by Bowes, K T
“This a private party?” Logan’s tone was dull as he forced the dining room door open faster than its automatic closer desired and it gave a grating clunk.
“Yeah, bro. No ticket, no cuddle,” Tama quipped, unfazed by the warning look in his uncle’s dark, grit coloured eyes. Logan noticed the mugs of hot chocolate on the table and his expression changed to one of longing.
“Is there any of that left? I’m guessing it’s my wife’s brand of hot-chocolate-for-alcoholics-anonymous?” He slumped into the seat next to Tama, smiling at Hana and trying to inject humour into an otherwise terrible situation. She abandoned Tama’s hand and slowly pushed her mug towards him.
“Have mine. I shouldn’t be drinking brandy really.”
“We’ll share.” Logan reached for the handle and took a decent slug. “Oosh, woman! This blows your head off.”
Ryan snickered. “I’m not old enough to drink either.”
Hana smiled at Ryan and let his hand go, resisting the look of anxiety that crossed his face. Logan winked at her and she understood his coded message. He didn’t want her to ask about the police station with the boy present. “I’m going up to check on Phoe,” Hana said and disengaged herself from the table. Her rounded belly caught on its edge as she made a mess of standing up, wobbling like a child’s toy on unsteady feet. Anxiety crossed Logan’s face.
Hana left the room with as much dignity as she could muster, going first to the kitchen to clean the milky saucepan. The scent of brandy washed up in the soapy water and caused a wave of nausea to take her by surprise. She suppressed a decent retch by putting her hand in front of her mouth and waiting for it to pass. Hana replaced the saucepan and crept from the kitchen, hearing the men’s low voices beating a steady hum. Ryan’s sobs came to her as the door closed behind her and she moved down the corridor using the wall for support.
The vacant downstairs toilet provided the stricken woman with relief finally, as Hana sat on the floor and cried painful tears. What did you expect? Self-derision was the hardest critic as Hana vented her misery at Logan. She wanted him to hold her, gather her up and take her home to the house on the mountain. She needed to know what happened at the police station. Traces of the old secrecy haunted her with darkened threat. I can’t live like that again, Hana told herself. I won’t.
“Hana, what are you doing here?” The female voice was curt and unforgiving, asking a question and stating the obvious. It was a weird place for a pregnant woman to be found in the early hours of the morning, alternately crying and retching.
“Making Christmas cards.” Hana’s answer was deliberately rude, her animosity towards her sister-in-law poorly disguised. Not disguised at all, her inner voice chided her.
“It’s good to get organised early.” Judge Liza Du Rose folded up her long legs and sat down next to Hana on the spotless tiled floor. “Have you seen Logan yet?”
Hana glanced sideways at the other woman’s beautifully styled black trousers and felt self-conscious about her maternity slacks hanging around her knees in lumps and ridges. Hana pulled her legs up underneath her. “I just saw him in the kitchen.”
“And you’re sat in here why?”
“Because I can’t take any more!” Hana snapped. “I’ve had enough of all this!” She wafted her arm around the room and Liza bit back a smirk. “Don’t laugh at me!” Hana yelled and Liza shook her head.
“Sorry. But you have to admit it’s a bit random. My brother’s sat in the kitchen after being interviewed for most of the night and his wife’s sulking in a hotel toilet, waving her arms and throwing a fit.”
“I’m not throwing a fit!”
“Well what do you call it then?”
“You texted Tama. Nobody texted me! I’ve been worrying all night.”
Liza rolled her eyes. “Logan was a little busy and I’m not meant to have your number. Remember? Besides which, congratulations on the baby and we kind of assumed you might be sleeping.”
“Whatever!”
“Well, nice chatting but I’m shattered. I’ve managed to postpone today’s very important fraud case until this afternoon, but I still need to be back in Auckland by midday. Are you coming?”
Hana looked up at her lithe sister-in-law as Liza elegantly pulled herself up from the floor like a ballerina, all stomach muscles and poise. “I can’t get up,” Hana grumbled. “My legs have gone dead.”
Liza laughed and held out her hand. With great reluctance, Hana placed her slender fingers with her untidy nails into the judge’s moisturised, manicured hand. “Thanks for sorting my problem out before. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, no worries,” Liza smiled and her beautiful face mirrored Miriam’s. “You’d pretty much taken care of that by yourself.”
“What happened with Logan?” Hana asked, breathing in shallow pants over the sink as nausea rose again. “He wouldn’t tell me in front of Tama.”
“Are you ok?” Liza asked. “Warn me if you’re gonna puke. I’ve got a really delicate stomach.”
“Just tell me,” Hana groaned. She ran the cold water and filled her hand with its satisfying freshness, lifting it to her mouth and spilling half of it down her shirt.
“They interviewed Logan for a few hours and got his take on everything. They’ve made a timeline and will now go away and check it all out. I’m guessing they’ll be coming your way very soon.”
“I gave my statement last night. To Odering,” Hana said, slurping the water and getting some up her nose.
“Well, they’ll need to hear it all again.” Liza leaned back against the sink unit and crossed her feet at the ankles, her lethal looking stilettos clicking on the tiles. “You’ll have to back up Logan’s story, particularly with regard to times and dates. Conversations will be really important too.” Liza examined an expensive acrylic nail. “And just so that you know, it was stupid to tell Sylvia to leave in front of witnesses when she was in a state of distress and her son heard you say that it was biblical to take hits out on people. You haven’t helped your own cause, or Logan’s. You had a couple of public run-ins with the woman by all accounts. I’m surprised they’re bothering with my brother at all!”
“Oh. Does Odering seriously think Logan did it?” Hana splashed water on her face and patted it dry with a paper towel.
“Do you?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Good. Then everything will be ok. What about this kid of hers? Ryan. He’ll be a suspect too.”
Hana turned to face Liza. “He admitted he saw her before she died and they had an argument. Apparently she wanted him to go with her when she went up to Auckland to find Michael. He told her he hated her.”
“Hmmmn.” Liza tapped a pointy heel on the tiles. “Well, someone killed her. It’s probably best if it’s him.”
“But he’s family!” Hana felt appalled. “He’s sleeping in your old bedroom!”
“Logan’s whanau,” Liza smiled. “And if this kid has to be thrown to the lions to save my brother, then so be it!”
Hana quailed and felt the world shrink in front of her at Liza’s words. It wasn’t just that she would be willing to sacrifice Michael’s son to save Logan. It was that she clearly wouldn’t do the same for her.
Chapter 43
“Wait!”
Hana curled her lips in distaste at the sight of the young man on her doorstep and turned away. His knock interrupted a well-deserved nap while Phoenix slept in her cot and the woman was crotchety and irritable. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
“No!” Asher jammed his foot in the door to prevent Hana slamming it in his face and her expression registered fear.
“Go away or I’ll call Logan.”
“Please, don’t do that?” The young man’s face paled in fear and his brows knitted and relaxed continuously, clown-like and strange against his dark complexion. He looked sick and ill and his vulnerability pulled at Hana’s maternalism. “I really need to talk to you,” he pleaded.
Hana glanced beh
ind her, suspicion making her usually accommodating nature reticent. “Have you been watching my house?” she asked, with a directness that made the young man blanch.
“No. I promise I haven’t.” Asher’s eyes widened, grey orbs in a frame of dark eyelashes. “It’s not me.”
Hana stared at him and a quizzical look grew on her pretty, sleep-kissed face. “What do you mean? Do you know...?”
“Please!” Asher begged and glanced behind him at the driveway, empty but for his beat up blue ute. “I need your help.”
Hana had been around Logan far too long and she made no attempt to hide her suspicion. She indicated a wrought iron bench sheltered under the eaves and showed with a sweep of her hand that Asher should sit on it. “This is nice.” He stroked the coiled metal of an intricately shaped leaf and sought Hana’s approval by admiring her stuff, as though it would overwrite his previous aggression. His fingers shook. “Where’d you get it?”
Hana leaned her back against a sturdy brick pillar and eyed the young man with an intensity that made him squirm against her green eyes. “Logan asked a man in the township to make it from a drawing he had.” Hana kept her face emotionless and inquisitorial. “What do you want, Asher?”
The young man dipped forward so that his elbows rested on his knees and he used the backs of his fists to knead his eyes. He possessed the captivating Du Rose looks and physique and Hana watched him with interest. When he raised his head, he looked wrong-footed and exhausted. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Try the beginning,” Hana stated and examined a chipped nail on her left thumb. “But please hurry up. It’s cold out here.”
Asher looked at the front door, a slither of warmth dusting them from the small gap. He looked back at Hana and she rolled her eyes at him. “You must think I’m stupid after our last meeting,” she told him. Asher had the decency to drop his eyes and bite his lip in shame. He wouldn’t be going inside after all.
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I got a lot of things wrong. I’m an idiot.”
“Asher, why are you here?” Frustration leaked from Hana’s voice as her well-deserved nap eroded before her eyes.
He shifted in the seat, betraying his awkwardness. “Mum thought you might be...more understanding than him. I wanted her to come with me but she can’t face it.”
“Face what?”
Asher sighed. “I’ve got myself into a big mess with the developers and I can’t get out of it. One of their foremen came to see me when Poppa Rueben died and Dad refused to sell to them. At first it was all nice and we met in the township and he bought me drinks. Then he told me how much money his bosses offered my dad to sell up and it was a fortune. He said Logan had cheated my parents and stopped me getting my inheritance. I believed him. I genuinely thought they offered Dad millions for the land and that we’d be rich. I didn’t know about the debts until you said the other week and...I thought you were lying to shut me up. I asked Dad later and he got out all the paperwork and showed me. There would have been nothing left if he’d sold to the developers and he also showed me their offer of sale. It was nothing like as much as they said. I know now that Uncle Logan paid way over the odds for the land and then paid off heaps more debt after that, even though he never agreed to take responsibility for debts at the start. My dad said we were going under and Logan stopped us being declared bankrupt. He discharged all the debt and gave me and Dad work on the farm. I was wrong.”
Hana shifted on the spot as her legs numbed and her fingers rubbed against the brickwork behind her. She bit back the snarky retort which came readily to her lips, with difficulty. “That’s great, Asher. You’ve had a eureka moment. Congratulations. Is that what you came to say? Surely you could have apologised to my husband as easily. I didn’t need to hear it.”
Asher bit his lip. “It’s not just that though, is it?” His dark eyes bore the heavy weight of fear, his pupils dilated and obscuring the colour of his stunning grey irises. “It’s not just that. They paid me, the developers, to do stuff. They wanted me to help drive you off the property and then they promised they’d pay my family what we were owed. The foreman gave me instructions and I got paid when I’d done whatever they asked. I was saving it for Mum and Dad but then I dipped into it to get my car. But it was a big mistake and I needed more to run it because it’s a bit of a money trap and...it’s all a big mess. My mum’s having a nervous breakdown and it’s because of me. Now there’s that body and everyone’s gonna think I did it, especially the cops. I’ve sold the car but I didn’t get all the money back on it. I don’t care. I just need this whole thing to be over.”
Asher was in his early twenties but his face was that of a much younger man, as foolishness robbed him of arrogance and pride. He looked up at Hana through long dark lashes that blinked away tears and she shook her head, annoyed at herself. “I need to sit down and something tells me I’m going to want a drink in my hand.” She exhaled in a huff of displeasure and pushed the red front door open and then stood back. Asher got shakily to his feet and kicked off his work boots before entering Logan Du Rose’s castle.
“Wow!” Asher exclaimed in the lobby, looking up at the apex ceiling with its ornate skylights and glinting chandeliers. “This is awesome.”
Hana stopped and spun around, seeking his disdain but seeing only childish delight. “We work hard for what we have,” she warned and Asher lowered his eyes.
“I know that now.”
“Here.” Hana handed the man a cold drink of water, laced with ice cubes as he had requested. “Now tell me what’s going on. And in particular, what did you do?”
Asher stumbled through his story for a full twenty minutes and Hana’s hand shook with so much violence, she was forced to lay her mug of tea on the coffee table. A winter sun streamed in through the long windows, warming the day and bathing the occupants of the lounge with welcome light. “I don’t believe this!” Hana gulped a mouthful of her cooling drink and lay the cup back down. Then she ran a shaking hand across her eyes. “How could you?”
“I’m sorry!” Asher leapt to his feet and Hana jumped in fear. “I’m sorry,” he said, calming himself and sitting back down on the sofa opposite her. “I know how it looks. If I could take it back, I would.”
“Take it back!” Hana’s anger burst from between her pretty pink lips and her green eyes flashed emerald. “I’m pregnant! You threw a brick through the window and I was showered with glass. You’ve caused so much trouble on this property that I don’t know where to start. You’ve cost Logan thousands of dollars with having to get electricians, glaziers and the trick with the water up here was mean! We’ve got a child. To run out of water this far out would have been miserable.”
“I know. I know.” Asher sat with his head low, work worn fingers covering his eyes.
“The herd!” Hana leapt to her feet. “You put the Friesian in the herd, didn’t you?”
“I just unlocked the gate for them and distracted the stockmen by letting the horses loose on the other side of the mountain. They had to go and round them up.”
“When did you do it?”
“End of last year. You and Logan left for Europe and I felt so angry. I’d love to go to France and see where my genealogy started, but I’ll never afford that. I thought Logan had ripped us off, so it was one of the first things the developers convinced me to do. I managed to do it before Toby brought in the Charolaise bull. He got it to cover cows that were already pregnant without realising. The ones they were artificially inseminating were held further up the mountain, which is a good job, otherwise the vet would have picked it up straight away.”
“Yes, what a good job for you!” Hana’s comment sounded snarky and full of irritation.
“I only did the ones on the front block!” Asher’s eyes bugged with injustice. “I picked the least important ones. They aren’t the main breeding dams. They’re the beef herd that the hotel uses. It could have been worse!”
“Gee, thanks so much.” Hana rolled her ey
es.
“Look, I know how bad this all is. They put me under a lot of pressure once I was sucked in. They don’t care who they hurt; they want this mountain and will do anything to get it. They haven’t refunded their clients yet, did you know that? They’ve delayed the build but they’re still promising buyers that the development’s going ahead.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Hana looked Asher in his fearful grey eyes. Her gaze was steady and intimidating, channelling Du Rose Matriarch with an unbending stare. “I’ll get you a pen and paper. Make a list of everything you did. Everything! With dates and times. Logan will be the final judge regarding what happens to you. He might involve the cops and that’s up to him.”
“That will kill my mum,” he said softly. “And Dad, when Logan tells him.”
“You should have thought of that then, shouldn’t you?” Hana raised one eyebrow and cocked her head at the young man, as she reached into a drawer underneath the coffee table and retrieved a refill pad and pen decorated with the lacing of baby teeth. She slapped it on the table in front of him. “Get on with it!” she ordered him. “I’m going to make another drink and a sandwich for my daughter. Do you want one?”
To her surprise, Asher nodded his head slowly. “Yes please,” he said and it was almost inaudible as the weight of his crimes began to take shape in a series of blue biro scribbles on the top page.
Hana returned with another cold water and a beef sandwich. The irony was not lost on the man. He embellished a large full stop next to his listed adulteration of Logan’s prize Charolaise herd, making it into a hang man as his sub-conscious worked overtime. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly as Hana lifted the pad.