Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Hana nodded and took hold of her cutlery and the moment was over. The waiters hovered attentively and Hana smiled with serenity and indicated she would like something from two of the plates. One was stringy green stuff, which looked plant based and turned out to be fried seaweed. The other was chicken, beautifully cooked in a rich, sweet sauce. Both were delicious and Hana tucked in, acutely aware of the woman next to her, picking at her food and taking sly sideways glances at Hana. Logan wielded his chopsticks like a professional, making his wife feel even more inadequate with her knife and fork.

  Hana felt better for the food. It lifted her spirits as well as her blood sugar and gave her something else to concentrate on. She tried not to draw attention to herself as she carefully surveyed her surroundings. The restaurant was evidently not open for business. This was a private party. Hana noticed the ‘Open’ sign facing her, meaning the view from the street said ‘Closed.’ She was intrigued. Who were these people? What had Logan said on the drive up? She counted eight waiters, all paid Sunday wages to serve them. It was odd. The servers were attentive and incredibly competent, but there was an air of fear about them, as though getting it wrong or dropping something awkwardly onto the table would mean terrible consequences.

  Mirrors decorated the walls between the ornate windows onto the street and in their reflection, Hana spotted a small hatch through to the area behind her. The kitchens were stainless steel and very high tech. She watched the chefs passing across the reflected view, men in white outfits with small triangular white hats covering their hair. She allowed her gaze to stray further and saw the lighted sign for the bathrooms. The word ‘Toilet’ looked backwards in the mirror and wasn’t lit up. Why did you read that, you stupid girl, she admonished herself, wishing she hadn’t seen it, even backwards. It set off the need to go and she didn’t want to cause a fuss getting up and having everyone know where she was headed. Hana munched quietly on a piece of fried seaweed, noting how dreadful it sounded and yet how yummy it tasted. Her eyes moved down, taking in the view of the passageway to the toilets and then she saw him.

  The man wore an expensive black suit and stood in the corridor blocking the route to the bathrooms. He resembled a soldier on point duty and studied the side of Logan’s head with more than a cursory interest. His build was powerful and muscular. He was also Oriental but didn’t look Chinese. He was much taller than the couple next to her, possibly Korean. As Hana watched him, fascinated with how his suit looked about to burst off his body, the man unbuttoned his jacket and reached into an inner pocket where he retrieved a cell phone. Hana’s eyes became as round as saucers. The man turned slightly sideways and took a whispered phone call but as he reached for the phone, Hana saw the gun holstered underneath his jacket.

  Hana knew little about guns but it looked like the sort of pistol she had seen on American cop shows. It was dull, black metal, heavy looking and definitely not a toy. Her appetite disappeared, leaving her mouth dry and uncomfortable. Hana looked along the table at the Chinese man and wife pair. Did they know there was a man with a gun stood behind them? Should she mention it?

  They ate comfortably and easily with chopsticks. Hana looked down at the weighty knife and fork she had chosen and felt left out. Logan avoided the slimy sea foods but devoured everything else with gusto, waving his chopsticks around like a wand in his animated conversation with Mr Che.

  Next to her, the redoubtable Mrs Che used both chopsticks to fold a reluctant looking baby octopus into an edible lump. Hana felt the bile rise to her throat and fought a wave of sickness. As the woman popped the thing into her mouth, Hana heard a delicate squelch and tried to concentrate on the hilarity of the noise, rather than what it signified. The whole episode became intensely painful and isolating. In an attempt to make conversation, Hana asked her if she worked. The woman fixed her icy stare on Hana and replied in stilted English, “I take care of personnel and security for family business.” Her sharp accent made the words fire out like missiles. Hana got it. The man with the gun belonged to her.

  “I work in a school,” she ventured, surprisingly unable to think of anything interesting to do with that snippet of information. Hana reached for the tiny cup of tea, now lukewarm and tried to drink to alleviate the dryness in her mouth.

  Mrs Che leaned in towards her confidentially and said in a low voice, “I know all about you, Mrs Du Rose. There is very little I do not know.”

  Feeling overwhelmed by the steely proximity of the woman and the ice in her voice, Hana’s hand shook so the tea slopped over the gold edge of the teacup and dripped down into her plate. The chicken and seaweed remains rose up and floated in the brown liquid. She did the biggest swallow she could manage, but was still lost for words.

  “I know your son is policeman,” Mrs Che said in a sing-song tone of voice, as though speaking to a small child playing hide and seek. Coming to get you. Hana felt terrified. She looked across at her husband for help, but Mrs Che’s head neatly blocked any eye contact between them, her brown slanted eyes drilling into Hana’s face. She felt like a spider faced with having its legs pulled off one by one. Hana heard Logan still talking to his companion and felt abandoned. Deciding to remove herself from the situation, she scraped her chair back over the tiled floor making a nasty screeching sound in her haste. Shakily she stood, her face pale and made for the passageway towards the toilet. Half way there, Hana realised her mistake. She had to go past the man with the gun and then be isolated in a small space, where if she chose to, the woman could come after her. Please God don’t let her come after me, Hana begged.

  Hana’s legs felt like jelly as she tried to glide effortlessly across the tiles. She willed herself not to run and the guard stepped neatly sideways to allow her to exit, but as she trapped herself in a minute cubicle, she wished she was able to fit through the tiny toilet window and make a run for it. She imagined doing just that as she threw up the chicken and seaweed into the toilet bowl. She would never eat Chinese food again.

  There were bars on the street window Hana noticed as she tried to compose herself. And where would she run to? She couldn’t be too long or Mrs Che would be sent to see if she was all right and that was the last thing Hana wanted, to be alone with her implied threats. These were bad people, very bad people. What on earth was Logan up to, or into?

  Hana felt sick again and willed herself not to think about it. Her skin looked waxy and pale under the expensive chandelier lights. She thought she had fallen in love with a teacher but then he seemed to be involved with so much else. She had reacted against his secrets and he had begun to unburden himself and now, here she was, wishing he really wouldn’t. It made her complicit. Perhaps ignorance was bliss. Hana forced herself to go back to the table although she didn’t attempt to speak to Mrs Che again. She picked her way through an exquisite watermelon sorbet which at any other time, she would have thoroughly enjoyed and hung out for the moment when they could safely leave. No comment was made about her lack of appetite as the waiters neatly cleared away the dishes, almost invisible in their swift movements. A couple of times, Hana observed one of the men quail under a stare from Mrs Che. There was real fear in their response to her. Hana knew how they felt.

  Finally, Logan rose from his seat, along with Mr Che. The small man put his arms around Logan and embraced him with seemingly real affection. Hana took a sharp intake of breath and prayed that Mrs Che would not do the same to her. She didn’t, merely inclining her head politely and smiling with her lips only. In the last moment of defiance, Hana didn’t bow her head but smiled acidly before clattering towards the door on her heels.

  As she and Logan made it outside in the afternoon warmth, she almost ran to the passenger door of the car, gripping the handle too soon so the central locking failed to activate her door. By the time Logan had pressed the key fob three times and Hana managed to wrench the door open and hurl herself in, he looked mystified. “I wondered if you wanted to go down to the beach. Devonport is really pretty on a clear day like tod
ay.”

  “I want to go home!” Hana’s teeth gritted hard together and her face was white and set in a grimace. Logan reached out to take her hand, concerned, but she pushed him away. “Drive, stupid,” she half shouted, “just drive!”

  He turned the key looking surprised and hurt, starting the Honda roughly and pulling away from the curb. Hana lay her head back against the headrest and tried to regulate her breathing. Logan kept taking sideways looks at her, half concern, half irritation but Hana turned her face away and wouldn’t look at him. Instinctively she knew she needed to regain her equilibrium before she said anything, because she wasn’t sure what would be likely to come out.

  As they pulled onto the Harbour Bridge and began to climb up over the shimmering water, Logan pointed towards the Sky Tower in the distance. “Would you like to go up? We can...”

  “No!” shouted Hana, “I want to go home!” She saw Logan’s jaw set hard and knew she had gone too far. She would never speak to him like this normally. Her fear was getting the better of her and she couldn’t seem to control it. It was like a black stain in her chest, spreading and leaking, overpowering her. Fight or flight. She was definitely of the flight variety.

  They arrived in Downtown Auckland, the sea sparkling and blinking under the glare of the welcome spring sunshine. Hana felt trapped in the car. Logan wasn’t getting it. He wanted to do tourist things. The woman said she knew everything about Hana. That meant she knew where she lived. Did it mean she knew what Hana ate for breakfast, or was that a stretch?

  Hana didn’t feel safe anywhere. That familiar gnawing pain returned - the fear of being under someone’s microscope. Laval’s reedy influence, temporarily banished, returned with full force pulling at Hana’s nerves. She flailed at the door handle trying to open it, fear telling her to get out of the moving vehicle and good sense telling her it wasn’t a clever idea. Logan pulled abruptly into a side street, jamming the poor Honda into the curb and looking at Hana in alarm. “What the hell?”

  Hana reached for her handbag, formulating a plan in her head. She would find a motel, get a room, lock the door and stay alone, definitely alone. She had the car door partly open and one foot out, when she felt a vice-like grip on her wrist. Logan held on hard and Hana pulled to no avail. The cast hindered her and Hana felt crushed by his cruelty in holding onto her broken arm. When she looked at him, his face was set rigidly and his grey eyes were so dark they looked almost black. “Stay in the car,” he said, his voice loaded with threat.

  His teeth were closed tight and the words sounded menacing through them. Hana let out a cry of pain and pulled against the force of his hand until she felt like her elbow would snap again and then let out a gasp and a sob. Fear crossed Logan’s face and he remembered about the cast and let go suddenly. Hana pitched forwards out of the vehicle and stood holding her arm, leaning forward from the waist. Logan was out of the car and round to her side, quicker than seemed humanly possible. “Sorry, sorry,” he repeated, breathing out heavily as Hana was sick repeatedly into the gutter.

  A lady walking her dog stopped to ask if everything was all right as Hana puked up on the pristine grass verge outside an expensive Auckland home. Logan nodded apologetically, his arms gripping Hana’s shoulders. “It’s just the baby,” he said. Hana felt angrier than she ever remembered being at the ease of his lie. She was pregnant and she was also very, very stupid. She still favoured the motel idea but her blood ran cold when Logan asked her again, to get back in the car. Especially when he leaned in close to her ear and added, “Hana, we’ve been followed. We need to leave.”

  She clambered back into the car feeling utterly spent. Logan did up her seatbelt and handed her a bottle of water. She let it fall to the floor unopened and leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, with no idea what she was going to do next.

  Du Rose Legacy

  Chapter 16

  Their suitcases were in the boot of the Honda as Logan intended to head straight home to Culver’s Cottage after lunch. Hana opened her eyes as they passed the Rangiriri turn off. She watched Logan drive from the corner of her eye.

  He was incredibly handsome and she hated how she felt about him, how she loved the feel of his lips when he kissed her and the shape of his back under her hands. She was attracted to him, more than she had ever been for anyone before him, even Vik. It left her feeling worn out and ragged with need for him. But Logan Du Rose was infinitely dangerous. There were depths to him Hana would never understand. He had recently started to open up to her, to tell her about himself and show her the other parts of him he kept hidden. And she wanted to run screaming in the other direction. What kind of a person was she? He was hard wired to recognise rejection and Hana knew it oozed from every pore of her. She didn’t want what he had to offer, this world of people who threatened and carried guns. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her world at all.

  “She knows Bodie’s a cop.” Hana said it bluntly, her eyes closed against the glare of Logan’s eyes.

  Logan looked at her aghast and banged his hands on the steering wheel, swearing prolifically. “Hana!” he exclaimed, “It was the only thing I told you not to say!”

  “She already knew!” Hana’s voice rose to a high-pitched scream, “She knew everything!” She saw distaste cross Logan’s face and anger fused into her. He hated hysterical screechy women and just then she was one. She felt herself diminish in his eyes and the hopelessness of it washed over her like unrelenting surf. “I can’t do this anymore,” she blurted out, “I can’t do any of it.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and she grasped at straws. She had to regain control of her life. Somehow. “You need to go. I need you to leave.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, Hana regretted them. But stubbornness and disappointment in herself prevented her from taking them back. Her husband looked pole-axed, his face unreadable. His knuckles showed white through his skin on the steering wheel and his eyes glistened as though tears pricked behind his dark lashes. Take it back, take it back, a desperate little voice cried inside Hana’s head, but she didn’t know how.

  Logan flung the car up the slope to the house, almost hitting the gate as it slowly eased open. Hana went up the steps to the front door, hoping and praying he would try and talk her round, ready to capitulate. She went inside and turned the alarm off, finding soup simmering on the stove. Lovely Maihi. She heard the garage door go up on its mechanism, whirring and clanking and a car engine rumbling under the house. Logan was putting the car away. It would buy her some time.

  Hana went to the bathroom, still in her shoes and coat and found a new toothbrush in the cupboard. She used it to clean her teeth and rid herself of the feeling of sickness. She washed her face and emerged ready to make it all right. Her overnight bag sat on the hall floor where Logan had put it. But only hers. A dawning realisation hit her. The front door which she left open had been closed. Hana wrenched it open. The Honda sat on the drive, parked at a jaunty angle to the house. Hana ran back inside and down the internal stairs to the garage. It was empty. Logan had taken the four wheel drive and his overnight bag. And gone.

  Hana sat on the stairs down to the garage and cried for a long while. The temperature of the house dropped and the seeping cold drove her upstairs to the kitchen. Passing the open door to the master bedroom, Hana saw Logan’s aftershave still out on the dresser where he left it before work on Friday and it send a bolt of pain through her chest. She had no energy and her arm ached so she didn’t think she could make up the fire. Hana went down to the bedroom, forcing herself to ignore the signs of her husband all over it, his jacket over a chair and his spare coins on the side table where he left them each night. Hana grappled in the suitcase and found her woolly dressing gown. She tried to put it over her clothes, but it wasn’t comfortable so she stripped off and sank into the monkey pyjamas, putting the dressing gown over the top. Just like old times, the voice in her head mocked.

  Hana made a pot of tea but turned Maihi’s soup off. She wa
sn’t hungry. She went into the hallway and paused next to the telephone. It would be rude not to ring and thank her neighbour for her kindness and taking care of the cat, who hadn’t yet appeared.

  Suddenly desperate for human contact, Hana dialled Maihi’s number, hearing the cheerful voice of her neighbour against the TV in the background. It sounded like she was watching a game show. “You’re welcome, darlin’.” Maihi’s voice was so friendly and cheerful it resonated hard against Hana’s misery. She couldn’t help it. She cried and gulped fruitlessly, hearing the TV noise abruptly muted and her friend’s voice become concerned. She couldn’t explain what was wrong, it was all too hard and too complicated.

  “I’m fine, Maihi. Just tired,” Hana lied and hung up. Unable to face her marital bed, Hana curled up on the living room sofa, the cold, dark fire grate mocking her as she covered herself up with one of the throws. She must have nodded off because the first thing she knew, was someone standing over her.

  A rush of thoughts flipped through her brain, from Logan to Mrs Che to Laval’s men and then back to Logan. Hana stared out of her sleep-fog hopefully, but it was Maihi who stood looking down at her. The Māori woman’s hair was windswept and she looked cold. She tutted as she noticed the empty fireplace and Hana huddled in a blanket and dressing gown, her tea cold on the floor next to the sofa. “What’s happened?” she asked gently, hunkering down next to Hana.

  Hana told her the whole miserable truth, keeping nothing back. It was cathartic for her in some small way, allowing her redemption through confession. She began to see things more clearly. “I think I blamed him for everything,” she concluded, “and yet I had problems even before he arrived. With the thing that was on the car and the broken windscreen and the silent phone calls. His stuff has made it seem so much more complicated and unsolvable.”