One Blood (11 page)

‘So you didn’t diagnose a heart attack?’

‘No, I told you. I was not permitted near the body. It was made clear that it was none of my affair.’

‘How long did Mr Blamire’s body remain in your clinic?’ Conchita asked.

‘A few hours; then it was flown to Honiara.’

Sister Conchita performed some swift mental calculations. ‘It didn’t take them long to get hold of a charter plane,’ she said.

‘That is correct. A special aircraft was chartered within an hour of the tourist’s body being brought to the clinic. Mr Blamire’s body was then taken by government launch to Munda airstrip, and from there to the Central Hospital in Honiara.’

‘It all seems rather odd,’ said Conchita. ‘Was there any official involvement in all this?’

‘Oh yes. I telephoned Mr Maclehose, the District Commissioner. He said that he knew all about it and that I was to let Mr Dontate and the others get on with it. He seemed quite relieved that the matter was already in hand and that he did not need to become involved.’

‘Nothing new there then, thought Conchita. Aloud she said: ‘I see. You’ve been very helpful, Mr Waqamalo. Thank you.’

Conchita paused in the morning sunlight on the dusty road outside the medical centre. Around her the scruffy district centre lay dormant, like a neglected frontier town between takes in a William S. Hart silent Western movie. Dontate had
been lying to her. Ed Blamire had not been diagnosed with a heart attack at the centre; the assistant had not even examined him. There seemed to have been some sort of conspiracy between Joe Dontate and some of the tourists to get the corpse out of the district as soon as possible.

‘Excuse me, but aren’t you from the mission where that poor man died?’

The voice was strident and insistent in the nun’s ear. Sister Conchita turned round. Standing at her elbow was a squat, heavyset middle-aged woman in a floral dress. She had a straw hat on her head and was clutching a locally made wicker shopping basket. Conchita recognized her as the American tourist who had been standing blocking the doorway of the reception room on the mission open day.

‘That’s right,’ she replied. ‘You’re the lady who bought a carving.’

‘Oh, I love carvings,’ enthused the woman. ‘That’s what I’m doing here now, shopping for them. My name’s Lucy Pargetter, by the way.’

‘I’m Sister Conchita. How do you do?’

‘Hi!’ Mrs Pargetter put a hand on the sister’s sleeve and lowered her voice. ‘In fact, that’s why I’ve stopped you. I’ve fallen in love with a simply darling carving in that store over there, but you simply never know when you’re being ripped off if you’re a foreigner. I wonder if you’d mind coming inside and letting me know if they’re asking a fair price for it?’

Conchita had been away from the mission for far too long already. She was about to make some excuse, but restrained herself. She could start her enquiries by finding out as much as she could about the dead man from Mrs Pargetter.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay too long, though.’

‘This won’t take any time at all,’ Mrs Pargetter said, guiding Conchita across the road to one of the Quonset hut stores. ‘And after that, we can have a coffee.’

The store was the usual dark, Chinese-owned and run jumble of goods. Tins of food, wooden plates, enamel baths, fishing tackle and unopened sacks and boxes were piled high on the shelves and counters, and even on the floor. Mrs Pargetter steered a path through the confusion to a shelf against the wall where a number of carvings were arrayed.

‘This one,’ she said, handing it to the sister and standing back with some anxiety to see her reaction. ‘What do you think?’

Conchita weighed it in her hands. It was a modern kerosene-wood dolphin, probably from one of the villages of the Maravo Lagoon. It was adequately enough finished.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how much they want for it.’

They went over to a Chinese girl standing silently behind one of the counters. ‘How much?’ asked Sister Conchita.

‘Forty Australian dollars.’

‘Hey, that’s not bad,’ said Mrs Pargetter, reaching for her purse.

‘Plenty too much,’ Conchita said, shaking her head. ‘Five dollars.’

‘No more,’ said the affronted shop girl. An older Chinese man, alerted by the sound of bargaining, appeared from the dark recesses of the store. He was wearing a
yi
, a traditional loose-fitting upper garment, baggy pants and a skull cap. He dismissed the girl with a shake of his head and took her place. He looked firmly at his visitors.

‘Forty dollars,’ he said.

‘All right,’ said Conchita. ‘You win. Ten dollars. No more.’

The Chinese man looked scandalized. He shook his head. Conchita put her hand under Mrs Pargetter’s elbow and started to guide her out of the store. The owner waited until they had reached the door. ‘Fifteen,’ he said.

‘Twelve,’ said the sister, not looking back.

‘Deal,’ said the Chinese man.

Ten minutes later, Conchita and Mrs Pargetter were sitting
in another Chinese store practically identical to the first, sipping coffee in an area marked off for refreshments. Apart from a bored Melanesian waiter, they were the only occupants of the section.

‘My, that was impressive,’ said the tourist, examining her purchase with pride.

Sister Conchita smiled vaguely. How much would Mrs Pargetter know about Ed Blamire? There was only one way to find out.

‘Did you know Mr Blamire well?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.

‘Can’t say that I did, honey. He seemed a nice guy, but he kept himself to himself, if you know what I mean. He was an observant sort, though. I always got the impression that he was taking a lot in and not giving much out.’

‘Did he have much to do with Mr Imison and the other ex-soldiers on the tour?’ asked the nun.

The plump woman grimaced. ‘Sister, if those guys were soldiers, then I’m a captain in the Salvation Army. I’m an army brat myself. My father was in the Corps of Engineers, and as a kid I was brought up in camps all over the world. My late husband Wendell spent twenty years in the Field Artillery. I know the service. Imison and his guys are slick. The army ain’t slick, believe you me.’

‘And Mr Blamire, did he spend much time with the others?’

‘Hardly any. Come to think of it, I don’t believe they liked one another very much. Imison and the others used to josh Blamire sometimes, that’s for sure.’

‘Josh?’

‘You know, hassle him a little. They seemed to think he was square, someone who didn’t belong with them. Blamire took it in good part mostly. He did have a couple of rows with Imison, as I recall.’

‘What about?’

Mrs Pargetter shrugged. ‘The first was the usual thing, I reckon. In my experience, men only fight over women and politics. This one was politics. Imison said something disparaging about John F. Kennedy, and Blamire took exception to it. It was soon over, though.’

‘What did they argue about the second time?’

Mrs Pargetter knitted her brows in concentration. ‘That was strange,’ she said. ‘Mr Blamire asked Joe Dontate if somebody would take him to one of the islands in the lagoon. Imison said that there was nothing there worth seeing. When Mr Blamire still insisted on hiring a canoe and a guide and going off alone, Imison got quite angry because his advice had been ignored. It all blew over eventually.’

‘Was the name of this island Kasolo?’ asked Conchita.

‘Come to think of it, it was. I remember because that was where John F. Kennedy was washed up in the war. Imison said that it was too small to contain anything of interest, but Mr Blamire said that you never knew what you might dig up if you tried. That made Imison even angrier. Joe Dontate had to separate them.’

That would explain why Dontate did not have a high opinion of Imison and his group, thought Conchita. The tour guide seemed to have had his hands full keeping the peace among his party.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘By the way, did your whole party come to the mission open day on the day that Mr Blamire died?’

‘Every single one of us was there, honey. Even Dontate, our guide, came with us. He used the launch to bring us over, and then took us back, including the body of Ed Blamire. That was one macabre journey, I’m here to tell you. They chartered a plane to take the body back to the States the same day.’

This was an aspect of the case that particularly interested Conchita. She opened her mouth to pursue the subject, but
before she could say anything, Joe Dontate himself appeared in the doorway.

‘There you are, Mrs Pargetter,’ he said. ‘The launch is leaving to take us back to Munda now.’

The tourist picked up her bag and rose. ‘On my way, Joe,’ she said, walking to the door. ‘I enjoyed our chat, Sister,’ she said, looking back at the seated nun. ‘Let’s get together again soon. We’re going to be staying at Munda for another few days, isn’t that right, Joe?’

‘That’s right,’ said the tour organizer, standing to one side to allow the plump woman to leave the store. ‘You can’t have too much of a good thing.’ His voice was expressionless. Conchita stood up to follow Mrs Pargetter. Dontate advanced and stood glowering in front of her.

‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t interfere with my tourists,’ he said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ Conchita asked.

‘Haggling for the carving back at the store was out of order.’

‘I didn’t want anyone to get ripped off, that’s all.’

‘If they want to spend, let them spend. It’s no skin off your nose.’

‘You mean you get a cut of anything they buy in the area?’

‘That’s none of your business. Just keep out of my affairs, that’s all I’m asking.’

‘And if I don’t?’

Dontate eyed her speculatively. ‘I heard you could be a nuisance,’ he said quietly. ‘Well you might get away with it on Malaita, but this is my territory. Don’t cross me again. My people have been chiefs in Roviana for hundreds of years.’

‘May I remind you that you are talking to a member of a Christian order, Mr Dontate?’

‘And you’re a long way from home, Sister Conchita, you and Ben Kella. You know nothing about the West. Don’t meddle in what doesn’t concern you.’

Dontate turned and left the store. Sister Conchita let him go, and then followed at a slower pace. It had been an interesting morning, she thought as she emerged into the sunlight. On the debit side, she seemed to have made an enemy of Joe Dontate. Fortunately, Mrs Pargetter had turned out to be unexpectedly observant. As a result, Conchita had learned that Ed Blamire had been a loner in the tourist party. Could he have been watching somebody, and if so, why would he have done that? And why were so many people interested in the tiny island of Kasolo? It was definitely something to ponder.

KELLA COULD HEAR
the singing while he was still some way from the village. Women’s voices were joined in a tuneless, monotonous chant that cut through the dusk like a blunt knife. He tried to increase his pace, beating his way through the steaming undergrowth with a stick he had cut from a nanum tree. The path before him was slippery and undulating in the last precious hour of daylight. The earth beneath his feet squirmed with the caress of water seeping from one of the adjacent rivers. The trees rising from the mud were linked up to knee height with bushes and undergrowth, making progress on foot difficult. He wondered if he would reach the village by nightfall, or whether he would have to construct a temporary shelter among the trees and then continue his journey the next morning. Fortunately he had brought a little food with him, a few grey balls from the hearts of germinating coconuts, consisting of the solidified milk of the nuts. These should keep him going.

He was approaching the end of his first day on the large volcanic island of Kolombangara. He had paddled over from Marakosi and started his trek inland early that morning. Kolombangara was a thickly forested island some twenty miles in diameter. In the centre, the still active volcano of Mount Veve rose to a height of over five thousand feet, tendrils of its smoke drifting much higher so that they could be seen all over the Western District. There were only a few bush and saltwater
villages dotted about the island, which was known to its inhabitants as Water Lord, because it was divided by over eighty rivers and streams flowing in different directions. Once its lower regions had contained the bases for ten thousand Japanese soldiers, while at the top of the volcanic peak, Reg Evans, a lone Australian coast-watcher, had radioed details of their movements to the Allied headquarters at Tulagi from his precarious eyrie.

Kella thought about Sister Conchita’s problem with the lack of official activity over the death of the tourist Blamire. Before leaving Marakosi, he had used the mission’s generator-operated two-way radio to contact Police Headquarters in Honiara about the matter. The reply had been short to the point of brusqueness. Blamire’s death had been an accident. That particular matter was well in hand. Sergeant Kella was not, repeat not, to take any part in the ongoing enquiries. Instead he was to concentrate on the important matter of the sabotage attempts at Alvaro logging camp and to report back, preferably with a solution, as soon as possible.

Well, in a roundabout way he was doing that, he decided hopefully, toiling up another mud-covered slope, listening to the squeaks and blundering wings of flying foxes moving above him. The trees were joined together by lianas, sprawling hanging gardens of mosses and ferns. He walked warily. The bush village for which he was heading had once been the centre of headhunting forays in the Roviana Lagoon. There had been no examples of these for several decades, but during the war, the Allies had turned a blind eye to ambushes on Japanese outposts that had culminated in the triumphant party returning to their homes with a number of Japanese helmets with their owners’ heads still inside them.

Kella remembered with little pleasure from his wartime service in the lagoon that on this island, local traditions were still observed. The corpses of the dead were buried upright,
with their legs drawn back and secured behind their bodies with vines. Their heads were left protruding above the ground until they had rotted into bare skulls, at which time they would be detached and transferred to the
aabu
, the holy temple. At the death of a chief, a funeral pyre would be built, and the dead man and all his possessions consigned to the flames. The mourning period would last until the ashes were cold, at which time the female relatives of the dead man would strip naked, daub their bodies with red clay and then prepare a great feast of pork and yams for the whole village. At the end of the feast, the naked women would offer their bodies to the new chief.