Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Hana shook her head. “No need. Logan didn’t attack Boris.” She tried to concentrate on what Angus was saying, but her mind seemed to operate through a fog.

  The cast on Hana’s right arm protected a broken elbow joint, inflicted on her by Laval’s men a few days before. Hana picked at the frayed edge near her wrist. Angus continued regardless, “The threat the boys carried to Boris this morning and which your husband intercepted, came via the loan shark but was paid for by Laval with a fifty dollar note. That money became the source of the fight, which Logan saw and stopped. I must add, Logan doesn’t know the full story. Boris told me the rest after Logan dropped him here. Your husband seems to have made some wild leaps in his usual inimitable style, landing somewhere near the mark, as always.”

  Angus lay back in his seat. “I feel more like retiring by the hour,” he grumbled. Hana stood up and walked across to the window to look outside at the sports class cavorting around the field. A thin, dark-skinned boy captured the rugby ball and ran for his life as though the hounds of hell were after him. He reminded her of her son, Bodie, something about the way he ran. How funny it was that out of thirty boys in identical uniform, a mother could always identify her own son either by a gesture or movement, even from a distance. Hana touched her fingers to the glass and sighed. Bodie’s not a schoolboy anymore, she reminded herself. He’s a fully-grown man, a father and a policeman.

  “Oh no!” Hana turned. “I hope he hasn’t had to deal with Logan. Arresting his own stepfather would be a real career buster.”

  “Bodie?” Angus raised his eyebrows and Hana nodded. “He’ll be fine. He’s made of stern stuff; just like his mother.”

  Hana leaned the small of her back against the windowsill. “Nobody knows,” she half whispered, “but we think we found what Laval’s after.” She said it so quietly Angus strained to listen. “Well, we thought we did. We found a small metal box with papers in it, deeds to some piece of land and what may have been a will. It was written in a strange way, although Logan thought it was coded because it wasn’t Māori or English. There were diagrams too, like engineer’s drawings. He and Bodie couldn’t understand it properly, so Logan handed it to the police. They’ve had it a while now so I don’t understand why Laval’s still coming after me.”

  Hana stepped towards her chair and then changed her mind, closing her pretty green eyes and sighing. She looked and sounded numb. “I need to get back upstairs. The Careers Expo is soon. Sheila keeps changing things. I should go.”

  Angus rose from his seat. “Hana!” She half turned with her hand resting on the door handle. “Family first, my friend! Go home,” he said with kindness.

  Hana attempted a tired, worn out impression of a smile. “I can’t. I don’t know where the car’s parked. Logan hid it this morning after he dropped me off, in case we were followed. And anyway, Logan has the car and house keys. He must have borrowed a vehicle to go after Boris.” She left the room, her steps heavy on the parquet floor of the reception area. Angus heard the click of the doors leading upstairs and then silence.

  He slumped down in his throne and drummed his fingers on the old desk in frustration. Generations of headmasters and principals had sat in this seat, at this desk. None remained. His predecessor retired in ill health after a stint of twenty years, dying shortly afterwards. Angus stared at the wise man’s portrait hanging over the fireplace. “I would have appreciated your quiet wisdom about now, my friend,” he sighed.

  Deciding he could solve a fundamental problem, Angus made a quick phone call. It didn’t take long for Bodie to call him back. “Hi, sir,” he said as Angus answered.

  “This situation is dreadful,” Angus said, smiling at the young man’s deference, continued since he was a student. “But Hana seems to be trapped here. Logan has all her keys. Do you know anything about what’s happening?”

  “Boris still isn’t conscious,” Bodie replied. He sounded tired. “Logan’s in the cells. Look, I’ll fetch Mum at the end of my shift at two-thirty and take her home. But sir, please can you refrain from officially suspending Logan? I know he’s innocent.”

  Angus hesitated. “The board of trustees will expect to be informed their head of the English department is in police custody. At the very least they need to be summoned to an emergency meeting. What if it gets leaked in the newspapers and I didn’t tell them?”

  “Forty-eight hours grace, that’s all I’m asking,” Bodie begged. “For my mum’s sake.”

  In the end, Angus agreed. “For Hana.”

  Pete’s mercy mission on behalf of Logan was still not over, even after leaving Angus’ office. He avoided doing the dirty deed with Hana, but he had one more hideous duty to perform. He dreaded it profusely, his hands trembling in anticipation. Whilst breathing deeply like a phone pervert, he dialled the number Logan rattled off. He squinted at the number written on his hand. An efficient sounding secretary answered, informing him his quarry was not available but would call him back. Pete snorted. “No she won’t, not once she knows it’s me. But it’s really important. Say Logan Du Rose needs help.”

  He was surprised to receive a call back as he shuffled towards the tuck shop window, only two bodies away from the coveted pie. “Damn!” he squealed, alarming a group of nearby boys. “I just want a bloody meat pie!” It felt like Henrietta cursed him from afar. Pete remained in the queue, believing he could point to the pie he wanted whilst carrying on his phone conversation. “No, not apple!” he yelled at the poor girl behind the counter, giving up and backing away. At the sound of the terrifying voice on the other end of the call, Pete’s eyes widened in fear. “Oh, sorry, sorry. I wasn’t shouting at you!”

  She petrified him. Even the sound of her officious voice made him want to run to the toilet. Pete stammered and stuttered the details over the phone and could almost picture her glaring down the airwaves, detesting his incompetence. “Spit it out you stupid little man!” Liza Du Rose QC did not suffer fools gladly and Peter North was about as much of a fool as she had ever met.

  As a boy, he harboured a crush on Logan’s older sister. Holiday visits to the family’s remote hotel were fraught with danger. He sought her out, only to be verbally mocked and humiliated, retreating to revive his dented ego and reappearing an hour later to go through the whole thing again. Yet within the sheer terror she invoked in Pete, ran a thread of utter thrill, like a moth repeatedly flying at a candle flame knowing the next passage through may be its last. Liza Du Rose possessed the ability to manipulate and command others, especially men. “Why hasn’t he come to me with this problem before?” Liza asked, her patience close to breaking. “How come the first I hear of it, is when he’s locked up? What’s wrong with the men in this family?”

  “Er...he thought he was handling it?” Pete ventured timidly and heard Liza snort.

  “It’s that woman he married; she’s turned him soft. He would never have let himself get into this situation before. Stupid boy!”

  Just as Pete was about to hang up, he heard her tone change and stayed on the line, like an abused dog waiting under a dining table for crumbs. “Darling,” she said in a wheedling, mock gentle voice and Pete was instantly putty in her hands. “Tell what’s-her-name, I’ll be staying with her. Give me the address, there’s a love.”

  Du Rose Legacy

  Chapter 3

  Hana worked tirelessly for the next hour. She used the mindless administration and Sheila’s constant demands to drown out the panicked, screaming voice somewhere at the back of her brain. She knew she would have to think sometime. Just not yet.

  Hana traipsed around the school site counting power sockets, in the various display areas being requisitioned for the Careers Expo.

  “Oh, you’re going again? That’s the third time. Don’t forget to amend the floor plan,” Sheila reminded her. “The electricians have been all over the main building like a rash since last year. I haven’t got a clue what goes where anymore.” Hana’s boss looked curiously at Hana’s furrowed brow and sl
ightly dishevelled appearance. “Is everything all right?”

  Hana produced a less than convincing fake smile and nodded. Pointing at her desk she said, “I’ll just get on then. I’m taking a pen and paper this time so I can write it down. Nothing’s sticking in my head today. When I come back, I’m going to email the presenters we can’t fit in, so I’ll refer the irate ones to you.”

  “Ok, that’s fine.” Sheila stood for a moment watching her assistant and then shrugged. Hana hoped that her boss wouldn’t press her with questions, banking on her being too busy. When Sheila disappeared back inside her office, Hana sighed with relief. Time passed in a strange blur, the hands on the clock seeming to move in tensely slow arcs as she paced the school building again, retracing her steps.

  Bodie’s strong shape in the doorway to the common room temporarily blocked the light and caused Hana to glance up. She almost cracked; seeing someone familiar and kind, someone who knew about the disaster hovering above her like a threatening cloud burst. “Bodie!” she said, hastily swallowed sobs catching in her throat.

  Bodie seemed to know instinctively what to do, gathering his mother and her belongings together without fuss. Sheila was happy to see him, chatting easily in her good-natured way about his job and his life. “Would you be able to come in one day next week to talk to my Year 13’s interested in joining the police? I’d be so grateful.”

  She sounded desperate and Bodie acquiesced just so that they could get away. “Ok, email me and I’ll come in. I just need to check with my boss.”

  Bodie led Hana quietly down the back stairs. “I came a bit later so I could change into civvies. I figured you had enough problems without looking as though you were being arrested.”

  Hana nodded gratefully, but if she thought he was taking her to the police station, then she was disappointed. Once outside his girlfriend, Amy’s house, Hana protested in fury. “I need to go and see Logan!”

  Bodie shook his head and insisted that she get out of the car. “You can’t see him, Mum. Nobody can; he’s being questioned. Amy will ring me if there’s anything to know. She’s the charge sergeant tonight. She’ll know before anyone else because she’ll be the one charging him!”

  Hana went reluctantly inside the old villa, grumbling as Bodie rattled around making food. At four-thirty, there came the sound of a car door slamming and small feet running up the concrete driveway. The back door burst open and four-year-old Jas barrelled into the room, trailed by a delicate little girl and her mother. Bodie caught his son as he launched himself from the floor. “Look Daddy, look! I made this for you!” The dark skinned child wafted the tatty piece of paper in Bodie’s face. “Hi, Hanny!” He turned his beautiful dark eyes on Hana. She managed a grateful smile.

  A male figure dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, stared out of the crumpled page in Bodie’s hand. Its face was bright red and looked engorged, the white and purple eyes popping scarily above black lips. If it was meant to be his father, Hana wondered if she should initiate getting Jas’ eyes tested. Bodie took it graciously, examining it with a perfectly straight face and kissing the little boy on the nose. Jas wriggled, wiping it with his sleeve and waggled his legs to be put down. Turning to the pretty little blonde girl with him, he seized her hand and began to lead her down to his room, calling backwards at her, “Come and see my battlefield.”

  The child followed willingly enough until half way down the hall, her mother called her back, “Not today Jacinder, Jas has family over and we need to go shopping.”

  The little girl stamped her foot crossly. “No! I wanna play with Jas!”

  The lady smiled at Hana slumped tiredly in the dining chair, waved to Bodie, who thanked her for dropping Jas home and then left. The girl scowled, misshaping her pretty features into gargoyle proportions and dragged her shoes unforgivingly along the driveway.

  “Quite the little house-husband aren’t you,” Hana said, realising how bitter and twisted she sounded, without meaning to. Bodie glanced back at her and then chose to ignore her comment. After a few moments, he plonked three bowls of tinned tomato soup onto the dining table, a loaf of bread and a carton of margarine. He went down the hallway a few metres and called to his son, “Come on boy, come and eat.”

  Jas appeared quickly, licking his lips with anticipation. Hana stared down at the vibrant orange liquid and knew she couldn’t eat it. Her stomach roiled unhealthily in her trousers. Bodie fetched three tea towels, laying one by each bowl and then he and Jas tucked theirs into their collars like a couple of Victorian gentlemen. Hana sniggered and they both glanced at her in surprise. “Come on Hanny,” Jas remarked at his grandmother, “get into the spirit!”

  That earned him a sharp rebuke from his father and he grunted an apology and got stuck into his food. After a couple of minutes, Hana could see why they required tea towels. She pushed her soup around the bowl for a while left handed and then ventured to spoon some into her mouth. It was tasty, but she misjudged the distance and spilled it down her blouse. She wanted to swear, but refrained. The tomato soup would never come out. Jas giggled, precociously grabbing her tea towel and waving it at her. “Told you!” he chimed in an irritatingly sing-song voice.

  Hana tried not to react, consumed by the unfairness of having had her right arm broken by Laval’s thugs. She sighed.

  “Is it hurting?” Bodie asked, noticing her wince.

  Hana nodded. “It’s all so pointless. They beat Pete up, wrecked the rental house, broke my arm and still didn’t find what they were looking for.”

  “Did Pete’s girlfriend get it all put back together for the biology teacher’s family to come home to?” Bodie asked, making conversation. Hana nodded. Her cast irritated her dreadfully and there was no way she would manage to eat soup with her other hand. I’m just tired, she kept telling herself. It’s not that my husband’s in custody for knocking a friend unconscious at all.

  Eventually, Hana gave into the big brown eyes of her grandson and let him polish off her soup and bread and he trotted off back to the bedroom happy. Hana looked down at her blouse. “I look like an axe murderer,” she commented and then catching Bodie’s look added, “sorry, probably not funny right now.”

  Bodie finished loading the dishwasher while Hana sat feebly at the table and watched him. Then he made a pot of tea and and sat down with her. “Look,” he said, “Logan rang me as soon as he got there. He found Boris like that. He also saw a black BMW coming the other way as he got into Gordonton, so it’s fairly safe to assume who did the job on Boris. There’s also some other stuff, which you may not know...”

  Hana interrupted, “It’s fine. Angus told me what Logan learned this morning.” Inwardly she was livid with her husband. “Why does he always have to play the hero? Why couldn’t just tell Odering and let him find Boris and get the truth?” Then she thought about how ineffective the policing had been so far and knew why. “It’s going round and round in circles, getting nowhere,” she said, sighing and rubbing her eyes.

  They chatted for a while, not noticing as it grew dark. Amy arrived shortly after six o’clock and Bodie bundled Hana into his car, leaving it heating up while he quickly got any new information out of the tired policewoman. “I was there when his lawyer arrived. Geez, she’s a piece of work! She’s completely up herself; issuing her demands and throwing her weight around! I thought I’d seen her before. Turns out she’s Logan’s sister!”

  Bodie sighed. “You know the Du Roses are like the mafia up in Auckland, don’t you? It’s hard, I like the guy a lot, but then there’s this instinctive thing I have about him sometimes, like...he keeps secrets and I shudder to think what they are.” Bodie shook his head, unable to qualify his statement.

  Amy nodded knowingly and kissed Bodie on the lips. “Take her home. She looks done in. And if what I overheard is true, she’s got herself one hell of a houseguest!”

  Bodie located Hana’s Honda down a side street in Fairview Downs, miles away from the school. “He wasn’t taking any chances this
morning, was he? Sorry Mum, but without the keys it’s gonna have to stay here. Maybe sort out your spare set at home and I’ll drive you back here tomorrow. Luckily it’s away from any parking restrictions and the area’s not too bad. It should be fine.”

  “He’ll be home by tomorrow,” Hana said with fake optimism. Logan can get it then.” She prayed angels would guard it and it wouldn’t be broken into. And her husband would be the one fetching it. Then Bodie took her home to her house twenty kilometres away in the Hakarimata Ranges.

  Pulling onto the driveway at the bottom of the mountain, Bodie was not expecting the sleek red Mercedes to be parked outside the gates and almost rear-ended it. “Bloody hell! Who’s that?”

  Hana panicked, trying to find the switch for the central locking, but Bodie put his hand on her arm for reassurance, before getting out to investigate. “Hold on Mum. I don’t think thugs drive cars worth that kind of cash!”

  Hana peered through the windscreen, observing in the glow from the headlights as a tall, lithe, sharply dressed figure unfolded herself from the vehicle. “Oh no! Is my life not rubbish enough already?” she groaned. Bodie shook hands with Logan's lawyer, punched in the code to open the gates and returned to the car. The Mercedes strained uncomfortably up the slope and Hana tried not to wish it would make a wrong turn in the dark and pitch over the side. “Why’s she here?” she asked Bodie.

  “She’s Logan’s lawyer apparently.”

  Hana sighed. Liza intimidated her dreadfully, but she allowed herself a small smirk. She wore the woman’s clothes for an entire week, when they got stuck up at the hotel at the start of her pregnancy. She wondered if Liza knew the detested sister-in-law had made free with her designer gear.

  Once inside, Liza looked around with a critical eye. “Is this it?” She turned her nose up at a single bedroom, eventually accepting the spare double at the back of the old house.