Devil-Devil (14 page)

‘I’d like to say I usually have that effect on men, but I don’t.’

‘Strewth, you don’t talk one bit like a sister,’ complained the bewildered trader.

‘There are people who’ll tell you that I don’t sister like a sister, but I hope I’ll learn. I don’t like being bullied, Mr Deacon. Not by anyone. I’m sure there are plenty of members of my order in the Solomons who will be willing to turn the other cheek. Why don’t you look for one of them?’

Deacon took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want you getting Kella into any more trouble,’ he persisted. ‘That guy’s got a big job to do in the islands over the next few years. He shouldn’t be wasting time acting as a nursemaid to you.’

‘That’s the last thing I want as well,’ said Sister Conchita. ‘At least we agree about something.’

Deacon edged closer towards her. Despite herself Sister Conchita retreated slowly until her back was to the rail of the ship.

‘Real rough seas,’ said Deacon softly, looking over her shoulder. ‘Anyone should go over the side, we’d never get them back.’

Sister Conchita suddenly felt afraid. Deacon was only inches away from her now, his face pressed against hers until she could smell the Australian’s sour breath and was aware of the grey stubble dusting his projecting jaw.

‘Back up, please, Mr Deacon,’ she said, doing her best to sound calm. ‘This isn’t remotely funny.’

‘You’re right there, sister,’ said the trader, not moving. The ship lurched as a wave broke over its bows. Sister Conchita felt herself being pressed backwards over the low rail by Deacon’s solid, inexorable presence. The man’s eyes were now flint-like and menacing. She did her best to remain upright but did not possess the strength to repel the pressure now being exerted against her by the Australian’s body. With a chilling certainty she knew that in seconds she could be propelled backwards over the rail into the furious sea.

‘Massa!’ said a warning voice from behind Deacon.

The Australian swung round. The Melanesian who had hauled the rope ladder back on board was standing staring expressionlessly at Deacon. The other crew member was securing the wheel and hurrying over to join the small group. Sister Conchita walked away from the ship’s rail and stood in the centre of the deck by one of the cargo holds. She was trembling.

‘What the hell is this?’ demanded Deacon furiously. ‘I’m the master of this ship. You two do as you’re told and keep out of the way!’

Both Melanesians were shaking their heads stubbornly. They had positioned themselves so that they were standing between Deacon and the nun. The crew member who had been at the wheel pointed at Sister Conchita.

‘
Neena
!
’ he said loudly.

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded the Australian wildly, suddenly at a loss in the face of opposition from such an unexpected quarter.

‘I think, Mr Deacon,’ said Sister Conchita, doing her best to control her voice, ‘that he is trying to tell you that I am a
neena
, one of the vulnerable, and that as such I am under the personal protection of the
aofia
, Sergeant Kella. I imagine that these two men are from the Lau region, so their ultimate loyalty is to the
aofia
, and not to you. In short, I believe that they are endeavouring to make the point that, despite appearances to the contrary, I am perfectly safe on this rust-bucket.’

For a moment she thought that the stocky trader was going to try to bluster his way out of the situation. His eyes raked the two Melanesians viciously. Studiously they avoided his gaze. Their heads were bowed respectfully, but still they did not move. Deacon relaxed abruptly.

‘Hell, I didn’t mean anything,’ he expostulated, smiling falsely. ‘Just having a little fun to see how you’d react. I’m like that, ask anybody. My bark’s worse than my bite. You did all right, sister. Just like you did back at the shark-calling.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Sister Conchita, trying to control the overwhelming weakness threatening to destabilize her legs. ‘I wonder how Sergeant Kella would react if I were to tell him about your little … joke?’ Alarm flared like a beacon in the Australian’s eyes. The nun continued, indicating the watching crewmen. ‘However, I think we can forget all about it, as long as you take no action against your two colleagues for joining me in not seeing the humour of your little prank.’

‘Sure thing,’ Deacon assured her hastily. ‘They’re good boys. Real
kanakas
.’

‘They are also gentlemen,’ said Sister Conchita with heartfelt sincerity. She watched as Deacon resumed his place at the wheel, trying to appear unconcerned, and the Melanesians departed, nodding reassuringly in her direction. She wondered why the Australian had menaced her in such a forthright manner. Was he really trying to protect his friend Sergeant Kella from contact with her, or were his actions due to some other reason altogether?

Whatever the cause, thought the nun with a shudder, there was no doubt in her mind that for a brief moment against the rail of the ship John Deacon had been prepared to kill her.

Kella had been waiting fatalistically for almost an hour in the ante-room in the Secretariat, the administration building in Honiara. Chief Superintendent Grice and Inspector Lorrimer were already inside with the secretary for interior affairs.

The Guadalcanal girl sitting behind the receptionist’s desk smiled across at him sympathetically, sensing an islander in trouble. Kella winked, but he was not feeling particularly jaunty.

He had arrived back at the capital from Malaita on a fast government vessel three hours ago. The previous day Lorrimer and his armed police officers had escorted him down to the coast from the Kwaio bush village. A waiting government speedboat had taken them round to the harbour at the Malaitan district station of Auki.

Kella sat immobile, trying to control his impatience. There was much to be done. He could not afford to waste time here. The door of the inner office opened. Lorrimer poked his head out.

‘Sergeant Kella, will you come in, please,’ he asked.

The office was large and air-conditioned. On one wall was an official signed photograph of the queen and on another were two crossed Nigerian assegais. The secretary, spare, white-haired and bristling terrier-tenacious, sat behind the desk. Grice sat upright on a chair before him. Lorrimer resumed his seat next to the chief superintendent.

‘Sit down, Sergeant Kella,’ invited the secretary.

The three men glared at Kella. The sergeant fixed his innocent gaze on the secretary. There was an extended silence. Kella resisted the temptation to look at his watch.

‘Well now,’ said the secretary with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me just what you’ve been doing on Malaita over the last week.’

At different times over the past twenty-four hours Kella had already told his story to Lorrimer, Grice and the commissioner of police, with increasing degrees of incredulity on the part of his listeners. He repeated his version to his latest audience. Chief Superintendent Grice rumbled in the background, like a freshly activated volcano, as a counterpoint to his account.

‘Extraordinary!’ winced the secretary when Kella had finished. ‘Quite extraordinary! Let me see if I’ve picked up the salient points. Chief Superintendent Grice sent you to Malaita to inquire as to the present whereabouts of Professor Mallory. Mr Grice gave you specific orders that you were to limit your activities to this alone. Am I right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kella, sitting to attention.

‘Yet you flagrantly disobeyed these instructions.’ The
secretary
ticked off the infringements on pink, stubby fingers. ‘On your own initiative you start an investigation into the custom killing of a villager. Then you discover a skeleton at a mission station and allege that it is that of a beachcomber who has been murdered. After that you become involved in a shooting incident with a Roman Catholic sister, and tell her that someone is trying to kill her. Finally you launch yourself on an expedition into the most dangerous area of Malaita. This time you encounter the corpse of a dead schoolboy. This drives you into a rage, which antagonizes the local people to such an extent that they were about to kill you when Inspector Lorrimer and his officers arrived providentially.’

Kella had to admit that put like that it did all sound unfortunate. Aloud he said, ‘Sir, I believed that all these events were connected. In one way or another they were all involved in the disappearance of the professor.’

‘How the hell do you make that out?’ exploded Chief Superintendent Grice. He caught the secretary’s baleful stare and subsided unwillingly.

‘In my culture we don’t believe in coincidences,’ Kella told him. ‘We consider that all things have meaning and are interlinked. I think that when the earthquake uncovered the skeleton of Lofty Herman at the mission, it gave rise to everything that followed. Pazabosi had been waiting for a sign to start a cargo uprising. Wittingly or unwittingly Senda Iabuli and his nephew Peter Oro became involved in the bones
tabu
that Pazabosi had placed on the area to stop people examining Herman’s skeleton too closely. As a result, they were both killed.’

‘Then how did Sister Conchita become involved?’ asked Lorrimer. ‘She’s convinced that the man with the rifle was trying to kill her, not you.’

‘I don’t know,’ confessed Kella.

Disbelief hovered like a cloud of mosquitoes over the other three. The secretary cleared his throat fastidiously. He may have been one of the despised expatriate dregs of Empire, but he was determined to get at least one more promotion on some neglected rock before the few remaining British overseas dependencies dwindled away. To achieve that he intended to do everything by the book, carrying out the wishes of Whitehall without needlessly upsetting an increasingly restless local
population
.

‘It seems to me, Sergeant Kella,’ he observed frostily, ‘that once again you have allowed yourself to become too closely involved with events on Malaita. Earlier this year you had to face a court of inquiry after the death of a missionary in the same area. At the time there was a strong feeling in the court that had you done your duty strictly as a police officer, instead of allowing, er, cultural considerations to prevail, that death might have been averted.’

‘I did what I believed to be right, under the circumstances,’ said Kella.

‘Didn’t do much for the poor bugger who got killed, though,’ said Chief Superintendent Grice brusquely, shifting his
pendulous
bulk in his chair.

‘On this occasion,’ went on the secretary equably, ignoring both interruptions, ‘Father Pierre at the mission and Mr Deacon, the plantation manager, both knew that you were going up to the waterfall in search of Professor Mallory. That enabled Inspector Lorrimer, very courageously, to take his squad through the bush after you.’

‘Why did you send Inspector Lorrimer to Malaita in the first place?’ asked Kella. It was a matter that had been puzzling him.

‘We had reports from a number of mission stations that Pazabosi had been seen outside the Kwaio district, a very rare occurrence. We assumed that he was intent on stirring up unrest again. The situation on Malaita is always a volatile one. Under the circumstances, the last thing this Administration needs is a loose cannon like yourself careering all over the island.’

‘Pazabosi may have kidnapped Professor Mallory,’ said Kella stubbornly. ‘I can do some good over there—’

‘You may rest assured, sir,’ said Chief Superintendent Grice stiffly, ‘that Sergeant Kella will not be returning to Malaita in the foreseeable future.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ nodded the senior official. He returned his attention to Kella. ‘I’m sure that there is plenty for you to do here in Honiara. After all, despite your rather chequered career, you are still our senior indigenous police officer, Kella. The Protectorate has invested a lot of time and money in your development. There’s still time to put these matters behind you and make a career for yourself in the force. It’s simply a matter of overcoming your more impulsive tendencies.’ He rifled through some papers before him dismissively. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’

Outside in the busy corridor Chief Superintendent Grice walked away without a word or a glance back. He was probably annoyed at having to start work so early that day, thought Kella. To his local staff Grice was known as Ten Fifteen, as that was the time he usually arrived at the office in the morning.

‘Want a lift back to HQ?’ Lorrimer asked him.

‘No thanks, I’ve got things to do,’ answered Kella. ‘You can drive me along the coast and drop me off at Domo, if you like.’

Lorrimer nodded. He hesitated and then lowered his voice. ‘Look, old son,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t push things too far, eh? They don’t want to sack you because it would cause a stink getting rid of someone as well-known as you are, but if you force them into it they will, and then find another local heir-apparent. You can always do your celebrated tilting at windmills bit when you’re the boss man here in the islands.’

‘I can’t wait that long,’ Kella told him, striding away down the corridor.

Outside the Secretariat building they walked in the 80 degree heat to the inspector’s jeep. It was a hot, airless afternoon in the small town. Mendana Avenue, the capital’s single main street, lined with flowering flame trees, was occupied on both sides by stores and office buildings. Many of the shops and the Point Cruz cinema were housed in old Quonset huts left standing by American troops when they abandoned the site in 1945. The office buildings, the two banks and the courthouse were of stone.

To one side of the main road, on the ridges above the town, were the residences of the government officials and their families. On the other side of the avenue, behind the row of buildings, were the placid bay and the harbour. About ten thousand people lived in and around Honiara. A tenth of them were expatriates – British, Australians, Americans, New
Zealanders
, Chinese and Fijians.