THERE WERE THREE men sitting in the office of the Secretary for Internal Affairs in Honiara. Robinson, the Secretary, was sipping a cup of tea behind his desk. Chief Superintendent Grice was sitting bolt upright in front of him. Occupying the third chair was a tall, stooped, grey-haired man in a lightweight suit.
‘The Chief Secretary has asked me to convene this meeting,’ said Robinson, ‘while the Police Commissioner has designated Chief Superintendent Grice as his representative. I am also delighted to welcome Mr Sanders of the US State Department to Honiara.’
The grey-haired man bowed slightly. There was a sympathetic glint in his eye, as if he could recognize an example of the buck being passed when he saw it.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘It’s good to be here.’
‘The purpose of the meeting,’ went on the Secretary for Internal Affairs, ‘is to correlate certain activities taking place in the Western Solomons and to ensure that we have covered our bases, if that is the expression, Mr Sanders.’
‘Covered our arses, more like,’ said Chief Superintendent Grice.
The Secretary for Internal Affairs winced. Sanders ignored the interjection.
‘Exactly right, sir,’ he said in a courtly fashion. ‘As you both know, the whole affair is a delicate one and we need to make sure that we are on top of it at all times.’
‘Buggered if I know what’s going on at all,’ said Grice. ‘My department has been left pretty much in the dark.’
‘Then I hope that matters will become clearer to you as the meeting proceeds,’ said Robinson acidly. He nodded to Sanders to continue.
‘I must apologize to you, Chief Superintendent Grice; there was no intention to leave you out of the loop,’ said the American official. ‘It was just that events started moving very quickly in the Roviana Lagoon and we had to react to them with equal rapidity before we all went to hell in a hand-basket. Anyway, I shall try to bring you up to date now. The body of Ed Blamire has been examined at an autopsy in Washington and it has been confirmed that he was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt instrument.’
‘Murdered, you mean?’ asked Grice.
‘Oh yes, no doubt about that, no doubt at all.’
‘Good God!’ said Grice, aghast at the thought. ‘A white man murdered in the Solomons.’
‘I don’t wish to appear too mercenary about this, but the cost must have been horrendous,’ said the Secretary for Internal Affairs uneasily. ‘Private chartered flights, autopsies, and all the rest of it.’
‘I can set your mind at rest there, Mr Robinson,’ said Sanders. ‘The tab has been picked up by Mr Blamire’s employers.’
‘Who are they?’ asked Grice.
‘I’m afraid that has to remain classified for the moment,’ Sanders said. ‘What I can tell you is that their identity came as a bit of a surprise to my department. We weren’t expecting intervention from that quarter.’
‘What quarter?’ asked Grice.
‘Shall we say the private sector,’ said Sanders. ‘Still, we’ve been in touch with them and everyone seems happy. Or as happy as possible under the circumstances.’
‘Please carry on, Mr Sanders,’ said Robinson. ‘We are anxious to ascertain whether there might be any repercussions from the death of this man Blamire.’
‘I think we’re fairly safe there,’ said the official. ‘He was a freelance. Ed Blamire had no official connections whatsoever, absolutely none. Nothing can be traced back to any of our sources.’
‘That’s a bit of luck,’ said Robinson, brightening.
‘But do you know who he was working for?’ asked Grice.
‘Oh yes, once we had his body, we were able to trace his background.’ Sanders looked rueful. ‘We may not have been able to keep Batista in power in Cuba last year, but we’re still good for some things. We tracked down his employers and had a long and in the end satisfactory talk with them. As a result, we have a clearer idea of what is going on in the Roviana Lagoon at the moment. Again, I can’t go into details.’
‘Are you going to share any information with us?’ asked Grice
‘I’m afraid that for the time being we have to proceed on a need-to-know basis,’ said Sanders. ‘I can assure you that this has been cleared at the highest levels between our respective governments, is that not so, Mr Robinson?’
The Secretary for Internal Affairs nodded but said nothing. Sanders continued.
‘Of course, the people who sent Blamire to the Solomons will have to pour a few buckets of cash over his dependents, but they’ve done that in a number of similar cases in different parts of the world and can well afford it.’
‘Quite so,’ said Robinson.
Grice looked at the other two men and tried to nod sagely. He had heard of the phrase parallel universe and he wondered if he could be groping his way through one at the moment. Robinson and Sanders seemed to be having a perfectly normal conversation, yet he could hardly understand a word of what they were saying. He tried to think of an intervention that would give the impression that he was in touch, without betraying his complete ignorance of the situation.
‘So where does that leave us at the moment?’ he heard himself saying.
‘That’s a very good point, Chief Superintendent Grice,’ said Sanders approvingly, with no trace of irony in his voice. ‘As you have just correctly implied, matters are still very much in the air in the Roviana Lagoon. There are some dangerous and ruthless characters floating around down there at the moment. We know from experience that they will kill without compunction, and we don’t want that to happen.’
‘Why don’t we just deport the lot of them?’ exploded Grice.
‘If we did that, the political fallout would be drastic,’ said Robinson, sounding shocked. ‘It would be like knocking down the first in a row of dominoes. That’s why we expedited the departure of Mr Blamire’s body, to avoid any such reaction.’
‘Quite so,’ said Sanders. ‘If it’s any consolation, if anything’s going to happen, it will occur in the next week or two.’
‘What makes you think that?’ asked Grice.
‘Because of the date of the elections, of course,’ said Sanders. ‘Back home we go to the polls on the eighth of November. That’s ten days away. If the people we’re watching are going to come up with anything, it will almost certainly be in the next week.’
‘What elections?’ asked Grice.
‘Why, the US presidential ones, of course,’ said Sanders, looking hard at the police officer as if wondering if he was serious, while Robinson squirmed. ‘JFK against Dick Nixon is going to be a close one. Both sides are going to come up with all the dirty tricks they can muster. It’s just unfortunate that they seem to have spread as far as the Solomon Islands.’
‘It’s difficult to comprehend that something as important as that might be influenced by what goes on in such a remote spot in the Pacific,’ said the Secretary for Internal Affairs, shaking his head.
‘Are you trying to tell me,’ asked Grice, beginning to understand, ‘that we have a bunch of murderers roving about in the Western District and we’ve done nothing to apprehend them?’
‘That’s the last thing we want to do,’ said Sanders vehemently. ‘We’ve got to find out what they’re up to first and then stop them.’
‘Exactly,’ said Robinson.
Chief Superintendent Grice shook his head and closed his eyes, at a loss for words.
‘That’s why we’ve got to keep a close eye on things,’ said Sanders a little more calmly. ‘We think we’ve got a guy in place down there, but we can’t be sure how effective he’s going to be. We’ve had him there in readiness for a contingency like this one, but we’ve never had to use him before.’
‘What about the native fellow, Dontate?’ asked Robinson. ‘By all accounts he’s very close to Imison and the others.’
‘Best we can figure it out, Joe Dontate’s just a hired gun,’ said Sanders. ‘He’s linked up with the others because they’re paying him.’
‘We could arrest him and take him out of circulation,’ offered Chief Superintendent Grice.
‘No!’ said Sanders sharply. ‘Our man down there has investigated him. Dontate’s not just an opportunistic thug. He’s what they call a Big Man in the Roviana area. He comes from a long line of warrior chiefs and headhunters, both matriarchal and patriarchal. If you move in on him, you could have an armed uprising among the locals.’
‘You think?’ asked Robinson in alarm.
‘That’s our best information. I suggest you watch Dontate but leave him alone,’ said Sanders. ‘It’s complicated, I know. By the way, who have you got down there?’
‘Where?’ asked Grice.
‘In the Roviana Lagoon, of course,’ said Sanders. ‘That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ said Robinson quickly. ‘We’ve had someone in place for a few days. Don’t you remember, Chief Superintendent Grice? You gave Sergeant Kella his briefing in this very office?’
‘Kella? Yes, of course,’ mumbled Grice.
‘You’ve only got a sergeant on the job?’ frowned Sanders. ‘This operation will take more weight than that, believe me.’
‘He’s our top Solomon Islands policeman,’ Robinson assured him. ‘He’s unorthodox, but he can infiltrate places where no white officer would dare set foot. Isn’t that right, Mr Grice?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Grice, speaking with conviction for the first time that afternoon. ‘It never ceases to surprise me where Kella gets to and what he does when he gets there.’