Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Hana tried to see the funny side of it but failed miserably. “Aren’t you meant to give me Hail Mary’s or something? I’ve been really bad! You just laughed at my confession. What kind of a priest are you? If you could see me now in my disguise, you’d wet yourself! Logan goes to great lengths to get me to work safely and then I go and drive up the road to see you. He’ll kill me. So I’ve got some scabby old shirt and jumper on and a cap I think’s given me nits!”

  Father Sinbad roared happily, lightening Hana’s spirits with his jocularity. He waved away her anxieties about being ‘unequally yoked’ with Logan in the eyes of God. He firmly believed every couple would stumble and fall in the harness of life and nobody ever truly and ideally pulled together. The old man had seen enough dying parishioners encounter with the Lord Jesus himself in their last moments, to believe he could and did, call whomever he wanted at exactly the right moment. “Och look gal. As an Irish Catholic, I’ve experienced abundant judging to last me a lifetime. I told ye what you needed last time afore ya weddin’. I’ve nuttin’ to add.”

  On Hana’s previous visit he told her, “It’s your job to make yer man happy, and de Good Lord’s to make him holy! Youse get on wit’ your bit and mind yer own business.”

  Hana pouted and sulked, all utterly pointless in view of the blind, unfocussed eyes that roved without control in front of her. “Ah,” Father Sinbad sighed in a break from his chuckling. “You’re going to be givin’ me a heart attack to be sure.” He wiped his blind eyes with a handkerchief from his top pocket. “Now you’re living proper, so y’are.” He seemed satisfied and Hana’s story excited him. He spent each day sitting in the chair by a window he couldn’t see out of, reliant on the kindness and duty of others and here was his favourite visitor telling him the most random story.

  “So what about dem men what’s attackin’ ya?” he asked, clearing his throat after a coughing bout. Hana patted him on the back.

  “What men? Oh, those men. There’s nothing to tell. They almost ran me over, mugged me, did the home invasion and stole my car. And they’re still looking for me. The cops are useless.” Hana gave one more rub to the sloping shoulders and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “And now I think I’ve married a man with a split personality. No wonder you’re entertained.”

  “No more, no more!” the old man wheezed again as tears began to fall freely from his eyes. Hana grew impatient.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if you were ever a priest at all! All those years in the confessional and you get so easily out of practice! It’s shocking, that’s what it is. Absolutely shocking!”

  Once he calmed down, Hana told him Izzie’s news about the baby but kept back the discovery of Bodie’s little boy, although she suspected of all people, the priest was the one likely confidante for her son. She didn’t want to take the risk and disappoint him, just in case. He adored Bodie. Hana didn’t know how he would feel about Bodie having an illegitimate love-child. Actually she still didn’t know how she felt about it herself. As her lunch hour drew to a close, Hana kissed the old man on his bristly cheek, noting he seemed so much thinner than last time she saw him. He gripped her hand in his and gave her some advice. “Fight back, Hana. Your most dangerous opponent right now is this woman. Dose other guys, whatever dey take from youse, it can be replaced as long as it’s not life. But what she takes will scar you forever. So don’t let her. But you’re fighting her in de flesh, don’t war with words, pray gal, pray and I’ll remember you to your Father in Heaven. Bind your mind to the mind of Christ, because He knows all things.”

  He turned away from her and it seemed as though he rambled pointlessly until Hana recognised the odd Latin word. “Yes,” she admitted. “You’re right, Father.”

  Hana lost her way with her prayer life of late. Being out of the church was part of the problem, although not the excuse. There were other mitigating factors. Anka’s behaviour caused her faith to shake as the upright Christian woman smashed up her home with her own bare hands and left it in ruins. Hana already knew how effortlessly that could happen.

  Deep down she acknowledged Caroline as a great temptation for Logan and hoped and genuinely prayed he would have the strength of character to resist her; as he seemingly never had before. Hana felt sick to her stomach at the thought of him being unfaithful to her. She felt she could handle almost anything, except that.

  Hana drove back to school, parked around the back of the gym and slipped off the shirt and jumper in the toilets. She straightened out her hair as best she could after its gleeful escape from the cap and made her way in the back entrance to the school shop. Quietly, she placed the items in lost property, wrinkling her nose at the mixture of her expensive perfume mixed with eau de garçon. Entering her office frantically itching her head, she found it empty and heaved a sigh of relief. “First prayer answered!” she exhaled. Hana dipped her head over her dustbin and scratched frantically at her hair, hoping to dislodge any stray stowaways. She couldn’t seem to stop but the itch abated enough for her to sit back down. Caroline’s desk looked neat and tidy and Hana pouted, fighting the urge to mess it up on purpose. “Happy birthday to me!” she exclaimed into the empty office, a tinge of bitterness in her voice.

  “Oh, yes it is your birthday. Quite right. Many happy returns!”

  Hana squeaked and spun in her chair, facing an alarmed Angus with a mop of bushy, well-scratched hair resting on her head like a bird’s nest. Angus pointed to his own receding hairline. “Is that a new style you’re trying out? It’s very er…very…” He paused and bit his lip. “You didn’t look like that this morning. Hana, your hair looks like a squirrel’s tail.”

  “Hana put her hand up to her head, eyes widening in horror at what her soft palms found there. “Oh no. Does it look really bad?” Her cheeks and neck flushed bright red.

  “It’s…interesting.” Angus smiled as he settled on the politically correct description and sat in Caroline’s chair, repeating it in case Hana hadn’t quite got the full force of it. “Very interesting.”

  Hana panicked and tried to do a flattening job with her hands, resorting to bottled water to help her curls behave. Too late she realised it was lemonade. “I wish I hadn’t got up this morning!” she complained.

  “Yes, well, so do I right at this moment.” Angus stood up and paced around the room, touching things and causing a sheaf of papers to plunge to their death from a loose display shelf. “Hana, Hana, Hana,” he began, “I’ve had Ms Marsh in my office this afternoon, in floods of tears and hysterics, claiming you threatened her. What, my dear, what am I to believe? Must I commence an investigation into the behaviour of one of my most trusted members of staff. Besides which, I count you as a friend.” He pulled his bifocals further down his nose and Hana’s heart almost stopped. So this was Caroline’s game. And stupidly, Hana left herself wide open to it.

  She stayed silent for a few moments, buying herself time and thinking about what the priest said. Caroline Marsh was her adversary, her main threat, the one who could wreck her life. Well, Hana decided, she can take my job, but not my husband! “I saw her,” began Hana, speaking as though recounting some dreadful mystery, “I saw her run after Logan and make advances towards him at lunchtime, in public. I saw her on the bridge. She tried to take his hand and I heard Logan ask her to leave him alone.” Hana rolled her eyes and attempted a look of pure innocence, ruining it with a wince as she realised Angus would know she was eavesdropping. “They were speaking very loudly,” Hana smiled at her ingenuity. “Even though Caroline knows we’re married, she won’t give up. There was all that stuff about staff not being allowed to have relationships and she’s deliberately flouting it. She’s actively propositioning a married man! I think it’s shocking. I’m definitely going to have to think seriously about my position at the school.” Hana patted at the frizz on her head, feeling the stickiness of the lemonade as her dignity crept out the door behind her.

  Angus listened patiently, showing a little shock at Hana’s ove
rt threat. “You wouldn’t leave! Not with Sheila off. I’d have to put…oh my goodness. I couldn’t put him in charge!”

  “Well, I don’t know what the answer is then.” The sentence damned Hana with the resounding truth of it. “And if I leave, there’s no way Logan can stay. I’m the only thing standing in the way of her devouring him like a…like a…”

  “I don’t need an example, thanks,” Angus interjected raising his hand to block Hana’s venting. “I can imagine for myself. How can one woman cause so much trouble in a matter of weeks?”

  “I don’t know,” Hana sighed. “What do you want from me?” Hana grimaced as a drip of lemonade high tailed it inside the collar of her blouse and slithered down her back. Her hair felt like candy floss.

  “What exactly did you say to her?” Angus slumped back into Caroline’s chair and waited.

  Hana told him word for word what she said to Caroline, which amounted to ‘leave my husband alone - I mean it,’ which literally wasn’t a threat when you changed the emphasis slightly and made it more of a plea. The pricking of Hana’s conscience turned into full blown stabs and she banished the familiar mantra from her brain. I’m a bad person, I’m a bad person.

  When Hana could think of nothing else damning, Angus leaned forward in his chair. “What do you know about her and Chris Carter, the health and physical education teacher?”

  “Sadly, nothing,” Hana replied, “although I did intercept a text from someone who enjoyed a good night with her and wanted to repeat it. I thought it was from…but I was wrong. Well, I actually shouldn’t have seen it to be honest. I was…never mind. Do you think it was from Chris? Funny, I thought he was married.”

  Hana saw reflected in Angus’ face, the coffin lid closing over Caroline Marsh’s teaching career at Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys and the last nail yet to be found and hammered thoroughly in. You little slapper, Hana thought uncharitably. Game, set and match, bitch!

  An hour later, Hana closed up the office and went to find her husband. Sexual impropriety was definitely a coffin closer with the board of directors at the moment. Chris Carter. At least it explained the text and Caroline’s hushed argument with him in the office. But what kind of woman hunts down a previous lover and then entertains herself with another married man while she waits for the first one? Hana shivered and remembered another woman’s face in a different time and place and her heart ached with the memory.

  Hana Du Rose

  Chapter 7

  Walking back along the gully after school, Hana held hands with Logan and carried his briefcase. It was dark but Hana felt safe with her husband next to her. “Leave it alone, Loge!” She laughed at him as he let go of her hand and fiddled with the sling over his left arm.

  “It’s annoying!” he grumbled. Hana heard the sound of tearing material.

  “Don’t rip it!” She put the case down on the ground and tried to straighten the white cloth. “I can’t see what you’ve done. It’s all rucked up underneath somehow.”

  “It’s been winding me up all day. Just let me rip it off.” Logan’s patience snapped and he pulled it out of Hana’s grasp. “And when I get home I’m cutting this thing off as well.” He waved his cast in the air, grimacing at the instant pain in his elbow. “Bloody hell!”

  “Poor baby.” Hana played up her maternal side, soothing her husband as she won the battle with the sling. “Look, you just got it tucked under there wrong. It must be difficult. Did you teach sports today?”

  Logan nodded and looked grumpy. Hana slid her hands around his waist and the sharp angles of his tense jaw softened. “How about I make it better at home?”

  “Ok then.” The sulk in his voice was all play act and a smirk hung around the corners of his mouth. “Then I’m cutting this cast off.”

  “Don’t you dare! It would be stupid. It’ll heal all weird.” Hana pressed her face against Logan’s warm chest, his body heat radiating out of his jacket.

  “What, like this?” Logan held up his right hand and Hana knitted her brow against the strange kink in two of his fingers.

  “Yes like that! Keep it on or I’ll…”

  “You’ll what?” Logan’s lips were smiling as he pressed them against Hana’s and she felt the familiar flare of desire in her gut.

  “I’ll think of something!”

  Suddenly Logan let go of her. He reached into his pocket with his good hand and pulled out his phone, almost dropping it into the mud. It vibrated silently in his palm. Logan exhaled sharply as he read the caller’s number, irritation etched into his face as the rising moon dappled the scene. Hana watched him carefully before reaching out for the phone. A flashing gold envelope greeted her on the screen, unopened. A number listed as ‘Caro’ pulsed in the top left hand corner. Hana opened the text message.

  ‘She set me up!!! This isn’t over!!!’ Hana read it out loud. Logan looked perplexed and Hana didn’t enlighten him. “How come she has your number?”

  Logan shrugged. “Guess I’ve had that number for the last…what…six years, maybe more actually. Since I came back to New Zealand anyway.”

  “How often does she text you?” Her lips pulled into a tight, straight line as Hana waited for an answer. She pressed buttons and scrolled through the messages, showing as hundreds of unopened envelopes.

  “She calls and texts me heaps. I don’t answer.” Logan bit his lip and concentrated on Hana’s face, night shadows forming darkened areas underneath her neat features.

  Hana looked down at the phone, its greenish display ghoulish in the darkness. Logan reached out his hand and cupped Hana’s chin, bringing her face up so she met his grey eyes. “What does she mean, Hana? What did you do?”

  “Angus intimated she was sleeping with Chris Carter. The stupid man must have coughed up the truth to him. It’d be hard not to under Angus’ draconian stare.”

  “Chris Carter? Are you sure?” Logan sounded more incredulous than hurt. “That can’t be right. Carter’s got a wife and brand new baby. Why would he risk it?”

  “Why would anyone?” Hana spoke softly, her voice sounding distant and swathed in pain. She directed her anger towards Logan’s ex-girlfriend. “Caroline doesn’t care about anyone but herself! I hate women like that!” Hana looked up at her husband, an odd expression on her face and the phone still in her hand. Without warning, she turned and calmly threw it into the deepest part of the gully where it contacted the sludgy water with a resounding plop that echoed in the valley of bush.

  Logan’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked aghast at her. “Bad girl!” he said in an exaggerated tone and bit his lip in amusement at the fiery redhead in front of him. Hana’s hands rested on her hips and she flicked her head so her auburn hair cascaded down her back.

  “I’m not sorry,” she said with defiance.

  “Yep. I can see that.” Logan shook his head from side to side. “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t ya?”

  Hana shrugged as she calmly took Logan’s good arm, tucking it underneath hers possessively as she hefted the briefcase and her handbag. “It’s probably time you got a new number anyway,” she stated with an effort at casualness that made Logan raise an eyebrow. He put his arm around his wife and hugged her with new admiration they set off up the shallow incline towards the road.

  Caroline Marsh sat in her stinky rental room having been released from her teaching position with immediate effect. The letter terminating her employment fluttered to the dirty carpet as Caroline stood up. She reapplied makeup as she waited for a response from the man she scorned and let go, only to realise too late he was the one she really wanted. “Come on, Logan,” she groaned. “You’ll have to answer me this time. I know how you hate injustice. It’s time you kicked the little bimbo into touch. The game’s up.” She fixed lipstick to her neat lips and waited for his call.

  No answer came as the evidence of her text sat at the bottom of the gully, filling with water as the connections in the phone fizzled and died. The stab in Caroline’s
warped heart was almost physical, even though she didn’t hear Logan’s laughter or see the way he leaned into his wife and whispered, “You’re bloody attractive, when you’re mad!”

  Hana’s laugh tinkled like tiny bells in the darkness as she replied, “You reckon?”

  Hana Du Rose

  Chapter 8

  Friday night came around quickly. Hana began to feel comfortable and safe, the threat of attack becoming almost unreal as the safety precautions they took going to and from work made them harder to find. They both relaxed and become if anything, a little sloppy. Hana pushed the full trolley round the supermarket, humming to herself and choosing delights from the laden shelves. “The bible says, ‘man cannot live on bread alone’ and nor can woman,” she mused, picking up tinned fruit and putting it down again.

  Hana was doing a great job surviving on toast, but even that pushed its limits. She nipped into Ngaruawahia to the post office to get stamps to post a letter to Izzie and ended up in the local supermarket, buying so much food her trolley overflowed. A packet of sanitary towels did a peculiar dance and hurled themselves out onto the floor. A handsome man in a business suit bent down and retrieved them, handing the bright pink packet back to her without embarrassment. “Thanks so much,” Hana gushed, stuffing the packet between a loaf of fruit bread and a carton of milk. A strange look crossed her face as she stared into the trolley and the man smiled and continued his shopping. Hana smoothed her frown away with tired fingers and kept going.