Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  By the time the stuff was out onto the conveyor belt and then pushed into carrier bags, it wouldn’t all go back into the trolley and Hana needed another trolley and a shop assistant to help her back to the Honda. It was a good job the boot on the CRV was so cavernous, although it all slipped frighteningly backwards as she made the steep climb up to the house. It was an uplifting feeling, filling the pantry and fridge with goodies and mentally planning what she would cook for the next couple of weeks, hoping she would have the energy to follow through.

  “This is nice,” sighed Logan as they sat at the kitchen table polishing off a bottle of red wine. He wiped his top lip with his fingers, savouring the delicious spaghetti bolognaise; something of a joint effort.

  “Want me to crawl across the table and feed you?” Hana meant the comment to be good-natured but Logan didn’t share her humour and continued to struggle, unable to wind the spaghetti one handed. Finally, he lay his cutlery down on his plate. “I’m not really hungry.”

  “I love you, Loge.” Hana smiled at Logan and his face relaxed, pushing away the lurking hint of pain in his eyes. They had grown close as a couple and Hana started to remember how great it felt to be part of a unit again. She still felt oddly embarrassed and shy sometimes, like when she flicked the spaghetti by accident and a whole stream of tomato sauce jetted across her face and into her eye. Logan laughed until he realised he had it on his chin and splattered down his shirt. “I shouldn’t make fun of you, sorry.” Hana looked down, prodding a blob of sauce with her spoon. “But if you want help, I’m here.”

  Logan kicked her softly under the table with his bare foot. “Idiot,” he said, teasing her. A slow, rumbling vibration became evident moving through the floorboards and causing them both to freeze. The monitor for the gate bleeped in the hallway and Hana’s eyes opened wide. She stared at Logan in fear.

  “It’s not possible. They said nobody could get in!”

  But someone drove up the hill to the house and they heard the vehicle labouring as the driver crunched through the gears. Logan looked mystified and half rose from his seat, looking around the kitchen for something to defend themselves with. Wrenching open a drawer, his good hand settled on the trusty rolling pin, not fantastic, but better than nothing. “I used it to clout the man who hurt me at the old house,” she whispered, catching hold of her husband’s hand. “It’s still got dents in.”

  Logan looked down at the long roll of pine and then back at Hana. “Do I look like I’m bothered?” he hissed at her. “I’m about to make more dents in it.”

  Hana bit her lip and put her hands over her face. “Oh my gosh,” she moaned. “I’m sick of this.”

  “Lights out!” Logan snapped out the order but Hana was already half way to the switch. Logan turned, hefting the cooking implement in his right hand and took a couple of air swings to get his balance. Hana watched him wide eyed as he shrugged in the half-light and looked at it in disgust. Moving out into the hallway, Logan flicked that light off too and the house plunged into darkness.

  They stood together watching out of the side window as the lights came nearer, illuminating the house in an aggressive arc as the vehicle mounted the brow of the hill and settled on the flat area at the top. Logan lowered the rolling pin and Hana, thinking his arm had given way tried to grab it from him. “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” she sniffed in terror, stifling the sob at the back of her throat.

  “Get off!” Logan whispered and lifted it higher than her reach.

  “Give it to me, I’ll defend us!” Hana sounded irritated and jumped up and down on the spot with her arms in the air.

  A car door slammed. Footsteps. The rattle of a key in the lock. Hana froze in position, one hand grappling for the rolling pin as the hall light was flicked on and the scene illuminated.

  Bodie stood in the half open doorway, letting in a family of moths who fluttered straight to the still warm light bulb in glee. He looked at the welcoming committee in amazement. “Have I interrupted something?” he asked, his policeman’s brain working overtime.

  Hana’s voice came out as a shriek, “What! Interrupted what?”

  “Well,” replied her son slowly, “how come you’re fighting over a rolling pin in the dark, covered in blood?” He narrowed his dark eyes and glared at Logan.

  It took some explaining to stop Bodie assuming his new stepfather liked beating his mother. The drying spaghetti sauce stains on each of them were persuasive. Hana was obsessed with the idea Bodie had forgotten to close the gates after him, incensing him with her frequent question. “They close themselves!” he said for the sixth time. “Geez Mum, calm down!”

  Logan sighed and shrugged himself back into his jacket one handed. “Look, I’ll walk down and check,” he said, winking at Hana and deliberately giving them a chance to talk.

  “I told you I’d be back at the end of the week!” Bodie insisted, his voice becoming whiney as he repeated the sentence for the third time. “I’ve got all my stuff in the car. I said it was permanent.”

  Hana’s guilty look showed she hadn’t fully registered the content of his note. “How’d he break his arm,” Bodie asked as Logan slammed the front door behind him.

  To her relief she felt able to tell the truth. “His nephew did it in temper as Logan tried to protect me from him.”

  “Is this the randy nephew that had it away with Ivan’s missus?”

  Hana cringed at her son’s bluntness in reference to Anka. “Yes. Tama…something.”

  “Do you know where Anka is?” asked Bodie.

  Hana looked guilty. “Sort of, but not really.”

  “Mum! Do you or don’t you?”

  “I do now, but I didn’t then,” she answered as Logan closed the front door behind him and kicked off his shoes. He looked across at her and raised his eyebrows in a look which said you didn’t tell me. Hana examined the table with avid interest, determined not to betray her friend’s confidence. “Why are you asking?”

  Bodie leaned forward and his brown eyes were filled with concern. “Because her husband has filed a missing report,” came his sobering reply.

  Hana Du Rose

  Chapter 9

  “So you’re actually back in Hamilton for good?” Hana asked her son for the fourth time. “That’s wonderful news.”

  “Yeah. I’m spending time training with the fast cars and have to take a test to prove I can drive them. Then I’ll launch my new career path as a traffic cop. There’ll be more courses and probationary periods with other officers, but it’ll be awesome.” Bodie seemed more settled and happy than his mother had seen him for a long time. “Is it still ok for me to crash here with you for a few days, before I move into the unit in town with the other single guys?”

  “What about Amy…and Jas?” Hana asked.

  Bodie told her most of the story, missing out the parts that would set her off ranting about his immorality, but some parts could be told. “I fell in love with Amy at police training college. We carried on our affair back in Hamilton but got caught out by…her husband. Amy chose to stay with him, so I left the city and transferred north as fast as I could.”

  “Ohhhh.” Finally Hana understood a lot of things which previously evaded her, especially the deep unhappiness which sent her son so suddenly to Whangarei.

  “I honestly didn’t know about Jas, Mum. She never told me she was pregnant or that I had a son. He’s so awesome. I adore him already.” Bodie fiddled nervously with the spout of the hot teapot, hissing in irritation when the brown pottery burned his fingers. Hana laid her hand gently over his fidgeting hand to offer understanding and encourage him to continue. “Shortly after discovering the pregnancy, Amy’s marriage dissolved. The prospective birth of a little quarter Indian baby would have sealed her fate anyway. Her ex-husband never wanted children. He was also a cop and he transferred out too. He’s remarried and lives in Wellington.”

  The intention now, was for Bodie and Amy to try and get beyond all the hurt and misery and forge somet
hing stable for Jas. They both recognised rushing into it would not be advisable. Bodie wanted to get it right this time and Hana felt proud of him, patting his hand lovingly as she released him. His phone chirped in his bag and he peered at the screen, as Logan came back from the bathroom. He looked white and sick and Hana peered at him questioningly. “I’m fine,” he reassured her. “Stop worrying.”

  Hana refilled the kettle and Logan kissed the side of her face, closing his eyes against the pain of his injury. Bodie looked uncomfortable as he watched Logan put his arm around his mother’s waist possessively. She reached up and he nuzzled gently in the space between her hair and neck. Bodie ground his teeth noisily and cleared his throat. “Er…too much public display, thanks.” It was a huge leap for him, accepting Hana was no longer just his mother. There was this other side of her, this need in her, which he unrealistically assumed died with his father. He liked Logan as a person, but the seemingly easy replacement of his dad galled him irrationally. He knew Hana deserved love, but wished he could somehow get his head around it all and stamp on the emotions seeing Hana with Logan caused. Eight years of mourning was a more than adequate demonstration of Hana’s adoration for Vik, but for Bodie, selfishness dictated she needed to stay alone forever.

  He turned his attention to the text and smiling broadly, dialled a number. “Mate!” the conversation began, “Good on ya. That’s awesome. A Gold Certificate! You can show me tomorrow when I come round. How ‘bout we take Mum to lunch?”

  Bodie picked up his bag and made his way down the hall to the single room, pushing open the door with his foot and walking through, still talking.

  Hana recognised the look of discomfort on her son’s face at Logan’s affection and wondered what she could do. She wasn’t about to reject Logan in order to please Bodie, but also recognised the difficulty of her son’s situation. Her children had been good about her marriage but perhaps there were ructions to come after all. She bopped Logan light-heartedly on the nose with the towel and teased him about the rolling pin. “My hero,” she simpered and he laughed.

  “I knew exactly who our visitor was, seconds before Bodie unlocked the door.”

  “No you didn’t!” Hana scorned.

  “Did too,” he countered. “I’ve been in enough tight spots to be able to think on my feet. After the initial panic, I remembered posting a key and gate remote to Bodie, so he could stay in the house and check on the cat before the wedding party. So it could only to be him.”

  Oh, ok.” Hana conceded, feeling stupid.

  “Why were you fighting me for the damn rolling pin anyway?” Logan asked.

  Hana looked affronted. “I thought your arm hurt and I wanted to bop the intruder on the head for you. I was protecting you!”

  Logan laughed uproariously and Hana looked offended. He tried to placate her. “It’s probably just as well you didn’t get it, otherwise you’d be in a police cell right now. Not the best idea to bludgeon your cop-son with a rolling pin, especially when I gave him a key!”

  “I guess not,” Hana smirked.

  “I’m just cross with myself anyway. There’s a perfectly good Maglite sitting in the drawer near the front door. Now that’s a weapon!”

  Bodie left after breakfast on Saturday, going to see his son and the treasured gold certificate he earned for ‘neat writing’ at kindy. “I’ll check out my billet while I’m down there. I’ve stored some stuff in the cupboard next to the garage. I hope that’s ok?”

  “It’s fine, Bo. I didn’t realise you brought everything with you.” Hana peered through the back window of the BMW where her son’s entire belongings were sprawled over every surface “Why don’t you let me come and help you shift it in?” she offered.

  “Na thanks. I’m only going to dump it down there, then I’ll come back here if that’s ok?”

  Logan settled in front of the fire in the living room catching up on his marking and Hana pottered around, fighting with a long tape measure and writing on a pad. She badly needed to get some curtains for the place. The problem was she didn’t want to do it cheaply and then have to change it again later. Which meant she needed to buy the material and either make them herself or get them made. It could become an expensive job. Hana moved around the rooms, standing on a chair to reach the architraves at the top of the windows, happy with her positive step forward, neatly marking next to the measurements the kind of colours she wanted for each room.

  The money came in steadily for Achilles Rise, less the agent’s fee and it made decent inroads into her mortgage on Culver’s Cottage without needing to use her wages. Logan set up a transfer for half the mortgage fee plus additional for bills and food, which went spinning into her account mid-week and made her feel relieved.

  “Logan,” Hana mused out loud. “Now I’ve done the measuring and got an idea of colour, I feel desperate to go into town and find the material.”

  Logan ran his hand through his fringe and eyed Hana with disbelief. “So you want to drive into Hamilton where you know there’s people who want to hurt you?”

  “But we’ve been fine this last week, Loge. Can we?”

  “You have a very short memory, babe.” Logan laid another book on the marked pile. “You’ve been safe because we’ve ducked and dived all week. You think I like walking through the gully every morning?”

  “I guess not.” Hana’s shoulders slumped, her creativity leaking out through the soles of her feet. She made Logan a coffee and took it to him. Hana sat next to her husband on the sofa while he drank. “This room is annoying me,” she stated. It might just be the chipped grey walls and the furniture’s not pushed back against them.” Hana sighed as she glanced around the room. The vast windows were completely bare and the greyness of the day poured in uninvited. “It’s depressing.”

  She grumbled and cajoled at Logan, but he point-blank refused to go into Hamilton with her. “No way!”

  “Pleeeeeeeease?”

  “Look,” he said reasonably, “it’s stressful enough having to take alternate routes to work every day, without trotting into town in your car and advertising where you live. They only have to see the car and follow you back and it’s all over!”

  “What about the Huntly Hardware place then?” Hana whined, putting her chin on his shoulder as she curled up tightly next to him, “I’d settle for some paint.”

  Hana gave a big sigh and stuck out her bottom lip in a sad face. Logan laughed at her, ruffling her hair but still seeming reluctant, pointing out the obvious. “I can’t really wallpaper or paint at the moment easily.” He held up the plaster cast. Hana could see the skin poking out from underneath. It looked powdery and dry and Hana suspected it still gave him pain, though he never complained. “Besides which,” he added, “we don’t know what Ethel Bowman told this guy. She may have heard the words Huntly or Ngaruawahia and set him off searching up here.”

  Hana gave a big sigh of defeat, whining, “Everything is in town.”

  Logan stroked her cheek, sensing the beginnings of cabin fever. “Look, it’s hard, I know that; especially watching Bodie go off without worrying about being followed or feeling at risk. It’s not fair, I agree, but I don’t know how to keep you safe any other way.”

  “I just have so much to do,” Hana groaned, pouting.

  “Tell you what,” Logan suggested, relenting, “if we put baseball caps on and stuff and hope they didn’t take the rego number for the Honda, I’m willing to go somewhere with you. Just check out Te Kauwhata though. There might be something up there. That would be safer because we could go cross country.”

  Hana kissed him lightly on the forehead and skipped off happily to look in the Yellow Pages. She came back half an hour later with an address for a fabric place in Te Kauwhata and a decorator’s warehouse, where they could buy wallpaper and paint. She tied her long hair into bunches, tightly down each side of her neck and found a black beanie to go on top. She also wore a black tracksuit. “Look, I’ve made an effort.”

  Logan smirk
ed. “You look like a burglar.”

  “Oh.” Hana looked down at her black ensemble and frowned. “Should I change then?”

  “No, come on. Let’s get out of here. He put his work away and stuck a baseball cap on his dark head, still managing to ooze testosterone through the grey eyes which peered from underneath. They locked up and left, Hana driving.

  They headed north to the Tainui Bridge and across country to the little town of Te Kauwhata. Hana only remembered the address for the fabric place and no map, so Logan got out at a garage and ask for directions. Quite by chance they found the decorator’s warehouse shop first. The expedition cost them a small fortune as Hana fought her resolve to do one room at a time and steamed around the shelves like she was in a game show. “I don’t know when you’re going to let me out again,” she argued as Logan trailed behind her carrying her bargains.

  “Probably never, at this rate,” Logan grumbled under his breath.

  Hana bought paint for the living room and hallway and twelve rolls of different wallpaper to do a single wall in each. Finding the fabric store was like a little child discovering an unmanned sweet shop. Hana wandered around happily with random swatches of material, while Logan stumbled along behind towing a heavy roll of calico. “What’s this for?” he complained.

  “Linings, silly. I need it.”

  “Ok well, you carry on your choosing and I’ll just sit here for a minute.” It was no fun carrying rolls of fabric one-handed and Logan was grateful when he found a chair to sit down on. He sat picking at a loose threat on the top of the roll and remembered his mother with her old sewing machine, patching holes in their clothing with strange and inappropriate material.

  Logan forgot he had Hana’s phone in his jacket because her track pants contained no pockets. He jumped as it rang loudly, belting out the William Tell Overture. Logan winced at the pain radiating from his left rib cage as he scratched around on the chair like he had fleas. The phone was in the wrong pocket and he strained across with his good hand to retrieve it, finally fishing it out and then dropping it. As he pressed the button to answer, he heard it disconnect. Typical! It showed a missed call from Bodie, so he rang him back. “Your mother’s around here somewhere. Oh crap! I can’t see her now.”