“I’m afraid I’ve always been too busy to spare any time for amusements,” said the Professor, and his tone of voice made it clear that he didn’t really understand the concepts that Vanderdecker was proposing to discuss, rather as Vanderdecker himself would have felt if someone had buttonholed him for a serious discussion about the forthcoming world tiddlywinks championship.
“You mean you’ve been too busy?”
“Yes.”
“Working?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Vanderdecker didn’t see at all. For all his sufferings, he had at least had a couple of days off every seven years. He wondered if there was any point in continuing with this conversation, since despite a vague foundation of shared experience he doubted whether he had much in common with his old acquaintance.
“I suppose,” the Professor said uneasily, “I owe you and your crew an apology.”
Vanderdecker sighed and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, I might have wanted to break your silly neck for you, but even grudges wear out in time, like Swiss watches. Besides, it was my fault as much as yours.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” said the Professor. “I don’t suppose I would have taken such a reasonable view had I been in your position.”
“Think nothing of it,” Vanderdecker said. “Besides, you are in our position. Well, sort of.” He turned his head and looked out of the window. Sheep. Not exactly enthralling.
“Actually,” the Professor continued, “there was one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Your life insurance policy,” he—said nervously. “have you considered…?”
“Oh yes,” Vanderdecker remembered, “that. What about it?”
“Well,” said the Professor, “as you may be aware. I happen to own the bank that has the risk, and it occurred to me…If anything—well, unfortunate, should happen at the power station…”
“I see,” Vanderdecker said, trying to keep himself from grinning. “Yes, of course, there’d have to be a pay- out, wouldn’t there? A bit awkward for you, I suppose. Still, that’s the insurance business for you.”
“What I was wandering,” said the Professor, “was who would be entitled to the proceeds? I don’t suppose you’ve made a will, by any chance.”
“No,” said Vanderdecker with restraint. “I haven’t. Rather irresponsible of me, I know, but it really did seem a trifle unnecessary. Well, it’s a bit late now, isn’t it? Besides, I never could be doing with lawyers. Did you ever meet a lawyer whose life you would willingly have saved in the event of fire? Not me.”
“In which case,” went on the Professor, “since you have no next of kin and no testamentary heirs, your estate will presumably revert to the public treasury of whichever country you happen to be a citizen of. Would that be Holland, do you know?”
“Search me,” Vanderdecker confessed. “I’d leave that to the experts, if I were you. I see what you mean about making a will, actually, although I still maintain that forty quid spent on deciding what’s going to happen after you’re dead is a waste of good beer money. Still, it’s not really any of my business, now is it? I mean, I’m not going to be here to see the fun, so what the hell do I care whether the Dutch government or the Lombard government…”
“There isn’t a Lombard government any more,” said the Professor.
“Isn’t there?” Vanderdecker said. “Oh. Don’t mind me, I only read the sports pages. The Italian government, then, who gives a damn? Jolly good luck to them, and I hope they don’t fritter it all away on battleships.”
“If you
“Can I do that?” Vanderdecker asked curiously. “Just say who I want to have it?”
“Very easily,” said the Professor. “All you would have to do is fill in the little panel on the back of the policy document. Unless you’ve done so already, of course.”
“I don’t know,” Vanderdecker confessed, and he started to rummage about in his wallet again. This time he found a ticket stub for the first night of
“Where’s this panel you were talking about?” he said, scanning the vellum carefully. The Professor pointed. It was blank.
“Just here?” he said.
“That’s right,” said the Professor.
“And I just fill it in, do I?”
“Precisely, my dear fellow.”
“Got a pen?”
The Professor produced one from his jacket pocket.
“Something to rest on?”
“Here,” the Professor said impatiently, and thrust a book of mathematical tables at him. Vanderdecker thanked him, wrote something in the panel, and signed his name with a flourish. The Professor peered over his shoulder and then stared at Vanderdecker in disbelief. Although the Flying Dutchman’s handwriting was usually about as intelligible as Linear A hastily written with his left hand by a drunken scribe, the Professor could clearly see that Vanderdecker had inserted “Jane Doland” in the Benefit of Policy panel.
“Now then,” Vanderdecker said, “we’d better put this in a safe place, hadn’t we? It’s just as well you reminded me, or I’d have had it in my wallet when we went into the power station, and I don’t imagine it would have lasted very long in there. When I think how I’ve been lugging this thing round with me all these years, it’s a wonder it’s survived this long.” He thought for a moment, and then put it back in his wallet and went forward to have a word with the pilot.
“That’s fine,” Vanderdecker said, as he sat down again beside the Professor. “I explained to the pilot that if I didn’t come back he was to post it to Jane, care of Moss Berwick. I don’t actually know her address, but I expect it’ll reach her there all right. I mean, if you can’t trust an accountant, who can you trust?”
“But…” spluttered the Professor.
“It was a good thing you mentioned it, you know,” said the Flying Dutchman happily. “To be honest with you—and this is of course in the strictest confidence—I think Miss Doland is getting rather fed up with her career in accountancy and wouldn’t mind spreading her wings a bit. A nice little legacy might come in very handy, I imagine, although I assume she’ll have to pay tax on it. Oh I forgot, she’s an accountant, they know about that sort of thing. That’s all right, then.”
“Do you realise,” said the Professor, “what you’ve just done?”
“Yes,” Vanderdecker said.
“No you don’t.”
“Actually,” Vanderdecker said through a big smile. “I do. I’ve entrusted the economic future of the free world—when I was a boy, the free world was anything Philip of Spain hadn’t got his paws on yet, and precious little there was of it too; shows how things don’t change much, doesn’t it? On balance, though, I think Philip was a better bet than you, if you don’t mind me saying so. At least he had interests outside his work. I think he collected the bones of saints, or was that Louis the Ninth?—the economic future of the free world, as I was saying, and all that sort of thing, to a singularly clear-headed and conscientious person, who will be able to look after it much better than either of us. No offence intended, Professor, but you’ve got rather too much of a vested interest for my liking. And most of all you don’t have any hobbies; workaholic, I think they call it now. I never could stand workaholics. We must be nearly there by now.”
Montalban quivered slightly, and then sat back on his hard vinyl-covered seat, breathing heavily. “You’re mad,” he said.
“Sergeant Pepper to you,” Vanderdecker replied affably. “Also, nuts. Is that Suilven I can see down there? Can’t be far now. I’m really rather looking forward to this.”
Below them, the coastal mountains of Caithness ranged up into a bleak, wet sky. The first mate, who had slept soundly ever since the helicopter’s rendezvous, with the
