Devil-Devil (26 page)

In the early 1940s, not many Malaitans would have had any concept of the value of gold. Eighteen years later, Iabuli might have realized the significance of the yellow dust he had interred with the beachcomber’s body. Could it have been the gold, not Herman’s skeleton, that the islander had retrieved?

On the other hand, Mendana Gau had been Herman’s assistant at the time. Perhaps he had stumbled across Herman’s body before it had been buried. He would not have been deterred by the
tabu
that bound the Lau people, and he would have had no scruples about entering Herman’s hut and stealing any gold he found there. That would certainly account for the islander’s sudden relative affluence at the end of the war.

Kella looked at his watch. It was time he started climbing the mountain to Gau’s treehouse, to see what was going on there. He also had to find out what Peter Oro had been doing up there. It looked as if he had played a larger part in the mystery than Kella had at first thought, and that the schoolboy had not been as innocent as he had seemed.

* * *

It took Kella four hours to climb the narrow, winding mountain path to the waterfall. For much of the way the path followed the course of the wide and now fast-moving river. He passed crocodiles basking on mud flats in the sultry heat, and watched kingfishers swooping for fish where the water grew deeper. He saw no bush people. Most of them could not swim and kept well away from the river, except to draw water from the
easier-running
sections.

As he got higher, the police sergeant began to pass a few bush people on the way down to the weekly market, where the Kwaio farmers exchanged taro and yams for the fish caught by the saltwater villagers.

The unmarried Kwaio girls, balancing wicker baskets of vegetables on their heads, who normally went naked, had donned faded grass skirts for the occasion. Kella greeted them politely but they ignored the presence of the stranger in their midst. The police sergeant took care not to address by name any of the bush people he knew. It was the Kwaio custom for people to change their names to prevent the spirits of dead enemies from finding them.

It all seemed very normal, thought Kella as he walked unhurriedly up the track. If Pazabosi was planning some sort of uprising, he was concealing his preparations well.

He found the canarium tree and the house in its fork soon after noon on the track between the waterfall and the bush village where he had spent the night with Elizabeth, the Sikaiana girl.

Kella stared up at the tree. This type was much favoured for the building of treehouses. The distance of the branches from the ground made it impossible for enemies to climb it unaided, while the wide spread of the branches in the upper reaches of the mighty canarium almond provided a strong foundation for the base of a treehouse. The man who owned the tree would possess a suitable ladder made of fine creepers, which he would have hired out to Gau when he visited his store there.

Kella examined the ground around the spreading prehensile roots of the tree. The fallen leaves, trunk and soil were spattered with freshly dried blood. Someone had certainly been attacked and, judging by the amount of blood, badly hurt here. But the blood was new. Any assault must have taken place over the last couple of days.

But Peter Oro had been murdered more than a week ago.

Kella looked at the pile of boxes and packages that Inspector Lorrimer had assembled on the floor of the mission hut, ready to take on his tour of the bush region with him. There were containers of tinned meat and sacks of rice from the Auki general store, a Tilley lamp, a camp bed, a mosquito net, a small portable radio, a pillow, a primus stove and several changes of uniform.

‘I fought in a war with less equipment than this,’ he told the inspector.

‘So did I, come to that,’ replied an unruffled Lorrimer, ‘but that was then, this is now.’

‘No trusses?’ asked Kella, mentally doubling the number of porters the inspector’s patrol would need the next day.

‘What?’

‘For your carriers. Half of them are going to end up with ruptures.’

‘Don’t let this fool you,’ said Lorrimer equably, his airy gesture embracing his ever-growing pile of provisions. ‘These few basic essentials apart, I am essentially your lean, mean fighting machine.’

‘Really?’ asked Kella. ‘We had one of those, but it died.’

‘This leave period you’re supposed to be on,’ said Lorrimer, trying to sound casual. ‘Bit of a busman’s holiday, is it?’

‘Something like that,’ agreed Kella.

The two policemen were sharing a spare hut on the school compound at Ruvabi mission station. The twelve uniformed officers from Roviana had arrived from Honiara by boat earlier that day and were sleeping in two of the classrooms.

Kella had made his way down from the treehouse that afternoon to find Lorrimer preparing for his expedition into the mountains to find Professor Mallory. The inspector had brought him up to date with news of the attack on Mendana Gau in Kwaio country, when the trader had tried to retrieve his box of custom carvings. That explained the bloodstains on the ground by the treehouse.

Kella was tired. He had walked in the tropical heat for almost eight hours that day. Now he wanted no more than a shower and a convivial meal with his friend Solomon Bulko. But still there were things to be done. The work that he was doing had become so complicated that Kella wanted to sort out aspects of it in his mind.

The sergeant knew that he had reached the stage in his investigation where he needed to share his information with someone. Kella did not normally trust white men, especially old colonials, but he suspected that Lorrimer was different. The Metropolitan policeman did not talk much about his work in London, but Kella gussed that Lorrimer had been as devoted to his patch there as Kella was to his island beat.

‘Fancy a stroll?’ he asked.

Lorrimer looked up in surprise from his packing, but nodded at once and stood up, dusting his hands on his trousers.

‘Sure thing,’ he said.

They walked casually across the compound and along the bluff over the wide ribbon of river approaching the sea, and the dark mass of surrounding trees huddled on either side of the water.

Most of the schoolboys were sitting in the grassy square outside their classrooms, watching the film that their headmaster was showing them, using an antiquated projector attached to the generator. The black images of the old Hollywood movie flickered on a white sheet in the darkness.

Kella led the inspector down the cliff path towards the river at its foot. They strolled along the grassy bank in the moonlight. At first they discussed aspects of the case in a desultory manner. Kella decided that it was time to find out how much Lorrimer was beginning to understand about the Solomons and its people.

‘Right,’ he invited. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’ He ticked off the items on his fingers. ‘The sacred
havu
carving is missing from the Kwaio cave-temple by the waterfall. Professor Mallory has disappeared up in the Kwaio bush. I’ve talked to the local people, and he was seen being guided up to the killing ground by two bushmen. That means that Pazabosi has kidnapped him, or that whoever has taken him has done so with Pazabosi’s knowledge and permission. Why is Mallory being held?’

‘As a retribution for stealing the
havu
?’ suggested Lorrimer.

‘Possibly. Anything else?’

‘As some sort of preamble to an armed uprising that Pazabosi’s been plotting on the island?’

‘That’s what I thought at first,’ nodded Kella. ‘But now I’m not so sure.’

‘Why not?’

‘For one thing, practically everyone who knows Pazabosi seems convinced that he’s simply too old and tired to take part in another uprising like Marching Rule. All right, so he’s keen to maintain his authority up in the Kwaio country as long as he’s still alive, but no one except you Brits, pardon me, seems to think he’s plotting insurgency.’

‘Then what’s going on?’ asked Lorrimer.

‘I don’t know, but believe me, there are no signs of an uprising in Kwaio country. I’ve been up there two or three times lately, and it’s all looked normal enough.’

‘I wonder—’ said Lorrimer, and stopped.

‘Go on,’ encouraged Kella.

‘Mendana Gau was trying to retrieve a box of custom carvings when he was hacked down by bushmen a couple of days ago. Gau’s two men implied that he made a practice of touring the bush villages, buying artifacts at a fraction of their true value. Presumably he’s been smuggling the carvings out of the Solomons, to sell them to collectors abroad. Perhaps he got greedy and overreached himself and stole the
havu
while he was up in the bush. That’s why the bushmen were waiting for Gau when he returned this week.’

‘Something like that certainly happened,’ agreed Kella. ‘I think that Peter Oro comes into the equation somewhere. Perhaps he was involved in picking up the carvings left by Gau at the treehouse. And Peter Oro was also attacked by bushmen, remember. Only his body was moved to the killing ground, where I would find it. Why?’

‘If you ask me,’ complained Lorrimer morosely, ‘that boy Oro comes into it all over the place. He was involved in digging up Lofty Herman’s grave. He drew attention to Senda Iabuli’s death by asking for the ghost-caller to investigate the death, and now you tell me that he was mixed up in an organized and dangerous smuggling racket.’

‘It’s all this modern education,’ said Kella. ‘I blame the teachers myself.’

‘Well, I hope you’re right about Pazabosi not starting an uprising,’ said Lorrimer fervently. ‘I’m not so sure. Maybe he’s just waiting for a sign, like last time.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Kella, something suddenly triggered at the back of his mind.

‘John Deacon, the Australian, told me about it at the Auki Club on Saturday night. Apparently the Marching Rule uprising in 1945 was started by the sight of black American troops leaving the Solomons. The locals took it as a sign that they were going to a special heaven to wait for the islanders and then come back to help them defeat the Brits. Perhaps Pazabosi is waiting for a similar sign now.’

‘Tell me,’ said Kella, all his attention on the other man, ‘what have you been taking lately, because I want some of it.’

‘Have I said something right?’ asked the inspector.

‘Let me put it together in my mind first, will you?’ asked Kella.

‘All right,’ said Lorrimer. ‘In the meantime, where do I start looking for Professor Mallory tomorrow?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Kella, his brain working busily. ‘Well, almost as good.’ He took out a notebook and started sketching an outline map on a page. He tore it out and handed it to the inspector. The route he had indicated should keep Lorrimer and his men out of trouble.

‘Follow that trail and stop each night at the spot I’ve indicated,’ he said. ‘I’ll be making my own inquiries up in the mountains. I’ll keep in touch from time to time.’

‘Thanks,’ said the inspector, folding the map into the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘Did you mean what you said just then, about me helping you out?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ said Kella. ‘Believe me, I’m grateful. I’ll tell you all about it, just as soon as I’ve made a few more inquiries.’

‘I’ll get on with my packing then,’ said Lorrimer, turning away. ‘Are you coming?’

‘In a minute. I’ll just stay here for a while. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Ben,’ said Lorrimer, walking back along the side of the river, towards the track leading to the mission school.

Left on his own, Kella stared across the smooth surface of the river. Misshapen branches from trees on the far side trailed listlessly into the water, like long arthritic fingers.

Lorrimer had done well, he thought. The inspector had appreciated the significance of the
havu
and had related Gau’s visit to the high bush to its disappearance. But it had been the inspector’s remarks about the bush people waiting for a custom sign that had really impinged on Kella’s mind.

Then he realized what it was. He stood very still as events and times all tumbled surely into place. The names connected with the case achieved a new significance in his mind: Herman, Oro, Gau, Iabuli and Mallory. They all stopped being unrelated entities and swam steadily into a fixed new orbit.

With absolute conviction Kella now knew what had been happening and what was going to happen. He also knew what he would have to do to bring matters to a conclusion.

He only hoped that he was not too late.

Sister Conchita steered the Bedford carefully down the hill road from the Catholic mission headquarters building to Mendana Avenue.

‘Are we going to visit the cruise ship again?’ asked Sister Philomena hopefully at her side.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Sister Conchita, flinching at the memory. She had already been reprimanded for her detour to the docks several nights before and her consequent invasion of the cruise ship with her contingent of elderly nuns. Neither had her superiors been over-enamoured when the party had returned later that night accompanied by several noisy police cars.

Sister Conchita feared that she was being confirmed as a nuisance by the local church hierarchy. Again she resolved genuinely to work harder on the twin virtues of humility and obedience.

‘That’s a pity,’ said Sister Philomena wistfully. She was small and wizened. ‘It was a lovely evening.’

‘It wasn’t bad, was it?’ grinned Sister Conchita.

‘I particularly liked the bit when you ordered the police cars to sound their sirens as we approached the mission house. Such a pity the bishop had just gone to sleep.’

‘Ah well,’ said Sister Conchita philosophically, her good intentions receding like the tide. ‘Into each life a little rain must fall.’

Unexpectedly Sister Philomena began to cackle with maniacal laughter. After a moment the other sister joined in. They were both still giggling when they turned into Mendana Avenue and headed towards the wharf in the centre of the capital.