Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  Hana sighed and thought about the question for a moment. “Working, walking and worrying,” she concluded in the end.

  Tama nodded. “What are you worrying about?”

  “I never said it was me!” Hana replied indignantly but Tama grinned.

  “I know Uncle Logan’s working, I saw Gran walking up the hill so that just leaves you for the worrying. So what’s up?”

  Hana buried her face in her arms and breathed out loudly. “Have you ever known something, something you wish you didn’t and not known what to do about it?”

  Tama shook his head and looked at her sardonically. “Er…yep!”

  “What did you do?” Hana pursued, “Did you tell?”

  He shook his head more vehemently. “No, never. Not when it was going to hurt someone I loved. I tried to change things, but not tell, no, not that!”

  Hana fixed him with a searching stare for a few seconds and then let it go, changing the subject altogether. She understood he was talking about her and felt grateful. He could have told Laval where she lived at any time. “Do you remember what your Uncle Barry died of?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “I wasn’t born,” Tama replied, “but it was that blood thing, where you don’t stop bleeding. There was other stuff, my grandpa said, but mainly that.”

  “Logan has it,” Hana said sadly, “not dreadfully badly and he controls it with medication, but he does have it. Girls get it from their father and boys get it from a carrier mother.”

  Tama looked sympathetic. “I did about it in genetics at school. So you need your baby to be a boy then. And he won’t get it.”

  Hana nodded. “Unless I was a carrier, then he would have a high chance of having the disease.” She sighed, already knowing her little baby girl could be a carrier. She had read different stuff online, some saying her daughter would definitely transmit the disease to her sons, but others claiming there was a fifty percent chance. Hana prayed for the latter. She hadn’t raised it with Logan and her recently acquired knowledge gave her an even bigger problem. She dared to ask Tama the question which ate at her. “Does anyone on your side of the family have it?”

  Tama thought for a minute and then nodded. “Yep, Grandpa Reuben has it. He didn’t have any daughters of his own but one of his boys has it. I guess his wife was a carrier because she was his cousin. Koro Alf doesn’t have it, so Barry and Logan must have got it from Kui Miriam. Alfred says that’s why she gets so depressed. She feels guilty. It’s a fifty percent rule, though, so it’s a shame Logan got it too. Really unlucky I guess. If you have both parents with it, I suppose it’s more likely to be a dead cert. Poor Logan.”

  Hana looked curiously at Tama. Something told her the only person who didn’t know Logan’s secret was Logan himself. She went out into the vegetable garden with him and he helped pull up the potatoes Miriam had asked for. They were pink skinned and a delicate yellow inside. Some of them were huge and Tama took his shirt off in the heat, obviously trying to impress Hana with his muscles. She smirked at his antics. “I heard Logan threaten to bury Michael for driving me round on the quad bike. Are you going for a full execution or something?”

  Tama laughed. “Na, he loves me, which is more than that dick of a father, Michael does. He threatens but he don’t follow through wiv me.”

  “You’d better hope not,” Hana told him as she gathered the tubers into her basket, her belly hanging uncomfortably between her thighs. The backache pulled dreadfully. Tama carefully lifted the plants aside with the fork, trying not to damage the delicate tubers.

  “He’s hit me once though,” Tama volunteered. “In the face.”

  Hana looked horrified and he laughed it off. “It was recently, when he found out I hit that teacher bloke. I think Logan was mostly upset that he got locked up for it. He would have hated being confined; like a caged bull.” Tama sniggered with no sign of guilt.

  “You nearly brain damaged poor Boris!” Hana cried and Tama shrugged.

  “He was an idiot. Even I know you don’t borrow money from Larne to gamble with. And he told Laval you lived in Huntly. He deserved it.”

  Hana shook her head as she rolled the potatoes in her hands to get the loose dust off. “Promise me you’ll behave from now on?” she asked Tama. He stopped digging in surprise, his dark eyebrows raised and his grey eyes curious.

  “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t know.” Hana looked at Tama with her honest emerald eyes. “I don’t have to, if you don’t want me to.”

  He bit his lip and looked thoughtful. “I want you to,” he replied with frightening intensity.

  Miriam was back in the kitchen when Tama carried the potatoes in, after he and Hana washed them in the mudroom. Miriam kissed him fondly on the cheek as Tama laid the basket on the counter. Hana watched them together, missing her own children. She wondered if Miriam had always known Tama was her grandson, even when he appeared to be the son-of-a-nephew, whom Logan had taken pity on. Hana looked again and saw an established, long-term relationship, not something new or recent. As the old woman ruffled the teenager’s hair and jovially pinched his bicep, she was left in no doubt that Miriam knew all along, even when Tama had no idea. So many lies, she thought sadly to herself.

  Daylight slid away from the mountain around nine that night and the sound of people returning filled the valley, horses trotting and neighing, cars or quad bikes shuddering to a halt, making their way home as night claimed the bush.

  Hana went to bed early. The windows were open along the landing at the end of the hallway and in the far distance came the sound of raucous laughter. She stood by an open sash window and leaned on the sill, her face and hair disturbed by the gentle breeze which coursed through from the mountains around the hotel. A soft hum of male voices made a comforting sound, broken and startled by a shout or a roar of laughter. The men were having fun somewhere. They took shifts to keep the farm running but it was Christmas Eve tomorrow and they were determined to enjoy themselves. Hana wondered if her husband was with them or if he was the one working in the darkness somewhere. She missed him and regretted pushing him away. “Sorry, sweetheart,” she told the empty night. “Please come home.”

  Hana Du Rose was a dreadful confidence keeper, especially when it was as important as this, when any slip of the tongue could bring another’s world crashing down around their ears. Inwardly she knew she would have to keep this particular secret to her grave or break the terrible news gently at a better time. Once in bed, she lay awake trying to work out strategies for doing just that. It was that or get divorced and she wasn’t about to sacrifice her marriage entirely, not for someone else’s error of judgement. “Nine years of guarding your infidelity, Vikram Johal,” she whispered to the ghost of her late husband. “And now I’ve rid myself of that, I’ve gone and got another lie to maintain.”

  Hana slept fitfully, weighed down by the cares of those around her. The bathroom light flickered in the power surges, disturbing her with the knowledge Logan wasn’t back.

  At two o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve, Hana woke alone and sad. Logan was still absent and she stole his pillow to put under her stomach, trying to get more comfortable. As she lay there fully awake, a dreadful unease filled her. She tried to pray, but the feeling of urgency got stronger then. In the end, she got up.

  Opening the doors onto the balcony and stepping out into the balmy night air, Hana smelled it straight away. It was acrid like rubber and burning tyres. She froze, trying to get her bearings and work out what it meant and then like a whisper from a long way away, she picked up the sound of shouting on the breeze. It came in stilted, distorted noises as the wind broke up and dispersed it, but it was enough to make Hana realise something bad was happening.

  She kept Logan’s shirt on but quickly pulled on a pair of maternity pants. Grabbing her trainers, Hana flung her jandals out of the way, not knowing how far she might have to travel to find whatever was wrong. Whirling around the corner on the darkened landing,
she ran smack into Liza, who was heading the same way. “There’s a bush fire!” Hana said, her voice strangled.

  Liza nodded and the unspoken pact was made. They would find the commotion together. They traversed the upstairs of the huge house quickly, the judge proving to be surprisingly fit and Hana puffing behind, trying to increase her speed by keeping one hand underneath her rounded belly. She stumbled on the spiral staircase and Liza looked back at her, not out of concern but irritation. “Don’t hold me up or I’ll leave you!” she bit.

  They burst outside into the courtyard and the smell rode over them like a tide. Liza knew it. “House fire!”

  In the stable yard, the quad bike sat near the tack room. The security light flashed on showing the key was still in it and Liza cranked it into action in seconds with deft, unruffled fingers. Hana glanced around, looking and listening for frightened, crashing horses but they were all out, grazing in paddocks way away, enjoying their few days out of work for the year.

  By the time Hana reached the quad, Liza was gunning the power and she had to cling on and try to sit down on the already moving vehicle. It’s dull green paintwork looked eerie in the darkness as they spun away from the hotel and up the steep paddocks. Liza made Hana get out and open the gates the first few times, but she was slow and didn’t know which side the locks were on. “You’re so useless!” Liza screamed at her. “What does he see in you? Oh, get out of the damn way!” After the third one, she did it herself.

  They screeched around the front of the bunkhouse where the men lived. All the lights were on, but the doors were open wide and the place deserted. The smell was much stronger there but the building was intact and Liza wouldn’t let Hana out to check for occupants. “There’s obviously nobody here,” she snapped. “And if there is, they’re not the ones burning, are they?” She gunned the quad back out of the driveway and carried on high up into the bush.

  As they got closer, the smell became overpowering and an unfamiliar racket which had begun as fractured noise down at the hotel, became louder and more pronounced. A sinister crackling accompanied shouts and calls and a dreadful fear lodged itself in Hana’s heart and stayed there. “Oh God!” she whispered, desperately needing the divine help. The quad ground to a halt in a clearing where there was already a Jeep parked sideways blocking the gate. Liza turned it off and abandoned it; the vehicle unable to go any further. She vaulted the gate, leaving Hana to clamber over with her outsize belly constantly getting in the way.

  She puffed behind Liza in the dark. It was pitch black but Liza seemed confident of the way and they followed a fence line for ten minutes of hard climbing. Several times Hana slipped, gripping hold of the boundary to save herself. Her right hand was a pattern of barbed wire cuts and splinters, but she gritted her teeth and powered on as best she could. A sickening orange light pulled them towards it and black smoke billowed over their heads more urgently as they ascended, making them both cough and stop to cover their faces.

  Hana gripped for the fence and suddenly found it missing. She almost tumbled forward, saving herself at the final moment and ending up on her backside on the hard ground. The fence posts had been ripped out by strong hands and the whole thing laid down on the ridge it once divided, like a ribbon folded effortlessly down. Liza trampled carefully over it in her tennis shoes, gingerly avoiding the spiteful wire and then clambered down a steep bank to what looked like a lime chipped driveway beneath. Even in the darkness it looked shabby and unkempt, weeds poking through into the orange, glittering light. Liza didn’t wait for Hana, leaving her to struggle through alone. “Thanks for your help,” Hana muttered sarcastically. The pregnant woman slipped down the bank, feeling her sore back jar and twist but kept going. The descent felt perilous and Hana soldiered on, gripping hold of grass which came out in her hand and banging herself on trees to break her fall. At the bottom, she sat puffing and exhausted, cupping her stomach in her bleeding hands and waiting for the pain to pass.

  The low, wooden house that Logan once shown her through the trees, was nearing a blackened shell at one end. Hana recognised the silhouettes of several of the men from the stable yard as they held hosepipes on the burning structure. Her heart restarted properly as she heard a shout and recognised her husband’s commanding voice. “Thank you God!” she clapped her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob.

  Liza made it to a small knot of people over on a tatty, threadbare lawn. Hana saw Miriam’s frail outline, silhouetted against the orange blaze. The air burned hot with the effects of the superheated house and Hana sweated underneath her shirt. Liza put her arm protectively around her mother and it was then Hana saw her mother-in-law’s shoulders heave with racking sobs. She buried her face in Liza’s shoulder. “Why?” Hana heard her wail. “Why?”

  Hana lifted the bottom of her shirt up to her mouth and nose to block the awful smoke and acrid fumes billowing out from burning plastic and electrics. Her bare skin poked out through the gap, her baby bump vulnerably exposed. She tried to do a head count, but it was pointless as she didn’t know half the people.

  Hana looked for Reuben’s strong outline but didn’t see him. She heaved herself to a standing position and approached the knot of onlookers. “Is everyone out?” she asked Liza, but the judge ignored her and concentrated her efforts on consoling her fragile parent. As Miriam’s wailing increased, she shot an unveiled look of disdain at Hana, which made the other woman quail.

  The men rushed around calling to each other, directing their hosepipes or throwing their buckets at the fire. Hana saw Logan again and felt like some awful voyeur, standing by watching a disaster without helping. She fought the urge to rush to him for comfort as he unwound a length of hosepipe, but feared he would shout at her to get out of the way. Hana felt utterly powerless and stood rooted guiltily to the spot, coughing and spluttering inside the cloth of her shirt.

  Just as the heat became unbearable and Hana decided in the interests of her own safety she needed to move, the disaster was compounded by the water running out. “No, no!” someone shouted as in turn, the jets of water stilled and stopped.

  “The power’s gone!” someone else yelled. “The water pump has packed up.” The second man hurled his pipe to the ground in frustration and Hana recognised Toby.

  The two huge water tanks that serviced the house with rainwater spluttered their last and the battle against the fire ended. An air of resignation descended on the crowd of helpers, as one by one they dropped their hoses and backed away.

  “What about the fire brigade?” Hana cried out desperately and Liza turned and sneered at her.

  “How?” She pointed to a narrow, ill-maintained driveway which had overgrown to little more than the width of a small car. Huge rocks and potholes made it almost impassable.

  As the men backed away, silently, carefully, like a death march in reverse, Miriam screamed and thrashed against Liza’s thin arms. “Let me go!” she howled into the flickering light. Hana watched in morbid fascination as the older woman pushed and raved at her daughter, not caring that she hurt Liza. She clawed and scratched, breaking away finally in a rush which left Liza sprawling on the ground. Hana broke out of her trance and pulled her sister-in-law up by the arm and Liza tried to follow her mother, reaching the superhot glow as the damaged end of the building gave up its battle against gravity and sank to the earth in a haze of black dust and victorious flames.

  “No!” Hana shrieked, gripping Liza’s arm fiercely and hauling her back out of danger with superhuman strength. The fire celebrated, throwing its flames high and wide like arms dancing in glee, as Miriam ran unchecked into the centre of it.

  There was a hush of horror and numbness as everyone around the fire tried to comprehend what just happened. Then like the crack of a whip, several of the men rushed forward, one grabbing Liza as she escaped Hana and battled the heat, blindly following her mother out of instinct. Hana saw three of the stockmen wrestle Logan to the ground and Michael came out of nowhere and sat on Tama, who screamed and
cried with animalistic terror, “Karani!” Grandmother. His voice cried out into the horror and Hana felt his heart snap.

  Hot tears coursed down Hana’s face, not lasting more than a few seconds in the searing heat. She balled up the bottom of the shirt and stuffed it into her mouth to stop the awful cries which threatened to break her in half. Why would Miriam do that? How could she? But she knew the answers and it didn’t help at all.

  Hana stood alone and watched the awful scene unfold. Her chest heaved with her tears and her green eyes glinted emerald against the myriad of colours produced by the fire. There was a bang as a gas tank exploded and shot into the air, showering the scene with molten debris. As the fire engulfed the house, a small knot gathered under a stand of trees comforting each other. Hana watched them, feeling detached and isolated as the men consoled one another. One lone woman stood in her nightdress, clutching a small boy. Reuben’s son, Nev Du Rose wrapped his arms around them and Hana’s chest hitched. Nobody came to put their arms around her.

  Michael sat on his son until Tama’s fight had gone and Hana saw him drag his arm across his eyes many times as she watched powerlessly.

  Logan ran again for the fire, but one of the stockmen took a swipe at him, laying him out cold on the ground. Hana knew she should do something but didn’t know what. Men hovered over his prone body, slapping his face until he stirred and sat up groggily. He doesn’t need me. Hana cast her eyes around, feeling the furious heat and wanting to run from the horror. The steep bank loomed behind her and she baulked at the thought of the excruciating climb back up.

  “You can do this,” she encouraged, turning and facing the supplejack covered ridge. The vines glinted in the firelight and conspired to make it harder for her. Then she spotted him, a familiar lonely silhouette, highlighted by the orange light and defined by the darkness of the trees behind him. Alfred.