I struck gold on the verandah of Sexton’s place, where the two of them were eating off tin plates. Rice, fish, and breadfruit, which is kind of like a potato. White and starchy, anyway. Hugh went inside to fix me a plate and returned with three cans of beer, kept moderately cool in his ancient refrigerator. “What have you found out about Daniel?” Jacob asked around a mouthful of food. “I’m afraid not much,” I said. “Did he know Sam Chang?” “Poor chap’s dead, we heard,” Sexton said. I gave them what details I had. “I don’t know if he knew him,” Jacob said. “Maybe did. Daniel went to Rendova after he finish school. No work there except in the plantation kilns, drying coconut. Not right for educated young man. Then he got a job on a Pavau plantation, keeping the books and overseeing the loading of copra when the Lever ship come. It’s not far from Vella Lavella. He would have heard of Sam Chang for sure.”
