“That’s the story, Mr. Van der Neer. I’ve been seeing these ads in The Times for months offering investment opportunities for private individuals in this remarkably fast-growing rubber industry. I thought I would stop off on my way home from Hong Kong to check into the possibilities.”
The slowly revolving ceiling fan stirred Van der Neer’s thinning straw-colored hair. He dabbed with a handkerchief at the perspiration on his shiny round face.
“We’re so pleased you have selected Benskoten Rubber for consideration.” Van der Neer started to rub his hands together, then quickly changed the motion and pressed his fingertips together.
“But you understand that I will not make a heavy commitment until after I see the nature of your plantation operation.”
“Of course. You are an astute businessman, after all.”
“Then it’s settled? You will arrange a trip upriver to a plantation? I would prefer to visit one that has been operating three or four years, not less, and preferably not much more. That’s the perspective I want to see.”
“Certainly, Mr. Pine. Tomorrow at ten o’clock I will send over one of my most trusted associates to accompany you on the coastal steamer to Tambilahan. From there a company boat will take you up the Indragiri to Benskoten Three. I can’t think of a more representative plantation for you to see.”
Pine was reviewing his good fortune the next morning in his hotel room while packing a small bag when there was a knock on the door.
Kiri Sembawa, the Benskoten representative, was young, probably in his mid-twenties. His English was impeccable, with a hint of Oxford.
“I grew up in an English home here in Singapore,” he explained. “I was a combination house boy and gardener for the people who raised me. They sent me to England to be educated. Both of them died of fever five years ago.” The smile which had lighted his nut-brown face flickered out.
“A moment ago I was congratulating myself on my good luck in getting to see a Benskoten rubber plantation with no delay. Now I see this has been enhanced by having the best guide possible. I am most fortunate.” Pine shook Sembawa’s hand with warmth.
Later they sat together on packing cases as the company boat nudged inland against the current of the Indragiri. Pine smoked a disreputable-looking pipe, which helped some against the mosquitoes. Kiri Sembawa sat close enough to indicate the pipe fumes were preferable to the insects.
“Who is plantation manager at Benskoten Three?” Pine asked.
“A man named Keeling. He’s Dutch. He speaks a little English, but I can translate for you if you like.”
“I have a smattering of Dutch and German, but I will be grateful for any help you can give.” Pine tamped the pipe with the head of an iron spike that had been cut off an inch and a half down the shank.
“Who preceded him?” Pine watched the handsome brown face for any change in expression. There was none.
“A man named Kevin Colter, an Englishman.”
“Colter.” Pine stared off at the jungle crowding the water’s edge. “I know a family named Colter in London. Different family, probably. Still, the man I know is in some aspect of the rubber business, I think.”
“Mr. Colter was married to a Dutch woman.”
Pine turned slowly and his ice-blue eyes locked with Kiri Sembawa’s dark ones. “Surely not a woman named Marie?”
Surprise flickered across Sembawa’s face but it was gone in an instant.
“Yes, Marie,” he said. “It must be the same Colter.”
Pine’s pipe clattered to the deck and he leaned over to retrieve it. “What did you mean when you said he was married to a Dutch woman?”
“Mr. Colter is dead. He died nearly three years ago. His wife went back to Holland. Her father is one of the owners of Benskoten Rubber.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. That must be the brother of the Jason Colter I know. I seem to recall he mentioned a younger brother. He died, eh? He couldn’t have been over — what would you say?”
“I would guess mid- to late thirties. No more.”
“Was it an accident?”
“Heart attack.” Sembawa paused. “They say heart attack brought on by overwork, fever, the heat, all the things that kill men in a tropical climate.”
“I suppose it wasn’t easy to get a doctor to such a remote place to confirm the cause.”
It was a long time before Sembawa answered.
“No, there was no doctor.” Then after an even longer pause: “I don’t think he died from a heart attack.”
Alex Pine dropped his pipe again, only this time it was not a piece of stage business.
It crossed his mind that he was at a decision point in his investigation. By Anders Van der Neer’s assertion, this was a “most trusted employee.” Would a revelation of Pine’s true purpose result in a closing of channels to him? Was someone in Benskoten covering a murder? Or was Sembawa’s suspicion groundless? If he was right, weren’t chances good that this would lead where every instinct told him he did not want to go to find a killer, to Marie Colter?
He remembered the anguish in the letters back in the hotel safe in Singapore. Damn! He did not like where he was headed.
“I’m not an investor, Kiri.” It was the first time he had spoken Sembawa’s first name. “I’m a private detective. I have been misleading Benskoten Rubber and you. I don’t care that much about my duplicity where the company is concerned, but I apologize for doing it to you. Now, we can go back downriver on the next available boat if that’s what you want, if that’s what your loyalty to Benskoten tells you to do. Or we can work together to unravel this thing. I don’t know where it will lead. Helping me may cost you your job, although I promise to do everything I can to protect your interests. It’s up to you.”
The only sound above the hum of mosquitoes was the gurgle of water against the side of the boat and the chuffing of the small engine that powered it.
“I will help.” Kiri Sembawa spoke firmly. “I think we should try to find out what happened.” He hung his head. “What happened beyond what Mrs. Colter told me.”
“Good!” Pine thrust out his hand. “I’m relieved to be able to tell you what I know. I have been retained by Kevin Colter’s brother to investigate the circumstances of his death. Back in the safe at the hotel are two letters written by Marie Colter to her sister-in-law. From them it is quite clear that her life at Benskoten Three with Colter was pure hell. It’s not all spelled out, but obviously her husband was drinking heavily, and apparently he was consorting with women from the native quarters. He was beating the workers, and it seems to me that this, combined with the abominable conditions suffered by the laborers, was of even greater concern to her than her own health and safety.”
“Yes,” said Sembawa. “Some of this she told me during our one meeting before she left Singapore. How bad it really was I learned during my trips to the plantation in the months that followed.”
“Then there’s every chance he might have been killed by a native, or one of the imported laborers — a Javanese, a Chinese, anyone. There would have been many with a motive.”
“They were the only white people on the plantation. All of the mandoers — foremen — are Sumatrans or Javanese. Oh, yes, and a couple of Batak foremen.”
“Batak?” Pine knocked the ash from his pipe into the river. “I read somewhere that they are the mountain people — cannibals, perhaps. Is that so?”
“No doubt they used to be. I know they will only work for a Batak foreman. Independent, you might say.”
When they arrived at Benskoten Three it was still daylight. From the dock Pine could see the kampong, a huddle of huts and shacklike buildings on stilts. In the filth beneath them children played in the shade. He wrinkled his nose over a stench he did not care to analyze.