Devil-Devil (15 page)

Lorrimer drove them out of town in silence. Normally he was friendly enough but this afternoon he seemed preoccupied. Kella knew that he was indebted to the other man for coming to his aid on Malaita. It would have taken courage for an expatriate with no knowledge of the island to lead his police squad up the forested mountains into Kwaio territory. The Englishman seemed a conscientious police officer and, as a temporary visitor, he had the advantage of not being an Old Colonial. For some time Kella had wondered if this was a rare white man who might be trusted.

They soon left the houses behind them. On their right, along the winding, pitted coastal road, were the smooth waters of Ironbottom Sound, so-called because of the number of Allied vessels which had been sunk off the coast during the war. On their left, palm trees gave way to the wooded foothills, which in turn climbed gradually to the central mountain range of the island of Guadalcanal.

‘No chance of your telling me what you’re going to do, I suppose?’ asked Lorrimer resignedly.

‘Believe me,’ Kella assured him, ‘best you don’t know.’

The inspector tried again. ‘Then at least tell me this. Why do you think that the killings of Senda Iabuli and Peter Oro are linked? Apart from the fact that the two islanders were related.’

‘They were both custom killings,’ said Kella. ‘They’re very rare. It’s most unlikely that there would be two separate murders in such a short time. I’m sure the deaths were combined. And there’s something else.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I think’, said Kella carefully, deciding after much thought to share his thoughts with someone for once, ‘that Senda Iabuli might have been murdered twice.’

Carefully Lorrimer pulled into the side of the dusty road and stopped the jeep. He switched off the ignition and turned to face Kella.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy it. What was that supposed to mean? How could anyone be killed twice?’

‘You see,’ explained Kella, ‘when I made my first investigation into the death of Senda Iabuli, I suspected that he had been killed by the other people in his village.’

‘Why on earth would they want to do that?’

‘Because of Iabuli’s miraculous escape from death. Think about it. To take the fall that he did, and survive, seems impossible. How could he possibly have escaped death?’

‘Are you saying that Senda Iabuli didn’t fall from that bridge? There were witnesses—’

‘Oh, he fell all right. Hundreds of feet. I went to the ravine and looked for myself. Iabuli had a simply miraculous escape from death. And by doing that he ensured that he would die.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded Lorrimer.

‘The people of the village could only have come to one logical conclusion when they found Senda Iabuli still alive. They would have believed that the old man had entered into a pact with a devil, who had saved his life.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Lorrimer.

‘Trust me,’ said Kella. ‘I’m a witch doctor. I know these things. According to custom, it was the only thing they
could
think.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘Never mind what I believe. I’m telling you the way it was in that village. The people there couldn’t have someone wandering about who was in cahoots with a devil. It would be far too dangerous. They would have gone to the headman and demanded that Senda Iabuli be killed before he could harm anyone.’

‘So the headman killed him?’

‘Or had him killed. If the headman wanted to remain in charge he would have had Senda Iabuli poisoned. Peter Oro, the old man’s grandson, remembered enough about the custom ways to guess that. That’s why he insisted on the ghost-caller being summoned to find out the truth. Which he did, in a way.’

‘Believe me,’ said Lorrimer dazedly, ‘murder inquiries were never like this at West End Central. How do you mean “in a way”?’

‘Somehow or other,’ said Kella, following the thread
unravelling
in his mind, ‘Iabuli had also upset Pazabosi, the old bush magic man. I know that because I found a sign of the bones
tabu
outside Iabuli’s house. That meant that Pazabosi had put it where Iabuli would have found it when he was getting the comfort stones to put under his bed.’

‘You mean this was separate from anything the headman might have done?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Kella. ‘No doubt about it.’

‘A bit like being slipped the black spot,’ ruminated Lorrimer. ‘So the poor old sod was being targeted by both the headman and by Pazabosi?’

‘Not the luckiest of guys, was he? I don’t know which of them got to him first, the headman or Pazabosi. Perhaps they both did it. That’s what I meant when I said he may have been murdered twice.’

‘Exactly how was Senda Iabuli killed?’ asked Lorrimer. ‘That might help us find out who the murderer was.’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Kella. ‘Iabuli had already received a custom burial by the time I arrived at the village. Even the
aofia
 
couldn’t insist on the body being dug up, supposing I could have discovered his grave. He was probably poisoned or suffocated. Perhaps both if my theory is correct. Somebody could have smothered Iabuli after he had been drugged.’

‘What a mess,’ said Lorrimer feelingly.

‘Don’t worry, it gets worse. There’s also the matter of Lofty Herman’s shooting, all those years ago at the mission station. As far as I can work it out, the whole thing – the two deaths and the subsequent attack on Sister Conchita – was sparked off when the beachcomber’s body was uncovered.’

‘I shouldn’t bother too much about that one at the moment,’ said Lorrimer, suddenly formal.

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t tell you that. Just take my advice and leave the Lofty Herman killing alone.’ The inspector turned on the ignition and let in the clutch. ‘Suffice it to say that matters are in hand. You’ve got two other murders on your plate, and you aren’t allowed to leave Honiara. That should be challenge enough, even for you.’

Thirty minutes later they reached the huts of Doma, a small village scattered around a creek on the Guadalcanal coast. Kella got out of the jeep and waited until Lorrimer had spun the vehicle around and, with a fatalistic wave of his hand, had headed back in the direction of Honiara. Then the sergeant walked down the sandy beach fringed by palms.

Half a dozen tough-looking Guadalcanal men were sitting on the sand in the shade of a tree, staring apathetically out to sea at a rusting landing barge anchored half a mile off the shore. They appeared totally unimpressed by the arrival of a police officer.

‘Where-im now thisfella Sam Beni?’ Kella asked.

The men took their time in replying. Finally one of them removed a clay pipe from his mouth and jabbed the stem in the direction of the barge.

‘Me wannem for talk-talk long thisfella,’ said Kella. ‘Spose you wannem, you take me out long barge?’

The Guadalcanal men did not exactly laugh but it was plain from their attitude that the last thing any of them was going to do was to convey Kella to the barge and its dangerous cargo. Kella did not blame them. They had risked their lives a dozen times filling the tethered craft in the first place.

He indicated a small canoe drawn up under a palm tree. He asked whose it was. One of the labourers indicated possession by raising an eyebrow. Kella asked if he could borrow it. The owner’s scornful expression told him that if the police sergeant was foolish enough to want to approach the barge, he did not object.

‘Side bilong you,’ he yawned.

Kella thanked him and pushed the dugout down to the water’s edge. He found that he was soon paddling even more slowly than the chopping water necessitated. When he was a few yards from the barge, he stopped, steadying the canoe with occasional thrusts of his paddle against the tide.

As usual the barge now looming above him was loaded with hundreds of discoloured, mildewed armament shells of all sizes, both American and Japanese. Among the heaving lethal piles Kella could discern small two-pound mortar shells, hand grenades, stick bombs, howitzer, armour-piercing and
high-explosive
anti-tank shells, all jumbled together in a tortured, constantly shifting, deadly parody of metal sculpture.

On top of the heap stood a sinewy islander in his mid-forties. He was clad only in a pair of tattered shorts. One by one he was throwing the shells carelessly into the sea. When he saw the sergeant he nodded, without pausing in his work.

‘
Tua futa
,’ Kella said respectfully, using the Lau term for a member of the artificial islands’ extended family. By the use of the phrase, implicitly he was asking his
wantok
for help.

‘Hello, Kella,’ said the other man indifferently, continuing the use of the Lau dialect. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’d like to talk to you, Beni.’

‘You do, do you? Come up here then.’

‘I can hear you fine from here,’ Kella said quickly.

Sam Beni shook his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘If any policeman wants to talk to me he can come aboard.’

Still steadying his canoe, Kella considered the situation. It was typical of Beni’s caustic sense of humour that he would want to face down any representative of the law. The barge was a floating death trap, liable to explode at any moment. Beni’s employer, a New Zealander, had a contract to find and dispose of the thousands of live shells and grenades left behind in the bush after the war on Guadalcanal. In order to do so, he had recruited the hardest and most reckless men on the island. They combed the bush, collecting the long-neglected and volatile ammunition, and loading the shells and grenades on to the barge. The New Zealander then towed it out to sea behind his powerful motor boat, and anchored it, before returning to the safety of the shore. Only Beni would remain on the barge, with the suicidal task of dumping the shells into the sea.

‘Well, are you coming up?’ taunted his
wantok
.

Kella took a deep breath. Gingerly he tied his canoe to a rusted projection on the side of the barge and clambered gingerly aboard. He stood balancing uneasily on the shells groaning and shifting ceaselessly beneath his feet. The barge creaked and swayed against its anchors.

Kella could see the small volcanic island of Savo on the far side of Ironbottom Sound. He knew that if he made the wrong movement, or if his luck ran out, two of the live shells could crash into one another, sending the barge and its occupants up in a sudden eruption of flame and smoke.

Beni waited, enjoying every moment, as Kella tiptoed across the ammunition to him. Then he sat on the side of the barge, lighting his pipe with a careless scrape of a match on one of the casings. His cold eyes surveyed the other man without a flicker of liking or emotion of any kind.

‘Well?’ he grunted.

‘I want to ask you about Marching Rule,’ Kella said.

‘I don’t give history lessons.’

‘After that I need to find Pazabosi and arrest him.’

Beni bowed his head in reflection. When he raised it there was an unidentifiable glint in his usually dead eyes.

‘That’s different,’ he acknowledged. ‘I don’t owe Pazabosi anything. What do you want to know?’

‘What part did he play in the uprising?’

‘Not as much as he’d like you to think. He was one of us at the beginning, but when the Brits started sending in armed policemen in 1948, he went off back to his mountain-top.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Pazabosi,’ frowned Kella. ‘I fought with him in the war. He was as brave as they come then.’

‘Oh, the old man was never a coward,’ acknowledged Beni disdainfully. ‘He just wasn’t interested in losing, and he knew by then that Marching Rule was doomed. While the rest of us went to prison, he stayed up in the bush, waiting for a better moment to arrive. He’s making his move at last, is he? I’m surprised. I would have thought that by now he would be preparing for his long journey to the spirit world.’

‘I’m not sure what’s happening, but he’s in the thick of something,’ said the police sergeant. ‘That’s why I have to find him. Only you can help me. You were one of the big men in Marching Rule. The people on Malaita still respect you for that. If anything against the government is happening on the island, you will still be told about it.’

‘How do you know I’m not still involved with Pazabosi?’

Kella shook his head. ‘That’s not your style. You think he ran away to fight another day. That’s not good enough for you. You had one chance ten years ago, and you put everything you had into it. When you lost it took too much out of you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Beni bitterly.

‘Well, look at you, perched on top of a rubbish heap, like a wounded eagle. This is no place for a warrior
ramo
. You won’t try again. You may frighten me and your friends shitless with your recklessness with these shells out here, but really these days, Beni, you’re one of the
neena
, the unprotected.’

Beni roared with incandescent rage and jumped to his feet. Without taking his eyes off the sergeant he lifted a shell at random from the pile. He raised it above his head with a surge of muscle and suddenly hurled it back down on to the rest of the ammunition.

Kella leapt backwards, raising his hands instinctively to protect his face. He went sprawling on the shells. Involuntarily he closed his eyes and waited for the explosion. Nothing happened. When he opened his eyes again everything was as it had been. The precarious cargo was still grunting and shifting, the sea lapped against the side of the barge. Across the bay the volcano on Savo remained calm. Kella was only aware of the pumping of his heart.

‘I do that most days,’ said Beni, his anger replaced by melancholy. ‘None of them have gone off yet.’

‘Keep trying,’ panted Kella, scrambling to his feet and trying to control the trembling of his arms and legs. ‘You never know your luck. Are you going to tell me about Pazabosi?’

‘Why should I? You’re the white man’s policeman. What did you ever do for the Marching Rule movement? I don’t suppose you were even in the Solomons when we tried to throw the Brits out.’