Death by Tradition: Fiji Islands Mysteries 2

by B. M. Allsopp

  ‘Vili was quite different. He went off to high school full of eagerness and he did well. He liked agriculture and started a spice project here. Vanilla and nutmeg. He was full of plans—high value, low weight, he said that’s what we need in our remote spot, and that spices fit the bill. Oh, he was enthusiastic.’ The pastor’s eyes filled and he rubbed them.

  ‘Did he continue with the spice project?’ Horseman prompted.

  ‘Io, he did, even though his own plans to go to agricultural college failed. His parents aren’t well off, and with three younger children to bring up, they thought Vili should get a job. He was lucky to get a job as a trainee book-keeper with the Native Land Trust Board. Well, everyone says he was lucky, that’s a respected institution. However, I think the NLTB was lucky. Vili radiated a keenness that would impress any employer and his school results were very good indeed. He’s still at the NLTB after five years, and now a senior book-keeper. What am I saying? He’s dead, isn’t he? Who would want to kill Vili? It’s inconceivable!’ The pastor pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his tears.

  ‘How did he manage to continue the spice project, sir?’ Musudroka asked.

  The pastor smiled. ‘Oh, Vili wasn’t afraid of hard work, Constable, and he was a born leader. He returned here most weekends and on all his holidays. He motivated people here to work some hours in their spare time, and the necessary work was done. And, although it’s still small, it’s making money. Vili kept accurate records of how many hours people worked, and proceeds from sales were divided among the participants fairly. Vili took nothing for himself, beyond the hours he put in. The records were public, so anyone could check and, naturally, each worker kept an eye on the others.’

  Horseman smiled. ‘Of course, I can easily imagine that. He must have been a very popular man.’

  ‘He was indeed. He wanted to expand the area of the spice gardens, and he got the elders’ permission to do that twice already. But there was some difficulty about his latest proposal.’

  ‘What sort of difficulty?’ Horseman asked.

  Silence fell while Mere poured them a third cup of tea. The pastor stared at his cup, pondering. When he looked up, he said, ‘It’s to do with land allocation here. That’s all I can say. You know I’m not from here myself, though I’ve been here twenty years now. I’m from Vanua Levu. I’m not privy to the deliberations of the chief and elders.’

  Horseman shook his head slightly at Musudroka, just in case the inexperienced detective decided to probe the point further, and finished his cup of tea.

  ‘Vinaka vakalevu, Pastor and Mrs Tora. Your hospitality has been wonderful. You’ve fortified us for the rest of the day. Now it’s time we visited the church.’

  ‘Io, you’re most welcome, Inspector, please don’t let us detain you.’ The pastor escorted them down the steps and stayed there, watching as they walked next door to his church.

  4

  Two men waited at the ox-blood door of the church. The shorter, burlier one stepped forward and stood to attention. His sulu was wrapped beneath his paunch. The broad gap between the top of his sulu and his blue polo shirt looked like a hairy brown belt.

  He shook hands with the detectives who presented their IDs. ‘Constable Tomasi Kana, retired, sir,’ he said in formal Fijian. ‘Pleased to be of service and to meet you, Inspector Horseman. May I present Mr Ilai Takilai, our village headman.’ Deep furrows curved from the headman’s nose to the corners of his unsmiling mouth. His handshake was firm.

  ‘I welcome you to Tanoa on behalf of Ratu Osea Matanitu, chief of Tanoa and associate villages. Ratu Osea is in Suva today. He grants you permission to conduct your investigations here without hindrance. When he is next here, he will be pleased to welcome you formally with a sevusevu ceremony.’

  Horseman clapped his hands together in the traditional gesture of thanks. Musudroka followed.

  ‘Vinaka vakalevu, sir,’ Horseman replied. ‘I’m grateful for your cooperation, and look forward to talking to you soon.’

  ‘Of course, I am available to you, but I regret I cannot be of much help. I am deeply grieved by this tragedy. However, I have no light to shed on it. I’ll say goodbye for now.’ The tall, lean headman nodded formally and walked away.

  By contrast, Tomasi Kana was eager, even ingratiating. ‘You know, sir, I myself played for Police many years ago.’

  ‘Well, Mr Kana. Police have always been near the top of the ladder, eh.’

  ‘Please call me Tomasi, sir. I never achieved your success. I was proud to play for the second grade team, however.’

  ‘Nothing like it, is there, playing rugby in a team of fellow cops? Vinaka for the help and advice you’ve given us already, Tomasi. If it weren’t for your knowledge and ability to take command, any evidence here could have been destroyed or compromised. I’m grateful.’ Horseman clapped once.

  Tomasi smiled his pleasure. ‘I’m happy to help. This is a disgraceful crime. I’m on unofficial guard here, to stop curious people going in. A search officer and another constable arrived less than an hour ago.’

  ‘Well done, Tomasi. We’ll no doubt see you later.’

  Musudroka pushed open the heavy door. Swollen with damp, it scraped against the floor. He lifted it on its hinges by tugging the door handle up. ‘They should take this off and rehang it. Maybe even tightening the hinge screws would fix it.’

  Horseman was surprised. ‘Where have you been hiding your carpentry knowledge, Tani? I’m impressed.’

  Musudroka blushed. ‘Dad’s a carpenter, sir. He’s always going on about people not maintaining their houses and furniture properly.’

  ‘I’ll remember that. Let’s see what we’ve got inside.’

  The white-walled church was modest but had nice proportions and a simple dignity. The corrugated iron roof had quite a steep pitch and was painted light blue like the rafters, bringing the sky inside. The window shutters on both side walls were propped open by bamboo poles, letting in plenty of light. Rolled mats were piled against the walls, but several remained in the centre of the concrete floor. A cross was fixed above the communion table, and a lace-edged cloth hung on the front of the pulpit, embroidered with the text ‘God is love’ in Fijian.

  Two constables in disposable white overalls, caps, and bootees were crawling on the floor, systematically sweeping with hand brushes into dustpans. The floor was taped in squares, each labelled with a code. One officer grinned at them as he tipped the dustpan into a plastic bag, sealed and labelled it. He alerted a third officer, who turned and walked over to Horseman and Musudroka. ‘Bula, bula, Detectives, I’m glad to see you.’ He peeled off a glove and held out his hand. ‘Ashwin Jayaraman, SOCO. Call me Ash, please.’ They all shook hands.

  ‘Inspector, you must get very tired of people telling you of their childhood hero worship, but it’s so true in my case!’

  Ash did look young, but Horseman was always disconcerted when adults told him he was their childhood hero. He preferred to ignore the fact that he wasn’t getting any younger. He also hoped the SOCO wouldn’t want him to get down on his knees.

  ‘Vinaka, Ash. What have we got?’

  ‘Tricky, boss. I only got here an hour ahead of you and had to train the constables. We’re halfway through the floor. No power, so we can’t vacuum. I’m taking samples from the mats where the body was placed. There’s blood, some hairs, little else. The church was cleaned well on Saturday afternoon, so you’d think traces of the victim and the murderer, or murderers, should be clear. But there are no obvious drag marks, scuffing of the mats, blood traces from the door to where he was placed. My guess is the victim was already dead, well wrapped in cloth or plastic and dragged or carried into position.’

  Horseman looked around and nodded his agreement.

  ‘Grab a suit from the bag and come over to the site.’

  The two detectives readily complied. Musudroka looked proud to be wearing search garb for the first time. The mats were surprisingly undamaged.

 
; ‘The entire mat where his upper body lay will go to the lab. But I want you to smell it before I bag it. It’s odd. Something familiar, but I can’t place it.’

  Just what Horseman feared. Musudroka was already on his knees, sniffing like a dog. Horseman lowered himself carefully, put most of his weight on his left knee, and followed suit. Straight away he pushed himself up, smiling. ‘It’s vanilla.’

  ‘Io, of course!’ Ash kneeled again and sniffed, then jumped back up. ‘I wonder how?’

  ‘Vili ran a spice project here. The pastor told us they grow vanilla. Perhaps that’s where Viliame was killed.’ Horseman said. Unjustified hope surged through him. Maybe he could wrap this case up by Friday!

  ***

  Tomasi was only too ready to tell the detectives about the village spice project—Viliame’s project really. And to show them the path, which started at the eastern end of the village. Ash left the two constables to finish the church floor and joined them. The four men spread out about a metre apart and slowly headed east from the church, scanning the ground for any disturbance, any discarded object.

  Tomasi pointed to the last house, twice the size of the others.

  ‘This is Ratu Osea’s house. He built it when he retired from the army. He spends a lot of his time in Tanoa now.’ It stood a little apart, elevated on sturdy posts, clad in weatherboards and roofed in iron overlaid by thatch.

  The officers worked their way through an open area of washing lines and a few sheds. Chickens strolled about leisurely, pecking in the earth. Out of reach of the washing, a couple of goats tethered on long chains cropped the mix of grass, herbage, and would-be shrubs that had no chance.

  ‘They’re finding more than us.’ Musudroka called out.

  ‘They’re closer to the ground,’ Ash replied. ‘But I won’t ask you to get down on your knees yet. Just be alert for anything unexpected and focus on your own section.’

  Beyond the goats’ range, the vegetation sprang upwards: a dense mix of ubiquitous hibiscus, ginger, wild passionfruit, and kikuyu grass. Among these were the invasive young lantana and, trailing across all, that opportunist thief of sun and space, the morning glory vine. This was the site of a fallow garden. The heads of cassava plants rose here and there, sprouting from bits of tubers left in the ground after harvesting.

  The path to the spice gardens was wide enough for an overladen wheelbarrow. Ash told them to walk two by two, one pair about five metres ahead of the other. Tomasi cut them sticks with his machete, so they could part the thick scrub and see through to the ground. They came across rotting bits of paper and cardboard, indestructible foil packets, plastic bottles, and fish cans in various stages of rusting decay.

  ‘Time for a village working bee,’ said Tomasi. ‘I didn’t know it was as bad as this.’ He sounded embarrassed.

  ‘It looks fine from on top,’ Horseman reassured him. ‘We’re only seeing the litter because we’re parting the surface. Really, I’m impressed. Tanoa is a clean and tidy village.’

  ‘Vinaka, sir. You know how it is. Our chief likes everything in order around the place.’

  After ten minutes, the track narrowed again as it climbed towards a ridge. Horseman paused at the crest, looking out on a new landscape. Here the forest was taller, the canopy free of morning glory. The straight trunks of Honduran mahogany reared among the jostling native species. Geometric emerald patches broke up the natural jumble. He tried to make sense of the patches, but failed. It looked as if triffids were strangling ancient Roman colonnades.

  Tomasi pointed. ‘See the vanilla? The deep green?’

  ‘Io, but what sort of plant can it be?’

  ‘It’s a kind of orchid, but it’s a vine that climbs up trees. Vili planted support trees that are only small, so the vanilla doesn’t get beyond reach. The workers prune the trees and train the vines along lateral branches connecting the trees.’ Tomasi spoke with pride.

  ‘That sounds like a lot of work.’

  ‘Io, it’s complicated. Vili studied about vanilla and trained the workers well.’

  Horseman fished his binoculars from his backpack. ‘I can make sense of it now. How beautiful!’

  He trained the binoculars on jade outcrops which resolved into straight lines of bananas interplanted with bushes. Horseman pointed. ‘And those?’ he asked Tomasi.

  ‘Nutmeg—the young trees only need shade for the first few years. Vili decided to use bananas as temporary shade to provide a cash crop until the nutmegs produce. Clever, eh?’

  ‘Very. Viliame will be a great loss, I can see.’ The information was fascinating, but it was high time they searched the vanilla gardens.

  ‘Tanielo, you help Ash check out the vanilla patches. He’ll tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Watch, listen, and learn, young man!’ Musudroka grinned, jumped to attention, and saluted Ash. Horseman watched for a few moments as the two young men approached the nearest vanilla patch.

  ‘He likes playing around, your young DC, doesn’t he?’ Tomasi said in a neutral tone. ‘In my day, he would have been disciplined for making a joke of a salute.’

  ‘Musudroka’s young and likes to have a bit of fun. But he works hard and he’s very keen to learn. He’ll do well if he sticks with it.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll stick with it as long as you can stick with him, in my opinion. You’re a hero to him.’

  Horseman shrugged. Perhaps the older man was wiser than him. Perhaps he should be stricter with Musudroka, more formal. Still, he didn’t want to stifle Musudroka’s youthful enthusiasm.

  ‘Tomasi, you’re an enormous help to us here. Without your police experience, the investigation wouldn’t have got off to such a good start. Have you known Viliame all his life? Tell me some more about him.’

  ‘Io, I’ve known him all his life, but not so well as others. Until I retired, I served in different districts, from Vanuabalavu in the east, to Nadi in the west, even Kadavu, way to the south. But every year I came back here on leave with my wife and children so I kept up with village life. When I retired, he was already away at boarding school, but he was home for the holidays. Then he got a job at the NLTB in Suva, but he returned here frequently on weekends, as well as on his annual leave.’

  ‘What was Viliame like?’ Horseman asked.

  Tomasi shook his head sadly. ‘I think the best way to give you a sense of what he was like is to say that he was an individual. He didn’t follow the crowd.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  ‘I did. He was energetic and hard-working. Always positive. He did things, rather than watch the world go by. I admire all those qualities. I wish I shared them myself.’

  ‘Popular, was he?’

  ‘True, he was. With all the young people especially. But he was also the kind of boy all the mothers have a soft spot for—they looked forward to the weekends because Vili would come on Saturday. Strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘What about the village fathers?’

  ‘I don’t know, perhaps there were a few old noses out of joint.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was a credit to our village, that’s what most of us thought. But you know how it is, some could have been jealous of his achievement, his popularity. Some might have resented him because he showed them up.’

  ‘Wise words, Tomasi. Human nature doesn’t change, does it? Who may have been jealous, or resented Vili’s success?’

  The older man shook his head slowly. ‘That I do not know, sir.’

  ***

  Horseman sensed that was all Tomasi wanted to give him now, but it was a pretty clear indication that at least some elders resented Vili. But would that be enough to deny the profitable spice project access to additional land? Horseman looked at the forested valley before him, the next ridge. There didn’t seem to be competing enterprises nearby.

  Shouts from below put an end to his conversation with Tomasi. Ash and Musudroka waved and beckoned. ‘Wait here, if you don’t mind please, Tomasi. The fewer people trampling a
bout, the better.’

  The path wasn’t steep and he was able to join his smiling colleagues without embarrassing stumbles. He felt as if he were underwater, in a kelp forest bathed in green light. It was a lush, still world of fleshy vines hung with long green beans with an earthy, fecund scent. There was definitely no vanilla smell, not like the smell on the mat.

  Ash said, ‘Here, sir, between these two trees. No sign of violence, but there’s this depression in the earth.’

  The grass between two rows of vanilla was flattened. The soft earth had a shallow impression about the size of a human body.

  ‘I agree, a body, living or dead, could have lain here. Or possibly two human bodies.’ His colleagues raised their brows in agreement with this alternative idea.

  ‘I never thought of that,’ Musudroka mused.

  ‘I can’t smell vanilla, though.’ He knelt carefully and sniffed the flattened grass. ‘Not on the ground either. I’ll ask Tomasi about that. You carry on here, then search the other gardens.’

  ‘I’ll take pictures and you measure, Tani,’ said Ash. ‘Length, width, and depth.’ He pulled a tape from his backpack and handed it to Musudroka. Then, we’ll take samples of the soil, plants, and any debris in the depression. I’ll take them to the lab. You could be a professional SOCO before you know it!’

  ***

  Tomasi hadn’t moved from the crest of the ridge. Horseman remarked, ‘I’m curious about why there’s no vanilla smell in the groves.’

  ‘That’s right. You don’t get that smell until the beans are cured.’