Devil-Devil (16 page)

‘That’s right,’ said Kella. As soon as the war was over he had been sent back to a secondary school in Fiji and then on to the Australian university. By the time he had returned in 1952, the movement had collapsed and the ringleaders like Beni had been sentenced to prison terms.

The revolt had been based on the premise of cargo. It was rumoured among the people that the black GIs, who had so impressed everyone with their wealth and generosity during the war, had never really left the Solomons. They were said to be hiding in the bush with their vehicles and equipment. If the islanders rose against British colonial rule, the rebels declared, the GIs would emerge and aid them in their struggle against oppression. When that had been accomplished, shiploads of cargo would arrive from overseas for all the islanders.

‘I spent three years in the white man’s jail,’ Beni went on. ‘When I came out no expat would give me a job, except this crap one. The Lau fool who did it before me lasted three months until he made his final explosion. My land has been confiscated, and I won’t go home as a cringing
neena
, begging for food. And you expect me to help the colonials!’

‘I’m not doing it for the white man,’ said Kella. ‘I want to stop Pazabosi from tearing Malaita in half. Marching Rule didn’t work, neither will Pazabozi’s uprising. All we’ve got to do is to wait a few more years and we’ll gain independence. If Malaita belongs to Pazabosi by then, the Lau people won’t have a chance.’

‘Do you believe everything the white sugar-lips tell you?’ jeered Beni.

‘I think for myself,’ said Kella doggedly. ‘Remember, I am the
aofia
.’

It was a card he disliked playing, but he had discovered over the years that sometimes there was no alternative.

Beni shrugged. After a time he nodded reluctantly. When he spoke again his tone had softened a little. ‘I was present at your
maoma
feast, when you were anointed as
aofia
,’ he said quietly. ‘You must have been about ten then. The custom priests had already picked you out and started training you. There were thousands there. All the Lau people, from Suu down as far as Ataa Cove, came to witness it. They dedicated you out on the reef and gave you the areca nut to carry with you always, as a sign of peace. I hoped for a time that this might be the start of something important for Malaita, but then the war came, and when it ended, you had gone. So I decided to do something for myself.’

Abruptly Beni started tossing the shells into the sea again. Sparks and shards of rust flew as the ammunition collided noisily on its perilous descent over the side of the barge.

‘You should have waited,’ Kella told him. ‘You should still be waiting. When the time comes, I shall do something. I promise. Now,’ he persisted, ‘when I get back to Malaita, where will I find Pazabosi?’

Beni stopped, the sweat rolling down his lean face and body. Kella reached into his pocket and produced something. He could not remember the last time he had been forced to use it. He handed it to Beni, who stared reflectively at the object in the palm of his hand. Beni studied the nut expressionlessly before handing it back.

‘Nikona village, in the Kwaio high bush,’ he said briefly. ‘Whatever Pazabosi’s doing, and I’m not saying he’s plotting an uprising, he’s doing it there. Now go away and let me get on with mywork. And never pretend that we have anything in common.’

‘There’s certainly one big difference between us,’ said Kella, climbing with stomach-churning relief back down into the comparative safety of his canoe.

‘What’s that?’ asked Beni from the barge.

‘I care whether I live or die,’ shouted Kella, picking up his paddle.

Kella hitched a ride back into Honiara in a lorry taking a load of yams to market from Visale at the far end of the road. He was dropped off outside the Mendana Hotel. He looked at his watch. It was only four o’clock. He realized that he did not want to go back to his office and the company of the expatriate police officers.

Instead he walked up a quiet sloping side-street to the Roman Catholic headquarters building. It was an old, sprawling wooden edifice, which doubled as an administrative centre for the mission and a hostel for priests and nuns visiting the capital from the outlying districts.

In the hall, cooled by a ceiling fan, he asked the shy local Daughter of Mary Immaculate novice behind the desk where he could find Sister Conchita. The novice stood up and led him in silence through the building to a large back yard. In one corner stood an old, decrepit van. From beneath the vehicle projected a pair of slim ankles. The novice tapped the ankles with her foot. There was a whirling noise and a mechanic’s flat trolley was propelled at speed from beneath the Bedford. Sister Conchita was lying on it, blinking up at him in surprise and some discomposure, a spanner in her hand. Her habit was flecked with oil and there were smudges of grease on her nose and cheeks. She scrambled to her feet.

‘They soon put you to work then,’ said Kella, indicating the sagging vehicle.

‘Just running repairs,’ said the sister. ‘There’s the blessing of the fishing boats tomorrow night. We’ll need this to drive the sisters down to the wharf.’

Belatedly Kella extended a hand in greeting. Sister Conchita hesitated and took it reluctantly, releasing her grip almost at once. Kella wondered what was wrong. On his island of Sulufou he had thought that they had become almost friends. Now they were strangers again. Perhaps it was the black and white thing, once they were back in so-called civilization.

‘I thought I’d see how you were,’ he explained. ‘John Deacon got you back here all right then? I must see him before he goes back to his plantation. How did you get on with John?’

‘All right,’ said the sister expressionlessly.

‘Something wrong?’ asked Kella. ‘Deacon can be on the sharp side with strangers.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ said Sister Conchita, not meeting his gaze. ‘You’ll have to hurry if you want to see him. He told me that he was filling up with supplies and catching the night tide back to Lau tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Honiara will be a bit too respectable for John these days,’ joked Kella. ‘Well, as long as you’re all right …’

He turned and walked back through the building. Sister Conchita followed him. He had reached the front door when the sister called his name. He turned back. She was standing very straight, her fists clenched at her sides.

‘Why have you come here, Sergeant Kella?’ she demanded, fighting back tears. ‘Was it to gloat?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ protested Kella.

‘If you had any animosity towards the mission because of your own schooldays there, you’ve certainly got your revenge now. In pidgin, they call it payback, don’t they?’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘Of course you understand!’ blazed the sister. ‘You’re a policeman. You know what’s going on. They’re bringing Father Pierre back to Honiara. They think he had something to do with the murder of Lofty Herman!’

Kella sat at his office desk ploughing through the paperwork that had been occupying him for most of the day. He opened the file on the sixth case submitted for his opinion. There was a dispute on Santa Isabel among the Bugotu people. A young man wanted to marry a girl within the same clan. This had been forbidden with horror by the girl’s father, a strong follower of custom, which forbade marriages within the same tribe, as it led to poor stock. The youth had persisted in his attentions and had subsequently been beaten up by the girl’s brothers. The case had come to the attention of a touring District Officer, who had reported the matter and optimistically requested a police investigation.

Kella sighed and on the paper before him scrawled the hieroglyphic indicating no official action to be taken. The battered youth would never give evidence against his putative in-laws. If he had any sense he would get his beloved pregnant as soon as possible and then offer a lavish retrospective bride price to her family. Before the war such an action would have resulted in both the youth and the besmirched girl being stoned to death, but even the most traditional of clan leaders were getting ever more philosophical about such transgressions, except on Malaita, where custom still ruled.

Kella closed the file and allowed his mind to return to Malaita and Father Pierre. He could hardly believe that the old priest was being brought into the capital for questioning about the murder of Lofty Herman. He had tried to find out more from the Catholic headquarters, but his telephone calls had met with obdurate stonewalling evasions. Both Chief Superintendent Grice and Inspector Lorrimer had been out for most of the day. No one else in the headquarters building seemed to know anything about the affair, or if they did they were not going to reveal anything to Kella.

He thought about the day that he had gone into the priest’s study at the mission school. This had been in 1941, immediately before he was due to leave for his secondary education in Fiji. He had been twelve or thirteen, but already quite sure in his mind that the white man’s religion was not for him. He had done his best to assimilate its tenets, but already he was sure that he would have to follow the custom way for the rest of his life. Father Pierre had heard him out in silence. To his surprise the priest had not been angry.

‘You must do what you think is right, Ben,’ he had told the boy. ‘You have been brought up in the custom way for a special purpose, and one day your people will need you. If you truly believe that tradition makes you stronger than the way we have tried to teach you here, then you must follow that path. But don’t disregard everything you have learnt here. Some of it will serve you well one day.’

Years later Kella had heard that the priest’s attitude had got him into trouble with the church authorities. He had been told that it was his duty to dissuade his star pupil and ensure that he remained within the Church. Father Pierre, as usual, had been unrepentant.

‘Ben Kella has been shown his path,’ he insisted. ‘Now he will follow it. It won’t be easy for him. He is finding his way in two worlds. In the end that will make him strong and independent, but inevitably it will mean that he will suffer the occasional dark night of the soul. When he does, he will continue to need our help.’

Kella heard a vehicle pull up in the car park below. He walked over to the open window. Chief Superintendent Grice was getting out of his Volvo. Kella hurried to the door. He was waiting in the corridor outside the chief superintendent’s office by the time Grice had stumbled up the stairs. The Englishman’s eyes were glassy and he was moving with great care. When Kella walked forward to meet him he could smell the whisky on the senior police officer’s breath. Grice must have been lunching at the Yacht Club again.

‘Could I have a word with you about Father Pierre, sir?’ Kella asked humbly.

Grice looked amiably perplexed. ‘Pierre?’ he asked with clipped enunciation, giving the consonant a final polish before allowing it to emerge pristine and clear. He frowned. ‘Oh, the old priest! No need to bother, Kella. I’m dealing with that particular matter myself. Tricky situation, you see. Calls for tact and diplomacy.’ Grice tapped the side of his nose
conspiratorially
. ‘Political.’

Kella followed the chief superintendent uninvited into his office. ‘Perhaps I could help,’ he persisted hopefully. ‘I know Father Pierre rather well.’

The official looked enraged by Kella’s unexpected invasion of his territory. His air of bonhomie vanished as he swung violently into one of his mood changes. Suddenly his eyes were slitted with fury.

‘Help?’ he choked. ‘I’ve had enough of your bloody help, thank you, Sergeant Kella. What you need to do is bugger off until we’ve sorted out your mess for you. Take some leave, or something. Just keep away from that priest! That’s an order!’

Kella left the office without speaking. Grice slammed the door shut after him. As the sergeant walked dispiritedly along the corridor, Lorrimer came up the stairs. The inspector’s uniform was dust-stained. He had left for Henderson Field, the small airport outside Honiara, that morning, to assist the Customs and Excise Department in a drugs operation connected with an incoming Heron aircraft on an Air Fiji flight from Nadi. He glanced briefly at the chief superintendent’s door. It was still reverberating. Lorrimer raised an eyebrow at Kella.

‘I got the bum’s rush,’ explained the sergeant. ‘Don’t ask! Never mind, I’m sure you can help me instead.’

‘Now why does my heart always sink when you say that?’ asked Lorrimer without rancour.

In his office the inspector sank gratefully into the chair behind his desk. Kella sat on the chair opposite.

‘Have you had a chance to think about my Choiseul problem?’ asked the inspector.

‘The garden raids? Leave it alone.’

‘But if I do it might lead to trouble.’

‘There will only be trouble if you interfere,’ said Kella. ‘The Methodists and SDAs have been looting those gardens for years. The Methodists choose Saturdays because the SDAs are at church, and the SDAs attack on Sundays for the same reason. Each side knows they will never meet, so there will be no fighting. It’s not much more than a game. It’s not as if there’s a lot to do on Choiseul.’

‘Okay,’ nodded Lorrimer. ‘You know best.’

‘Any luck with the smuggling?’ asked Kella.

Lorrimer shook his head. ‘Not a scrap,’ he replied. ‘The plane was clean. It seemed a good tip-off from the Fijian police, too.’

‘I expect the smugglers offloaded the drugs at the stopover at Santo in the New Hebrides,’ Kella told him. ‘Then they would have put them on a ship and landed them anywhere along the Guadalcanal coast that they fancied.’

‘Thank you for sharing that inspiring thought with me,’ sighed Lorrimer. ‘It fills me with a burning determination to continue the good fight, secure in the knowledge that the good guys are bound to win. So what can I do for you?’

‘You can tell me about Father Pierre,’ Kella told him. ‘And don’t pretend you know nothing about him. You hinted to me yesterday that Grice was investigating the case on his own. I just didn’t believe that he would be stupid enough to try to implicate the priest.’