One Heartbeat

by Bowes, K T

  Logan looked sideways at the excited young man. He prayed to Hana’s God to give the kid a break, just this once. “Hey, mate, it’s gotta be your turn for something good to happen.” He let the teenager prattle on and on about the other interviewees who sat nervously waiting for their interview and the camaraderie already budding. Logan smiled to himself, crinkling the ugly scar at the side of his right eye and looking forward to the upcoming holidays.

  “Where do you want to be until you leave?” he asked and Tama furrowed his brow.

  “Are you going back to the hotel or staying in Hamilton?” He clapped his hands in excitement. “Because I leave in just under two weeks to start my training.” His eyes sparkled.

  “I’ve told Hana she can choose,” Logan said, “so Culver’s Cottage or the hotel, but you’re welcome at both.”

  “Hey, thanks Uncle,” Tama said. “She was talking about the hotel yesterday, so I guess she’s decided.”

  “That’s awesome.” Logan grinned, thrilled his favourite place was slowly becoming hers. “I’m considering asking her father and his wife to join us as guests and maybe her brother.”

  “I haven’t met him,” Tama commented.

  “You will soon,” Logan replied with a smirk.

  “Will you ask Leslie to look after Phoe while you’re at home?”

  “Why?” Logan narrowed his eyes.

  “To give Ma a break. She needs a proper rest; she looks permanently knackered.”

  “No, she doesn’t!” Logan sounded offended and Tama changed the subject.

  “Shall I pretend I didn’t get in?” He giggled. “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll look really cut up and see how long I can trick her for.”

  Logan shook his head and sighed, wondering when they young man would stop behaving like a child.

  Logan parked outside the unit and Tama couldn’t contain himself. “That sad face is pathetic,” Logan called as the teenager struggled to look miserable.

  “Hurry up!” Tama hissed. “I don’t wanna knock in case Phoe’s sleeping. Please, be quick!” He bounded up the steps like a gazelle.

  “Idiot!” Logan laughed and threw him the keys. Tama burst into the unit and Logan ran smack into the back of him as the teenager ground to a halt in the tiny hallway. Standing by the window was a stranger, a tall, dark haired man with green eyes and he clutched Hana’s baby. Phoenix lay passively in his arms, a smudge of purple stuff around her tiny sleeping lips.

  “What’re you doing?” Tama snapped, his body stiffening.

  Logan put a restraining hand on his upper arm, pushing past and offering his hand to the stranger cradling his child. “Logan Du Rose,” he said politely. “I guess you must be Mark?”

  Mark’s face lit up. “Yes, Hana’s...brother. Unfortunately, I need leave in a short while. I’m operating at four. Hana put pasta in the oven for everyone, but I turned it down an hour ago to stop it burning.”

  “Is Hana in the bathroom or something?” Tama asked, still suspicious and fighting the urge to rip his adopted sister from the man’s arms. Mark shook his head and looked concerned.

  “No. I’m worried about her actually. A man came by and asked her to go with him. She didn’t want to, but he persuaded her. I offered to look after Phoenix and she left after some deliberation. I’ve spent the last hour thinking it through and I’m certain she felt afraid. She gave me this odd stare as she left but I’m worried I read into it too much. We only just reconnected after almost three decades and I might be overreacting.” Mark winced, looking apologetic. “I’m very glad you’re here.” The surgeon seemed uncharacteristically flustered.

  Logan shook his head. “Start at the beginning. Who came for her?”

  Mark scratched his head, mussing his neat hair but not for the first time that afternoon. “I don’t think the man was called James because he intended to take her to see James. At least, she thought that’s who he meant and he agreed with it. His actual words were ‘a student’ and Hana provided the name.”

  Logan ran his hands across his face, alarm bells sounding in peels in his head. Tama hadn’t moved but fixed his grey eyes on Mark’s face with terrifying intensity. “What did he look like?” He gnawed at his bottom lip and Logan shook his head.

  “It’s not Laval, Tama. Don’t even go there. The old one’s banged up and the young one’s dead.”

  “My goodness!” Mark’s tone contained horror. Tama repeated his question and Mark used his sharp surgeon’s mind to recall the details of the caller, picking up on the men’s panic. “I’m afraid short, balding and round will account for a lot of people,” he said, his eyes channelling fear.

  Tama took a step towards Logan. “She wouldn’t leave Phoe, not after last time. No offence.” He raised his hand to placate Hana’s brother, who nodded.

  “Yes, well clearly I have literally been left holding the baby and I really must go,” Mark said and Tama rolled his eyes at the polite English reserve.

  “This is really bad, Uncle Logan.”

  Logan stopped Tama’s rambling with a look and turned to Mark. “You’re right, the description’s no help. But you’re certain Hana knew the man.”

  “Yes.” Mark chewed his lip. “Damn, I feel awful. She didn’t say his name although she knew him and there was a queer moment when he grabbed at her wrist and she yelped in pain. Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. I should’ve realised.”

  Logan forced himself into action. “Son,” he said to Tama, “please look after your sister. Mark, you come with me. Tama, call Bodie or Odering and if you can’t get either of them, dial 111.” He threw his phone at the young man who caught it one handed.

  “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, pointing to Hana’s abandoned phone next to the kettle. “She didn’t have a chance to take it.”

  Tama swallowed, panicking as Mark tried to hand him the baby.

  “The police will find her,” Mark said, shifting on his feet with anxiety. “I won’t be much use, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re coming anyway,” Logan hissed and Mark’s eyes widened.

  Logan kissed his child on her sleeping forehead and stuffed Hana’s phone in his pocket. Pushing Mark outside, he waved his arms in frustration. “Which way did they go?”

  “That way,” Mark pointed definitively towards the tennis courts and the gully. He seemed sure and Logan set off at a fast jog, Mark pacing alongside after tying his shoelaces. Larry’s old shed door swung open and the men surprised a female cop who jumped, her striking blue eyes widening in alarm. A white suited man stood inside, fingerprinting the light switches.

  “Did you see a woman go past here about an hour ago?” Logan asked, his breath coming quickly. “She’s slender and pretty with auburn red hair. She was with a guy, short, fat and bald.”

  Mark winced at Logan’s description and the forensic cop nodded. “Yep, they went down there towards the gully. My colleagues cordoned off the right fork, but they went left anyway. I shouted, but they ignored me so if you see them, they need to come back up. There’s a police investigation.”

  Logan ran his hand over his face, trying to keep a cool head while his heart screamed at him to react. “Tell Odering Hana Du Rose is missing. Someone came for her and she’s gone and we don’t think it was willingly.”

  The forensic cop stopped brushing the doorframe and swore but the female reached for her radio. She looked familiar, but Logan had seen so many cops in the last week, he’d stopped noticing them. “I’m so sorry,” she said, looking embarrassed. “I heard Jake shout but my sergeant briefed me to stay at the shed until it was examined but I should’ve investigated.” She looked upset, turning away as the radio crackled on her stab vest.

  “Go and see Tama,” Logan interrupted, moving backwards at a quickening pace. “He’s in the unit at the end with my daughter. He knows what the guy said before he took my wife.” Logan called the rest of his sentence over his shoulder as he pursued Mark onto the slope into the gully.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t sta
nd there talking when Hana might be hurt,” Mark puffed, his breathing laboured.

  The men crested the slope and Logan stopped, dropping to his knees and staring at the ground. An image of Hana in the same spot a year ago misted his vision as he searched the wet ground for footprints. A summer breeze blew her red hair as she stared up at him from the gully floor and Logan felt the same desire to kiss her. “Bastard!” he shouted and struck the floor with a closed fist.

  “What? What?” Mark panicked, treading the ground as Logan blinked to clear the image. He trampled the area, destroying evidence of Hana and Logan shoved at his shin in frustration. Mark’s shoe dislodged a stone and it skittered into the bush, thwacking off the bark of a native punga.

  “What are you doing?” Mark asked with impatience, seeing only dead leaves and mud. Lots of mud. “The police will send dogs, won’t they?”

  Logan shook his head. “Hana’s trainers were by the door this morning but not when we got home.”

  “No, she slipped them on,” Mark confirmed.

  Logan nodded, satisfied. “I bought them for her; they’ve got a distinctive mark underneath, a circle with an arrow through it. Look for that impression in the mud. Then we can track her without running around like idiots, wasting time.” He glared at Mark. “And I’m not waiting for the cops this time.”

  Feeling chastised, Mark searched around for the pattern Logan described, seeing nothing but the muck of a wintery dirt track.

  “Got it!” Logan called, moving off at speed. He ran along the track into the gully, the trees rising around the men and dimming the afternoon light. The noises changed from human-generated, distant cars, schoolboy shouts and laughter becoming feral; a mammal, a rustle, a bird call and the sense of being watched by myriad eyes. Mark shivered as the temperature dropped away from the face of the weak sun.

  “I need to call the hospital and explain,” Mark hissed, feeling the need to whisper. Logan ignored him and Mark jogged behind, texting an apologetic message to his colleague and pleading emergency. Twice he slithered in the mud and almost overbalanced in his effort to right himself. It was hard going as thick treacle spread underfoot the nearer they got to the water level. Small tributaries gathered pace, running towards the Mighty Waikato River and joining in a watery embrace all over Hamilton city, sacrificing themselves into its massive volume unnoticed. Logan ran on like a sure footed mountain goat. Even though his cowboy boots had smooth, worn soles, he didn’t slip once and Mark huffed and puffed behind him, cursing his haphazard footing.

  Stopping at a fork in the track Logan halted and dropped to his haunches, studying the churned mud with a bushman’s eye. Mark watched in amazement as he separated hundreds of student footprints doing cross country from the single, partially obscured trainer tread. The circle and arrow took a left fork and disappeared as though Hana evaporated. “Don’t follow me for a second.” Logan jumped off the track and onto a steep bank a few metres above it. He disappeared over a ridge and then called to Mark. “This way!”

  The older man treated the bank as though it was a rock face and navigated it with care, impressive despite his daily advance towards sixty.

  “We really should wait for the cops,” Mark whispered breathlessly as he caught up with him at the top of the ridge.

  Logan shook his head dismissively. “No way. I’ll find Hana myself and deal with whoever’s with her.” His eyes flashed with dark danger, twinkling in the dappled light beneath the trees.

  Mark looked apprehensive. “I’m not a particularly good fighter. I swore off violence for life after the incident with Vik. It knocked me sick for weeks afterwards, not to mention finishing my dwindling marriage for good.”

  “Do I look like a man who cares?” Logan hissed, the whites of his eyes shining in the gloom. Mark shook his head and saw the latent fury in the Māori’s face.

  “Fine,” he conceded. “At least I can offer you my medical services then.” He followed like a faithful puppy as Logan half ran, half slid down the ridge, jumping off into a pile of leaves to cushion his landing. Mark copied, trusting finally that the other man knew what he was doing. The sides of the gully rose above them, higher than anyone passing through the city would guess. In places, the ridges were unassailable, sheer muddy faces worn by the passing of flood waters or slow nagging streams, depending on the season and weather. The mud was thicker at the bottom than Mark thought possible and clasped hold of his feet, threatening to pitch him over. Orange mud covered Logan’s expensive slacks to the backs of his knees and his cowboy boots vanished in a veneer of syrupy muck.

  She came at them running, slipping and sliding in the mud, way off the beaten track. Her hair streamed red behind her like flames as she dipped and stumbled in the uneven landscape. Her breathing sounded ragged and laboured, her eyes like huge green emeralds in her white, frightened face. Mud streaked her face and hands from a tumble and ripped clothing streamed behind her, one layer indistinguishable from another. Hana rounded the bend and pitched straight into her husband, hitting and kicking, trying to scream but prevented by the constriction in her lungs.

  Logan grabbed her forearms, even in panic avoiding the livid scar on her left wrist. “Hana, Hana, steady, babe. You’re safe.” He righted her as solidly as possible in the sliding earth and she clung to him, finding a lighthouse in the middle of a manic, stormy sea. Her breath caught in her chest and she gasped, pointing behind her and slipping as she pushed past Logan.

  He worked it out, shoving Hana behind him and into Mark, just as the biology teacher rounded the bend and smashed straight into Logan’s fist. He went down like a skittle, flailing a little before lying still, his glasses bent upwards from the bridge of his nose like transparent butterfly wings. Logan rubbed his knuckles and flexed his fingers, relieved they moved without obvious damage. Mark watched him deliberately hit with his right hand, a boxer’s knockout punch. Logan kicked the man’s legs, making sure he was unconscious, then embraced his trembling wife.

  Mark stepped towards the man on the ground, his doctor’s mind concerned. Logan shook his head, his eyes flashing. “Leave him.”

  “But he’s injured!” Mark protested.

  Logan’s face became blank, the nothing in his eyes terrifying. “Make your choice,” he hissed and Mark swallowed, recognising the ultimatum. Mark hesitated, watching the man’s fingers twitch and fighting the urge to intervene.

  Logan comforted Hana, keeping her tiny frame upright against his body, holding her up. Her breathing slowed but didn’t lose its dreadful rasp. Mark reached out to take her pulse but pulled his hand back in fear, more lost than he’d ever felt. She left the unit in jeans and a floral top, both obliterated by brown and orange filth. Her blouse flapped at the shoulder showing a delicate, pale neck which was scratched and bleeding. The gully temperature dropped as daylight waned and Hana shivered with cold and shock. Logan stripped off his jacket revealing a neat, white shirt and cufflinks, an incongruous sight in the natural surroundings. “Here you go, babe.” He slipped it around Hana’s shaking shoulders and wrapped his arms around her again.

  The man on the floor started to come round, shifting his legs and running his hand over his eyes, half submerged in water. Mark watched Logan’s jaw tense as he turned slowly, still propping up his wife. A terrifying ruthlessness crossed his face, unleashing a blackness which was terrifying to see and Mark stepped forward, placing a hand on Logan’s arm and shaking his head. “Don’t,” he said. “Please, don’t.”

  Logan’s brow furrowed and he glanced again at the flailing man before the hatred in his eyes faded and he nodded. Voices and the excited bark of a dog heralded the cavalry, sounding like a war party as the cops rounded the last bend and approached the mud stained group. “Mr Du Rose?” the dog handler shouted and Logan nodded, narrowing his grey eyes as the biology teacher pushed himself to a sitting position, disliking his partial lie down in the gully.

  The burly police dog stretched its leash taut as it made for the adults, setting up a vi
ctorious bark. Logan watched over Hana’s head as the handler patted the hound and rewarded its success. Other officers bypassed the giddy, slavering dog and stood over the man struggling in the water. Logan’s hand itched to give him another slap, needing to feel the pain of his fingers breaking to release the angry pressure building in his head. He tried to breathe it out through his nose, willing it to go as Hana shivered under his jacket, her head pushed into his chest. Mark stood by feeling useless, his clothing wrecked by the unforgiving gully mud.

  “What happened?” The most senior cop’s voice sounded loud in the natural setting, jarringly bellicose against the trickling water and soft, rustling nikau palms.

  Hana wailed, losing the last of her fragile nerve, “He wouldn’t let me go...”

  The police officer glanced at Logan, seeing his battle for control and nodded. “Get him up and cuff him,” he told another officer. The dog, freshly rewarded, barked excitedly at its quarry as the biology teacher stumbled past, slipping and sliding without arms to balance him, a cop on either side. His nose bled in a steady trickle and Logan jaw worked as the teacher got eye contact with him. Logan mouthed, ‘You’re dead,’ and the biology teacher paled.

  “I didn’t mean it,” he squeaked, blood leaking into his mouth. “She saw me; I didn’t have a choice.”

  Logan waited for the knot of cops to pass, listening to the senior cop cautioning the fat man that everything he said could be used in court action. Logan worked his jaw and chastised himself for listening to Mark.

  “I’m sorry,” Hana’s brother said softly and Logan darted a glance towards him. “I wish I’d let you hit him,” he admitted. “Sure feel like it myself now.” Seeing the state of Hana compounded his guilt and Logan nodded, accepting the apology.

  Logan turned his wife gently and pushed her in front of him, keeping a firm hold on her shoulders as she picked her way through the muck. It took half an hour to get up the track into school, a dreadful journey which Logan would relive in his mind a million times over the next few weeks, punishing himself for missing the cues to disaster. It felt endless, Mark trudging along silently behind. At the top of the track an ambulance waited, its back doors flung open. Tama paced in front of it, pushing a sleeping Phoenix in the pram, up and down, up and down. Wheel tracks in the gravel betrayed his expression of anxiety.