Devil-Devil (13 page)

‘The usual,’ replied the sergeant, trying not to show his discomfort. Lau women most certainly did not tease their menfolk in the way that Elizabeth was now taunting him. He stood up with as much dignity as he could muster and took a towel from his pack. ‘Thank you for the food. I’m going to wash.’

The teacher was still laughing when he left her hut. Kella saw no one until he was almost back at the waterfall. Then a bushman emerged from the trees ahead of him. The man was stunted and naked. He carried a spear. His face was a whorl of tattoo marks. On his forehead was the diamond-shaped
fuae alite
, representing the nut of the alite tree. On his cheeks were the
bubulus
, large circles with rays radiating outwards. Below the rays were the
tale
kokosu
, the tracks of the hermit crab.

The man saw Kella and in the same movement turned and plunged back into the undergrowth and was lost from sight. Kella stripped by the side of the waterfall and bathed in the thick spray exploding over the plateau. Towelling himself down he dressed and walked back to the village.

The place was still deserted. Night was beginning to creep unwillingly over the mountainside. The huts huddled together in the gloom like whipped dogs. Kella stopped outside Elizabeth’s hut. He hesitated. Then he heard his name being called softly from within the structure. He went inside. It was cool and quiet. He could just make out the young
schoolteacher
’s lovely naked body lying on a woven mat. Her long slim legs were drawn up and splayed languorously.

‘Oh, Kella,’ she whispered through the darkness, extending her smooth arms. ‘Come to me. I will be much better than any silly wooden
havu
.’

The early morning light streamed in through the cracks in the walls of the schoolteacher’s house, awakening Kella suddenly. He lay on his back on the mat, trying to assemble his thoughts. Memories of the long and tender night engulfed him. He remembered the soft, brown enfolding limbs, the whispered endearments and urgent cries as he and Elizabeth coupled and climaxed time after tremulous time in the dark hours.

Kella stood up. With an almost overwhelming sense of disappointment and loss he realized that Elizabeth was no longer in the hut. She must have left to bathe in the women’s section of the river below the falls. He dressed and picked up his towel.

Outside, the hitherto deserted village was slowly coming to life. The contrast with the emptiness of the previous day was acute. Naked children were playing between the huts. Old men sat cross-legged in groups, exchanging early morning lies. Women were cooking over open fires. Because there was a stranger in their village they were no longer naked but wearing flimsy grass skirts.

The inhabitants ignored Kella sulkily as he nodded to them. They were not necessarily hostile, he thought as he walked, warmed and gentled and made vulnerable by the events of the previous night; they were probably shy and unused to strangers.

He moved contentedly through the trees, immersed in thoughts of the soft ferocity of the Sikaianan girl. He stepped out of the fringes of undergrowth and trees on to the plateau.

Then he stopped. His world collapsed about him with a rush, like the fronds of a falling palm tree. On the edge of the plateau was a body lying in a grotesque arabesque of death.

Desperately Kella broke into a sprint. He drew closer to the crumpled form, expecting to find the body of Mallory deposited there. But it was not the anthropologist. The corpse was that of a boy in his teens, clad in black shorts and a white shirt. There was a deep, corrugated, bloody gash across the boy’s exposed throat, reaching from one ear to the other.

Almost weeping with chagrin and remorse, the police sergeant bent over the inert body. Then he threw back his head and screamed in despair.

He was looking at the body of the schoolboy, Peter Oro.

By the time that Kella had run back to the collection of huts, his heart pounding and sweat obscuring his vision, the men of the village were lined up waiting for him in truculent, seething ranks. There were about forty of them, all carrying spears or clubs.

Kella knew that he should be circumspect but he was too angry to care. He had stopped to vomit among the trees and his stomach was still churning. The bushmen regarded him stonily. They knew no English but there might be one or two among them with a smattering of pidgin.

‘Which way teacher bilong you now?’ he asked loudly. ‘Name bilong Elizabeth.’

There was no answer from the obdurate crowd before him. Kella was aware of frightened women and children peering at him from the safety of the huts.

‘School!’ shouted Kella. ‘Where now thisfella school: place bilong piccanin?’

No one answered. The bushmen exchanged puzzled glances. Then a villager, older than the others, probably the headman, advanced, limping slowly, from the crowd.

‘No school,’ he said, shaking his head firmly. ‘No school bilong thisplace-ia.’

Kella stared in disbelief at the old man and then broke away. He hurried from hut to hut, wrenching aside the leaf hangings and staring inside each dwelling. Children broke into shrill cries as he thrust his head through the doorways, while women jabbered at him fiercely.

Finally Kella abandoned the search and walked bemusedly back towards the mob of incensed men. Each hut was obviously an established home. There was no building in the whole village resembling a school.

‘Me lookem long thisfella mary, place bilong him Sikaiana, name bilong him Elizabeth,’ he said desperately.

‘No catchem thisfella mary,’ protested the old man in faltering pidgin. He turned and said something in dialect to the others. They shook their heads in tandem and growled fiercely, denying all knowledge of the Polynesian girl.

The sergeant knew that they were lying. Pazabosi must have arranged for Elizabeth to be spirited away from the village earlier that morning, while he slept. He wondered what her function could have been. Why had the girl gone to such lengths to seduce him? Presumably Pazabosi had wanted him detained in the village while Peter Oro had been hurried through the trees to the
faatai
maea
and then so cruelly murdered at the side of the waterfall. It all bore the marks of careful planning.

‘Who now killem thisfella Peter?’ he demanded, knowing as he spoke that he was wasting his time.

No one answered. The armed bushmen began to drift away, ignoring the sergeant. Kella walked quickly over to the hut in which he had spent the night with Elizabeth. The interior was occupied by a woman and three young children. One of the bushmen followed Kella in and raised his spear threateningly.

Kella scrutinized the hut in search of any trace of Elizabeth. Then he saw on the earthen floor a mound covered with a length of tattered cloth. Kella darted over and tore the cloth off the pile, paying no attention to the threats of the bushman. The cloth had concealed two intricately woven skirts fashioned out of dyed banana fibre, in the traditional Sikaiana check pattern. Elizabeth had been living in this hut and the family had not had time to dispose of the clothing she had left behind after her rapid departure.

The bushman edged forward, making small, dangerous circles and thrusts with his spear. Kella backed off quickly, leaving the hut. The bushman followed him out, calling to the others. The rest of the men rushed over towards them. Kella backed up against the side of the hut. The bushmen crowded about him, jostling him angrily.

There was a cold rattle of rifle bolts and a shouted word of command. The startled bushmen turned. Six uniformed
policemen
were scattered around the edge of the compound, their rifles pointed at the crowd. Their facial markings showed that they were Choiseul men from the Western Solomons, old foes of the Malaitans and the only islanders who would have dared enter the high bush in this summary fashion.

Standing behind them, sweating profusely and holding his service revolver, was Inspector Lorrimer. He caught Kella’s gaze and nodded calmly.

‘Morning,’ he called laconically. ‘You’re a hard man to find, Sergeant Kella.’

At dawn two men from the artificial island paddled Sister Conchita out towards the reef. Skilfully they negotiated the natural coral walls protecting the lagoon from the snarling ocean and slipped their canoe through a narrow fissure out into the open sea.

The change from the calm of the lagoon was remarkable. Large waves seized the canoe and sent it spinning helplessly from breaker to breaker as the two Melanesians paddled frantically to keep their frail vessel on an even keel. The nun clung desperately to the sides of the canoe as it careered over the rough waters like a frightened horse.

Sister Conchita saw that they were headed towards a larger vessel pitching on a sea-anchor just outside the lagoon. As the canoe buffeted its way through the crashing waves to the side of the ship she could just make out through the stinging sea spray that it was a battered old pre-war cutter of the sort commonly used for coastal trading around the islands. The ancient rusty vessel bucked almost uncontrollably above her, dwarfing the writhing canoe and its occupants. Its fifteen-horsepower engine was crammed into a tiny space enclosed by a hatch in the centre of the single deck. The wheel and the rigging for the mast were situated just behind the hatch. There were two meagre cargo holds placed fore and aft.

A rough rope ladder suddenly cascaded down from the ship’s rail like an uncoiled snake. One of the Melanesians in the canoe stood up precariously and grabbed the bottom end of the ladder as he swayed, briefly securing the canoe to the side of the cutter. Urgently he gestured to Sister Conchita to stand and climb the ladder as it rattled noisily against the larger vessel.

Trying to control her fear, the nun propelled herself to her feet. It was difficult to stand on the spinning craft. The islander clinging to the ladder called out to her again. Unless she moved quickly he would soon be torn from the canoe by the force of the rope ladder slapping violently against the side of the cutter.

Apprehensively Sister Conchita forced herself to edge to the side of the canoe. The cutter was heaving before her like the wall of a crumbling building almost disintegrating in an earthquake. From this close the trading vessel now looked both enormous and impregnable. The ladder billowed wildly out of control above her head. Impulsively the nun threw herself forward and clung to its twisting rungs, her feet scrabbling for purchase. It took several scrambled efforts before they twisted frantically into position on the slippery lower hempen steps. As she clung breathlessly to the unruly rope Sister Conchita was dimly aware of the canoe bouncing erratically away from the cutter, heading back for the security of the lagoon.

‘Climb, woman!’ demanded an irate voice from above her head.

The nun threw back her head to glimpse the unshaven face of John Deacon glaring vindictively down at her from the rail of the ship. Step by step Sister Conchita forced herself up the rope ladder, her habit soaked and achingly heavy, the muscles of her arms and legs screaming for relief, the waves chopping viciously below her, reaching up as if to drag her back. Doggedly she inched upwards, until her face was level with the deck. Rough arms grabbed at her and lifted her clumsily up over the rail and deposited her in a breathless heap on the scarred planks of the deck.

‘Where do you think you are, on your holidays?’ demanded the same gruff voice sardonically. ‘I’ve got a schedule to keep.’

Determined not to reveal her feeling of utter relief at her deliverance, the trembling Sister Conchita hauled herself to her feet, gripping the rail for support. There were two Melanesians on board, seeming to make up the entire crew. One of them was already hauling up the rope ladder, while the other was disappearing into the engine room, from which soon emerged a guttural cough and a subdued howl of released steam as the engine came to reluctant life.

‘Good morning, Mr Deacon,’ she said to the short,
broad-shouldered
white man clad in shorts and a singlet before her. ‘I hope you’re carrying a legitimate cargo this time.’

‘I’ve got two rules for you as long as you’re on board.’ growled Deacon, flushing. ‘Keep quiet, and keep out of the bloody way!’

The trader stalked over to the wheel and took up his position there, rapping out instructions to the seemingly indifferent Melanesians. Within minutes the vessel was limping its way arthritically through the waves. Sister Conchita glared at the broad back of the Australian. One of the Melanesians emerged from the engine room. He winked at the nun and pointed over the side of the vessel.

‘Good too much,’ he said approvingly. ‘Missus bilong God climb like a gecko.’

‘Well, I’m glad you appreciate it,’ said Sister Conchita warmly. ‘If you want to know, I thought it was pretty darn good myself.’

A shout from Deacon sent the crew member loping over to take the trader’s place at the wheel. The Australian stamped over towards the nun. Sister Conchita eyed his approach coolly.

‘Thought up some more rules for me, buster?’ she asked unblinkingly.

Deacon stopped in surprise. For a second a reluctant grin contorted his unshaven face. Then he was glowering at her again.

‘Kella tells me someone took pot-shots at you,’ he said brusquely. ‘Any idea who did it?’

‘I doubt it was anyone from the Solomons Tourist Board,’ said the nun icily. ‘Nor yet a prelude to a march-past with fixed bayonets welcoming me to the islands. How the heck would I know who it was?’

‘You don’t faze easy, do you?’ grunted Deacon.

‘Do I have something to be fazed about, Mr Deacon?’

‘I don’t know. But Ben Kella’s been a friend of mine for a long time. That guy can look after himself. Yet inside a couple of days of meeting you they’re carrying him away on a stretcher.’