St Paul’s Labyrinth: The explosive new thriller perfect for fans of Dan Brown and Robert Harris!
Jeroen Windmeijer
PERFECT FOR FANS OF DAN BROWN, ROBERT HARRIS AND SCOTT MARIANIA shocking secret that has been buried for centuries…When university professor Peter de Haan attends a library event, he has no idea of the dangers that await him. As an area outside the library collapses, a hidden tunnel is revealed. Inside cowers a naked man, covered in blood. Then Peter receives a mysterious text message – the hour has come…When Peter’s colleague Judith disappears, he realises he has been drawn into a plot with consequences deadlier than he could ever have imagined. He has twenty-four hours to find her, otherwise she will be killed.As Peter investigates, he uncovers mysteries that have been hidden for years. But following his every footstep is an underground society who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden. Will Peter save Judith in time, or will his quest end in disaster?An intelligent, impeccably researched thriller full of mystery, adventure and history
St Paul’s Labyrinth
JEROEN WINDMEIJER
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright (#u8d2e7ba7-c236-5593-bda2-f31cab40cfcf)
KillerReads
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
First published in Holland in 2017 by HarperCollins Holland, as Het Pauluslabyrint
Copyright © Jeroen Windmeijer 2017
Translation copyright © HarperCollins Holland 2017
Cover Design © Wil Immink Design
Cover images © Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com/) and iStockphoto.com (https://www.istockphoto.com/gb)
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 © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008318468
Version: 2018-08-08
Table of Contents
Cover (#u01277bc9-088d-554d-88c2-9e1fb2d715d8)
Title Page (#u7ad4be83-b102-57ee-906d-cda732becf85)
Copyright (#u56abfdad-ff1c-5a8c-80c9-49c7cd0f260b)
Prologue (#u90662414-43b6-55eb-958e-4b8f26a6f1a0)
Chapter 1 (#u310ecb3a-31f4-5c8f-8a88-1f2e90d6a26b)
Chapter 2 (#u76ab2f22-665d-5bc9-aada-b8ffb08940bf)
Chapter 3 (#u31264ec5-a734-5dde-9960-ce6ccfb9eaa9)
Chapter 4 (#u2d59185c-4761-5641-bb46-36d51c288c4c)
Chapter 5 (#u8bf25e42-8e03-5b52-a276-2bf6bd412edd)
Chapter 6 (#u9ee247c6-fe9d-598c-ae99-160fe9947708)
Chapter 7 (#u93346914-60f0-5686-bf31-87ad31832d52)
Chapter 8 (#u36bc4532-c972-5890-a8ed-0e04561645d0)
Chapter 9 (#u182450ea-1789-5e1c-8df8-dea55d9d3037)
Chapter 10 (#u3579669c-0221-5a67-8545-45593d17e557)
Chapter 11 (#u54bbcc5a-89ac-5531-9186-b28046395e9e)
Chapter 12 (#ud1bd199e-ffe7-5e0c-8a1e-4a729d7e4e15)
Chapter 13 (#u91ddf9e8-2e5a-59ea-8266-e5e5ab650a05)
Chapter 14 (#u618bf5e2-59b1-5cdf-9644-2c4b7c9942c8)
Chapter 15 (#u7e613476-ad9c-5083-89e9-27b1cb3124eb)
Chapter 16 (#u874cc27f-1640-5ea6-9c3d-82f289a579bc)
Chapter 17 (#ud4fa07e2-28b7-5efb-8184-4fcb4dbae336)
Chapter 18 (#udf4fd9c7-0f18-53b7-9005-d108747e7879)
Chapter 19 (#uf7f5872b-22c2-5577-a445-5ef5fcc4f360)
Chapter 20 (#u49321c75-d0d7-5fcb-85fc-6bd6988522bc)
Chapter 21 (#ua7228322-46b8-535e-850a-b8e0db9295e5)
Chapter 22 (#u6135e484-2f10-5fc1-baf7-152bc81423fb)
Chapter 23 (#udd23e2c4-c47d-5212-92c0-e0af10769bd6)
Chapter 24 (#u9db503b1-87fa-5369-910a-28328df386b2)
Chapter 25 (#ue29a6ad4-dd3a-5fd0-a267-b809579e31b6)
Chapter 26 (#u075e2802-e72f-513c-a3be-1948315578a9)
Chapter 27 (#u03964435-b1bc-5b76-9d8c-46c973286637)
Chapter 28 (#ubfc0e38c-a112-5780-a97e-2e1e826b7fe6)
Chapter 29 (#u5c7bbaa2-a37e-5432-99b3-eabbb5499283)
Chapter 30 (#ue1eb6d2e-5899-58e1-b9fc-ba7250e9c9c2)
Chapter 31 (#ufcb66755-1aa7-566d-bc3a-76d677857956)
Chapter 32 (#u483e4f08-7066-5c14-9be9-85131b598056)
Chapter 33 (#ua0733526-f8fe-576a-a920-b02b0061d31d)
Chapter 34 (#ubde5678b-1506-582c-bd57-ae6e47ef4e64)
Chapter 35 (#u94b62c5a-567d-520f-9322-f260db002687)
Chapter 36 (#uf71a7507-0681-5112-b8f0-790f9677a9ec)
Chapter 37 (#u631fb44f-e4a8-56b1-ac0a-2d0bfece236b)
Chapter 38 (#uccfd2288-4c40-5d39-9837-49935f81bcf5)
Chapter 39 (#u3d9fd6fc-bf0c-58ec-ac5d-ce8f7040e333)
Chapter 40 (#udae401b7-2ada-50f6-b5f1-fc2e36f2add4)
Chapter 41 (#u629d20aa-d36e-5713-8a98-ce0227587e6d)
Chapter 42 (#u7fe0b4ef-0568-5da6-b57d-82f9c2d30d12)
Chapter 43 (#u82ffb758-59c5-56c2-853d-f72d5b5e1fb3)
Chapter 44 (#ud54687bd-524e-5a3f-b29f-130d302f8255)
Chapter 45 (#u61624338-f756-5618-a1fb-a51b0b1b0869)
Chapter 46 (#udef5eb1f-1371-581a-9da7-d88247d17bab)
Chapter 47 (#ua6372d34-3712-5878-a2fa-bd42eb20b443)
Chapter 48 (#ue2b83fba-3759-5f1f-b22d-91576537a49a)
Chapter 49 (#uc2a4f2d6-b607-5cce-a4bc-5f7053d0bed0)
Epilogue (#u06bed7a4-268c-5a10-8fbb-ab598794695a)
Acknowledgements (#uaa756436-6b6d-5c28-8702-5da01405f807)
Consulted Literature (#u452ea9e9-e257-5a78-bae9-b60284b28c73)
Notes (#ua7a5df8e-6380-5026-a902-721be8440e0d)
About the Author (#u65329905-e8b2-535a-ae3d-a1b0346c3f7d)
About the Publisher (#u8eca214f-0a3f-5e4d-8037-fbbfb30157e2)
PROLOGUE (#u8d2e7ba7-c236-5593-bda2-f31cab40cfcf)
Mérida (Hispania), 72 AD
The executioner draws his sharpened dagger across the convict’s belly, slicing it open with a single cut. A torrent of blood gushes out, like water breaking through the walls of a dyke. The man screams in agony as his guts spill like skinned snakes down to his knees. Then the birdmen come, their eagles balanced on their leather armguards. The birds’ sharp beaks take great, greedy bites of the man’s exposed liver. The three other men, lashed to wooden stakes and doomed to the same fate, struggle hopelessly to escape.
The audience is ecstatic. This amphitheatre, built during the reign of Caesar Augustus, is big enough to hold sixteen thousand. Today, every single seat of its three tiers is occupied.
After the venatio, the staged hunt of exotic beasts, comes the spectacle of public executions. During today’s underwhelming opening act, in which a few criminals were merely beheaded, many took the opportunity to relieve themselves in the catacomb latrines.
The executions are inspired by stories from ancient Greece and the public appreciates the creativity with which they are carried out. After the eagles have eaten their fill of entrails and the four men have died – as in the tale of Prometheus – four wooden ramps are wheeled into the arena. In the middle of each ramp is an enormous boulder. Convicts are brought out to recreate the Sisyphean task of rolling the rocks to the top of the ramps, a feat which they naturally all fail to accomplish. The sound of their breaking bones travels all the way up to the third tier.
Another group of men is sent into the sweltering arena. They have gone without food and drink for days and must now attempt to reach the bread and jugs of water that dangle from the stands on long poles. To the crowd’s delight, just before they grasp them, the poles are raised high above their heads, making the bread and water as unreachable as they were for Tantalus. When the public’s attention begins to wane, starved dogs are released to rip the men apart.
Now, eight men covered in oil and pitch are brought into the ring and tied to stakes. Roman boys, none of them a day over twelve, shoot flaming arrows at the prisoners until they eventually begin to burn. The men scream as they meet their fiery end and a murmur of approval rumbles around the amphitheatre. This may not have been inspired by a Greek story, but it is a novelty that has never been seen before.
A late arrival makes his way to the stands and looks for a seat on the end of one of the benches. He is small, and his legs are crooked, but he looks sturdy, with eyebrows that meet above a long nose. He is a charismatic man and he radiates the serenity of an angel. A brief look at the young man who is already sitting on the end of the bench is all that is needed to create space. He takes his seat and sets his small earthenware jug on the ground next to his feet.
While the dead criminals are dragged from the arena and the patches of blood are covered with fresh sand, musicians and fools do their best to entertain the public with acrobatic antics. The crowd cheers as dozens of boys and girls enter the stands carrying huge baskets of bread between them. The distribution of bread at the games began two years ago in Rome and was so popular among the commoners that the practice rapidly spread to every corner of the Empire. The boys and girls walk up the steps, throwing hunks of bread into the crowds. A forest of arms reaches up to meet them where they land. Once caught, the bread is swiftly tucked beneath cloaks, leaving hands free to snatch another piece.
‘Panem et tauros,’ the youngster says mockingly to the old man next to him. Bread and bulls. He takes the chunk of bread that has fortuitously landed in his lap and, without looking, sullenly hurls it in a huge arc behind him.
But this is what most people have come for today; for the bread, but mostly to see the bullfight.
The editor muneris, the sponsor of today’s games, orders the release of the bull by raising his arm in an impressive saluto romano. A deafening cheer fills the arena. The editor looks around the crowd, then, gratified, returns to lie on his couch. He picks up a small bunch of grapes from the lavishly spread table next to him and watches as the gigantic, wildly bucking bull enters the amphitheatre. The animal has been force-fed salt for days and denied even a drop of water. It has spent the last twenty-four hours in a stall too small for its enormous mass while its belly was battered with sandbags to cause internal bleeding. The game has been rigged before it has even begun. He cannot win today.
Now the ministri, the attendants, enter the arena. They taunt the bull with huge capes, assessing its strength, intelligence and fighting spirit. They wave the brightly coloured cloths with great bravado, skilfully dodging the bull’s charges. Gasps of awe pour down from the stands and into the arena, like the waters of a river tumbling down a mountainside.
The bull is judged worthy of the fight. Four venatores, hunters, come through the four gates of the battleground on horseback, each one clutching a verutum, a hunting spear, in his right hand. They enter like gods, wearing only loincloths. Spiky leaves of laurel are woven into their hair. Their horses, protected by heavy armour, are visibly frightened, but their vocal chords have been severed and they can make no sound.
They close in on the bull from four directions and it does not know which horse to attack, but the circle closes tighter and tighter around the bull until it is forced to launch itself at the nearest rider. As soon as it approaches one of the horses, the rider stands up in the stirrups to plunge his verutum into the bull’s neck, bearing down upon it with the weight of his entire body. The venatores each charge at the bull in turn, goring the bull’s neck at least once before retreating to loud applause. The bull is dazed and its head lolls as blood drips onto the ground from its wounds.
Then the mactator arrives, the star of the show, the bull killer, the man who will finish the job. He is a mountain of a man, dressed in a simple, short tunic, arms bare and lower legs covered by protectors. In each hand, he carries a pole as long as his arm, decorated with ribbons and ending in a barb. He walks towards the bull in a straight line. The more determinedly he follows this invisible path, the more the crowd admires his courage. Most of them are sitting again now, and instead of the cheers and yells that made all conversation impossible moments ago, there is silence, as though they are collectively holding their breath. The bull responds to the new threat heading towards him by scraping the sand with its hoof. With a guttural roar, the mactator commands the attention of the whole arena. When he is within a few steps of the bull, it charges. The taurarius, the bullfighter,spins neatly to avoid the attack, and before he finishes his pirouette, he drives a barbed lance between the bull’s shoulder blades. The arena explodes with joy, so graceful was the parry, so perfectly aimed the lance. Now the mactator runs away from the bull. Then, he circles back towards it, and with an impressive leap, lands his second spear next to the first.
Those who assume that the bull has given up are about to find that they are mistaken. The animal seems to know that this is its last chance to wound his attacker. It summons all its strength to lift up its head, while blood gushes from its wounds and long, bloody strings of mucus hang from its mouth.
The taurarius approaches the editor’s box, bends one knee on the sand and bows his head. The editor gives a small nod of approval, upon which the venator at the eastern gate comes forward to place a special headcovering on the mactator’s head – a soft, red conical cap with a point that falls forwards – and hand him the linteum, the half circle of red flannel, draped over a wooden rod.
The taurarius walks back to the bull. He waves the cloth tauntingly, and from somewhere, the beast finds the energy to make a few desperate lunges. The enthusiasm of the audience’s reaction spurs the bullfighter on to take even greater risks. This is the most dangerous stage of the fight. One moment of distraction could be fatal. The bull, stunned by pain and fear, could still mortally wound the mactator in a last attempt to avoid death by goring his unprotected belly with his horns.
But the liberating blast of a trumpet is already sounding and the venator comes scurrying over from his post at the western gate. In one hand he carries a light, curved sword – with a hilt in the form of a snake, the falcata – and in the other, a flaming torch. He hands over the falcata and takes up position behind the bull’s left flank. This is the hora veritatis, the hour of truth, when the mactator will end the beast’s suffering by plunging the sword between its shoulder blades and piercing its heart.
He stands before the exhausted animal. It is too tired now to even lift its head. He places his hand on its forehead and forces it to the ground, a flourish which brings a sigh of admiration from the crowd.
A minister rushes over from the eastern side of the arena. He carries a silver chalice in one hand and, in the other, a blazing torch which he points at the ground.
The bull is lying in the sand now, and the mactator straddles it with his knee on its right haunch and his other leg on the ground. He pulls its head back by the horn with his left hand and raises his right arm in the air. The falcata’s blade flashes in the sun. And then, with a masterful stroke, he brings the sword down and expertly slits the beast’s throat. Blood spurts out, soaking the sand with a powerful geyser of red until the bull finally succumbs. The curved sword is buried so deeply that the snake on the hilt appears to lick the bull’s wound.
‘Sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros.’ The old man in the stands murmurs a hopeful prayer. His blood be on us, and on our children.
The mactator rubs his bloodied hands across his face, as though washing himself with the blood. He is a terrifying sight now; the blood has mixed with sand and sweat, but he seems unmoved, and stares out at an imaginary point in the distance.
‘Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso,’ the old man whispers. And you have also saved us by shedding the eternal blood. The man pulls a hunk of bread from his sleeve and tears a piece from it as he stares intently at the spectacle in the arena.
The taurarius takes up the blade once more, this time to cut a chunk of flesh from the bull. He shows this to the audience then puts it in his mouth and swallows it whole.
‘Accipite et comedite, hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis datur.’ Take this and eat; this is my body which is given for you.
The old man closes his eyes, puts the piece of bread into his mouth, and chews thoughtfully, as though he is tasting bread for the first time in his life.
The mactator takes the chalice from the venator behind him and fills it with blood from the bull’s neck. This he also shows to the audience before emptying it one, long gulp.
‘Bibite, hic est sanguis meus qui pro multis effunditur.’ Drink, this is my blood poured out for many. The old man retrieves a small, earthenware jug of wine from under his seat. He twists the cork from it and takes a drink, swirls the wine around in his mouth then swallows.
The euphoric crowd chants the name of the taurarius and he stands up to begin his victory lap. Meanwhile, a venator removes the bull’s testicles with a pair of scissors shaped like a scorpion. These are believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac and will be offered to the editor later.
‘Iste, qui nec de corpore meo ederit nec de mea sanguine biberit ut mecum misceatur et ego cum eo miscear, salutem non habebit,’ the old man ends his ritual. He who does not eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, so that he remains in me and I in him, shall not know salvation.
A dog that has escaped from the catacombs seizes its chance to get close to the bull and lick at the blood still streaming from its neck. A minister delivers a well-aimed kick to its belly and it scuttles away, its teeth and muzzle red.
The people stand on the benches, waving white cloths to show their appreciation of the taurarius’ bravery and the elegance with which he has fought. A group of men jump into the arena to lift the bullfighter onto their shoulders. They parade him past his audience as wreaths and flowers rain down on him. Two ropes are fastened to the hind legs of the lifeless animal. A portion of the applause is surely meant for the bull as it exits the arena, leaving a bloody trail in the sand. Its meat will be served at the tables of the city’s wealthy families tonight. A small fortune will be paid for its tail, a delicacy when stewed with onions and wine.
The old man gets up and takes a last look at the arena behind him where the trail of blood in the sand is the only evidence that an unfair fight has taken place here today.
‘Consummatum est,’ he says, satisfied. It is finished.
1 (#u8d2e7ba7-c236-5593-bda2-f31cab40cfcf)
CORAX
RAVEN
Leiden, 20 March 2015, 1:00pm
Technically, Peter de Haan’s lecture was already over. He had given a brisk overview of Leiden’s most important churches in his ‘Introduction to the History of Leiden’ for Master’s students. It was part of an elective module, but it packed the small lecture theatre every year. He had stopped being surprised by it years ago, but it always did him good to see the theatre so full.
Some of the students had started to pack away their things, but they hadn’t yet dared to leave their seats. One young man watched him like a dog waiting for a command from its master.
An aerial photograph of the Hooglandse Kerk was projected onto the screen behind him. At the start of the fourteenth century, it had been no more than a small wooden chapel. By the end of the sixteenth century it had grown into a cathedral so enormous that it had become too big for its surroundings, like an oversized sofa in a tiny living room. The photograph also showed the Burcht van Leiden, the city’s iconic eleventh-century motte-and-bailey castle. This six-foot-tall crenelated circular stone wall was built on top of a man-made mound about twelve metres high.
Peter raised his hand, and the quiet chatter in the room immediately stopped. ‘I know you all want to go to lunch,’ he said, with a hint of hesitation in his voice, ‘but which of you are going to watch the first underground waste container being installed at the public library this afternoon?’
Most of the students looked at him politely, but none of them responded.
‘You know that there’s a major project starting in town at two o’clock today, installing these containers?’
‘I didn’t know about it, sir,’ said one young man politely, keeping his hand in the air as he spoke. ‘But why would we be interested in that?’
‘Well now, I’m so glad you asked,’ Peter said.
This response drew some chuckles from his audience. The students stopped what they were doing and accepted that they weren’t going to be allowed to leave just yet.
Peter grabbed his laser pointer and drew a circle around the church on the screen.
‘This might come as a surprise to you, but not much is known about Leiden’s origins or how it developed. There aren’t many opportunities to carry out archaeological research in the centre of town. The simple reason for that is that anywhere you might want to dig has been built on, as those of you who go into urban archaeology later will no doubt discover. We might, very occasionally, be given a brief opportunity to excavate when a building is demolished, but it’s extremely rare. This project means that we can go down as deep as three metres, at literally hundreds of sites across the city. Who knows what might be hidden beneath our feet?’
‘Or which skeletons will come out of the closet,’ said the young man.
‘Exactly!’ Peter replied enthusiastically. ‘Now it looks like we’d rehearsed that earlier, but it was actually going to be my next point. Look …’
He traced a route along the Nieuwstraat with a beam of red light. ‘This street used to be a canal, but like many of the other canals in Leiden, it was filled in. Some canals were covered over, overvaulted, meaning that instead of being filled with sand and debris, they were just roofed over and then the roads were built on top of them. You can still walk through some of them, like tunnels, but this one was infilled. The cemetery was here, on the other side of the church. But people were sometimes secretly buried in this area, near what used to be the canal, next to the church. Those were people who couldn’t afford to be buried in the churchyard but who wanted to be laid to rest as close to the church as they could get.’
His mobile phone started to vibrate in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He looked around the lecture theatre. If he kept on talking, he’d become that uncle who endlessly droned on about the past at parties.
‘You can go,’ he said instead. ‘I’ll see you all this afternoon!’
The room sprang to life again, as though he’d pressed play on a paused video. As they made their way to the door, the students filed past his desk to hand in their work. The course required a fortnightly submission of a short essay about one of the subjects they had covered.
The room was empty. Peter turned off the projector and gathered up his things. When he picked up the sheaf of papers, a blank envelope fell out from between them. He picked it up and looked at it. It was probably a note from a student apologising for the fact that various circumstances had prevented them from doing their assignment this week.
He was about to open it when Judith appeared in the doorway.
She smiled. ‘You’ve not forgotten, have you?’
‘How could I possibly forget an appointment with you?’ Peter said, stuffing the envelope in his bag with the rest of the papers.
He had met Judith Cherev, a woman in her early forties, twenty years ago when he had supervised her final dissertation. They had become close friends in the years that followed. She had researched the history of Judaism in Leiden for her PhD. Now she was a lecturer in the history department, as well as freelancing as a researcher for the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.
Her dark curls, accented here and there with a charming streak of grey, were effortlessly tied back with a thick elastic band. She was still a beautiful woman, slim, and dressed, as always, in a blouse and long skirt. The Star of David necklace that hung around her neck glinted in the fluorescent lights.
‘Did you just send me a text?’
Judith shook her head.
Peter took his phone from inside his jacket and opened the message.
Hora est.
He smiled.
‘What is it?’
‘I think one of my students wanted to let me know that it was time to stop talking.’
He walked over to the door with the bag under his arm and turned off the lights. He showed the message to Judith on the way.
The hora est – the hour has come – was the phrase with which the university beadle entered the room exactly three-quarters of an hour into a doctoral candidate’s defence of their thesis before the Doctoral Examination Board. At this point, the candidate was no longer permitted to talk, even if the beadle had entered mid-sentence. To most candidates, the words came as a huge relief.
‘That’s quite witty,’ Judith said, handing back the phone. ‘Odd that it was sent anonymously though.’
‘Probably scared that their wit will get them marked down.’ He deleted the message. Just as he was about to lock up the lecture hall, he noticed that someone had left a telephone on one of the tables, an iPhone that looked brand new. He walked back into the hall, picked it up and put it in his jacket pocket. Its owner would appear at his office door soon enough. The students were practically grafted to their phones.
They walked outside and headed for the university restaurant in the Lipsius Building. It had been called the Lipsius for years, but Peter still called it the LAK, the name of the theatre and arts centre that used to be there.
‘Mark is probably there already,’ Judith said, tenderly. ‘You know him. One o’clock means one o’clock.’
Mark was a professor in the theology department, a brilliant man with a history of mental illness. He and Judith were in a ‘LAT’ relationship, living together in every way except that they had each kept their own little houses in the Sionshofje. Because of the hofje’s rules, actually moving in together would mean moving out of the Sionshofje, and neither of them wanted to leave the picturesque little courtyard.
Inside the restaurant, students and tutors sat at long tables. A monotone din of chatter and clatter filled the room. The warmth and smells from the kitchen made the air in the room stuffy and humid.
As Judith had predicted, Mark was already sitting at a table and saving two seats for them. He waved.
They visited the buffet counter on their way over to him. Peter chose an extra-large salad and a glass of fresh orange juice and Judith picked up a bowl of soup with a slice of bread and cheese.
‘Well done,’ Judith complimented Peter, giving his stomach a teasing little pat.
Mark was already half way through his meal by the time they sat down. Judith kissed him lightly on the cheek, something that still gave Peter a pang of envy, even after many years.
‘What are your plans for the afternoon?’ Peter asked.
‘I have an appointment with someone at two, sounds like an older gentleman,’ Judith said. ‘He’s inherited some bits and pieces from a Jewish aunt’s estate. He found me via the museum. I’m going to drop by and see if any of them are suitable for our collection.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Peter.
‘Oh, usually these things end up being a disappointment, to be honest. But every now and then something special turns up. A bit like The Antiques Roadshow. Diaries, letters from a concentration camp, or just interesting everyday bits and pieces like kitchen utensils, tools and so on. You never know. I usually enjoy it anyway. They often just want someone to talk to …’
‘Never a dull moment with you, is there?’
‘Never a dull moment, no,’ she agreed. ‘And I want to plan a lecture for Monday, nothing out of the ordinary, really. I’ve got the next few days to myself.’ She put her hand on Mark’s arm.
‘Yep,’ said Mark. ‘I’m off to Germany again. A week with no phone, no internet, totally cut off from the rest of the world. Heaven.’
Once or twice a year, Mark retreated to the depths of the German forests, beyond the reach of cell phone towers, to ‘reflect’, as he called it. Judith would tease him by suggesting that he had a secret mistress, but she knew that he needed time to recharge now and then. He always came back revitalised, full of energy. The only compromise he made was that he agreed to venture back into civilisation once a week to call Judith and let her know how he was.
‘And this afternoon,’ Mark continued, ‘I want to spend a couple of hours working on an article I’m writing with Fay Spežamor. You know her, right? The Czech classicist, curator of Roman and Etruscan Art at the Museum of Antiquities.’
‘I’ve met her a few times, yes,’ Peter said. ‘Funnily enough, hers is the only mobile phone number I know off the top of my head. If you remember the first two numbers …’
‘Then you just need to keep adding two,’ Mark finished his sentence.
None of them spoke for a while.
‘Were you planning to do anything this afternoon then?’ Mark asked.
‘I’m going to go into town to see them install the container in the Nieuwstraat. I’ve been following the project a bit. The Cultural Heritage Department invited me. Daniël Veerman, Janna Frederiks … They’ve promised to let me know if they come across anything interesting.’
‘Oh yes! I wanted to show you something!’ Mark said suddenly, as though he hadn’t heard what Peter said at all. He pushed his tray aside. Underneath it was a large envelope, addressed in neat, unmistakably old-fashioned handwriting.
‘To the most noble and learned professor doctor M. Labuschagne,’ he read with amusement. ‘I need to send the author of this letter a quick reply this afternoon.’ He took a large bundle of densely typed pages out of the envelope. They had apparently been written on an old-fashioned typewriter. ‘This is one of those things …’ he said, leafing through them as though he was looking for something specific. ‘Ever since I graduated, people have been sending me things. Amateurs writing to tell me that they think they’ve found the code that makes the Book of Revelation all make sense, or that they have definitive proof that Jesus didn’t die on the cross …’
‘Or that the Apostle Peter is buried in Leiden,’ Judith joked.
They laughed.
‘But this … Look, usually it’s nonsense and probably not worth holding onto, but I keep everything. I might do something with them one day. Sometimes an idea seems crazy, or the whole world thinks an author is mad, but sometimes these people are just way ahead of their time. I had another one today, a Mr …’ He looked at the title page. ‘… Mr Goekoop from Zierikzee, Zeeland. It’s about the Burcht. He says that it originally had an astrological function. Look, he’s even drawn some diagrams.’
Mark held up a sheet of paper with a surprisingly good pen-and-ink illustration of Leiden’s castle. The artist had left space between the battlements so that the whole thing strongly resembled a megalithic circle, like Stonehenge.
‘He has this whole theory about how the first rays of the sun shine through the Burcht’s main gate on the equinox on March twenty-first, taking the earth’s precession into account. The precession is the way the axis moves. The earth is like a spinning top, its axis is never exactly vertical. It’s a bit complicated … He uses all these calculations to try to show that the original castle must have been built more than two thousand years ago. According to him, the word megalith is derived from the Greek mega-leithos, or, Great Leiden.’
‘That should be easy to check. Tomorrow is March twenty-first.’
‘Yes. But actually, it’s not that easy. The earth’s axis has shifted since then. Anyway, that part about the megalith is bunk, and the rest too, probably. Look at this; he thinks he has further proof of his theory in the three trees in the middle of the castle. Because they’re arranged in exactly the same way as the three stars on Orion’s belt. You know, like the Pyramids in Egypt.’
‘And that would make the Rhine the River Nile, I suppose?’
‘He says that the Rhine is the Lethe, or the Leythe, one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology, just like the Styx. According to him, the name Leythe is connected to Leiden of course.’
‘And this is what you spend your time on,’ said Peter.
‘It amuses me. You never know what someone is going to come up with. Sometimes the amateurs make surprising discoveries. But what fascinates me about this story is his theory that the Burcht was a centre for sun worship. He does have a point about the name Lugdunum …’
‘The Roman name for Katwijk.’
‘That’s right. But he reckons that it was originally the name given to the hill that the Burcht stands on. Lug is the name of the Celtic sun god, and dunum means “hill” or “mountain”. “Lug Hill”, or if you want to translate it more loosely, “the hill where Lug is worshipped”.’
‘With that sort of reasoning,’ Peter countered, ‘you could prove that Mr Goekoop’s hometown of Zierikzee can be traced back to the Greek goddess Circe. And that would put the city of Troy somewhere in Zeeland.’
Mark put the papers back in the envelope. ‘All the same, I always send these people a polite reply. That’s usually enough to satisfy them.’
Judith picked up her tray. She had already eaten her soup and bread.
‘Are you leaving already?’ Peter asked, a little disappointed.
‘I’ve got that appointment at two o’clock. I’m going back to my office to get my things. We could get together for a nightcap later this evening if you like?’
Peter nodded.
Judith rested her hand briefly on Mark’s shoulder. He tilted his head a little to meet it, like a cat reaching to be petted. She winked at Peter and went to tidy her tray away.
‘So, Lug then,’ said Peter, bringing the conversation back to where they had left it.
‘Yes, Lug, but there have been lots of other sun gods over the centuries of course. Fascinating subject, actually. That’s what the paper I’m working on is about. A bit of pop history about how they’re always born on the third day after the winter solstice, on the evening of the twenty-fourth of December, a symbolic celebration of the arrival of light in a dark world. Born to a virgin, usually in a cave, a star appears, they’re adored by shepherds, kings come bearing gifts, a wise man predicts that this is the saviour the world has been waiting for, and so on …’
‘Yes, I know those stories. By the way, did you manage to see some of the eclipse this morning?’
‘No, barely gave it a thought to be honest.’
‘It was cloudy anyway. I don’t suppose there would have been much to see.’
‘Probably, but … where was I? Oh yes, the sun gods … They always die round about the time of the spring solstice and they’re resurrected three days later. Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, take your pick. The god dies or his son dies, there’s a day of mourning, and then on day three, there’s unbelievable joy when the god rises from the dead. Just like the natural world around them that appeared to have died in the winter, but then comes back to life.’
Of course, Peter had also read about the early Fathers of the Church and how they had become confused when they saw the similarities between the Gospels and these other stories that were evidently much older. The only explanation they could give was that the older stories were the work of the devil. Satan would have known about the circumstances under which Jesus would be born and so he established the sun gods’ rites centuries earlier in order to confuse people.
‘My article will lay out the parallels between all sorts of basic Christian concepts and the religion’s sacred mysteries. It’s terribly interesting. Take Orpheus and Eurydice, Demeter and Persephone … all variations of the same theme. The cult of Dionysus slaughtered a bull every year. The followers ate the meat and drank the blood so that they could become one with Dionysus, a communion, and share the power of his resurrection.’
‘It’s … Listen,’ Peter interrupted him. Mark was usually fairly introverted, but once he felt at ease with someone, it could be very difficult to get him off his soapbox. ‘I still need to take my bag back to my office, and the mayor’s coming for the opening at two o’clock …’
Mark smiled and held his hands up apologetically. ‘No problem.’
Peter finished his last few forkfuls of salad and emptied his glass. He opened his mouth wide and bared his teeth like a laughing chimpanzee.
‘Not got anything stuck between my teeth, have I?’ he asked. Mark reassured him that he hadn’t.
They said goodbye and Peter walked to his office in the archaeology faculty next to the LAK.
Peter’s office hadn’t changed in more than twenty years. It was almost like a living room to him. The same three pictures had always hung on the walls: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, a poster of a famous painting of Burgemeester Van der Werff by Gustave Wappers, and a large photograph of Pope John Paul II in his popemobile.
There were weeks when he spent more time in his office than in his flat on the Boerhavenlaan. He even kept a change of clothes in the cupboard for the odd occasion when he spent the night on the three-seater sofa.
When he pulled the stack of papers from his bag, the envelope fell out onto the floor. Intrigued, he picked it up and opened it. The note inside didn’t contain excuses for an unfinished assignment. Instead, written neatly in the middle of the sheet of the paper, was:
Rom. 13:11
But it was the text below it that suddenly made his mouth feel dry. He dropped the note, repulsed, as though he was throwing a used tissue in the bin.
Hora est.
2 (#u8d2e7ba7-c236-5593-bda2-f31cab40cfcf)
Friday 20 March, 1:45pm
Peter looked at his watch. Quarter to two. He would need to hurry if he was going to make it to the Nieuwstraat on time. The anonymous note had disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. That ‘hora est’, the same message that he had received by phone, made him feel uneasy. He went to his bookcase to get a bible, but then realised that he didn’t have time. He knew that Romans 13:11 referred to Paul’s letters to the Romans in the New Testament, but his knowledge of the scriptures wasn’t good enough to be able to recall the passage from memory.
He reluctantly left the bible on his desk, then closed the door and headed for town.
It was against his principles to look at his phone when he was walking – he resented having to give way to people who shuffled around like zombies, their eyes glued to their screens – but he opened the Biblehub.com website to look up what the scripture was about.
The connection was slow. When images of hell had come up in one of his lectures, on a whim, he’d asked his students about their own ideas of hell. Without missing a beat, one young man answered: ‘Hell is a place where the internet is really, really slow.’
Peter hoped he wouldn’t bump into anyone he knew. The page loaded sluggishly as he walked through the Doelensteeg and along the Rapenburg to the Gerecht square. He clicked on ‘Romans’ and, at last, on ‘13’. He’d reached the Pieterskerk church by the time the text finally appeared on his screen.
It was almost two o’clock now. It wouldn’t do to be late. He impatiently closed the cover on his phone. He knew that the scripture would still be there when he opened it again.
He continued his route at a brisk pace, walking through the narrow alleys that led to the Breestraat, past the town hall and then he went left. As he crossed the river via the colonnades of the Pilarenbrug, the library came into view.
The council’s decision to move the city’s waste containers underground had been brought about by a plague of seagulls. As the crow flew, the college town of Leiden was a mere ten kilometres from the coast. Nests full of gulls’ eggs were easy prey for the foxes that had been reintroduced to the dunes, and hordes of the birds had fled to the city. They pecked open the bags of rubbish left out for collection, scavenged in bins and grew increasingly aggressive. Various measures had been taken to deter them: replacing the seagulls’ eggs with plastic dummies, birds of prey, pigeon spikes on roofs, all without success. The hope was that the city would be less attractive to the birds if the city’s rubbish was moved underground.
Peter stopped to catch his breath on the corner of the street. He studied himself in a shop window. A little on the portly side, it was true, a day or two’s worth of stubble, and a full head of hair that was just a bit too long. The image in the window was, in fact, a bit flattering; the reflection didn’t show the deep lines he knew he had on his forehead or the dark circles under his eyes.
‘For now we see through a glass, darkly …’ he said to himself quietly.
He tucked his shirt neatly into his trousers, and felt the student’s forgotten mobile phone in his jacket pocket. He made a mental note to call one of the numbers on its contacts list when he got a chance. Whoever it was would surely be able to tell him who the phone belonged to.
A large crowd had gathered around the excavation site. The Leiden press of course, local residents, all sorts of dignitaries, and workmen, recognisable from their yellow helmets and orange vests. Part of the area around the excavated pit was fenced off with barriers and red and white tape.
‘Hullo! Peter!’ he heard Arnold van Tiegem shouting. Peter could tell from the exaggerated joviality of Arnold’s waving that he had already made a head start on the drinks reception that would be held later.
Twenty years ago, Peter’s old tutor, Pieter Hoogers, had retired and vanished off into the sunset directly after his farewell address. Everyone had expected that Peter would take his place as full professor, but after a couple of months of typical academic machinations, the university had produced a surprise candidate seemingly out of nowhere: Arnold van Tiegem, a senior official at the Ministry of Housing, Planning and the Environment who had found himself sidelined. He had studied Soil Science at the University of Wageningen in the distant past and that had been deemed sufficient qualification to lead the faculty. The fact that he would also bring with him a one-off grant of five million guilders ultimately convinced the board of his suitability for the post.
After he was appointed, it turned out that Arnold was in the habit of going missing now and then, often for days at a time. At first, his disappearances were reported to the police, but because he always reappeared a few days later, people accepted the fact that he sometimes simply checked out for a while. He liked to compare these episodes with John Lennon’s ‘lost weekends’ and saw them as part of a grand and exciting life.
Peter made his way to the tall bar tables where his suspicions were confirmed by a number of empty beer bottles and two half-empty bottles of wine.
Daniël Veerman was standing at one of the tables. He surreptitiously rolled his eyes as he moved his gaze from Arnold to Peter. Daniël was in his early thirties and the quintessential archaeologist: he had long, dark hair that undulated down to his neck, tiny round spectacles perched on his nose with intelligent eyes behind them, a trendy beard that looked casual but was well-groomed. He had once told Peter that he had done nothing but dig for treasure when he was a child. While other children played nicely in the sandpit, heaping the sand into mountains or building sandcastles with buckets and spades, he was usually found outside it, digging holes in the dirt.
Peter shook Daniël’s hand and then greeted Janna Frederiks, who was leading the project for the Cultural Heritage Department together with Daniël. Peter was less familiar with Janna, a serious, remarkably tall woman – almost two metres in height – whose head was permanently bowed at a slight angle, as though she was scouring the ground in the hope of finding something interesting.
Arnold opened another bottle of beer, and poured it down his throat in a couple of gulps. Then he smoothed his long, grey hair back with a small comb, a nervous tic that he performed countless times each day. He probably thought the little flick of a mullet that this made at the back of his neck was terribly bohemian. Combined with his enormous paunch and spindly legs, he reminded Peter of a circus ringmaster. Put a top hat on his bloated head and he’d look just the part.
‘He just lives for these moments, doesn’t he?’ Peter whispered to Daniël.
‘He’ll post the photo of himself with the mayor on Facebook as soon as it’s over,’ Daniël added, laughing. He gave Peter a sideways look. ‘It was good of you to come, Peter. I really appreciate it.’
‘You don’t need to thank me. I’m happy to be here. I wanted to come and wish you luck. I’m here for you and Janna, not for myself, like Van Tiegem.’
‘He’s a great networker though, you have to give him that. And your department needs one of those, right?’
Peter was about to say something cutting in reply, but a round of applause interrupted him. Mayor Freylink had arrived in full regalia with the chain of office around his neck.
‘What’s the plan, exactly?’ Peter asked.
Daniël carried on looking straight ahead and clapping for the mayor who was walking past close to where they were standing. ‘I’ve dumped a bit of sand in the hole,’ he answered. ‘He’s going to take it out with the digger. And that will be the project’s symbolic launch.’
‘Not very elegant, is it?’
‘Well we could have sent him down there with a bucket, but I thought this would be more refined. Freylink was enthusiastic about it anyway. And he used to be a historian, as you know, so he’s glad to be closely involved. He’s even been to a building site to practise.’
The applause died out.
A small excavator came towards them. Little black clouds of smoke escaped from the long, thin exhaust pipe on its roof.
‘I’d better get over there,’ said Daniël. Janna followed him. He turned around to look at Peter. ‘We’re going for dinner at El Gaucho tonight with the team. You’re very welcome to join us if you’d like to come along.’
Peter gave him a thumbs-up. MaybeI could ask Judith to go with me, he thought.
He took the opportunity to take a quick look at his phone. He skimmed through chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Romans and recognised the contents straight away. It was about allegiance to the authorities who had been placed above you. A text which had often been misused throughout the course of history, and for which Paul had been heavily criticised. Pay your taxes, do as you are told, don’t be rebellious, ‘for there is no authority that does not come from God’. Whoever opposes authority opposes one of God’s agencies, and thereby opposes God.
Little wonder, then, that the people of Leiden suddenly found themselves drawn to Calvin when the Spaniards were at the city’s gates. He said that you could rebel against your rulers. People were often inclined to choose the convictions that best suited their own interests …
Suddenly, the student’s phone began to vibrate. Peter was surprised that it hadn’t happened before now; youngsters spent more time in conversation with people they couldn’t see than with the people who were right next them. But first, he wanted to read the specific verse that had been written on the note. ‘Let no debt remain outstanding,’ he read, ‘except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law …’ Here it was, verse 11:
And do this, understanding the present time: the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
The hour has already come …
‘Hora est,’ Peter repeated, absent-mindedly making quiet, smacking sounds, as though trying to taste the words on his tongue.
He read the rest of the scripture aloud to himself in a staccato mumble, as though this would help him to decipher a message hidden in the words.
The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light.
Someone slapped him, a bit overenthusiastically, on the shoulder. Van Tiegem.
‘Come on, put that phone down,’ he said, and made a playful attempt to snatch the phone from Peter’s hand.
Peter irritably fended him off. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, putting the phone away.
‘Don’t you want a beer?’
‘Thanks Arnold, but I’m officially still working.’
‘Oh you’re good,’ Arnold said, without much conviction, ‘very good. I should follow your example.’
The mayor was standing next to the digger now. Someone had put a yellow safety helmet on his head, apparently more for show than anything else. He patiently posed in it while photographs were taken.
‘Shouldn’t you go and stand with him?’ Peter suggested.
‘That’s actually a very good idea,’ Arnold said, sounding genuinely pleased. On his way over to the mayor, he waggishly stole a helmet from a construction worker and set it at a jaunty angle on his own head. He stood next to Freylink and held two thumbs aloft as the cameras clicked.
Peter took the other phone from his pocket. It had received a message, not via WhatsApp, but another app he’d not heard of before, Wickr. He opened the message. There were just three words:
iuxta est salus
Another message arrived as soon as he’d read it.
salvation is at hand
Only then did he see the sender’s name. Paul.
This was …
Peter started to type in a reply, but then he saw that the messages had already disappeared. They seemed to be available for only a few seconds, just long enough to be able to read them.
He opened the phone’s address book. He had to check twice to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken.
It was completely empty.
3 (#u8d2e7ba7-c236-5593-bda2-f31cab40cfcf)
Friday 20 March, 2:15pm
Peter looked up from the phone and scanned his surroundings, first round to the left, and then all the way back round to the right, like a security camera watching a street. But there was nothing to see. No one shiftily ducking out of sight, no man in a fedora looking at him from behind a newspaper with two peepholes cut into it.
What he really wanted right now was to go back to his office. Maybe he’d be able to uncover the joker’s identity by looking through the list of students on his course? But he also knew that he needed to be seen here. In his world, success ultimately came down to who you knew, short lines of communication, cronyism, a good network. In these times of austerity, it would do him no harm to know the right people, Daniël was right about that. You could say what you liked about Van Tiegem, but the man was a born networker who had always been very successful in raising funds for the faculty.
Peter was suddenly very thirsty. He took a bottle of beer from the table and prised off the cap. He rinsed his mouth out with the first swig before he swallowed it. The beer was warm.
Freylink was sitting in the cab of the excavator now and had closed the door. The engine purred smoothly as the mayor nervously drove it towards the hole outside the library. A group of men slowly walked alongside him on either side of the digger, like coffin bearers at a funeral. They even took a dignified step backwards when they reached the edge of the pit.
Daniël stuck both of his thumbs in the air at Freylink, who pulled a lever to move the grapple. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. It was calm and controlled, which suggested that Freylink had indeed been rehearsing for this moment.
Janna came back over to where Peter was standing.
‘I was ready at half nine this morning already,’ she said out of nowhere.
‘Ready for what?’ Peter asked, but he knew the answer before he’d finished asking the question. ‘Ah, the eclipse.’
‘Exactly, but there wasn’t much to see, really,’ Janna said, sounding disappointed. ‘There was far too much cloud cover, I’m afraid. It went on until quarter to twelve, but I missed most of it.’
‘That’s a pity.’
By now, the excavator’s arm had almost entirely disappeared into the hole. The next task was to use the large bucket to collect some sand and carefully bring it up to the surface. The task demanded great precision as there wasn’t much room for manoeuvre. After a flying start, the mayor seemed to be hesitating. The thrum of the machine’s motor grew a little louder and the exhaust belched out more puffs of smoke. The bucket appeared to be stuck. The machine listed forwards slightly. Someone in the crowd let out a little scream. A couple of spectators laughed nervously.
A construction worker knocked on the cab window to ask if everything was all right. Freylink smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, but then mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.
The hydraulic arm started to move again. Suddenly, there was an ear-splitting noise. Breaking rocks mixed with the revving sound of an overworked motor. The little puffs of smoke had now become huge, jet-black clouds; the smell of diesel filled the air, and the machine keeled over. Two men attempted to pull it back into its original position by hanging from it, but without success.
Peter could see that the mayor’s usually placid face was contorted in terror. Freylink tried to push the door open, but the machine was already toppling forwards into the pit.
As the machine became jammed, half in and half out of the earth, the spectators shrieked and jumped back, revealing the perilous position the mayor was now in. Total chaos erupted. A few people tugged at the digger’s tracks, but soon gave up. The door was jammed against the wall of the pit and there was no way to open it.
Instinctively, Peter raced over to see if he could help. He crouched down next to Daniël who was banging on the window. Freylink looked back at them with a painful grimace as blood from trickled from his eyebrow and nose and spread over his face. Nevertheless, he managed to smile.
‘We’ll get you out of there as soon as we can!’ Daniël shouted. His face was red, perhaps from exertion, or because of his embarrassment at the mayor’s predicament.
Peter looked up and saw that a group of people had gathered in a semi-circle around the hole in the ground. Many of them were taking photographs and recording videos with their phones.
‘Stop that!’ he yelled as he leapt to his feet.
Most of them sheepishly put their phones away again.
Peter was briefly dazed after jumping up so quickly and had to hold onto Daniël to stop himself from stumbling.
Just then, Janna Frederiks came running over. ‘We’ve got another digger down the street,’ she said to Daniël. ‘They’re going to get it now and see if they can pull him out with a cable.’
‘But we can’t just leave him in that cramped little box while they’re gone.’
‘Well what do you want to do?’ she asked. ‘Smash the window in?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do. It’s made of plastic, not glass, so there won’t be any sharp pieces. If he takes his jacket off and puts it over his head, he can protect himself from any splinters that might come loose. Look at how uncomfortable the man is. That’s the mayor in there!’
Janna thought about it for a second or two and then agreed. Winching him out would take at least half an hour, even if it all went without a hitch.
Daniël knelt down on the ground again and tapped on the window. Freylink had managed to move himself around to sit on the control panel. Although it looked like he had calmed down, his bloodied face made him look terrible.
‘Take your jacket off!’ Daniël shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. Then he took off his own jacket to demonstrate what he wanted Freylink to do. ‘We’re going to break the window!’ he yelled, over-articulating each word and miming the actions exaggeratedly, ‘so you can crawl out. They’re going to winch the machine out shortly, but we don’t want to leave you in there that long. Put your jacket over your head.’
Freylink understood. He took off his jacket and draped it over his head and shoulders.
Janna came back with large hammer, a chisel and a pair of work gloves and handed them to Daniël.
After a few well-aimed strikes of the hammer, the hard plastic began to crack. Daniël knocked the window out, leaving only a few splinters. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you out in no time. I’m almost done. How are you doing?’
‘More in shock than anything,’ came Freylink’s muted voice. ‘I don’t think I’m hurt.’
Daniël checked the window frame for shards of plastic. When Freylink removed his jacket, Peter was taken aback again by his bloody face and the way his hair was pasted to his clammy forehead. As soon as the mayor poked his head outside, the crowd began to applaud with relief.
He climbed onto the steering wheel and stood up a little straighter. Peter and Daniël grabbed him by his armpits and gently pulled him upwards. His trousers snagged on a hook, ripping a long tear in them as they dragged him out.
When the mayor finally emerged from the pit, there was more applause. He smiled weakly and waved. Daniël and Peter took him to the waiting ambulance. The crew started to unload the stretcher, but the mayor motioned it away and got into the ambulance himself to allow the paramedics to see to him.
The second excavator arrived, led by a group of men carrying thick cables. Daniël stuck his head inside the ambulance door. The blood had been wiped from the mayor’s face already and he sat holding a handkerchief to his nose while a paramedic wound a bandage around his head. He reminded Daniël of a footballer with a head wound, being patched up before returning to the pitch.
‘I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, sir,’ Daniël began.
‘It wasn’t your fault … I don’t know what went wrong. I must have pressed the wrong button … It felt like there was some resistance and then I broke through something.’
‘We’re going to investigate, Mr Mayor. And again, please accept my sincere apologies.’
The paramedic finished dressing Freylink’s head wound and told him he would like to take him to the hospital for further assessment, to which the mayor agreed. Before he got into the ambulance, he gave another jovial wave to the people who stood watching from a distance. The ambulance doors were closed and it quietly drove away, without lights or sirens.
The cables had been attached to the excavator, and now the other digger reversed, growling and puffing smoke while four men stood around the pit to supervise it all. The trapped machine soon began to move and, after twenty minutes, it was back on the surface.
Daniël stood waiting impatiently with a rope ladder in his hands.
‘Do you want to go down?’ Peter asked.
‘Yes, of course! I want to see what the hell went wrong. We didn’t find anything unusual when we were digging. I inspected everything myself just an hour ago.’
They both stared down into the pit. It looked like part of the bottom of it had subsided. When the all-clear was given, Daniël carefully lowered the rope ladder. He made sure that it was securely anchored into the ground with two pegs before he put his foot on the first rung. He switched on the lamp on his helmet and began to climb down.
‘And?’ Peter called after him.
‘It smells different … like the air is damper, heavier. And …’ He had reached the bottom now. ‘There’s been a partial collapse at the bottom!’ he shouted. ‘It looks like there’s a space underneath it.’
‘Is there room for one more?’ Peter shouted. He wanted to take a look too, hoping it would take his mind off the strange text messages.
‘I knew you were going to ask that! Come on!’
Peter descended cautiously, as Janna watched, looking worried and indignantly shaking her head.
Daniël took off his hardhat and pointed the headlamp at the ground below him. ‘This is really bizarre. Look.’
Now Peter could see it too. It was obvious. The walls of the pit were clearly made of bricks and mortar. What on earth was this? A stone floor? Three metres underground?
Peter knelt down and leaned forward to see how far down the hole at the bottom of the pit went. He took Peter’s helmet and pointed its headlamp downwards.
Suddenly he heard a groan. A soft, but unmistakable groan.
He jerked his head backwards with a sharp cry. The helmet fell into the hole.
‘Have you seen a ghost?’ Daniël asked, laughing nervously.
‘I … I think there’s someone …’ Peter stammered.
The groan came again, harder now. He hadn’t imagined it. Daniël had heard it too.
Peter took a deep breath. He stuck his head back into the hole, searching for the source of the groaning. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
Two bare legs poked out from underneath a pile of bricks. At the other end of the pile lay the naked torso of a young man.
The headlamp only barely lit the scene in front of him, but as soon as his eyes grew used to the darkness, he gasped as though he had been punched in the stomach. What appeared before him could have been a medieval painting of the torments of hell.
The man was covered from head to toe in blood.
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