One Blood by Graeme Kent

Marakosi. I’d like to know what steps are being taken to investigate it.’
    The District Commissioner’s attitude changed with the rapidity of a wet sponge being drawn over a board. His manner of eager compliance vanished and he sat bolt upright behind his desk.
    ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.
    ‘It’s a simple enough question, Mr Maclehose. An American tourist died in highly unusual circumstances outside our church. There were signs of a struggle inside. Could this struggle have brought about Mr Blamire’s heart attack? As far as I can tell, nothing has been done to look into it. His body has been transported to the USA, and no one has been sent to investigate the events surrounding his death. What on earth is going on?’
    This time the District Commissioner did not give ground. ‘I don’t think you quite appreciate the difficulties involved in such an investigation,’ he said. ‘The sheer logistics of it baffle belief.’
    ‘I appreciate that it’s not easy,’ Conchita said. ‘But the government’s response to the death seems to be one of complete inertia. Considering that the victim was an American citizen, I find that surprising and reprehensible. At the very least, incidents like this could damage the tourist industry.’
    ‘Sister Conchita, you haven’t been in the Solomons for very long, and you’ve been here in the Western District for an even shorter period of time—’
    ‘Mr Maclehose, I don’t need a long service and good conduct medal to know when something is wrong. In this instance, I might even suspect some sort of cover-up. Is the death an embarrassment to the administration?’
    ‘That’s absurd! Mr Blamire’s body was examined and the official finding was that he had suffered a heart attack.’
    ‘Yet no one visited the scene of his death. That sounds very strange to me.’
    ‘You simply don’t understand the complexities of the situation,’ the District Commissioner said. ‘This isn’t a death in the Bronx or Brooklyn, you know. Different conditions apply here in the islands.’
    ‘A man has died in what I, for one, regard as suspicious circumstances, and the authorities seem to be making no attempt to investigate his death. Do you deny that?’
    ‘Of course I deny it,’ Maclehose said. ‘You’re simply not in possession of all the relevant facts. Every possible avenue is being explored. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.’
    ‘And you seem determined not to tell me,’ Sister Conchita said, rising and heading for the door. ‘Very well, I shall just have to see what I can find out for myself.’
    She stopped and tried to regain her equanimity in the dusty main street running along the waterfront of the sleepy district centre. Copra boats and several visiting yachts were moored against the wharf. Along the waterfront was an open-air market selling bananas, corn, pineapples and tapioca. In the main street there were a few stores, and Quonset huts housing the government offices of the Public Works and the Post and Telecommunications departments. A Morris car and an Austin pickup truck were the only vehicles in sight. Scattered rusted wrecks of aircraft and vessels remaining from the war still had not been cleared from the beach running parallel to the street. Rising behind the village, the laterite hills, rich in iron and aluminium, were a red-brown in colour.
    Conchita started walking towards her canoe. What could have been the reason for the sudden stiffening of the District Commissioner’s spine? When she had pressed him over his culpability for Andy Russell’s neglect, he had responded like a frightened rabbit. Yet when she had tried to use his blatantpanic to make him open up about the progress of any official inquiry into the death at her mission, the official had been uncharacteristically stubborn and intransigent. To Sister Conchita’s mind, there could only be one explanation. Maclehose was more afraid of the unseen influences