Devil-Devil (22 page)

29

GOLD RIDGE

‘We may be on the way to eradicating malaria,' sighed Father Benedini, ‘but hookworm, that's a different deal altogether.'

He was standing with Sister Conchita in the square at Tinomeat on Gold Ridge, preparing to distribute measured doses of tetrachloroethylene to the children of the village. Earlier in the year a World Health Organization survey team had diagnosed a particularly virulent strain of the parasitical
Ancylostoma duodenale
roundworms in the area. To her surprise the medical priest had asked Sister Conchita to accompany him on his tour to the interior, twenty miles south-east of Honiara.

The trek through the steep incline of the rain forest once they had left the road on foot had been the usual gruelling one. The nun had forced herself to concentrate on the narrow path ahead, knowing that if she looked to either side she could easily slip and fall down one of the steep slopes. She saw deadly snakes, centipedes, scorpions and regiments of ants moving quickly into the undergrowth in the gloom caused by the densely packed trees. She tried, sometimes in vain, to avoid the knee-high stinging nettles infesting the path.

Some hours after they had started their climb suddenly the landscape was transformed. The ground levelled out and there were large gaps where trees had been felled. Gaping pits had been dug and abandoned in the ground. Handmade water races meandered aimlessly from streams. The sides of a cliff were scarred and pitted. Sister Conchita wondered if the surface of the moon could look as ghastly as this.

‘Gold Ridge,' explained Father Benedini. He was from Chicago, rotund, dishevelled and benign, wearing slacks and a tattered white shirt, with a crucifix around his neck. ‘There was a pretty slick alluvial mining operation here, until the Japanese invaded Guadalcanal. Half a dozen Europeans and around a hundred islanders from other parts of the Solomons extracted quite a lot of gold around this part of the island.'

‘What happened when the war broke out?'

‘They hightailed it away rapidly.'

‘Frightened of the Japanese?'

‘Scared of the locals, more likely. Relations between the miners and the villagers were strained, to put it mildly. This is a custom area. The villagers resented the presence of the miners, but the expats were too heavily armed. Once they fled to the coast to be evacuated, the locals destroyed the mine workings and made sure that the foreigners never came back after the war. The only thing left of the mining set-up is the names the miners gave to some of the local villages — Tinomeat, Old Case, Bagorice. For some reason those names stuck.'

His words struck a chord with the sister. Lofty Herman had been prospecting for gold when the Japanese had invaded the Solomons. Perhaps he had offended against local traditions as well. Could the local villagers have been emboldened by the thought of the government being in disarray? Perhaps they had exacted vengeance on the beachcomber before he could flee?

Sister Conchita tried to put the thought out of her mind. There would be time enough to ponder over that later. In the meantime they were approaching the outskirts of the village. Children were running out of the huts to meet them. She would need to concentrate on the task in hand.

‘Thank you for picking me to help you,' said Sister Conchita. ‘I appreciate it.'

‘It was no contest. You were the only one suitable for the job. Especially after you commandeered the clinic at Sulufou and dispensed the medicines there.'

‘I got into trouble for that.'

‘Quite right too,' said Father Benedini, straight-faced. ‘Can't have new sisters showing initiative and guts. I only hope I don't suffer from guilt by association.'

Sister Conchita wondered if the priest was in earnest. Then she saw a grin playing around the corners of his mouth. She hurried after him as they entered the village. Her heart leapt at the thought that not everyone in the Church regarded her as an unmitigated nuisance. Somehow she thought that she was going to enjoy working with Father Benedini.

30

THE CANARIUM TREE

Kella found the remains of Lofty Herman's leaf house on the river bank early the next morning. Time had erased all signs of any gold workings. The river ran smooth and sluggish through the trees under the cliff. He remembered from his time as a student at Ruvabi that Lofty Herman had installed a series of wooden barriers in the headwaters of the river, to cause the water to flow faster into the wooden aqueducts he had constructed. The resulting torrent had been connected to a fire hose that he had trained on to the cliff, sluicing soil and occasionally nuggets of gold into boxes at the bottom of the slope.

Only a white man would have built a house in such an unprepossessing place. It had once been a simple leaf hut, but over the years the undergrowth had secured a stranglehold over it, constricting and torturing the simple structure out of position. The roof had fallen in and the support posts had buckled, causing the remaining woven leaf sides to slip drunkenly out of shape. The police sergeant entered what was left of the leaf structure's single room.

There was little to mark the fact that the place had once been inhabited. Vigorously Kella trampled on the undergrowth covering what once had been the wooden floor of the hut. His boot clinked against something. The police sergeant stooped and groped along the ground. After a minute or so, his hands closed over a rusty old cocoa tin. He wrenched off the lid. The tin was empty but a few traces of yellow dust remained at the bottom.

Carefully Kella scraped the dust out of the tin. He took a small cellophane bag from his pack and tipped the dust into it. He sealed the bag and replaced it in a pocket of his pack. It looked as if Lofty Herman had found the gold he had been searching for in the last days of his life.

The question was, what had happened to the rest of it? Could Andu the ghost-caller and Iabuli have buried it with the beachcomber's body, after they had murdered Herman? They might have believed that the yellow dust had some religious significance for the dead Australian.

In the early 1940s, not many Malaitans would have had any concept of the value of gold. Eighteen years later, Iabuli might have realized the significance of the yellow dust he had interred with the beachcomber's body. Could it have been the gold, not Herman's skeleton, that the islander had retrieved?

On the other hand, Mendana Gau had been Herman's assistant at the time. Perhaps he had stumbled across Herman's body before it had been buried. He would not have been deterred by the
tabu
that bound the Lau people, and he would have had no scruples about entering Herman's hut and stealing any gold he found there. That would certainly account for the islander's sudden relative affluence at the end of the war.

Kella looked at his watch. It was time he started climbing the mountain to Gau's treehouse, to see what was going on there. He also had to find out what Peter Oro had been doing up there. It looked as if he had played a larger part in the mystery than Kella had at first thought, and that the schoolboy had not been as innocent as he had seemed.

***

It took Kella four hours to climb the narrow, winding mountain path to the waterfall. For much of the way the path followed the course of the wide and now fast-moving river. He passed crocodiles basking on mud flats in the sultry heat, and watched kingfishers swooping for fish where the water grew deeper. He saw no bush people. Most of them could not swim and kept well away from the river, except to draw water from the easier-running sections.

As he got higher, the police sergeant began to pass a few bush people on the way down to the weekly market, where the Kwaio farmers exchanged taro and yams for the fish caught by the saltwater villagers.

The unmarried Kwaio girls, balancing wicker baskets of vegetables on their heads, who normally went naked, had donned faded grass skirts for the occasion. Kella greeted them politely but they ignored the presence of the stranger in their midst. The police sergeant took care not to address by name any of the bush people he knew. It was the Kwaio custom for people to change their names to prevent the spirits of dead enemies from finding them.

It all seemed very normal, thought Kella as he walked unhurriedly up the track. If Pazabosi was planning some sort of uprising, he was concealing his preparations well.

He found the canarium tree and the house in its fork soon after noon on the track between the waterfall and the bush village where he had spent the night with Elizabeth, the Sikaiana girl.

Kella stared up at the tree. This type was much favoured for the building of treehouses. The distance of the branches from the ground made it impossible for enemies to climb it unaided, while the wide spread of the branches in the upper reaches of the mighty canarium almond provided a strong foundation for the base of a treehouse. The man who owned the tree would possess a suitable ladder made of fine creepers, which he would have hired out to Gau when he visited his store there.

Kella examined the ground around the spreading prehensile roots of the tree. The fallen leaves, trunk and soil were spattered with freshly dried blood. Someone had certainly been attacked and, judging by the amount of blood, badly hurt here. But the blood was new. Any assault must have taken place over the last couple of days.

But Peter Oro had been murdered more than a week ago.

31

CUSTOM SIGN

Kella looked at the pile of boxes and packages that Inspector Lorrimer had assembled on the floor of the mission hut, ready to take on his tour of the bush region with him. There were containers of tinned meat and sacks of rice from the Auki general store, a Tilley lamp, a camp bed, a mosquito net, a small portable radio, a pillow, a primus stove and several changes of uniform.

‘I fought in a war with less equipment than this,' he told the inspector.

‘So did I, come to that,' replied an unruffled Lorrimer, ‘but that was then, this is now.'

‘No trusses?' asked Kella, mentally doubling the number of porters the inspector's patrol would need the next day.

‘What?'

‘For your carriers. Half of them are going to end up with ruptures.'

‘Don't let this fool you,' said Lorrimer equably, his airy gesture embracing his ever-growing pile of provisions. ‘These few basic essentials apart, I am essentially your lean, mean fighting machine.'

‘Really?' asked Kella. ‘We had one of those, but it died.'

‘This leave period you're supposed to be on,' said Lorrimer, trying to sound casual. ‘Bit of a busman's holiday, is it?'

‘Something like that,' agreed Kella.

The two policemen were sharing a spare hut on the school compound at Ruvabi mission station. The twelve uniformed officers from Roviana had arrived from Honiara by boat earlier that day and were sleeping in two of the classrooms.

Kella had made his way down from the treehouse that afternoon to find Lorrimer preparing for his expedition into the mountains to find Professor Mallory. The inspector had brought him up to date with news of the attack on Mendana Gau in Kwaio country, when the trader had tried to retrieve his box of custom carvings. That explained the bloodstains on the ground by the treehouse.

Kella was tired. He had walked in the tropical heat for almost eight hours that day. Now he wanted no more than a shower and a convivial meal with his friend Solomon Bulko. But still there were things to be done. The work that he was doing had become so complicated that Kella wanted to sort out aspects of it in his mind.

The sergeant knew that he had reached the stage in his investigation where he needed to share his information with someone. Kella did not normally trust white men, especially old colonials, but he suspected that Lorrimer was different. The Metropolitan policeman did not talk much about his work in London, but Kella gussed that Lorrimer had been as devoted to his patch there as Kella was to his island beat.

‘Fancy a stroll?' he asked.

Lorrimer looked up in surprise from his packing, but nodded at once and stood up, dusting his hands on his trousers.

‘Sure thing,' he said.

They walked casually across the compound and along the bluff over the wide ribbon of river approaching the sea, and the dark mass of surrounding trees huddled on either side of the water.

Most of the schoolboys were sitting in the grassy square outside their classrooms, watching the film that their headmaster was showing them, using an antiquated projector attached to the generator. The black images of the old Hollywood movie flickered on a white sheet in the darkness.

Kella led the inspector down the cliff path towards the river at its foot. They strolled along the grassy bank in the moonlight. At first they discussed aspects of the case in a desultory manner. Kella decided that it was time to find out how much Lorrimer was beginning to understand about the Solomons and its people.

‘Right,' he invited. ‘Let's see what we've got.' He ticked off the items on his fingers. ‘The sacred
havu
carving is missing from the Kwaio cave-temple by the waterfall. Professor Mallory has disappeared up in the Kwaio bush. I've talked to the local people, and he was seen being guided up to the killing ground by two bushmen. That means that Pazabosi has kidnapped him, or that whoever has taken him has done so with Pazabosi's knowledge and permission. Why is Mallory being held?'

‘As a retribution for stealing the
havu
?' suggested Lorrimer.

‘Possibly. Anything else?'

‘As some sort of preamble to an armed uprising that Pazabosi's been plotting on the island?'

‘That's what I thought at first,' nodded Kella. ‘But now I'm not so sure.'

‘Why not?'

‘For one thing, practically everyone who knows Pazabosi seems convinced that he's simply too old and tired to take part in another uprising like Marching Rule. All right, so he's keen to maintain his authority up in the Kwaio country as long as he's still alive, but no one except you Brits, pardon me, seems to think he's plotting insurgency.'

‘Then what's going on?' asked Lorrimer.

‘I don't know, but believe me, there are no signs of an uprising in Kwaio country. I've been up there two or three times lately, and it's all looked normal enough.'

‘I wonder—' said Lorrimer, and stopped.

‘Go on,' encouraged Kella.

‘Mendana Gau was trying to retrieve a box of custom carvings when he was hacked down by bushmen a couple of days ago. Gau's two men implied that he made a practice of touring the bush villages, buying artifacts at a fraction of their true value. Presumably he's been smuggling the carvings out of the Solomons, to sell them to collectors abroad. Perhaps he got greedy and overreached himself and stole the
havu
while he was up in the bush. That's why the bushmen were waiting for Gau when he returned this week.'

‘Something like that certainly happened,' agreed Kella. ‘I think that Peter Oro comes into the equation somewhere. Perhaps he was involved in picking up the carvings left by Gau at the treehouse. And Peter Oro was also attacked by bushmen, remember. Only his body was moved to the killing ground, where I would find it. Why?'

‘If you ask me,' complained Lorrimer morosely, ‘that boy Oro comes into it all over the place. He was involved in digging up Lofty Herman's grave. He drew attention to Senda Iabuli's death byasking for the ghost-caller to investigate the death, and now you tell me that he was mixed up in an organized and dangerous smuggling racket.'

‘It's all this modern education,' said Kella. ‘I blame the teachers myself.'

‘Well, I hope you're right about Pazabosi not starting an uprising,' said Lorrimer fervently. ‘I'm not so sure. Maybe he's just waiting for a sign, like last time.'

‘What did you say?' asked Kella, something suddenly triggered at the back of his mind.

‘John Deacon, the Australian, told me about it at the Auki Club on Saturday night. Apparently the Marching Rule uprising in 1945 was started by the sight of black American troops leaving the Solomons. The locals took it as a sign that they were going to a special heaven to wait for the islanders and then come back to help them defeat the Brits. Perhaps Pazabosi is waiting for a similar sign now.'

‘Tell me,' said Kella, all his attention on the other man, ‘what have you been taking lately, because I want some of it.'

‘Have I said something right?' asked the inspector.

‘Let me put it together in my mind first, will you?' asked Kella.

‘All right,' said Lorrimer. ‘In the meantime, where do I start looking for Professor Mallory tomorrow?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine,' said Kella, his brain working busily. ‘Well, almost as good.' He took out a notebook and started sketching an outline map on a page. He tore it out and handed it to the inspector. The route he had indicated should keep Lorrimer and his men out of trouble.

‘Follow that trail and stop each night at the spot I've indicated,' he said. ‘I'll be making my own inquiries up in the mountains. I'll keep in touch from time to time.'

‘Thanks,' said the inspector, folding the map into the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘Did you mean what you said just then, about me helping you out?' he asked.

‘I did,' said Kella. ‘Believe me, I'm grateful. I'll tell you all about it, just as soon as I've made a few more inquiries.'

‘I'll get on with my packing then,' said Lorrimer, turning away. ‘Are you coming?'

‘In a minute. I'll just stay here for a while. Goodnight.'

‘Goodnight, Ben,' said Lorrimer, walking back along the side of the river, towards the track leading to the mission school.

Left on his own, Kella stared across the smooth surface of the river. Misshapen branches from trees on the far side trailed listlessly into the water, like long arthritic fingers.

Lorrimer had done well, he thought. The inspector had appreciated the significance of the
havu
and had related Gau's visit to the high bush to its disappearance. But it had been the inspector's remarks about the bush people waiting for a custom sign that had really impinged on Kella's mind.

Then he realized what it was. He stood very still as events and times all tumbled surely into place. The names connected with the case achieved a new significance in his mind: Herman, Oro, Gau, Iabuli and Mallory. They all stopped being unrelated entities and swam steadily into a fixed new orbit.

With absolute conviction Kella now knew what had been happening and what was going to happen. He also knew what he would have to do to bring matters to a conclusion.

He only hoped that he was not too late.