“Do you remember that awful feeling of guilt,” Vanderdecker said, “that you felt—I assume you felt—as if you were breaking all sorts of local laws and violating all sorts of local customs without knowing it, and sooner or later one of those policemen in hats like cheeseboxes was going to arrest you?”
“Yes,” Jane replied. “That’s a natural feeling, I guess, from being a stranger in someone else’s country.”
“Well then,” Vanderdecker said, “that’s how I feel all the time. I’m a stranger everywhere except on a ship in the middle of the sea. I don’t think I’ve broken any laws—I don’t think just being alive is actually illegal anywhere, except maybe in some parts of South–East Asia—but the thought of all the embarrassment if anyone ever asked who I was or what I was doing…Do you see what I’m driving at? It means that I can’t give a truthful answer to virtually any question I’m likely to be asked, for fear of being thought crazy or rude. It gets to you after a while, let me assure you. And of course there’s the smell.”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I could see that would be a problem.”
“It is,” Vanderdecker assured her. “Decidedly.”
“If we could just get back to what I was saying,” Jane suggested tentatively. “About your life policy.”
“You want me…”
“No.” Jane couldn’t understand why she was so definite about this. “
“I see,” said the Flying Dutchman. “Why should I?”
Jane couldn’t think of a single reason. Not good.
“Excuse me for muddled thinking here,” Vanderdecker went on, “because I haven’t even started to consider all the ramifications of this yet, but why the hell should I?”
“Well,” Jane said feebly, “it’s not going to do you any good, is it?”
“That,” said Vanderdecker, “if you’ll pardon me saying so, goes for all life policies. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the prerequisite for collecting on the blasted things is being dead, and I remember hearing something somewhere about not being able to take it with you.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?” said Vanderdecker, confused.
“You can’t take it with you,” Jane said. “So it’s no good to you. On the other hand, it’s putting the financial stability of Europe in jeopardy.”
“So what’s so wonderful about the financial stability of Europe?” Vanderdecker said.
Jane felt that she could explain this, being an accountant: but while she was deciding where to start, Vanderdecker continued with what he was saying.
“Let me put it this way,” he said. “If what you say is true, I’m in a position to tell all the money men in the world what to do. I have the power, the actual and useable power, to introduce a little bit of common sense into the economic system of the developed nations. In other words, I could save the world.”
“Do you want to?” Jane asked.
Vanderdecker considered for a moment. “No,” he said.
“Why not?” Jane asked. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“No it doesn’t,” replied the Flying Dutchman. “That’s why you were asking me about whether I’d ever suffered from megalomania or a desire to rule things. To which the answer is still no. I mean, it’s all very fine and splendid to think that I could sort out interest rates and conquer inflation and send the rich empty away and all that, but that’s not me at all. Damn it, I couldn’t even understand the jute market back in the fifteen-eighties. I’d just make things even worse than they are now.”
“So why not do what they want?” Jane said. “It would make things easier for you as well.”
“Would it?”
“It could,” Jane said. “All you’d have to do is think of the right price.”
“Go on.”
“Something like,” Jane said, “an index-linked annuity starting at two million pounds a year, plus all the co-operation and protection you need. Passports, nationality papers, a new ship, bits of paper signed by presidents and prime ministers to shove under the noses of customs men and coastguards. Everything necessary to make life easy for you. No more of this skulking about, hiding, getting your ship fixed up by Jeanes of Bridport because there’s nowhere else you dare go to. You could demand anything at all. A new identity. No questions asked. You could even start enjoying life. You wouldn’t have to spend all your time in the middle of the sea, come to that.”
“What about the smell?”
“Demand that they build you a special massively air-conditioned bunker in the heights of the Pyrenees. A hundred special bunkers, one in every country. Real Howard Hughes stuff. That really wouldn’t be a problem.”
Vanderdecker thought for a moment, then grinned. “That’s very kind of you, and I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. I think we’ll just leave matters as they are.”
Jane felt as though someone had just pumped sand in her ears. “Why?” she said.
