One Blood

by Graeme Kent

  ‘Lohmani,’ said Raesohu, ‘Otalifua, Dara and Tavo. Will that do you?’

  ‘If you say so,’ said the sergeant.

  Kella walked back down the hill. He knew that he was getting nowhere with his investigations, and he knew why that was so. He was far from home, and in such unfamiliar territory that so far he had been conducting his enquiries like a white man. The policeman who had been sent to the Roviana Lagoon had been Sergeant Ben Kella, BA, MPhil, writer of dissertations and attender of courses. He was facing his usual problem of trying to exist in two worlds at the same time. Ever since his first Christian mission teachers had marked him out as a potential high-flyer, which, coincidentally, had been at about the same time that the old custom priests had called him to start his training as the aofia, he had been struggling to assimilate two different cultures. It was time to forget the white man’s influences and concentrate on what he was good at. What was wanted here was some good, old-fashioned bush-tracking.

  He spent the next hour visiting the four men whose names he had been given at the radio station. In a small place like Gizo, it was not difficult to track each one down. They all gave him the answer he had been expecting. Then he occupied an exasperating hour in searching without success for Joe Dontate. Gizo was little more than a glorified village, with only a few hundred permanent residents, although the occasional tourist party and the crews of visiting vessels made up the numbers at various times. All the same, although Kella had tried most of the bars and cafés by noon, there had been no sign of the former boxer. It was shortly after midday that he reached one of the less salubrious waterfront drinking dens, an open-sided, thatched-roofed building with a bar consisting of beer crates piled on top of one another and a suspicious-looking Melanesian pushing bottles of Australian 4X beer to thirsty patrons. He directed a glare at the sight of Kella in his police uniform, but said nothing as the sergeant stood in the entrance on the wharf surveying the bar’s patrons. There were islanders from all over the Solomons, most seamen on Chinese trading vessels: dark-hued Melanesians, big, handsome light-skinned Polynesians and even a few spare, lithe Gilbertese uprooted from their own islands to their settlement at Wagina.

  Kella saw a group of Lau seamen sitting on crates drinking in a corner, and made his way over to them. They shifted up respectfully to make room for the aofia. One of them offered him a swig from his bottle, but Kella declined with a grunt of thanks.

  ‘I’m looking for Joe Dontate,’ he said in the Lau dialect. ‘He’s a big man in Gizo.’

  ‘Or thinks he is,’ said one of the seamen, to general laughter.

  ‘True,’ nodded Kella. ‘Sometimes a lizard thinks that it is a crocodile. Does anyone know where I might find him?’

  The others shook their heads placidly. One of them, a young man with his hair dyed blond with lime and wearing a dirty T-shirt with the inscription Elvis the King, raised a hand, like a schoolboy at the back of a classroom, and asked:

  ‘Why don’t you make him find you?’

  ‘How do I do that?’ asked Kella. A fight between a Tikopian and a Choiseul man broke out in the doorway, but no one in the group paid any attention to it. The sergeant noticed that the Choiseul man was swinging huge arching blows, while the Tikopian was ominously compact, nuzzling his opponent’s chest with his face as he delivered straight short-arm punches to the other man’s ribcage. Kella’s money was already on the Tikopian. The Lau men, connoisseurs of bar-room brawls, waited with puzzled attention for the blond youth’s response to Kella’s question.

  ‘Plenty of things going on Joe Dontate doesn’t want the police to know about, in plenty of different places,’ suggested the youth. ‘If the aofia goes and waits in one of them, Dontate will soon hear about it and come running to get rid of the evidence.’

  The other seamen guffawed and slapped the blond boy on the back in appreciation of his animal cunning. Kella reached into his back pocket and produced an Australian five-dollar note, which he handed to the preening boy.

  ‘Good thinking, wantok,’ he said. ‘Buy your friends a drink. Can any of you suggest which place will draw Dontate to me the soonest?’

  The Lau men conferred in undertones. Again it was the blond youth who addressed Kella first.

  ‘Place bilong kina,’ he said. ‘Dontate has something strange going on there this week. I saw him take some whiteys in there a few days ago.’

  ‘The shell house?’ asked Kella

  ‘Behind the Joy biscuit factory,’ said the blond youth.

  ‘Thank you, you keep your eyes open. Your captain should make you a lookout,’ said Kella, standing up.

  ‘That’s what we do when we rob the Chinese,’ said another Lau man.

  The seamen were still laughing as Kella left the bar. As he did so, he stepped over the body of the already recumbent, groaning Choiseul man in the entrance.

  The shell house was a long tin shed on a piece of wasteland behind the biscuit factory, which supplied Gizo with fresh bread three times a week. Kella kicked heavily on the door of the shed, making a booming noise. Somebody inside shouted at him in pidgin to go away. Kella kicked harder, making a dent in the door. The door was unlocked and inched open to reveal a pair of eyes. Kella kicked again, as hard as he could. The door flew open, sending the man who had unlocked it crashing backwards.

  Kella stepped inside.

  ‘Good morning, olketta,’ he beamed at the workers inside the shell house.

  There were about a dozen of them, all Melanesians, few of them young, sitting at long tables littered with carving implements, different types of wood and dozens of seashells. They looked up with apprehension as the sergeant made his dramatic entrance.

  The man he had knocked over picked himself up and slammed the door shut, lumbering towards Kella. He was a big New Georgian islander with impressive biceps and a chest like a black iron trunk. He came to a halt when he saw Kella’s red beret and khaki uniform.

  ‘Just a routine inspection,’ said Kella, smiling benevolently and starting to patrol up and down the tables. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Treat me as if I wasn’t here.’

  The first table he passed at a leisurely pace was devoted to shell carving. The Melanesians stared at their work as if they found it fascinating, not looking up at the policeman. Kella could recognize cowries, mussels, conch shells, thorny oysters, cones, clams, turtle shells and a dozen others. The tools being used with contemptuous ease by the carvers allowed them to cut, pierce, polish and engrave. They handled and discarded saws, drills, knives, hammers, files and pumice stones.

  Unfortunately, the work they were producing was of a shoddy standard. Kella looked at the mounds of beads, necklaces, bracelets, decorated boxes and pendants being dropped into boxes at the feet of the carvers. These were cheap and nasty imitations of genuine carving work and were designed only to fool unsuspecting tourists.

  The same could be said of the wooden carvings being produced at another table. They were inferior copies of traditional pieces, made of the cheapest wood, badly finished, and sprayed with a cheap veneer to give the impression of age.

  One of the older workers looked up and caught Kella’s eye. He was a Guadalcanal man with a helmet of snow-white hair above a craggy, distinguished face.

  He saw the police sergeant’s disapproving expression and shrugged hopelessly. Kella nodded. There weren’t many jobs for the old in the Solomons; there weren’t a lot for the young, either. He could understand the Guadalcanal man’s shame at turning out such cheapjack wares. As he stared at the old man, the latter’s hand moved nervously to a drawer in the desk before him. Kella moved forward and pulled the drawer open. It contained a number of assorted carved shell trinkets.

  The door at the end of the shed opened and Joe Dontate hurried in. ‘Kella!’ he shouted. ‘This is private property. Get the hell out!’

  ‘I wanted to see you, so I left you my calling card,’ Kella told him. ‘You didn’t have to run to get here. A sharp walk would have done.’

>   Dontate scowled and walked to a door leading to an office at the far end of the shed. Kella followed him in. There was a table and two chairs in the windowless room. Dontate sat behind the table. Kella took the chair in front of him.

  ‘Well?’ asked Dontate.

  ‘Something’s going on here in the West,’ Kella said. ‘I’m not sure what, but I think it’s big. Nothing goes off in the Roviana area without you knowing about it. So what is it?’

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Dontate. ‘How would I know? I’m a respectable businessman.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Kella said. ‘Piece by piece you’re taking over crime in the Roviana Lagoon. The trouble is, this time you’re in danger of getting in over your head.’

  ‘Kind of you to care,’ Dontate said.

  ‘What makes it dangerous,’ said Kella, ‘is the fact that this goes outside the Solomons. This is international. I think we’ve had two lots of foreign agents here already.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ yawned Dontate, pretending to be absorbed in some plans on the table before him.

  ‘There’s just one way to get foreigners safely into the country,’ Kella said. ‘That’s as tourists. At the moment, the only tourist party we’ve got in the Protectorate is the one you’re guiding. Eight of them flew home a couple of days ago and one was murdered at Marakosi Mission. That leaves the three who have signed up with you for a personalized guide of the islands visited by John F. Kennedy in 1943.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  ‘Those three agents are looking for something to do with John F. Kennedy when he was a PT boat commander in the lagoon. They’re concentrating on matters that might discredit Kennedy.’

  ‘Why the hell would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is what they are doing illegal?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware, no.’

  ‘Are you asking me to turn down a substantial fee to guide a group of Yanks round the lagoon?’

  ‘It might be better if you withdrew your services.’

  ‘Go and stuff yourself sideways!’ said Joe Dontate. ‘Is there any point to all this as far as I’m concerned?’

  ‘It’s bad enough you making efforts to be Mr Big in the lagoon, but I can put up with that as long as you don’t come near Malaita. What worries me is the way you’re getting involved with whitey. You’re too tough and too streetwise to be bothered by the local hoods, but if you invite expatriates into the area, sooner or later they’ll take over from you. You may think that you can control them, but you can’t. These guys will chew you up and spit you out, Dontate. Then I’ll have to come over and clear up the mess.’

  ‘Have you come here to deliver a sermon?’ asked Dontate.

  ‘I was hoping that you would tell me a few things. In the first place, why was Ed Blamire murdered?’

  ‘How would I know? I guide them, I don’t listen to their confessions.’

  ‘But you were at the Marakosi Mission open day?’

  ‘Every bugger and his dog was there. By lagoon standards, that afternoon came under the heading of “quite interesting.” Look, you’re wasting your time and mine.’

  Kella stood up. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I was only trying to help you.’

  ‘That’ll be the day!’

  ‘Some time ago,’ said Kella, ‘when Johnny Cho and his Chinatown boys were trying to kill me, you came to my assistance. Before that, you helped me on Malaita once.’

  ‘We all make mistakes.’

  ‘Because of that, I owe you a couple, Dontate. This is my attempt at payback. Don’t have anything else to do with Imison and the other Americans. This isn’t some inter-tribal blood feud. It’s a big-time operation and you’re getting sucked into it.’

  ‘I go where the money is, Kella. Don’t you think you might be biting off more than you can chew yourself? After all, what are you? You’re just a witch-doctor-policeman and you don’t have any friends in this district.’

  ‘Just the one,’ said Kella. ‘Just the one.’

  He stood up and left the office. He noticed that Dontate had not moved. By his standards, the islander was almost looking concerned.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THREE OF THE nuns were sitting around the table in the senior sister’s office with Kella. The fourth, Sister Brigid, had been invited to attend but had declined. Kella had arrived at the mission by canoe a few hours ago. He had declined a meal and a bed for the night, and had requested that Sister Conchita convene a meeting. He had been lowering and silent since his arrival and had made no mention of the senior sister’s letter to him.

  ‘It’s time for us to pool our knowledge and to do what we can to solve the two problems that have been presented to us,’ the policeman said calmly after Sister Conchita’s introductory remarks. ‘I refer to the death of the American tourist Ed Blamire and the attacks at the Alvaro logging camps.’

  ‘You thought they weren’t connected,’ Sister Conchita could not help saying.

  ‘I never said that. I wanted to follow the pattern of the logging mystery first and see where that led me. In my culture there are no coincidences. All things that happen were meant to happen. It’s a matter of studying them and picking out the salient facts, and seeing where they intertwine. The attacks on the island of Alvaro led me to the Roviana Lagoon. After years of peace, something has put the karma of this area out of joint. The only unsettling event in the lagoon this year has been the arrival of a group of tourists. If there have been two crimes immediately following the presence of the Americans in the Western Solomons, then somehow the tourists are connected with both events.’

  ‘There’s no proof that the Americans were responsible for either crime,’ said Sister Johanna, ‘except of course that poor Mr Blamire lost his life while he was in the lagoon.’

  ‘That is true. There are only three tourists left in the area now. They appear to be interested solely in what happened here during the war in 1943, specifically in the events surrounding the sinking of PT-109 under the command of John F. Kennedy.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Sister Jean Francoise, who seemed to be enjoying one of her lucid intervals. The French nun was resting her chin on her hands on the long table and leaning forward eagerly.

  ‘I believe,’ said Kella, ‘that the turbulence of the last few days is all part of a much longer line of events, going back to 1943. The trouble in the lagoon didn’t end when the fighting finished, it just submerged for a couple of decades. Now it has come back to the surface because it is time to bring it all to an end, so that the spirits of the lagoon will be satisfied at last.’

  ‘Closure,’ said Sister Conchita. ‘And are we meant to bring that closure to the deaths and violence?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Kella. ‘But this is not my area. I have no power or authority here. I am only a policeman. I must do my duty, but I will need help.’

  ‘What sort of help?’ asked Conchita.

  ‘Yours,’ said Kella.

  The nuns looked at one another uneasily.

  ‘What sort of help can we provide?’ asked Conchita. ‘We are foreigners here too,’

  ‘I need your faith,’ said Kella. ‘Sister Brigid has the key to these events, going back seventeen years, I am sure of that. She became involved in something that happened in the search for John F. Kennedy in 1943. She won’t tell us anything about it. I think that is because at some time when she was searching for the crew of PT-109, her faith came into conflict with the spirits of the lagoon. There was a struggle and she has never been able to talk about it since. Her faith was vanquished by a stronger one. Unfortunately she will not talk about what happened.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Sister Johanna. ‘Sister Brigid was—is—a Christian nun!’

  ‘Operating on her own in a pagan area,’ said Kella. ‘She did not have enough help. Her mana was not strong enough.’ He looked at Sister Conchita. ‘You know that this can happen,’ he said. ‘You had experience of it yo
urself when you met the dream-maker on Mount Austen once.’

  Conchita paid no attention to the looks directed at her by the other two sisters. She remembered the occasion when Father Pierre had sent her up into Mount Austen on Guadalcanal to test her faith against that of the dream-maker. It was only a few months before, but now it seemed so long ago,

  ‘What are you trying to say to us, Sergeant Kella?’ she asked.

  ‘The troubles of the war in the lagoon have not yet ended,’ he said. ‘But it will soon be time to put a finish to them, if we can find the truth.’

  ‘Whose truth?’ asked Sister Jean Francoise, and giggled.

  ‘What do you want of us?’ Conchita asked.

  ‘As I said, my spirits do not operate so far from Malaita, but yours do. Your mission has been in the West for most of the century. Sister Brigid did not have your strength of mind. She allowed herself to be defeated by the Roviana spirits. You might be more successful if you come with me, Sister Conchita.’

  ‘You want me to travel with you on your investigations?’

  ‘I must have someone with me who has power, to make up for my own lack of it outside my home island. There will be times when I will need someone with a strong faith to combat the water spirits of the lagoon. Will you travel with me in search of the truth, Sister Conchita? It is a lot to ask, I know.’

  ‘It’s out of the question,’ said Conchita. ‘I have my own work here at Marakosi.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Sister Johanna. ‘You were sent here to call us to order. Well, you’ve done that. Now do something really useful. Go with the sergeant, put an end to the evil that has come to Roviana. Release Sister Brigid from the invisible bonds that have bound her for so many dreadful years.’

  ‘There must be a Christian missionary present in any attempt to restore good in the lagoon,’ agreed Sister Jean Francoise. ‘Johanna and Brigid are too old, and my mind is not attached firmly enough any more.’

  ‘You’re too old as well,’ Sister Johanna sniffed. ‘It has to be Conchita.’ She stood up and walked over to stand next to the young nun. ‘You were prepared to combat three old women at the mission,’ she said gently. ‘Are you not also ready to face the wild spirits out there, armed with your faith? After all, it’s only a matter of degree.’