One Blood by Graeme Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

cookies, all of them.’
    ‘They didn’t seem unduly disturbed by Mr Blamire’s murder,’ Sister Conchita admitted. ‘By the way, what happened to Mr Blamire’s body?’
    ‘I took it to the hospital at Gizo. The medical assistant there pronounced him dead. He thought that Blamire might have had a heart attack and fallen on to the flames. Perhaps the sight of the bonfire going up brought on the attack. Anyway, the corpse was taken over to Honiara for an autopsy.’
    ‘Perhaps I can find out the result from Central Hospital,’ Conchita said.
    ‘Whatever. You won’t be able to see the body, though. The tour operators contacted Blamire’s relatives and they had it flown back to the States for burial.’
    ‘That was quick!’
    ‘Bizness bilong whiteman,’ said Dontate, half mockingly. ‘You don’t leave bodies lying around for long in this climate.’
    ‘No, I suppose not. But nobody’s come over to the mission to investigate his death yet. That seems a little odd.’
    ‘Why should they? It was just a nasty accident. There’s one expatriate inspector and a local sergeant at the Gizo police station. At the moment they’re both on the other side of New Georgia investigating a custom killing. I imagine that, seeing a tourist is involved, they might send someone from Honiara to look into things at Marakosi eventually. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
    ‘I should hope so! It might be a bit late by then.’
    ‘Don’t worry; it will get sorted. You whiteys know how to look after your own in the islands. You’ve had plenty of practice. By the way, there’s one thing you can tell me while you’re here. Just who is John F. Kennedy?’
    ‘He’s the Democratic candidate for the presidency in the USA,’ said Sister Conchita, who came from Boston. ‘The elections back home are being held in a few weeks’ time. Mr Kennedy is running on the slogan
A Time for Greatness.
’
    ‘Never heard of him,’ said Dontate. ‘Apparently he served here in the war. Those three guys back there talk about him a lot. They’ve hired me to take them over to Kasolo, the island where Kennedy was stranded in 1943. It’s only a few miles across the lagoon.’
    ‘That was seventeen years ago.’
    ‘They seem interested,’ shrugged Dontate.
    ‘Do you like showing tourists around?’ asked Sister Conchita.
    ‘It’s a job,’ said Dontate. ‘Did you know that as far back as 1910, Burns Philp ships were bringing American tourists to the Roviana Lagoon to see the headhunters? What goes around comes around.’
    He gave the nun a hand pushing her canoe back into deeper water, then walked back to the shore. The engine started up at the first pull. Sister Conchita steered the vessel back towards the centre of the lagoon. As she did so, she thought about her encounter with the three Americans back in the rest-house. It was possible that Clark Imison might have served with the US Army in the Solomons as a very young man. He had certainly been quick enough, almost too quick, to recite the name of his supposed unit and commanding officer. But if his two companions had also been in the military, as Imison had claimed, then judging by their youthful appearance, they would not have been much more than fifteen at the time, a most unlikely state of affairs. Dontate had sensed something odd about the three men as well. If they were neither genuine tourists nor war veterans, what were they doing in the Roviana Lagoon? There was something wrong on the island of Munda, mused the sister, and if her instincts were to be trusted, it almost certainly had something to do with the death of Ed Blamire.
    She looked back over her shoulder. Joe Dontate was standing on the beach. He was regarding the nun in her canoe with a particular intensity. It nagged at Sister Conchita that so little seemed to have been done to investigate Blamire’s death.Mentally she began retracing her steps on the afternoon upon which she had met the tourist. Why had he seemed