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rat-like, wearing dirty khaki shorts and a tattered T-shirt revealing a substantial beer belly. A cigarette end dangled constantly from his lower lip. His flickering red-rimmed eyes met Kella’s sceptical gaze. He shrugged. ‘If the Customs officials are busy they don’t always open the sacks at the wharf,’ he explained.
    â€˜Gau, your whole career of petty robbery has been a triumph of optimism over bitter experience,’ Kella told him, sitting on the edge of a rickety table. ‘I’m here because I want some information from you.’
    â€˜I know nothing,’ said the trader humbly. ‘I am a mere outcast here, a poor itinerant exile from the Eastern islands.’
    â€˜And rightly so,’ agreed Kella, ‘because without a doubt you are also the biggest thief and liar on the station. However, on this occasion you might be of use to me. What do you know of the bones tabu ?’ From his pocket he produced the carved and polished bone he had found among the heating stones.
    â€˜Nothing,’ whined Gau. ‘These things are of the Lau culture.’
    Kella stood up. The trader flinched and cringed away. Ignoring him, Kella walked over to the rusty weighing scales in a corner. He picked up four of the heavy metal counterweights lying on the floor.
    â€˜I wonder what would happen if I took these back to Honiara to be checked?’ he mused aloud. ‘If they proved to be wrong you would lose your licence.’
    A spasm of fury contorted Gau’s unshaven face. As if by accident he knocked a tin of corned beef off the table. It fell to the floor with a clatter.
    â€˜If that’s supposed to be a signal to your hard man out there, don’t bother,’ said Kella mildly. ‘He’ll be long gone by now. He is of the Afena Kwai tribe on the foothills above Gwau Rate. Good enough for bullying women and children who complain about your prices, but I doubt if he’ll stand up to a Sulufou man.’
    â€˜There would be no question of opposing the law in this establishment,’ Gau said hastily. ‘Especially when that law is also the aofia. ’
    â€˜Don’t you dare talk about the aofia , you miserable little man,’ Kella told the trader. ‘That name is for the Lau people only. You degrade it even by breathing its name.’
    Gau looked genuinely frightened at the sudden change in the other man’s attitude. He scuttled as far away from Kella as he could, throwing up his thin arms in supplication.
    â€˜Just ask me what you want to know,’ he snivelled. ‘Ask and get out!’
    â€˜Bones,’ said Kella, half-ashamed of losing his temper. ‘That’s all I’ve been hearing today. What do you know about them?’
    â€˜There’s a bones tabu on the station,’ said Gau cautiously. ‘So the old people say. It came about two days ago.’
    â€˜Who is it from?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    Kella looked hard at the trader. Gau capitulated. ‘They say it is from Pazabosi, the old magic man,’ he said with a rush.
    â€˜Is this bones tabu over yet?’
    â€˜I don’t think so. Soon. Very soon.’
    â€˜Who is mixed up in it?’
    â€˜I don’t know. You can hit me if you like, but I still can’t tell you. Business bilong whitefella.’
    Kella questioned the other man closely for another ten minutes, but it was evident that the resentful trader knew no more.
    â€˜Very well,’ he said finally, walking towards the door. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Gau.’ Kella nodded at the weights he had discarded. ‘I’ll be checking those before I leave. If they still give false weight tomorrow I’ll tear your store down plank by plank.’
    Afterwards he had dined on a roast chicken prepared by Bulko in his hut by the light of a battery-operated lamp over a substantial stove. They had eaten the meal in comfortable basket chairs while they listened