Tom Holt - Flying Dutch

“A holiday from what?”

“From whatever I’ve got to do next, I suppose.”

“Look,” Jane said sharply, “you haven’t got to do anything next. Or ever.” But Vanderdecker shook his head.

“It’s not as easy as that,” he said. “I really wish it was, but it isn’t. It’s them.” He nodded his head towards the drawing-room door. Jane stared at him for a moment.

“What, them?” she said. “Johannes and Antonius and Sebastian and…”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“But what have they got to do with it?”

Vanderdecker smiled, but not for the reasons that usually make people smile. “I’m their captain,” he said. “I’m responsible for them.”

Jane stared. “You’re joking,” she said. “I thought you couldn’t stand the sight of each other. I thought that after all those years cooped up on that little ship…”

“Yes,” Vanderdecker replied, “and no. Yes, we get on each other’s nerves to a quite extraordinary extent, and we can’t even relieve the tension with murder or other forms of violence. On the other hand, I’m their captain. I do all the thinking for them. I’ve had to, for the last four centuries. They’ve completely forgotten how to do it for themselves. So, okay, maybe we don’t have to go back on that boring bloody ship ever again; but I can’t leave them. It’d be impossible.”

“Why?”

Vanderdecker was silent for what seemed like an immensely long time, then turned to Jane, looked her in the eye and said, “Habit.”

“I see.”

“Set in our ways,” Vanderdecker amplified. “Old dogs and new tricks.”

“Fine,” Jane replied. “Well, it was very nice meeting you.”

“Likewise.”

“Perhaps we’ll bump into each other again one day.”

“Bound to,” Vanderdecker said. “Board meetings, that sort of thing. So what are you going to do now?”

Jane shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think I’ll have a holiday too. Only…” Only it won’t be the same, not now. You see, Mr Vanderdecker, this freedom you’ve given me is a fraud. Maybe now I’m free of Mr Gleeson and accountancy and all that horrible nonsense, but I can’t be free of you, not ever. Every man I see in the street, I’ll look twice at him to see if it’s you. But she smiled instead, and left the sentence unfinished.

“Actually,” Vanderdecker said, “I’d had this idea of getting a new ship.”

“What?”

“A new ship,” Vanderdecker repeated. “Only not called the Verdomde this time. Something a bit more cheerful. And big. Huge. One of those oil tankers, maybe, or a second-hand aircraft carrier. Only we’d have the whole thing gutted and we’d fit it out like an enormous floating country-club. A separate floor for each of us, with automated and computerised everything. Complete luxury. We could just sail around, landing where we like and when we like, just generally having a good time. I mean,” Vanderdecker’s voice sounded a trifle strained, “I think we’re all a bit too old to settle down now. Don’t you think?”

“You know best,” Jane said. “Well, I think that’s a splendid idea. I really do. Have you put it to them yet?”

“No, not yet. I thought I’d like your opinion first.”

“Yes, you do that,” Jane said. “And now let’s have a drink, shall we?”

They went into the drawing room. The first thing they saw was Professor Montalban, lying on the sofa fast asleep. Snoring.

“Had a drop too much,” Sebastian explained unnecessarily. “Not used to it.”

“Fair enough,” Vanderdecker said. “Now listen, you lot. I’ve been thinking…”

And he explained the idea of the oil-tanker. It was well-received, particularly by Antonius, who had been wondering what was going to happen next. They all had a drink to celebrate. They drank the whisky, the wine, the gin, the brandy, the cherry brandy, the rest of the apple brandy and the sherry. At this point, Danny and the camera crew passed out, leaving Jane, the Flying Dutchman and the crew to drink the vermouth, the Tia Maria, the ouzo, the port, the bourbon, the vodka, the bacardi, the schnapps and the ginger-beer shandy.

“That seems to be the lot,” Vanderdecker said, disappointed. “And not a drop of beer in the whole place.”

“What’s this, Skip?” Antonius asked, holding up a cut-glass decanter. There was no label on it, but it was a pleasant dark golden colour.

“Where did you find that, Antonius?” Vanderdecker asked.

“In this little cabinet thing.”

Vanderdecker sniffed it. “Smells like rum,” he said. “Anyone fancy a drop of rum?”

Everyone, it transpired, fancied a drop of rum. It must have been good rum, because it made them all feel very sleepy.

When they woke up, everyone had headaches, Jane included. From the kitchen came the smell of frying bacon, which made them all feel sick. Slowly, Vanderdecker lifted himself to his feet, looked around to see if he could see where he’d left his head the previous evening, and went into the kitchen to kill whoever was making that horrible smell.

It was Montalban, wearing a striped pinny, frying bacon. He had also made a big pot of coffee, of which Vanderdecker consumed a large quantity straight from the spout.

“Why aren’t you as ill as the rest of us?” he asked the Professor.

“I never get hangovers,” said the Professor.

Vanderdecker scowled. “Clean living, huh?”

“No,” the Professor replied. “I have a little recipe.”

“Gimme.”

The Professor grinned and pointed to a half-full jug on the worktop. “There’s tomato juice and raw egg,” he said, “and mercury and nitric acid and white lead and heavy water. And Worcester sauce,” he added, “to taste.”

Vanderdecker had some and felt much better. “Thanks,” he said. “It was the rum that did it.”

“Rum?”

“Vicious stuff, rum,” Vanderdecker said. “Does horrible things to you.”

“I haven’t got any rum,” Montalban said.

“Not now you haven’t.”

Montalban was looking at him. “No, I never keep any in the house,” he said. “Are you sure it was rum?”

“Well,” Vanderdecker said, “there wasn’t a label on the decanter but it tasted like rum. I think.”

“Which decanter?”

“In a little glass-fronted cabinet thing, by the telephone table,” Vanderdecker said. “Maybe it was calvados, come to think of it, except calvados always gives me heartburn and heartburn was about the only thing I wasn’t suffering from when I woke up just now.”

Montalban was staring now, but not at the bacon, which was burning. “Large cut-glass decanter in a small glass-fronted cabinet,” he said.

“That’s right. Sorry, was it special or something? We just weren’t noticing…”

“That wasn’t rum, I’m afraid,” Montalban said. “That was elixir.”

Vanderdecker’s eyes grew very round and his hands fell to his sides. “You what?” he said.

“Elixir,” Montalban said.

“Oh SHIT,” Vanderdecker replied. “Not again.”

“I’m afraid so,” said the Professor, “yes.”

Vanderdecker’s spine seemed to melt, and he slithered against the worktop, knocking over a glass jar of pearl barley. “You stupid…”

“It’s not my fault,” Montalban protested nervously. “For Heaven’s sake, I’d have thought you and your friends would have learned your lesson by now, really…”

Vanderdecker straightened up, turned his head to the wall and started to bang it furiously on the corner of some shelf units. “Not you,” he said, “me. Antonius. No, me. Oh hell!”

“It’s not,” Montalban said, “exactly the same elixir as well, as last time.”

Vanderdecker stopped pounding his head against the shelves and looked at him. “It isn’t?”