Free One Blood by Graeme Kent

suitable for logging were to be found. Bulldozers, jeeps and the mobile winches known as log-haulers driven by the Australians were following in the wake of the Malaitans, to blast away any intervening rocks and ridges and gain access to the logs higher up, which they would bring down to the piles already in the pen by the beach awaiting shipment. The drivers were noisily tearing the clutches out of their machines in their efforts to get up the ridge. Other logs were being floated down the muddy river from the interior mountains on a filthy red torrent of pollution. Some of the labourers on the shore were busily joining logs together and lashing them to empty fuel drums with cables to form makeshift rafts, which would be towed out to sea by launches when the Swedish logging vessels arrived to winch up their cargoes from the water.
    Michie, the big Australian logging boss, was at the heart of the action, vigorously directing groups to their work. Already he was barking at the labourers as if nothing had ever happened. One of the Australian drivers scurried towards him with a query on his lips. Michie skewered the white man with a glare.
    ‘Hang around, why don’t you, and I’ll sing you a chorus of “My Hero” from
The Chocolate Soldier
,’ he snarled menacingly.
    The driver flinched, thought better of his self-imposed mission, and without breaking stride turned and hurried back to his vehicle and started it up. Michie stared at Kella. ‘Come for a reward?’ he demanded.
    ‘A cup of coffee will do. And ten minutes of your time.’
    With a theatrical sigh, the logging boss led Kella towards his office, a bungalow built on wooden poles, with a corrugated-iron roof. Beneath the poles were sliding log skids. When the office had to be moved farther up the trail, it could be towed by a truck. Next door was the company general store, selling 4X beer, tinned food, rice, biscuits and work clothes to the loggers and any islanders with enough money to pay its exorbitant prices. The store would have a deep freeze, powered by generators night and day. Behind the store and office, on the edge of the coastal mangroves, an effort had been made to make the area look a little more attractive by planting a few coconut palms and colourful hibiscus and oleander bushes on a patch of coral-based loam. A raised wooden structure housed half a dozen water tanks in two tiers, glistening with aluminium paint. Rainwater would be stored in the tanks and then distributed to taps in some of the houses.
    ‘Would you still rather have an expatriate police officer here?’ asked Kella politely as he entered the office.
    ‘Don’t push your luck,’ warned the Australian impassively, but the edge previously in his tone was now missing. ‘You may have given me a hand back then, but what else have you done for me lately?’
    The office was large but sparsely furnished. A desk was covered with maps and papers. A door led to what presumably passed for the Australian’s living quarters. Underneath a window overlooking the camp was a bookcase filled with tattered paperbacks that looked as if they had been read. Kella could make out some of the titles; they included
The Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick
and
This Side of Paradise
.
    He took the chair offered in front of the desk. Michie started to pour two cups of coffee from a percolator on a side table.
    ‘Have you got any ideas who might be responsible for the attacks on your station?’ Kella asked. ‘How about the local islanders you dispossessed.’
    ‘They were paid fair and square for the logging rights before they left the island,’ said Michie quickly. ‘They’ve got no beefs.’
    ‘They might have if custom land was involved,’ said Kella. ‘Or if they didn’t fully understand what they were giving up.’
    Michie brought the cups over and gave one to Kella before sitting behind his desk. He shifted his stomach to one side to make room. ‘Everything was explained to them,’ he said. ‘The