from the fact that Yahweh would forgive those who repented anyway, wi
thout first having to sacrifice his own son for them. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us – there was no sacrifice necessary. Child sacrifice … According to the Old Testament, there was no greater abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

  Peter looked over at the collection box again. The man was gone. Without pausing to reflect on whether that was good news or bad, he decided to walk over to the chest. He answered the ‘good mornings’ of the booksellers with a nod, and hoped they’d assume he was one of them.

  On top of the large wooden box was a slot surrounded by a frame of ironwork. Apart from a sheet of A4 describing how the money inside it would be used, Peter couldn’t see anything that might help him.

  He looked behind the chest and crouched down to see if there was anything near it on the floor, but there was nothing there.

  Surely it won’t be inside it, he thought, with a rising sense of hopelessness.

  He looked closely at the A4 information sign in its hard, plastic cover.

  The Persian … he thought. The Persian is the reaper … Just like taking up a collection is a sort of reaping. Paul announced that he was going to take up a collection. Perhaps he did it to ingratiate himself with the Christian community in Jerusalem …

  Peter was aware that it would be dangerous to stand still for too long. But if there wasn’t a clue here, where else could it be?

  He read the sign again, hoping that a clue would jump out at him that he had missed the first few times he’d read it. Then he noticed something sticking out of the back of the plastic cover. At first it looked like part of the same sheet of A4 that the information sign was printed on, but when he turned it around, he saw that a small piece of paper had been tucked inside the cover. Using the nails on his thumb and middle finger like tweezers, he gently tugged at the paper until it came out.

  It was a thin strip of paper. On it, was a single line of text.

  32