by K T Bowes
Chapter 9
The deserted school grounds condemned Hana by the time she and Gwynne returned. The final bell sent boys dribbling onto waiting buses, leaving the building and grounds silent. “I’m in so much trouble,” Hana muttered under her breath.
Gwynne patted her shoulder and smiled with paternal reassurance. “I’ll square it away. Don’t worry.”
Hana found her car keys sitting amidst a pile of detritus on her desk. Sheila had raided each of Hana’s drawers in her errand of mercy and created a mountain of stationary to be sorted through and replaced. But Hana’s truck stood where she left it that morning, sporting a brand new windscreen. A note stuck to her monitor told Hana she owed Sheila fifty dollars for the windscreen excess.
Donald, the formidable director of administration and Hana’s boss, accepted her apology for the desertion of her post. He answered the telephone call and told her to go home. Unbeknown to Hana, Alan Dobbs didn’t extend the same disregard for Gwynne’s casual abandonment of his notorious Year 10 class. “I taught them myself,” he boomed, traumatised by the experience and his blonde wig on sideways. “Do they always behave like that?”
Gwynne refrained from commenting, apologising in the face of a fury he’d encountered numerous times. Experience told him it would blow over once Dobbs realised he wouldn’t argue back. Dobbs resorted to cruelty instead. “I don’t know why you’re wasting time on that admin assistant. Anyone can see she’s not interested in you.”
Gwynne set his jaw but refused to engage, waiting until Dobbs ran dry and then exiting as the man became bored with his passive opponent.
Back in the student centre, Hana contemplated her ransacked desk and upended belongings. She tinkered with the paperwork littered around the fringes of the mess, remembering her new year’s resolutions filled with courage and fresh new starts. Her mind strayed back to the tearful young constable who broke the news of Vik’s accident to her eight years before. The female probationer cried for Hana’s loss, great tears of sadness rolling down cheeks filled with horror. She knew Shelley didn’t remember. Perhaps it was better that way.
Hana walked into her kitchen just in time to stop her daughter disconnecting the phone call. “Mum, I love the sleep-suit. Elizabeth looks cute in it,” Isobel gushed. As they chatted, Hana grappled one-handed in her handbag for the photograph she fought so hard to keep possession of, deciding it was worth the cuts and bruises. Her stunning daughter smiled up from the creased picture, cradling her newborn in a possessive embrace. Baby Elizabeth’s name meant ‘the fullness of God.’ She’d already brought joy to her family and the tiny church Izzie’s husband pastored in Invercargill. Her name countered the frail understanding of people who would always view Elizabeth as incomplete. Her Down syndrome made her half an able person to them, instead of the complete, but handicapped blessing she would always be.
“I miss you all. Give Beth a kiss for me and I suppose you’d better give that errant husband of yours a hug. I know he’ll expect one.” Hana sounded wistful, her fingers straying to her throat as the picture fluttered to the table. Isobel rang off leaving her mother feeling empty and contemplating a long soak in the bath, a well-deserved glass of wine and the remains of a novel.
Bubbles pumped into the deep bath and the room assumed the lovely mist accompanying the promise of luxury. Sipping her wine, Hana felt vibrations through the floor and heard the ominous sound of the garage door opening downstairs. The motor whirred, hinges clanked and a car crunched over the plastic pegs she dropped that morning as she flung washing over the indoor line. Hana snatched up her dressing gown, fumbling to cover herself. Voices echoed downstairs and the garage door closed with a whir and a grunt. She halted at the top of the stairs, holding her breath and trying to hear over the pounding of her heart in her ear drums.
Bodie’s face appeared around the stairwell, his short, clipped black hair and his smart policeman’s uniform making him appear even younger than his twenty-six years. He smiled and chatted over his shoulder to someone following him up the stairs from the garage. As they appeared one by one, three more startled men stared up at the terrified woman clad in a dressing gown. Embarrassed, Hana pulled it closer round her body and swallowed, unable to speak.
“Mum?” Bodie stared at her in curiosity, picking up her fear like an invisible thread. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” Hana yanked the gown under her throat to hide the fading bruises and stem her humiliation. “I didn’t realise it was you.”
“I rang the school earlier. The receptionist said she’d pass on my message.” He continued to climb the stairs and reaching her level, held out his arms to her. His body felt rigid with suspicion. “Who else could it be?”
Mortified by her state of undress, Hana allowed him to fold her into his embrace.
“Nobody. The receptionist didn’t mention it. I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded muffled by Bodie’s smart uniform.
“Mum, it’s fine.” He eyed her with a veiled expression which reminded Hana of his adolescent secrecy. The master of spin, he could always justify why the bedroom she sent him to tidy, looked no different after an hour of apparent cleaning. He indicated his companions with a nonchalant wave of his arm. “We’re here to look for something in the river. We could get a hotel or go into the boarding house, but I hoped we could bunk here?”
“How many are we?” Hana replied, covering her awkwardness with a joking tone.
“Oh, just us four,” Bodie replied. He shared Vik’s Indian features and turbulent nature, growing more like his father as he matured. The reminder caused Hana’s heart to clench in pain and she nodded in acceptance of the plan, eager to be out of the spotlight.
The sound of the bathwater still running called her back from the past. Hana moved towards the bathroom calling over her shoulder, “Of course you can stay. The beds are ready.”
As she shut the bathroom door, Hana heard Bodie sorting out rooms and people. She smiled at the thought of having her son home for a few days and the temporary abatement of the paralysing loneliness. She sank into the steaming hot bubbles and soothed away the cares and bruises of the past few days, analysing Bodie’s words and particularly the ones he didn’t say. He wasn’t in Hamilton to look for something in the Waikato River, but someone. She shook off the ghoulish memory of Vik’s grey face on the mortuary slab and immersed herself under the welcoming foam.
Later, after his colleagues went to bed, Bodie broached the bruising on Hana’s neck and the cut lip which still oozed when she smiled. Hana gave him her account of the attempted bag snatch and subsequent broken windscreen. “I can’t think of anyone who might be upset with me,” she mused. “But two incidents directed at me is strange.” Her pretty face clouded with confusion and Bodie shook his head.
“It’s more than coincidental, but why you? Why now?” He made her describe her attackers again, but time warped the memory and turned them both into monsters. Hana found to her surprise, she remembered little of use.
“They took the boy into custody but I don’t know what happened to him in court.” Hana sighed. “Gwynne thought he’d get a few hours’ community service and disappear.”
Bodie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, public perception is a bummer.”
Later on when the house was dark and closed up for the night, Hana heard him moving around downstairs in the garage, looking over her people mover and inspecting the window replacement. In the peace of the silent garage, disturbed only by the occasional night noises of passing cars or chirping crickets, Bodie nosed around the familiar vehicle and turned the story over in his head. “What’s the link?” he muttered to himself, searching for connections which seemed futile.
He leaned against the wall, gritting his teeth at the memory of the cut lip Hana tried to blank out with makeup and the livid red and black bruise on her neck, which moved into sight when she tilted her head. “Two attacks in a short space of time.” His voice echoed into the cavernous space. “Something’s not right. This isn’t c
oincidence.”
Sleep proved elusive for the policeman as he lay in his childhood bed. The light blue paint gleamed in the moonlight and through the open curtains the stars winked in merry oblivion. “Geez!” He ran a hand through his dark hair and tried to distract himself from the morning’s ominous task, rendering the features of the missing elderly grandmother to just another emotionless job. Her fluffy white hair and sweet face wafted past his inner vision, blending with Hana’s injuries, her smiling face interchanging with his mother’s. “Stop!” he hissed into the darkness and put his hands over his ears, pressing his face into the pillow.
Hana didn’t sleep well either. The house creaked and groaned with the additional guests and every sound woke her with a start of fear. But company over breakfast lifted her spirits and her son’s cooking involved most of the contents of the fridge and pantry. Hana’s hospitable child made his usual brand of chaos in the kitchen as he served his colleagues a decent breakfast, intended to sustain them until dinner. “How long have you all been diving?” Hana asked, making conversation as she buttered her toast.
The youngest police officer, Jarrad, answered first. “I’m new to the team but the others are showing me the ropes.” He pushed bacon into his mouth. “I can’t eat lunch when I’m diving.” He swallowed and looked apologetic. “It makes me throw up.”
“Right,” Hana replied, shuddering at what he might discover in the depths of the mighty river which could turn a grown man’s stomach.
“Yeah, you’re not meant to,” Graeme commented with his mouth full of bacon. The older policeman winked at Hana. “There’s a lag time after you’ve eaten but we tag team so it works out okay. We’re on a time limit with this dive though. They’ve given us two days and we’ll be pushed to get the area covered.”
Jarrad sighed. “Our last dive was in a lake up north. That was pitch black and in an old quarry, kilometres deep. The river’s shallow compared to that.”
“What were you looking for?” Hana asked, almost missing the frantic shake of her son’s head at the younger man. She regretted the question. Bodie’s work over the last five years included retrieving bodies and objects from water courses all over New Zealand. He’d wanted to do nothing else since his first day of diving in an outdoor education class at school and followed his dreams despite Hana’s concerned opposition. Watching him fulfil his probationary period in Hamilton, Hana had lured herself into a false sense of security. It seemed he enjoyed general policing in the sprawling city, but a late night phone call preceded his hurried transfer north to the dive team. Despite the advanced warning, his sudden move both perplexed and worried Hana. Something happened, but she doubted she’d ever discover what.
An older, plain clothes officer accompanied the dive team. “Just call me Odering,” he said, watching Hana with interest. Blonde, smartly dressed and quiet, he exuded efficiency even in the consumption of his cereal. An air of tension and expectation hovered around the men and as seven o’clock approached, Odering became twitchy and silent, readying himself to leave.
“You okay?” Hana asked Bodie, knotting a different scarf at her throat.
He nodded and offered her a wooden smile. “Yeah. We just get on with it.” His words held a quiet resignation of horrors seen and dealt with, but not forgotten. Even the bright, clear day could deliver a grisly discovery. The divers grew somber as they mentally prepared themselves to enter the threatening Waikato and persuade it to release its secrets. “Right boys, into the breach,” Bodie said, rounding up the men. “See you tonight, Mum. Can we take you out for dinner?”
“Depends if we find her,” Odering muttered and Hana paused in confusion.
“I’ll be at work and then home around four,” she said, feeling silly at the policeman’s look of amusement. An involuntary shiver rocked her body as she realised what he meant. The lost item in the depths of the Mighty Waikato was a woman.
The police car slipped from the garage, reversing onto the quiet cul-de-sac and alarming the woman next door as she hustled her children into the waiting people carrier. The two older children ceased their bickering, temporarily silenced at the sight of the smart police officers. They looked at their frantic, frazzled mother for reassurance as she stuffed the grizzling baby into his car seat. The children stared after the retreating vehicle, silenced by the automatic guilt a police car engendered. “Do you think Mrs Next-door was arrested?” the boy asked and his sister shrugged. The poor mother, comforted by the sudden decrease in volume and remembering she left the baby’s milk bottle in the microwave, slammed the side door and scurried off up the garage steps to retrieve it. The baby wailed while its siblings pulled knowing faces at each other. Then they resumed their important dispute.
“Give me back my toy frog!”
“No! You threw it at me.”
Metres away in the upstairs kitchen, Hana finished wiping crumbs from the surfaces and tidying. The house trained visitors took care of most of their own mess. Just like his father though, Bodie inherited the need to use every plate, cup and item of cutlery in his grand culinary masterpieces. Hana dropped a tablet into the dishwasher and set it cleaning the plates.
She cracked open the high kitchen windows to let out the cooking aromas, stealing a moment to admire the early morning mists shrouding the mottled hills of the Hakarimata Ranges. It promised to be a fine, blue-sky day with temperatures pushing back into the late twenties. Hana wondered if she’d see the English teacher on his regular shift in the Year 13 common room and felt a flicker of excitement. Keeping loneliness and rejection at bay, Hana armed the burglar alarm and set off for work in the heavy traffic weaving its way like a fuming, metallic snake to the south end of town. “There’s nothing wrong with admiring him from a distance,” she told herself.