Devil-Devil (17 page)

‘I’m completely in the dark, old son,’ said Lorrimer.

‘Don’t give me that, whitey. You’re a paid-up member of the expats’ cosy club. What do you really know?’

‘All I’ve heard’, said Lorrimer, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, ‘is that Chief Superintendent Grice received
information
from somewhere that Father Pierre could have been implicated in the killing of Herman in 1942.’

‘Where did he get the information from?’ asked Kella.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lorrimer. ‘Perhaps the Catholics shopped him.’

‘Not a chance,’ scoffed Kella. ‘The mission hierarchy may regard Father Pierre as a maverick, but they look after their own. The old boy is a living legend on Malaita.’

‘We’ll have to question him when he arrives,’ said Lorrimer.

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Kella told him, rising and going to the door. ‘The old man will come in his own good time. He’ll deliberately miss the first couple of boats bound for Honiara, then he’ll get one going the long way round Malaita. You’ll be lucky to see him in a month.’

‘Side bilong big man-ia,’ said Lorrimer in an unconvincing attempt at pidgin as Kella left.

If Lorrimer was right, thought Kella, descending the stairs, and all they had on Father Pierre was a raft of unsubstantiated allegations, from an anonymous witness, it did not seem to justify bringing such an old man all the way from Malaita. There must be more to it than that. Unless Grice was getting it all wrong, as usual.

The day shift was just going off duty. There was considerable traffic in both directions on the stairs. Some of the passing indigenous officers stared at Kella. Ever since the news had spread that he had discovered Peter Oro’s body in the same place that the missionary had been killed on Malaita, Kella knew that there had been gossip that he might even have been responsible for both deaths, perhaps as a matter of duty as the
aofia
.

Few of the officers did more than nod awkwardly as he passed them. Some of them would be regarding him as inefficient. Others would attribute to him the much more dangerous trait of being unlucky.

Only Sergeant Ha’a stopped to talk to Kella, mainly because he needed the rest as he dragged his stubby, corpulent body up the stairs. He was from New Georgia in the Western Solomons. He was a rotund, cheerful extrovert, his glossy, jet-black features surmounted by a head of tight curls.

Ha’a was a skilful musician, adept on the guitar, and an efficient organizer. On his overseas police officers’ course in Yorkshire, he had dragooned two Gold Coast inspectors and a sergeant from Northern Rhodesia into a money-making group he had called Curly Ha’a and his South Sea Island Hawaiians. They had raised a storm at working men’s clubs all over the North of England, and had even appeared on television on
Opportunity Knocks
.

‘Which way now, bigfella?’ he asked, pumping for breath, with his hands on his knees.

‘Are you still on the student beat?’ Kella asked, remembering something he had meant to find out.

Ha’a grimaced. ‘Too true! Bunch of over-educated, know-all bolshie gits. Want to swap jobs?’

‘Not on your life,’ Kella assured him. There had been rumours of unrest among some of the older, politically conscious students at King George VI Secondary School out on the road to Henderson Field. For the last year Sergeant Ha’a had been deputed to keep an eye on all student activities among the islands. In the process he had built up an impressive if constantly shifting list of informants.

‘If I wanted to find out about a student from Father Pierre’s school at Ruvabi, who would I need to see?’ asked Kella.

‘Is this the boy who got murdered up in the killing ground?’ asked Ha’a, who was much shrewder than he looked. ‘
What’s-his
-name, Peter Oro? That was a bad business, bigfella. You must really be on whitey’s shit-list, providing them with two corpses in six months.’ He considered the question. ‘There wouldn’t be much use asking his headmaster. Solomon Bulko’s a good bloke, but bone idle. Anyway, you know that; he’s a mate of yours.’

Ha’a screwed up his face in thought, then snapped his fingers. ‘As a matter of fact, there might be someone. Michael Rapasia only stopped teaching at Ruvabi last week.’

‘Rapasia?’ asked Kella in surprise. ‘Is he still alive? He was teaching there when I was a student at Ruvabi. Guadalcanal man.’

‘That’s right. Compulsorily retired by the mission authorities without a pension when he reached sixty. I saw him get off the plane at Henderson Field only a few days ago. I’m not saying that he’s all that reliable, but he might be worth talking to. He’s mightily pissed off with the mission for not letting him stay on. He might well be in the mood to dish some dirt.’

‘Where do I find him?’

‘He’s on the loose. Spoiled. Got a drink problem. That’s one of the reasons Father Pierre got rid of him. Rapasia’s staying with different
wantoks
all over the place. Better be prepared to spend this evening looking round all the bars in Chinatown.’

‘It’s a rough job,’ said Kella, walking away, ‘but somebody’s got to do it!’

It had gone five o’clock when Kella left the police
headquarters
building. Islanders were thronging along the pavements as he walked towards Matanikau Bridge at the western end of the town. The roads were crowded with the cars of the expatriates on their way home from the government buildings to their bungalows and duplexes on the ridges above the bay.

It took him a quarter of an hour to reach the bridge over the river running down to the sea. Once he had crossed it he had left the town behind him and was on the road leading out to the airport. On his right were the grey breeze-block dormitories of the Labour Lines, occupied by islanders employed by the different government departments. To his left were the shore and the sea.

Twenty minutes later he reached the fishing village, a collection of huts under a clump of palm trees near the beach. These were the remains of a much larger pre-war community, still defying the ominous spread of the capital.

Kella was entitled to a room in the police barracks, but the prospect of living in the centre of the town was abhorrent to him. For some years he had rented a hut on the outskirts of the fishing village, on the understanding that he did not conduct his professional activities in the area and had nothing to do with any of the local women.

He entered his hut and strip-washed from the bucket of water he had drawn from the communal standpipe that morning. He changed into a shirt and a pair of slacks from a locked chest next to his sleeping mat. He opened a tin of corned beef and ate the contents with a wooden spoon, finishing with a Coke.

As he ate he thought about Peter Oro and his grandfather Senda Iabuli. What could the pair of them have been doing that led to them both being killed? What connection, apart from the ties of blood, could there have been between an old saltwater villager and a promising young schoolboy?

Was the bushman Pazabosi the link that led to their murder? If so, why had the discovery of the bones of Lofty Herman sparked off their deaths and led to the attempt on the life of Sister Conchita? And where did Professor Mallory, the anthropologist, come into the equation? Could the American have been kidnapped, or even slain by the old Kwaio bush chieftain?

Night was falling as Kella left his hut and walked back into Honiara. He turned right past the bridge and entered the noisy, lively street that housed Chinatown. There were several dozen stores and bars crammed into Quonset huts and corrugated iron edifices, backed by ramshackle wooden dwelling houses,
hand-constructed
in many different styles, all running along the banks of the river at a right angle to Mendana Avenue. Even this early in the evening the stores were doing good business among the hundreds of Melanesians jostling up and down the street. Men and women were crowding into Joy Biscuits, Sweeties, Wong Pew, Ho Kee and the other colourful shops, each selling its jumbled, high-piled mixture of tinned food from Taiwan, rice, bottled beer, bread, tin plates, decorated china mugs, clothing and fishing tackle.

Kella pushed his way to the end of the street and entered the Everlasting Delight Bar. Despite its aspirational title it resembled most closely a tropical version of a Wild West spit-and-sawdust saloon of the 1880s. The room’s entire length was occupied by a beer-slopped bar. The shelves behind were loaded with small brown bottles of 4X beer. There were a few plastic tables and chairs scattered about the room, but most of the occupants were lining the bar, three-deep.

The place was crowded with those Melanesian workers who still had a few dollars of their pay left this late in the week. They were drinking in island coteries, men from Malaita, Santa Isabel, Guadalcanal, Choiseul, Ugi, the Shortlands, and others. The air was filled with the sound of a dozen different dialects being spoken at a high volume. Between each group was a small but definable gap. Later that night a truculent drunk might spill over into the wrong throng, and then the brawling would start.

Kella stood on the edge of the Malaitan party and ordered a beer from one of the sweating barmen. He was served by Joe Dontate, a flat-nosed Roviana former boxer in his thirties.

A decade earlier he had reached the finals of the South Pacific Games middleweight championships in Suva. A savvy Australian manager had persuaded him to turn professional with enticing stories of the glittering prizes available to supporting contest fighters at the Sydney Stadium. Altogether Dontate had survived thirty bouts, in which he had been over-matched in only a couple, before returning to the Solomons with some scar tissue around his eyes, a perforated eardrum and enough money to open a trading store at Munda, which was now being run for him by his relations.

The ex-fighter had been unable to adapt back to village life and was apparently contentedly enough serving as a
bouncer-barman
for his Chinese employers. He was a watchful, philosophical character, with all the spontaneous aggression long since punched out of him, but still with enough steel in him to be able to control a tough bar like this one.

‘You going to stay late and spoil the fighting?’ he grinned, as he pushed the bottle across the counter and scooped up Kella’s coins.

‘I’ll be gone inside the hour,’ Kella promised.

‘I’ll hold you to that, sergeant.’ Unhurriedly Dontate moved farther along the bar. He was still smiling but there was a definite edge to his attitude. He had made his point and he knew that the other man had taken it.

Kella sipped the lukewarm beer. He exchanged nods with some of the Lau men in the nearest group. They left him alone, knowing that he would edge closer into the crowd if he wanted company.

Kella remained where he was for half an hour, his eyes constantly flickering around the room. This was the most popular bar in the capital for the islanders. Expatriates mostly drank at the Mendana Hotel or in the whites-only clubs in the town.

Michael Rapasia did not arrive. Kella sighed and pushed his empty bottle back across the bar. When he emerged, the main Chinatown street was more crowded than ever. He looked in different stores and eating-houses without success. By the time he had finished his search he had reached the beach. It was quieter here. For the first time he was able to hear the footsteps of the men he had sensed for some time had been following him. He whirled round, clenching his fists.

‘Easy, sergeant,’ said Joe Dontate, coming forward, so that Kella could see his face. Accompanying the barman were two scowling Guadalcanal men.

‘Business so bad you’re throwing customers into the bar, instead of out?’ asked Kella casually.

‘Mr Cho wants to see you,’ said Dontate. ‘In fact he sent us to fetch you.’

‘Which Mr Cho?’

‘The boy.’

‘What does he want?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ asked the barman. ‘Do you think he tells me anything?’

Kella hesitated. He had no idea what the Chinaman wanted of him. When he did not respond immediately the two Guadalcanal men shuffled their feet restlessly. Kella ignored them. Even a former pro fighter like Dontate would not want to start trouble so near the main street. News would soon reach the Lau drinkers in the bar that the
aofia
was being roughed up. That would lead to a mass fracas that would greatly displease the influential Chinese store-owners.

On the other hand, thought Kella, he had nothing to lose. Perhaps Cho could aid him in unravelling part of the problem. It would be nice if somebody could.

‘I’ll come with you if you’ll help me out with something,’ he informed Dontate. ‘I’m looking for Michael Rapasia. They tell me he’s a serious drinker these days, so I expect you know where he is. Tell me how to find him and I’ll come quietly.’

Dontate summed up the police sergeant unsmilingly. He walked closer to Kella. The Guadalcanal men moved to cut off any possible avenue of escape for the sergeant. Kella wondered if he had misjudged their mood. Dontate started to talk in an undertone.

‘I sometimes wonder how long you’d last against me,’ he said speculatively, as if discussing an algebraic problem.

‘Must help pass the long evenings when you’re watering the drinks,’ agreed Kella. ‘Maybe we’ll find out some day. Just now we’re both busy. Well?’

Dontate thought the matter through and then nodded. ‘Crown and anchor game behind Jimmy Fat’s,’ he said, stepping back a pace. ‘Rapasia will be there as long as he’s got any money left.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kella. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now let’s go and see young Mr Cho.’

Sister Conchita came out of the chapel after evening service and joined the throng on its way to the refectory to eat. If she skipped the meal she would have several hours before she would have to take the older sisters to the beach for the blessing of the fishing boats. No one would miss her for that amount of time. The headquarters building was not run on the same lines of discipline as the mission stations. Too many itinerant priests and nuns were constantly coming and going on their way to postings out of the Solomons or to different areas of the island. Some stayed only a few nights before catching a ship or aircraft to their destinations.