Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  “What’s up with you?” Pete complained as Hana polished her desk for the third time that week. “They’ve got cleaners for that.”

  “I’m bored,” she answered. “Move your stuff and I’ll polish yours.”

  “Get away from my desk!” Pete flattened his upper body across a sheaf of papers that looked ancient.

  “Oh my gosh! Are those reports from Term 1?” Hana exclaimed, dancing around behind Pete and trying to see. “That’s terrible!”

  “Stop it!” he shouted crossly at her. “Move your desk or something but leave me alone.”

  “I can’t,” Hana grumbled. “I’ve sat everywhere and I like it here best.”

  Over the years, the population of the office increased. Once upon a time, it was just Hana and a dusty old gentleman by the name of Stig. Nobody actually knew his real name and he was even timetabled as Mr Stig. The room slowly filled and become crammed with bodies. Sheila had her own office in the corner with its high windows and panoramic view of the rugby fields, Hana sat over by the back door, Pete, was almost back to back with her and Rory squashed himself and his possessions into the corner by the radiator. In winter, Rory got too hot and turned the radiator down, but everyone else froze. There were always arguments. If everyone got up at once and tried to move, it was like an ungainly version of Riverdance, without the music.

  With Hana’s widening girth, it was a constant source of irritation for her as she danced around the copier with Pete, or fell over Rory’s feet on her way out to the common room.

  “You’re not coming back after your maternity leave are you?” Pete asked her, horribly perceptive which was unusual for him. Hana shrugged and fudged the question. The truth was, she didn’t know.

  “I can’t think about that right now,” she said truthfully. “Because then I have to face the fact that this giant bump has to come out of my...well, out anyway. Just let me get past that bit first.”

  “Don’t leave!” Pete turned in his seat and his eyes looked moist. “Logan’s not talking to me so I only have you left. Don’t go, please?”

  Hana put her hands on her hips. “Pete! Yesterday you slapped my bum because you said everywhere you looked, there it was, blocking your view! I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me.”

  “No, no!” Pete stood up and rung his hands. “I didn’t mean it. I love your bum.” His face paled. “You didn’t tell Logan about that, did you? He’ll bloody kill me!”

  “Of course I didn’t!”

  “Don’t leave me?” Pete’s voice was plaintive and a sniff escaped him.

  “You’re serious?” Hana’s eyes widened. She cringed as the skinny man took a stride towards her. “Oh, gosh...thanks. You don’t need to...ok then.”

  Pete seized her in a bear hug and sniffed into her shoulder. Hana patted him on the back and tried not to go cross-eyed at the dandruff littering his shoulders. He smelled like an old sofa. “You can let go now.” Hana gave one final pat and dropped her arms. Pete clung on. The smell of greasy hair wafted up Hana’s nose and she tried to hold her breath. “Hi, Logan,” she said finally.

  Pete gave her a hearty push which sent her across the room at speed. Luckily she landed in her own office chair and the force swivelled her around to face her desk. Pete’s head whipped from side to side, terror emanating from under his hooded eyelids. “Where? Where?”

  Hana smirked with mischief and tapped on her keyboard. Pete shot her a filthy look and slumped into his chair. “I’ll still miss you, bitch!” he griped.

  Hana turned her chair and gave him a beatific smile of pure, one hundred watt angel. Pete snorted.

  “Talking of Logan, he’s doing well as usual. Angus says his English senior mock exam results were the best the school has ever seen. His younger students also produced a higher level of work than they did last year under Foggy.

  “Why did you call her Foggy?” Hana asked. “I never worked it out.”

  “Because she never knew where she was,” Pete frowned. “It’s obvious. She walked around in a fog.”

  Hana shook her head and tapped numbers into a spreadsheet. Pete sighed and continued. “The departmental staff enjoy his no-nonsense leadership and Angus is relieved he can re-route the talented teacher to physical education, health, mathematics or French classes, as easily as he can to English, should the need arise. He has even had requests for him in accounting, following a period of relief teaching that proved successful.”

  Hana whipped round in her chair. “Are you reading from something?”

  Pete pursed his lips and slid a piece of paper under a pile of ratty, coffee stained documents. “No.”

  “Yes you are!” Hana stood up and eyed the little man. “Is that a copy of an official document?”

  Pete looked shifty and squirmed in his seat. “Not a copy, no. It’s Logan’s appraisal. I nicked it off the Rottweiler’s desk.”

  Hana’s mouth dropped open. “Pete! That’s a sackable offence!”

  He made an ugly face and cringed. “I know. I don’t understand what came over me. I just saw his name when I was cutting out a magazine picture of Angelina Jolie in a bikini. I borrowed the Rottweiler’s scissors and it was just there on her desk. I wanted to see if Logan was doing ok.”

  “Pete! You’re a shocker!”

  “Help me?” His bottom lip wobbled.

  “No!” Hana flounced back to her desk and sat down. “You’re on your own with that one. And if I find it on my desk, you’re dead! Deal with it yourself.”

  Hana entered more numbers and worked for a while. Pete sniffed and fidgeted, driving her mad with his irritating noises. A memory rose unbidden to the forefront of Hana’s mind and she stopped working. She touched her desk with gentle fingers, remembering the day she accidentally ended up with a large silver trophy sitting there, many months ago. Dobbs turned the school inside out looking for it and Hana worried about getting it back to the trophy table without being spotted. She went out on an errand and when she got back, the trophy was gone, returned to its rightful place. Pete got the blame. “Pete,” she said with kindness. “That day the trophy ended up in my possession and I left it on the desk...did you put it back for me, to stop me getting into trouble?” She turned so she could see his face and read if he was lying.

  “Yeah,” he said and nodded.

  Hana sighed. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  Pete collapsed forward like a deflated balloon. “Just help me. You can put it back, she likes you.”

  “No she doesn’t. She hates Logan because he’s not scared of her, so I’m hated by association. Just for once, Peter North. Tell me the truth!”

  “Ok. Logan put the trophy back.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t even know Logan back then!”

  “No but he knew you, didn’t he? He was supervising the study boys and came to borrow a stapler. He saw it there and nipped it back downstairs while you were out. He said if I told you, he’d staple my head to the noticeboard and if there was any backlash from Dobbs, I had to take the fall.”

  “Oh,” Hana breathed. She felt the hot flush begin in her chest. Logan looked out for her, even back then. The hot new teacher who got female hearts racing in the staffroom and whose grey eyes always seemed to be turned towards Hana, risked a yelling at from Dobbs, for her. “I’m so lucky,” she sighed.

  “Yeah you are. So put this paper back for me?” Pete begged. “And don’t tell Logan I told you any of that.”

  “That’s two things,” Hana said. “I’ll do one and you do the other.”

  Pete looked hopeful. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ll put the paper back on the secretary’s desk and you confess to Logan you slapped my bum and told me the truth about the trophy.”

  Pete’s eyes widened and he slammed his palms down on the desk. A pile of reports slid onto the floor. “Bloody women!” he shouted. He snatched up Logan’s appraisal and marched towards the door. He exited, muttering to himself and Hana held her snort until he was ou
t of earshot.

  Pete returned without the paper but his ears were red. “She shouted at me!” he complained. “I told her it was an accident.”

  “Well, you’re still alive, so that’s good,” Hana replied. She peered at a set of numbers which didn’t make sense.

  “Are you up at the hotel this weekend again?” Pete asked, his irritation replaced by sadness and Hana nodded.

  “We go most weekends so Logan can work on the farm. They’re shorthanded. How come you’re asking me about Logan nowadays? Why don’t you ask him?”

  Pete put his head down and placed pen marks on the sheets in front of him. He didn’t answer. As Hana passed she peeked over his shoulder, pleased to think he was finally working but discovered him playing noughts and crosses with himself on a boy’s assignment. She sighed heavily and shook her head.

  According to Logan, Alfred was becoming tired and forgetful and the stockmen had taken to texting their grievances to him a little too frequently, for it to just be griping. Logan currently taught five days a week and then ran the farm at weekends. A sense of doom hung over Hana’s life and she felt fearful. Once the baby arrived, she wouldn’t be able to accompany him up the mountain. Would that mean she was left behind and never saw her husband?

  The access road to the development had been blocked weeks before. The developers had tried absolutely everything to ensure work carried on with their project up in the mountain, but Logan stonewalled them, refusing to speak other than through lawyers. Minimal legal digging quickly proved to them their claim on the land was bogus and the whole deal was log-jammed in red tape, both with the lawyers and the local district council. The latter admitted with embarrassment they should never have granted planning permission on land without legal title and panicked about a possible backlash in the media and courts.

  Men came to the hotel to discuss issues and plead for access, but everyone was directed back to Logan’s ferocious lawyer, who asked them not to trespass in future. Alfred’s brother, Rueben, was up to his neck in debt and legal letters. She half thought it served him right for trying to defraud Logan, but wondered what made him think her husband would overlook it. It seemed truly ludicrous to her. It all seemed to come down to money, but a nagging doubt played at the back of her mind.

  Hana and Logan established an exhausting pattern of living for the term. They finished work on Fridays and went home to pack, before heading up to the hotel for the weekend and returning on Sunday afternoon in time for work on Monday. Logan marked schoolwork in the evenings, sitting on the bed in their room at the hotel while Hana lay uncomfortably next to him and tried to watch television. It was an exhausting season, helped only by the fact that the term was only eight weeks long. While Logan rode around the farm, often away for hours at a time mustering, checking cattle, or breaking horses, Hana pottered around helping Miriam and the other women. Alfred was quiet and reserved, offering little more to Hana than the odd wink and he seemed to spend less and less time with Logan, as though avoiding his son. But the only thing which really blighted the weekends for Hana, was the presence of Tama.

  “Is Logan there?” Tama knocked on the bedroom door and Hana shook her head without speaking. Her face creased with distaste and she closed the door again, her heart pounding in her chest. Her husband’s loyalty to such an odious specimen of humanity confounded her.

  Logan organised for Tama to do school subjects by correspondence and on Saturday evenings he checked his work or tutored him, in addition to everything else. Tama’s room was two doors along from theirs, which also made Hana nervous. Bored of knitting baby clothes or reading novels, Hana waited on tables in the dining room with the women from the township. At first they were silent and minimal in their contact with her, but Hana’s earnest, sincere nature quickly won them over and they softened towards her.

  Unwisely grumbling in front of Miriam about Hana one night, one of the women found herself not asked back again. As the work was casual, it was the complainer who lost out. The other women watched their mouths, a chore at first, but occasionally they forgot Hana was Logan’s wife and treated her like one of them. She worked hard, even with her increasing size and took orders easily from Miriam, despite the older woman’s brusque manner and blunt reputation.

  When in November, Miriam’s Bi-polar disorder pitched her into a depressive state and made her bed ridden, Hana stepped into the gap at weekends as a waitress and a woman who had worked for the Du Roses for years temporarily became the housekeeper.

  “Don’t you mind Leslie bossing you around?” Helena asked as the women carried laden plates to the dining room. “You’re the boss’ wife. You should take charge, not her!”

  Hana laughed, the tinkling sound echoing in the corridor. “Heck no! I couldn’t run all this. I’m happier delivering plates and collecting dirties. You really wouldn’t want me in charge!”

  On this particular Saturday, Hana made sure Miriam had eaten and taken her pills, before going down to the dining room for the delivery of the three-course meal the women spent all afternoon cooking. The weather pitched towards furnace levels and Hana sweated under her black blouse and trousers. The apron barely did up behind her anymore and Leslie had pinned it with a bulldog clip.

  “Who are these people?” Hana asked as she loaded her arms with plates.

  Helena nodded towards the door. “An engineering company. They’ve hired the venue, motel suites and ordered the full menu but they’ve brought their own speakers and seminar providers. We’re serving in the ballroom.”

  “I’ll help to strip the rooms after they left if I’m still here,” Hana said, smiling at Leslie as she held the door open for them. The older woman tutted and followed them out, allowing Helena to go off ahead.

  “You should be doing the bookings, Miss, not waiting tables.” Leslie balanced two plates on one arm, allowing her freedom with the other hand.

  “It’s technically none of my business,” Hana laughed.

  “Of course it is,” Leslie argued. “Your husband owns and runs this place.”

  “Just at the moment,” Hana reassured her and the other woman looked at her curiously. “We’re not staying here forever. He’ll get a manager in eventually.”

  “Has he said that?” Leslie whispered as they entered the room with the entrees.

  Hana looked back at her expectant face and shook her head. No, he hadn’t.

  It was a big conference; seventy people in all including speakers and Leslie ran the staff like a sergeant major. Hana followed Leslie’s voluptuous bottom across the ballroom, smiling back at a man whose face she felt she recognised. Her face dropped as she noticed the company name emblazoned on the table markers and a huge pull down sheet over by the stage. Key Largo.

  Hana felt the plates shake in her hands and sought to put them down on the first table she came to. Leslie looked back at her strangely. It wasn’t the routine. They always served the furthest away first. Five servers each carrying three plates at a time should have got service over quickly, but Hana was temporarily unable to go back into the room, leaving them short-handed. She stood in the kitchen leaned up against the wall, her face a horrid shade of white, panting heavily. Hana’s hand clutched the fabric between her breasts.

  Leslie rushed into the kitchen. “Is it the baby?” she asked, running her gnarled hands up and down Hana’s back. “Shall I get Mr Logan?”

  Hana shook her head. “I’m so sorry, I think I’ll be ok,” she replied. Sweat beaded on her forehead. The women surged back in to fetch the next lot of plates and Hana seized another three and endeavoured to mend the mess she made in the dining room.

  Inside the ballroom the atmosphere hummed with excitement and to her relief, few people noticed or acknowledged the invisible food-bringers. Hana recognised another four faces in the sea of them and started to relax when they didn’t acknowledge her. The service went smoothly and before long, dessert was out, the dirty plates were back and Hana was able to hide in the kitchen, feeling increasingly
silly as she stacked the industrial dishwasher. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said immediately Leslie came into the kitchen. “It was a funny turn. It won’t happen again.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Helena countered, handing dirty plates to the man rinsing them in the huge sink. “You shouldn’t really be waiting tables this far on.”

  The other women muttered that she mustn’t be so foolish; it was bound to happen at that late stage. They clucked around her showing nothing but care, making Hana feel even guiltier.

  “Leave that,” Leslie said gently. “Go and check there’s water and fresh glasses in the lobby. It’s cooler out there.” She pushed Hana away from the dishwasher with her hip, hefting the huge, laden tray out easily.

  The front doors were open, allowing a fresh breeze access to the lobby and Hana stopped to catch her breath for a moment. She pressed her fingers to the odd throbbing in her chest and heaved a sigh. As she bent down to lift dirty glasses onto her tray, a woman’s voice broke into the gentle silence. Hana set her load down carefully and turned to greet the speaker. “How can I help...?” The words died on her lips. She found herself looking into a familiar face and the blood drained from her head and coursed down to her toes in freefall.

  “I thought it was you,” the woman said. Impeccably dressed in a grey pantsuit with a chiffon scarf, her long blonde hair streamed out over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. She oozed elegance and the intervening nine years had done nothing to dim her sex appeal. The woman regarded her silently, as though waiting for Hana to perform some kind of dance. Hana remained stock still, inwardly willing her to disappear in a puff of smoke like a bad magic trick. She closed her eyes but when she opened them, the woman was still there.

  “Hello,” Hana said politely. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  The woman’s face dropped sadly, taking some of the sheen off her looks. “You can take me back nine years. Then I’d make sure Vik told you about us when he was meant to. That way, he wouldn’t have been doing that journey and he’d still be alive today.”