The Pilgrim Conspiracy Read online

  The Pilgrim Conspiracy

  JEROEN WINDMEIJER

  One More Chapter

  an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

  First published in Holland in 2018 by HarperCollins Holland, as Het Pilgrim Fathers Complot

  Copyright © Jeroen Windmeijer 2018

  Translation copyright © HarperCollins Holland 2019

  Cover Design © Wil Immink Design

  Cover image © red_moon_rise/Getty Images

  Emojis © Shutterstock.com

  Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Jeroen Windmeijer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008379179

  Version: 2020-04-03

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Preface

  Part One: The Old World

  Chapter 1: Leiden

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Exodus: The story in a nutshell

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Two: The New World

  Chapter 25: Boston

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part Three: The Promised Land

  Chapter 33: Sinai

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Eisodus

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Consulted literature

  Afterword by Piet van Vliet

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Jeroen Windmeijer

  About the Publisher

  After Moses and Aaron arrived, they told Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD God of Israel says: ‘“Let my people go so they may make a pilgrimage for me in the desert.”’

  Exodus 5:1

  Preface

  In the spring of 2017, linguist Piet van Vliet found a unique manuscript in the archives of Leiden’s Heritage Organisation. It offers a rare glimpse into the lives and minds of the Mayflower Pilgrims. Seeking a home where they would be free to practise their faith, these Puritan English Protestants came to Leiden in 1609. No longer safe or welcome in England under King James I, they stayed in the relatively tolerant Netherlands for eleven years. In 1620, part of the group boarded the Mayflower and set sail for the New World where they became the original founders of the United States of America. They took with them many seventeenth-century Dutch ideas that we might think of as being modern, such as the separation of church and state, civil marriage, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

  Principally, the manuscript tells the story we already know about the Separatist Christians who were persecuted for their faith. Nonetheless, its discovery is sure to generate great excitement in academic circles – and far beyond. Any manuscript written by an ordinary citizen reporting on historical events in a personal way is a valuable resource for historians, providing insights into how major events affected the lives of common people. Often, such documents paint a different picture to the one that we see in the historiography. But this personal document – the writings of an anonymous chronicler of the Leiden Pilgrims’ daily lives – is much more than that. It not only contains crucial information that will allow historians to add nuance to some of the assumptions that have been made about the Leiden Pilgrims in the past, but it also brings to light new details that could explain why one part of the group eventually chose to emigrate to America while the majority stayed behind in the Netherlands. As a result, it is likely that the history books will, at least partially, need to be rewritten.

  It is not immediately apparent who the intended audience for this document might have been. It is obviously not a journal. Did the author want to record the Pilgrims’ trials and tribulations for posterity? Was it intended for personal use? Was he the group’s historian? There are large gaps between entries, often spanning many years, and it seems probable that the author’s accounts of the intervening episodes have been lost.

  But the discovery of a manuscript hidden for almost four centuries is the stuff of adventure tales, a find that every historian hopes to make at least once in his life. In their documentary, New Light on the Pilgrim Fathers, Leiden TV’s Lisette Schouten and Guido Marsman have created a fascinating reconstruction of this extraordinary story. It is a story that I will explore in detail later in my book.

  Does this manuscript answer all our questions? Can we now write a definitive history of the Mayflower Pilgrims?

  The answer is … no.

  What is certain to frustrate anyone with even a passing interest in the Pilgrims, from the academics at home and abroad who specialise in the period to the curious layman, is that the final pages of the document appear to be missing. Did the author omit them intentionally? Or did someone else decide that we could read up to this point and no further?

  The author makes a promise on the last pages – the last pages that we know to exist – that certain secrets will soon be revealed. The idea so appeals to our curiosity and imagination that we can safely assume that the dust that has literally been stirred up by this ancient manuscript is unlikely to settle any time soon.

  The translation from old English and Dutch has been executed by the inimitable Piet van Vliet himself. Thanks to his smooth conversion into modern language, we feel as though we are being addressed from the distant past by a fellow human being who, with all his quotidian worries and ordinary cares, is more like us than we could ever have thought possible.

  The resulting document was the inspiration for this novel in which I have attempted to fill in the gaps of history in a plausible way. I am extraordinarily grateful to Piet van Vliet for choosing this novel as the platform for his manuscript.
After all, an article in a historical journal would only be read by a few specialists, but now, the information contained in this unique text can be made available to a wider audience.

  Jeroen Windmeijer

  PART ONE

  THE OLD WORLD

  LEIDEN

  Chapter 1

  Peter de Haan gripped the handle of the door that led to the lodge room, as the Freemasons called their meeting place or temple. The open evening at which the lodge’s chairman, Worshipful Master Coen Zoutman, had told visitors about ‘his’ lodge, Loge Ishtar, was drawing to a close. After his presentation, guests and lodge members had gathered at the drinks reception in the function room downstairs while the chairman himself had stayed upstairs in the temple to answer the questions of curious visitors. The event had, after all, been a unique opportunity for outsiders to see inside the Masonic Hall on the Steenschuur canal, a building that was usually shrouded in mystery.

  Peter and his girlfriend Fay Spežamor were ready to leave, but Fay didn’t want to go without saying goodbye to Coen. Fay had been a member of Loge Ishtar since its foundation in 2014. As a lodge made up of both male and female Masons, Ishtar was very unusual at a time when Freemasonry was still almost exclusively male and had only recently started to accept female members.

  A sudden feeling of dread washed over Peter, making him reluctant to push down on the door handle.

  Fay, who was right behind him and not expecting him to stop, bumped into his back. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, startled.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Peter answered. Then, very slowly, he opened the door.

  The main lights in the temple had been switched off. A single spotlight blazed in the darkness.

  Peter and Fay followed the widening ray of light.

  Suddenly, they both held their breath as though they had just jumped into the freezing water of an ice-cold river together.

  In front of them, perfectly illuminated on the black and white tiles like a toppled king on a chessboard, lay the body of the Worshipful Master.

  Fay let out a scream then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it.

  Peter ran over to the chairman. His head was surrounded by a pool of blood. On the tiled floor next to him was a gavel, bloody and covered in hair. Sticking out of his chest was a set square that looked like it had been put there with tremendous force. But strangest of all was the pair of compasses that had been stabbed through his clasped hands.

  Although he knew it was pointless, Peter pressed the index and middle finger of his right hand to the man’s neck. There was no sign of life.

  Peter turned to Fay who stood motionless in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hand still pressed over her mouth. In a daze, he shook his head, then stood up and took his phone out of his pocket to call 112.

  Do I ask for the police or an ambulance, he thought.

  He keyed in 112, and the screen lit up. The call was answered on the first ring.

  ‘Do you require police, fire or ambulance?’ The voice was friendly but slightly brusque.

  ‘Police,’ said Peter. ‘In Leiden.’

  He was transferred immediately.

  ‘Leiden Police,’ said a female voice a few seconds later. ‘What’s your emergency?’

  He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘Hello. This is Peter de Haan. I, uh … Someone has been murdered … I …’

  ‘Sorry, could you repeat that please?’

  Peter composed himself. ‘We need the police, and I think we need an ambulance as well, but the victim is already dead.’

  ‘Where are you now, sir?’

  ‘I’m … We’re in Leiden, on the Steenschuur. Steenschuur number 6.’

  ‘Hold the line please while I request those services. They should arrive within the next ten minutes.’

  There was a short silence.

  Then the woman asked, ‘Can you tell me what’s happened?’

  ‘We’re in the Masonic Hall. There was an open evening. I’m with my girlfriend in one of the rooms, the temple, and the chairman of the lodge is lying on his back on the floor. It looks like he’s been attacked with a large Masonic gavel.’

  ‘You’re sure he’s not alive?’

  ‘Yes. I checked his pulse. There’s no sign of life.’

  Peter stared down at the man whose friendly face had looked out over this room just a short while ago. He walked slowly backwards towards Fay, keeping his gaze fixed on Coen’s lifeless body.

  ‘What’s the victim’s name?’

  He reached Fay’s side, and she put her hand lightly on his back.

  ‘He’s called Coen …’ He looked at Fay enquiringly.

  ‘… Zoutman,’ she said.

  ‘Zoutman,’ Peter said. ‘Coen Zoutman. Coen with a “C”.’

  He heard the staccato rattle of a keyboard.

  ‘The police will be with you shortly, Meneer De Haan,’ the woman said. ‘Please don’t touch anything, and make sure that nobody else enters the room. Are you listening, Meneer De Haan?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Peter replied distractedly.

  ‘There’s an ambulance on the way too, sir,’ the operator said. ‘Again, don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone else into the room. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘When assistance arrives, I’ll disconnect this call. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The number you’re calling from, is that your own phone?’

  ‘Yes, it’s mine. Peter de Haan.’

  She asked him for his address, and he told it to her.

  ‘Could you please also make sure that no one leaves the building?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Lots of people have left already,’ Peter said. ‘But I’ll let everyone else know.’

  The other end of the line was quiet for so long that Peter began to wonder if the operator was still there at all.

  Then she spoke again. ‘I’ve just received a report that the police are outside Steenschuur 6. They’ll take over from here.’ She said goodbye and hung up.

  Peter stared blankly at the phone in his hand as though he hoped that it could provide answers to the tornado of questions in his head.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Fay, who still hadn’t spoken.

  Fay left her hand on Peter’s back even as they left the temple as if she was afraid she might fall if she let go.

  Just as he closed the door behind them, the doorbell rang in the hall below.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go back downstairs,’ Peter said.

  Fay nodded and moved her hand away. The warm spot where it had been cooled instantly.

  ‘Peter?’ she asked him.

  He turned towards her, and she put her arms around him. ‘This … is … crazy,’ she said shakily.

  They let go of each other and went downstairs.

  The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

  Peter opened the door.

  Two young police officers – one male, one female – stood in front of him. They were visibly nervous.

  ‘Good evening,’ the policewoman said. ‘My name’s Dijkstra, Leiden Police. Are you Meneer De Haan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You reported that you found a body. Where’s the victim?’

  ‘Upstairs, in the temple.’

  Without waiting to be invited in, the two police officers entered the front hall.

  ‘Van Hal,’ the male officer said as Peter politely shook his hand.

  They went upstairs.

  ‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ Peter called after them. ‘I’m just taking my girlfriend into the other room.’

  Neither of the police officers responded.

  Fay stood perfectly still. She only seemed to come to life again when Peter gently touched her. She smiled at him vacantly, as if she was trying to remember who he was.

  Peter held her tightly as they walked into the function room together. Everyone in the room lifted their heads to look at them, sensing that somet
hing unusual was going on. The chatter stopped abruptly as if the sound had been muted with a remote control.

  Peter settled Fay onto a chair and brought her a glass of water which she drank with tiny sips. Then he addressed the group that had gathered in a semi-circle around him. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’m Peter de Haan, Fay’s boyfriend. I’m afraid something terrible has happened. A few minutes ago, Fay and I went upstairs to say goodbye to the Worshipful Master. We found him lying on the floor. He’s dead.’

  Cries of horror filled the room. A few people started to cry.

  ‘I’ve called 112. There are already two police officers upstairs in the temple. I’m going to go up to talk to them now, but until we hear otherwise, no one is allowed to leave the building.’

  Peter wanted to check on Fay first, but she appeared to be in good hands. Some of her Masonic brothers and sisters had gathered around her like a protective shell.

  Back upstairs, he hesitated in the temple doorway.

  When she saw him hovering there, the female police officer, who was crouched down beside Coen Zoutman’s body, got up. Her male colleague was talking into his radio.

  ‘So you were the one who found him?’ she asked as she walked towards Peter.

  Her blue plastic shoe covers rustled on the tiles.

  ‘That’s right,’ Peter said. ‘Me and my partner, my girlfriend. You just saw her. Fay Spežamor. I was a guest here tonight. There was an open evening. The chairman gave a talk, an introduction to Freemasonry. After it finished, we went downstairs. That was at about ten o’clock, I think. There was a reception down in the function room, but he spent the rest of the evening up here, talking to people and answering questions. Fay and I wanted to say goodbye to him before we went home. That’s why we came back up.’

  ‘Do you know who saw him alive last?’

  ‘No … There was a big group of people still up here waiting to talk to the Worshipful Master after we’d gone downstairs.’

  ‘The Worshipful Master?’

  ‘I mean the lodge chairman. Sorry. Coen Zoutman. Inside this building, he’s addressed as “the Worshipful Master”. But … look, there were a lot of people coming and going up here. Downstairs too. It was an open evening. I think it’s going to be very difficult to—’