Killman (21 page)

The dinghy from
The Spirit of the Islands
put the four of them ashore on the main island of Malaita at a spot roughly halfway between the site of the burnt-out ark and Sulufou shortly after dawn. Kella, Sister Conchita, Brother John and Florence Maddy stood uncertainly on the beach, as if reluctant to leave after the long but uneventful voyage back from Tikopia.

‘The parting of the ways,’ Kella said, wishing that he could have thought of something more original. ‘Are you sure you want to go up to the ark, Sister Conchita?’

‘I’d like to see what is left of it,’ said the nun. News of the destruction of the edifice had come to them over the local pidgin news on the radio.

Kella knew that Sister Conchita had more definite plans than that but that she would only reveal them in her own good time. He looked at Brother John, who was standing with Florence Maddy. He had deputed the Guadalcanal man to escort the musicologist along the coastal path back to her island. Brother John had appeared reluctant to accept the commission but had known better than to dispute the matter with Kella.

‘The sect of the ark will probably dwindle now that Papa Noah and Shem are dead,’ the young nun went on. ‘After all, as I told Sergeant Kella, there was only one main connection between the cult and Tikopia. It came to me as I watched Shem’s canoe taking him out to sea. Papa Noah based his cult on the story of Noah. He even built his own ark. The pagan Tikopians noticed that. Their own faith was based on the
vaka tapu
, the great canoe. When most of them became Christians, they gave this canoe to an overseas museum, as a relic of the past. But when Atanga and his followers started their revival of the pagan faith, they secretly built another
vaka tapu
.’

‘The one Shem was buried in,’ said Brother John.

‘Exactly,’ said Sister Conchita. ‘The Tikopian pagans decided to take over the Church of the Blessed Ark because it was based on the same icon as their own faith – a ship. The cult would give them a foothold on other islands, especially if Shem took over the church after Papa Noah’s death.’

‘That would give Shem a reason for killing Papa Noah,’ said Brother John.

‘Are you saying it was Shem who murdered Papa Noah?’ asked Sister Conchita. ‘It seems so out of character.’

‘Who else could it have been?’ Brother John asked.

We only have to accuse Shem if we want to direct attention away from the real killer, thought Kella, wondering why Brother John was being so bellicose. Aloud he said: ‘I don’t buy Shem as the killer. He wasn’t a fighting man. That’s why he wouldn’t become the high priest.’

‘All those Tikopians are hard men,’ said Brother John with conviction. ‘Some of them must have murdered Abalolo, the Christian minister on Tikopia, and hidden his body.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Florence. She coloured when she saw everyone looking at her, but cleared her throat and continued gamely. ‘I mean, Abalolo isn’t dead,’ she said. ‘Some of the Christian women looking after me told me about him. They said that he had left Tikopia suddenly on a government boat six months ago, without giving any reason.’

No one in the group reacted visibly or said much after that. Soon afterwards they started taking their individual paths away from the beach. Kella watched them go. Apart from Florence Maddy, each of them was being secretive about his or her mission. He had no idea why Sister Conchita was heading for the site of the ark, and he was sure that Brother John had his own destinations as well. Mind, he himself was just as bad, thought the sergeant. The news that Brother Abalolo had probably been on Malaita for months meant that Kella was going to have to change his plans. He searched in his mind for an appropriate expression from the British crime movies he enjoyed watching so much at the Point Cruz cinema, claiming that they helped him with his understanding of colloquial English. Finally he settled on one.

‘I must see one of my snouts,’ he said, in what he hoped was an imitation of Leslie Dwyer, one of his favourite actors, and started walking towards the mountains.

The tree shouter had already started his work by the time Kella arrived at the clearing amid the forest of red-brown
akwa
trees on the side of the mountain, struggling to survive amid the choking cliffs of orchid-strewn vegetation in the Kwaio district of Malaita. The old man nodded almost imperceptibly in recognition as Kella entered the glade. The policeman examined the ground for signs of centipedes and scorpions before sitting on a tree trunk to enjoy the performance. He had noticed on his way up that most of the villages were still disappointingly desolate and empty, as their inhabitants continued to seek sanctuary from the killman in the bush.

This was high country, the home of the bushmen, the traditional enemies of the saltwater coastal dwellers. Kella examined Giosa, the tree shouter. For years the bushman had been turning the onset of old age into an art form, as carefully cultivated as the way some people embraced and embellished the prospect of death. Prematurely wrinkled, he grew his straggly, matted hair long to his shoulders and constantly renewed the darkest of dyes to emphasize the tattoos slashed across his hunched torso in an attempt to make them resemble natural corrugations of the flesh. The two upper teeth remaining in his slack mouth drooped loosely like badly set green pendants. Legs as thin as filaments of brown vine straggled dispiritedly from his discoloured loincloth.

As Kella looked on, Giosa worked the crowd with all the concentrated skill and attention to detail of an Indian fakir the sergeant had once watched entertaining passengers at Benares airport. The tree shouter was circling the tree that the villagers had called upon him to weaken, muttering ferociously, like an athlete psyching himself up before an event.

The
akwa
was enormous, twelve feet in circumference and a hundred feet high, with huge leaf-encrusted branches burgeoning from its sides. The villagers had been clearing the area for new gardens, but this particular tree was throwing too much shade over the coveted fertile ground. Efforts to fell the giant with axes had so far been beyond them, and so the village headman had called in the tree shouter.

When he was ready, Giosa walked away from the trunk and stood on the charred stubble of the slashed and burnt garden land. Packs of terns swooped over the clearing into the spears of sunshine piercing the surrounding trees. The old man finished limbering up and faced the
akwa
before going to work flamboyantly, while the wondering villagers looked on. Kella had to admit that Giosa always gave value for money. For the next thirty minutes he howled threats and imprecations at the tree, trying to make it comprehend that it was no longer wanted in this part of the jungle. He interspersed these warnings with menacing wails and growls from the animal denizens of this particular part of the bush area. He hissed like a snake and a crocodile, squawked like a flying fox, squealed like a wild pig and screeched like a parrot. Sometimes he even sang hoarse, tuneless snatches from custom songs, involving the ancient gods in his struggle with nature.

Kella studied the artistry of the tree shouter with dispassionate admiration. Giosa was one of only half a dozen of his kind left on Malaita. Because of his reputation he was one of the few islanders with free access to every region of the island, encouraged to ply his trade in return for gifts of shell money and dolphins’ teeth. As a result, he was a font of news and gossip.

Kella had known the old man for some time. Before the war, Giosa had belonged to a family famed for its ability in savage internecine brawls. Some of its members were even rumoured to present themselves as potential hired muscle to less aggressive tribes who nevertheless had scores to settle with neighbours. Giosa himself, despite his lack of size, had played a prominent part in a number of affrays in areas not then patrolled by expatriate district officers. His cunning and speed of hand made up for any lack of bulk.

A few years ago one of Giosa’s recalcitrant sons, carrying on the family tradition, had badly injured a Toambaita man in an inter-tribal squabble. Kella had tracked down and arrested the youth and after his trial had escorted him to Honiara prison to serve his sentence, which by virtue of his family’s reputation for violence was more severe than it might otherwise have been. He had also used his influence to ensure that Giosa’s son had been left alone by a squad of Toambaita men who were also doing time in the same gaol for a variety of offences and who might have been tempted to exact vengeance for their stricken
wantok
’s injuries. Giosa, who by this time had abandoned violence in favour of the more lucrative and less painful tree shouting, had appreciated the policeman’s efforts and afterwards was usually prepared to share his accumulated information with Kella upon request.

The Kwaio men were ruthless fighters. Their paramount chief Pazabozi had laid the bones curse on Kella only a few months before, but had since died of old age. The pointing of the cursed bones at the sergeant had not worked, mainly because the old chief’s powers had been waning. Kella, aided by an American anthropologist, had killed Hita, his heir apparent, and a form of uneasy peace had spread over the district like a tattered blanket, until the recent arrival of the killman to upset the equilibrium once again.

In the centre of the glade Giosa had completed his stream of invective and stood in silence at last, his chest heaving, waving with the mock modesty of a flamboyant Victorian actor-manager in acknowledgement of the appreciative cries of his small audience. Then, as half a dozen of the village men picked up axes and attacked the tree, he walked over and sat down next to Kella, who offered the perspiring old man his water bottle. Giosa drank long from it.

‘You’re back from Tikopia, then,’ he said, using the Lau dialect.

‘I’m looking for the man who killed Papa Noah and two members of the Church of the Blessed Ark,’ Kella said.

‘I should hope so,’ said Giosa self-righteously. ‘That idiot, whoever he is, is very bad for business. People can’t be building gardens and paying me to shout at their trees if they’re away cowering in the bush somewhere.’

‘Nevertheless, some say that he is a killman and so to be feared.’

‘Then they don’t know what they’re talking about,’ said Giosa, spitting scornfully and with enormous trajectory at an undeterred line of red ants. ‘This man who kills is nothing like one of the old
ramos
. He is only a boy compared with the real killers we used to have.’

‘Who says?’ Kella asked.

‘I do. A
ramo
or a killman, whichever you call him, was a professional killer,’ said Giosa. ‘I grew up among them, so I know. The man who is murdering now is an amateur.’ Irritably the old man elaborated on his theme. ‘There have been three killings,’ he explained, ticking them off on his fingers. ‘Papa Noah was murdered outside his ark in a pool of water. The other two were also drowned, but no one knows how. It’s all too complicated. A professional killman used to take pride in his work. He would leave his signature, if you like, so that everyone would know that he had accomplished the task he had been paid to do. He would not make a children’s puzzle of his killings like this. A true
ramo
would strangle a victim in a particular way, or use a stone club that always left the same mark on his prey’s head, and so on. This would be his sign, known to all. That way he would gain a reputation and get more paid assignments. The man they’re calling a killman today is doing none of these things. He’s deliberately covering up after his crimes, so that no one knows who he really is. That’s why he blew up the ark.’ Giosa snorted disgustedly. ‘That’s not the handiwork of one of the old-time
ramos
. This is a guy who’s terrifying people so that they’re all running away to hide, leaving him to do whatever it is he wants to. He is trying to frighten people. I don’t even think he particularly wants to kill anyone. He just wants to stir up a lot of fuss on Malaita for some reason.’

‘But why?’ Kella demanded.

The tree shouter shrugged. ‘You’re the detective,’ he said.

Put like that, it made some sense, Kella admitted to himself. Could the dead men all have been selected at random for some reason, or even for no reason at all, perhaps by a deranged person? What would have been the point of that? Was he wrong to be looking for reasons? Of course not, he told himself. Nothing happened without a reason, and there were no coincidences.

‘Aha!’ said Giosa suddenly, quivering with triumph, a craftsman vindicated in his work.

The old man was staring across the clearing. The axemen, working in relays, were beginning to make progress. Their hatchets, which previously had rebounded harmlessly from the unyielding glossy bark of the
akwa
tree, were now finding a purchase. Wooden chips were flying wildly into the air like hyperactive brown butterflies. Such encouragement gave the fellers renewed strength, and now they were working harder than ever.

‘Like I’ve always said,’ Giosa murmured happily, ‘bringing a tree down is very much like dealing with an opponent in a fight. You’ve got to soften both of them up first and then move in for the kill.’ He looked surreptitiously at the policeman. ‘I’m just giving you the theory of course, Sergeant Kella, and telling you what I’ve heard.’

‘You underestimate yourself. I would call it more of an informed opinion,’ Kella said.

‘In fact,’ said a perfectly straight-faced Giosa, ‘strange as it may seem, I have also heard that it is the custom of whitey to treat his women in much the same way, by paying considerable attention to them at first. What a waste of time and energy! Of course, you would know much more about that than I would. I shall defer to your opinion on the matter.’

Kella ignored the barbed remark, which was just as well, because the old tree shouter seemed to be rambling on at a tangent.

‘You can never tell with the expatriates,’ Giosa said. ‘It is a problem that has often occupied my thoughts over the years. They have no customs of their own, so we cannot judge them by ours. It is good when we get a chance to see them at first hand and can work out what they are trying to do, no matter how stupid or dangerous what they are attempting may appear.’