Port Vila Blues

Thirty-six

When De Lisle returned to the house after collecting the tartan suitcase on Reriki, Grace, his hi-Vanuatuan servant, was waiting for him at the top of the steps, holding a silver tray. She’d placed a white calling card in the centre of the tray. De Lisle had trained her in a thousand little rituals and courtesies. Today she was staring at him and something about it made him uneasy. For two years she’d refused to meet his eye, as though he were an unknown guest in the house, not the man who came into her room in the servants’ quarters night after night. So why the sudden confidence?

De Lisle opened the card. It was from Walter Erakor and said simply, ‘Meet me in Ma Kincaid’s Eating House at five this afternoon’.

De Lisle dismissed Grace and fixed himself a drink. He wondered what Erakor wanted. Walter was a jungle bunny-born on the island, a law graduate of the Sorbonne, but still a jungle bunny. De Lisle worked with the man whenever he was in Vanuatu, mainly routine circuit court cases, but he’d also called on Walter Erakor’s help in getting around the kinds of legal loophole matters that required a greased palm in the local judiciary. Erakor had saved De Lisle time and trouble in setting up holding companies, bank accounts and real estate transfers. Did the man want a bigger slice of the pie? De Lisle hated dealing with the blacks. He wished he’d been in Vanuatu before Independence, when there’d been plenty of decent Frenchmen in the public service.

De Lisle checked his watch: almost five. Too late to deposit the Asahi Collection jewels in a safety-deposit box. He stashed the tartan suitcase temporarily in the safe in his bedroom and decided to walk to Ma Kincaid’s. It was downhill all the way and it would help keep him fit. He could get a taxi back.

A ceaseless stream of badly tuned cars and vans passed him on the way down the hill, Port Vila’s version of rush hour at the end of the working day. De Lisle felt safer at the bottom of the hill. The road began to level out at the diving school and soon he was walking on a proper footpath. Today was market day. One or two stallkeepers were selling cowrie shells, fresh coconuts and bright, flimsy, cotton dresses in the parking lot for the Reriki Island ferry. Most of the small businesses had shut their doors but the Vietnamese supermarket was still open, run by the descendants of plantation workers brought to Vanuatu by French planters in the 1920s.

De Lisle trudged through the humid late afternoon. There were more market stalls now, crowding the footpath. No one was buying and the only people looking were elderly tourists from a cruise ship moored in the harbour. De Lisle saw them picking over dyed coral, shell necklaces, carved animals. He supposed they’d buy something. They generally did. They would tip, despite what the guidebooks advised. Some of the locals would accept it, too, as though they hadn’t read the guidebooks that claimed they’d be offended and embarrassed to be offered a tip.

It was dim and cool inside Ma Kincaid’s. Ceiling fans stirred the air, a couple of tourists and sailors sat at the bar, some local Europeans ate at the tables. De Lisle nodded at one or two of them. They were French and had stayed on after Independence. A table of yachting types in the far corner were speaking English. De Lisle listened: Kiwis and Australians, five men and a woman. De Lisle was betting that they were on the run from something shady. They might stay here for a few months before moving on. One or two of them might even stay permanently and open the kind of import-export business that helped to launder cash and offered ways of smuggling anything from coconut soap to arms or New Guinea cannabis and pink rock heroin from Thailand.

Walter Erakor was waiting for him in a back room. De Lisle didn’t like the look on the man’s face. Erakor seemed to be suppressing glee at bad tidings and doing a poor job of it.

‘Well?’ De Lisle demanded.

It bubbled out of Erakor. ‘Bon jour, my friend. I’m afraid you must flee the island. Tonight, tomorrow, you must leave.’

De Lisle went still. He decided to play it straight. ‘Leave? Why? I just got here. There’s work to do.’

Walter tapped the side of his nose. ‘A little bird tells me.’

‘Tells you what?’

‘You are under investigation.’

De Lisle didn’t reply immediately. He continued to stare at Erakor. Surely the Australian authorities weren’t onto him, requesting his extradition? Not so soon. And certainly not when the island was riddled with Australian con-men, thieves and dealers straight out of ‘Australia’s Most Wanted’ on TV. He looked at his watch. He had time. Wheels would be turning slowly back home.

He said at last, ‘Who’s investigating me?’

‘Vice police.’

‘Vice police?’

‘Your servant, Grace-her father has lodged a complaint against you.’

‘She’s an adult, for Christ’s sake. She knows what she’s doing.’

Walter Erakor leaned over the table and said very quietly, ‘But she was under age when she first went to work for you.’

‘I didn’t know that. Besides, it’s her word against mine.’

‘Maybe so, my friend, but her father is a chief, you know.’

Chief, De Lisle thought. A man who ran a rusty Mazda minibus, that’s all he was.

‘A certain zeal has entered the investigation,’ Erakor continued. ‘The police have asked for warrants to search your bank records and other business dealings.’

De Lisle leaned forward, hissing. ‘You bastard. Grace isn’t the issue, you’re just using her as an excuse. You want my money. You bastard.’

Erakor shrugged. ‘I’m not in charge of the investigation.’

‘But you told them about my bank holdings, right? You and your crooked cronies want to rip me off, seize my deposits, under-declare what was there and keep the rest for yourselves. I know how it works.’

Erakor gazed at him levelly. ‘I’m giving you a chance to escape.’

De Lisle changed tack. ‘Have you issued the warrants yet? Can’t you do something to rescind them? Walter, old friend-’

Walter Erakor was flat and hard and there was no friendship in him. ‘We issue them tomorrow, maybe the next day.’

Relief flooded De Lisle. ‘I need twenty-four hours, maybe less. I need to be here when the banks open in the morning.’

Walter Erakor began to smile. It was a beam that said he could delay the warrants in return for a cash consideration. De Lisle groaned. He looked at his watch. Just as well the yacht was ready to put to sea. God, why hadn’t he given the Tiffany to Grace instead of that Wintergreen slag? None of this would have happened.

He groaned again. Who was he kidding? Keeping Grace sweet wouldn’t have stopped Erakor and his mates getting greedy. They must have loved it when Grace showed up with her nose out of joint, giving them the excuse they needed.

He looked at Erakor. ‘How much?’