Tom Holt - Flying Dutch

“You mean the Civil War?”

“Do yourself a favour,” Vanderdecker said. “Take a look at the Putney Debates; you know, towards the end of the War, when all the Parliamentary leaders sat down and tried to make up a new constitution. Is there one mention, one solitary word said about an overall dairy strategy for the 1660s? Nothing. Don’t you find that just a little bit surprising?”

Danny’s mouth hung open like a dislocated letterbox. “So the Restoration…”

“You’ve got it,” Vanderdecker said. “All that stuff with the oak tree was just a blind. And then, when you get on to the Glorious Revolution, and after that the Jacobites, it suddenly starts to fall into place. After all, why do you think they called George III Farmer George? He was as sane as…” Vanderdecker considered for a moment, “…as you are, but…Anyway, there’s the story for you, if you really do want something big.”

Vanderdecker’s mouth felt dry with so much talking, and he turned away in search of whisky, but Danny grabbed him by the arm.

“Listen,” he said, “you’ve got to tell me. Was the Milk Marketing Board behind the Kennedy assassination?”

Vanderdecker raised an eyebrow. “You what?” he said.

“The assassination of President Kennedy. Was it them?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vanderdecker said. “That was Lee Harvey Oswald.” He leaned over, plucked a bottle of Famous Grouse from Pieter’s hand and took a long drink. Danny narrowed his eyes. Was Vanderdecker telling the truth? Or was he in on it too?

Below the helicopter Cirencester flickered dimly, and Vanderdecker wiped the spilt whisky out of his beard. The next hour or so was going to be interesting, and he felt that it was probably just as well that he had stayed relatively sober after all. He glanced across at Danny, who was drawing complicated diagrams on the blank pages at the back of his diary, using one of those pens you get from Smiths which has four different colours in it. He was happy, the poor fool.

The crew were singing again:

We’ve been together now for four hundred and eighty years,

And it don’t seem a day too much.

There ain’t a captain sailing on the sea.

That we’d swap for our dear old dutch…

Vanderdecker winced. He hadn’t thought about that side of it—he hadn’t really thought about any side of it, if he was going to be honest with himself, the implications of getting rid of the smell at last. What was going to happen now? In the end, every community and grouping of human beings (except, of course, the Rolling Stones) drifts apart and goes its separate ways. There was nothing to keep them together now, and God knows, they’d all been getting on each other’s nerves. But actually saying “goodbye—goodbye after so many years…”

“Hey,” Sebastian protested, “give it back.”

“Sorry,” Vanderdecker said, and handed the bottle back.

“Some people,” he said. “That’s how we all got into this mess in the first place, remember, you nicking somebody else’s bottle. You’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson.”

“Still,” Vanderdecker said, “it’s been fun, hasn’t it?”

“No,” Sebastian replied. “It’s been lousy.”

“But we’ve had some laughs, haven’t we?” Vanderdecker said. “A few good times along the way.”

“When?”

“Well…” Vanderdecker shrugged. “Forget it,” he said. “What have you done with the cat, by the way?”

“What cat?”

“Montalban’s cat.”

“Oh,” said Sebastian, “that cat. It’s over there, on the life-jackets, having forty winks. I spilt some whisky, and it lapped it up.”

“Fine,” Vanderdecker said. He rubbed his face with both hands, and tried to think of what he should do next. For over four hundred years he had been doing all the thinking, and he was just starting to get a tiny bit tired of it. Another day, new problems, more of the same old rubbish; and Captain Vanderdecker standing on the quarter-deck trying to cope with it, with his usual flair. Let Julius do it—that was what his mother used to say, all those many, many years ago: “Don’t trouble yourself with that, dear; let Julius do it. Julius, put that away and…”

The helicopter had stopped flying and was just whirring, hovering tentatively above the grass. Then, with a rather talentless lurch, it pitched down. Suddenly, Vanderdecker didn’t want to leave; he wanted to stay right here and let someone else do the coping with things for a change. No chance of that.

“Hey, skip.” Not you again, Antonius; go away, I died en route, somewhere in the clouds over Smethwick, go ask Danny Bennett or someone. “Is this where we get out?”

“That’s right,” Vanderdecker said wearily. “Right, lads, show a leg, we’re here. Sebastian, bring the cat.”

“Why do I always have to…” The rest of the complaint was drowned out with noise as the helicopter door opened, and Vanderdecker (lead-from-the-front Vanderdecker) dropped out onto the grass. Perhaps he was just feeling tired, but he forgot to duck and the rotor-blade hit him just below the ear. Danny, who happened to be watching, started to scream, but there was nothing to scream about; the Dutchman staggered, swore loudly in Dutch, rubbed his neck and went on his way.

“Well,” he said to Sebastian, “that’s one thing proved anyway.”

“What?” said Sebastian. “You never look where you’re going.” Vanderdecker laughed mirthlessly, shrugged and walked towards the house. Then he noticed a smallish human figure racing across the grass towards him. He narrowed his brows and wondered what was going on.

“Julius!” said the small human figure, and crashed into him like a dodgem car, jolting him almost as much as the rotor-blade.

“Sorry,” he said automatically, and helped the small figure to its feet. The small figure was Jane, and Jane had wrapped her arms around him. He remembered.

“Hello, Jane,” he said.

“Julius, you’re safe!” Jane gasped; but there was already a tiny note of doubt, an inflection so slight you would need high-quality scientific apparatus or ears like a bat to register it, but there nevertheless.

“I think we should have a quiet talk,” Vanderdecker said, prising her off gently. “There’s just a few things I’ve got to do first, and then…”

“Julius?” The inflection was rather more obvious now. Vanderdecker closed off certain parts of his mind, which were getting in the way, and nodded.

“Won’t be long,” he said. “I’ve just got a couple of things to see to first, then I’m all yours.” There was something in his voice which belied the words he uttered, and Jane let go of him. She felt all hollow, like an egg with its yolk blown out.

“Such as,” Vanderdecker went on, “booting a certain professor up the backside. Did you get the policy?”

“Yes,” Jane said. “I did. Thank you.”

“What for? Oh, I see, yes, well. Where is it now?”

“I gave it to the pilot who brought the Professor back,” Jane said. “He’s going to post it to my father as soon as he gets to…”

“Very sensible.” Vanderdecker said, nodding. “Perhaps you could just phone your father and ask him to send it to my place in Bridport.”

“ Bridport? ” Jane gasped.

“Yes,” Vanderdecker said, “the fallen-down old dump where you said you found all the bank statements. It’ll be safe there.”

Jane was about to say something, but she had forgotten what it was. Couldn’t have been important. “Right,” she said. “I’ll just go and do that, then.”

“Thanks,” Vanderdecker said. “Now, then.” He walked off quickly towards the house.

The Flying Dutchman was, when circumstances permitted, a man of his word; and when he said he was going to boot a professor up the backside, he stood by it.