“I’m going for a run,” Hana said, dragging her trainers from the hall cupboard and slipping them onto her feet. “I won’t be long.”
“Whoa, what?” Logan’s face crinkled in surprise as fastened the buttons of his work shirt. His belt hung unfastened from open trousers and Hana allowed her eyes to rove over the beautiful physicality of her relationship with Logan. “Hana!” he snapped. “Why are you going for a run?”
“I’m unfit,” she stated, hearing the defensiveness in her tone. “Jogging home last night made me feel like a geriatric and I hate it. I was walking with Mrs Next Door but as that can’t happen anymore, I’m taking responsibility for myself.”
“But you walk everywhere with the pram,” Logan said, wrapping his arms around Hana’s trim waist. “You’re perfect as you are.” He kissed her neck, pushing her pony tail out of the way with his chin. “I can help you with cardio workouts,” he whispered and Hana giggled and slapped his shoulder.
“Yeah, I bet you can,” she joked. “I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Well, take your bloody phone this time,” Logan chided her. “You left it last night.”
Hana fell over Tama reaching for her phone as he roused himself from his nest on the lounge floor. “Can you tidy up in here before I come back?” she asked, keeping her tone light, so she didn’t drive him away. “You can dump your sleeping stuff in Phoe’s room.”
“But I wanna lie on my sleeping bag and watch TV in the day,” he grumbled and Hana sighed.
“Whatever,” she said, resisting an argument and left.
As Logan pulled his boots on to leave, a knock at the door heralded Bodie. Logan opened the door and the policeman pushed his way inside without invitation. “Oh, hi Senior Sergeant Johal,” Logan muttered. “Please come in. Oops, you already did.” He ignored his step son, zipping up his cowboy boots and straightening his trousers. Tama smirked from his sleeping bag on the floor, tasting trouble.
“Will you be ok if I go to work?” Logan asked his nephew and Tama nodded. He leaned against the sofa with Phoenix dozing on his naked brown chest, half watching Scooby Doo. He sensed his uncle’s antagonism for the cop and tuned into Logan’s mood. Watching him keep a tight handle on his temper was always amusing, but only when someone else wound him up.
“Where’s my mother?” Bodie demanded, tracking mud over the lounge floor and staring down at Tama.
Tama’s eyes flicked towards Logan before answering, waiting for the blue touch paper to ignite and the fireworks to blaze. Logan stared at the back of Bodie’s head, his eyes narrowed and his expression thunderous. “Hey, son,” Logan said in a conversational tone, concentrating on Tama’s smirk and bypassing Bodie with his question. “Do you think it’s the same penalty for hitting a cop, as hitting an annoying cop you’re indirectly related to when he walks into your house without invitation?”
“Na, reckon you’d get off with a caution,” Tama answered, distracted by the antic of the cartoon characters. “Go for it.” His lips brushed the downy head of the baby on his chest in a lazy kiss and Bodie swallowed and bit his lip in a wave of pure jealousy.
“Can I help you Officer?” Logan said, giving Bodie the full effect of his practiced sarcasm and the police officer straightened his back and headed towards the archway leading to the bedrooms.
“No, thanks. I’ll find her myself,” he spat. “I need to take a statement from my mother.” Bodie emphasised possession with his stress on ‘my’ and Logan stepped in front of him, blocking the archway without making it look deliberate.
“She’s gone out,” he replied, his face expressionless. “See her later.”
“Fantastic!” Bodie exclaimed spitefully. “Tell her I need to speak to her.” As the young cop turned, he caught the smirk exchanged between the Māori men and felt a dreadful pang of nameless emotion which took his breath away and labelled itself. Left out. The men’s close male bond looked so enviably strong, jealousy screamed inside Bodie’s head like a charging rhino. “Stay out of my life!” he shouted at Logan, surprising himself with the vehemence in his voice.
Phoenix jumped on Tama’s chest and gave a cry of alarm, compounding Bodie’s guilt as the monster of the peace. Logan stood his ground, watching the young man’s inner difficulty and wondering if the moment of truth had finally arrived. It had brewed under the surface like dirty water since their first meeting, when Bodie realised his mother and the tall, striking Māori were emotionally entangled.
Logan imagined Hana’s misery if he allowed the detonation and stepped back, offering Bodie the chance to walk away. Bodie didn’t move. “Just go mate,” Logan said, his tone reasonable, but the young man’s anger claimed too many of his brain cells for that to be possible.
“You think you can buy your way into my family?” Bodie hissed. “Sending stuff for my son and flashing your cash around like the Mafia Godfather you really are. You’ll never replace my father, so don’t even try! He was more than you’ll ever be, Logan Du bloody Rose. You’re second best and even my mum knows it.”
Logan fixed Bodie with a stare which made the young man feel as though his soul was stripped bare by the powerful grit coloured eyes drilling into it. Logan took a step into Bodie’s personal space and stared at him from his great vantage point. Bodie felt intimidated as though he’d shrunk against the doubling of the other man’s height. “Your father was amazing, was he?” Logan asked, his voice a hiss. Bodie blanched and balled his fists as Vikram Johal’s sins tumbled through his mind.
Tama wiggled in his sleeping bag, trying to get free as he envisioned the situation getting out of control. He couldn’t get involved with Phoenix in his arms and looked around for somewhere safe to put her. Wide awake, the child stared across the room at her powerful father as he dwarfed her foolish, cop-brother, her grey eyes studying Logan with too much wisdom for a tiny girl. Logan glanced across at Tama’s frantic movements and connected spiritually with his daughter. Her eyes held his grandmother’s reproach as surely as if the old woman stood across the room from him. The battle of wills ceased as instantly as it began and Logan stepped abruptly away from Bodie and drew a deep breath. “I don’t know why you insist on maintaining this facade of ‘poor me’,” Logan said, trying hard to keep the bile from his voice. “You had a great upbringing with parents who both loved you. You know who you are and where you came from. You’ve had more love than Tama and I put together. You need to get over yourself, Bodie and get on with your own life, instead of trying to screw up Hana’s. She doesn’t deserve it. You might not like me, but I love her. Get used to it, man.” He pointed again at the door, telling the uniformed officer, “Now get the hell out of my...house and don’t come back until you’ve grown up.”
Bodie didn’t need a third invitation to leave. He yanked the door open and stormed down the steps, hatred oozing from every pore. He didn’t close the door after him and strode away from the tiny unit feeling thwarted. Overtaken by a need for physical violence to cleanse his angry heart, Bodie had worked out exactly how to take Logan down and would have arrested him afterwards. Rage coursed through his veins at Logan’s sudden change of heart which denied Bodie the taste of victory as he imagined clicking the handcuffs over his step father’s olive wrists. “Another time, you bastard!” he spat into the empty street, hearing his words echo back to him from the brick walls of St Bart’s. The young man stamped across the sports field, feeling foolish as the wet grass stained his trousers and covered his shoes. He remembered the last time a cop handcuffed Logan Du Rose and the cruel image bit at his anger; the metallic pressure on the Māori’s fragile flesh causing wheals and bruises which bled into his arms like he’d been battered. Bodie balled his fists and felt the anger trickle away to dismay. He pressed his knuckles to his mouth as he stopped on the hallowed cricket crease and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, searching for the fury and finding only emptiness and fear.
Tama stood in the lounge in his boxer shorts, his sleeping bag slumped around his knees. Logan slammed the door behind his unwanted guest and hovered in the tiny entranceway, clenching and unclenching his fists. He avoided facing his perceptive daughter, dreading the sight of something else he couldn’t cope with.
“Ha ha,” Tama laughed, breaking the silence. “That’s funny.”
Logan stared at him, his equilibrium fighting to balance temper and pity. “What’s funny?” he snapped. “I didn’t see anything funny!”
“I know what you almost said to him,” Tama snorted. “You nearly told him to ‘get the hell out of my shoebox’ didn’t you?” Tama did an impression of Logan’s deep voice and then ruined the effect with a high pitched giggle.
“Yeah.” Logan nodded and gathered up the pile of reports on the table. He stalked across the room and kissed Phoenix on the forehead, avoiding her eyes and in his confusion, kissing Tama’s as well. He couldn’t take it back so he blagged it out, leaving for his tutor group and slamming the door behind him.
Tama touched the space on his head and smiled at the baby in his arms, who chewed the back of her hand. “Well, little sis,” he said, happiness in his voice, “I think it’s time we changed your bum, stinky pants!”
When Hana returned, she found Phoenix on her change mat on the double bed, kicking her legs in the air and singing. Tama knelt on the floor in his boxer shorts, digging around in the big cupboard drawers and pulling out baby-suits by the handful. “What are you doing?” Hana cried. “You’re making a right mess!”
“They’re all too small,” Tama wailed, flinging another one on the floor. His fingers reached into the drawer above.
“Don’t even think about it!” Hana snapped. “That’s my knicker drawer!” She slapped his hand and Tama pouted. Hana bundled up the baby clothes and folded them on the bed. “I meant to take these to the op shop when I went yesterday,” she said, touching the soft fabric and feeling maudlin. Phoenix burbled next to her and Hana blew a raspberry on her round, olive tummy. “You’re such a big girl,” she cooed, her kisses received with squeals of appreciation.
“That’s not a compliment,” Tama grumbled.
“I don’t put your sexual intonation on everything though, do I?” Hana replied with sarcasm, rubbing her wrist across her forehead and seeming surprised by the line of sweat. “I’m so unfit, it’s crazy. I did more walking than running.”
“How far did you get?” Tama flopped onto the bed crossways, watching the baby suck her little toes in between singing. He put his face too near and she made a lurch for his head, grabbing a handful of hair and pulling surprisingly hard. Tama squealed and tickled her under the arms, making her let go.
“Not very far,” Hana admitted. “I feel old.”
“You are old,” Tama replied unhelpfully and Hana slapped the back of his head. He ignored her, blowing raspberries on Phoenix’s tummy until she giggled, occupying her while Hana retrieved the new sleep suits from the towel rail in the bathroom. “Get a nappy on her please, Tama,” she said, pushing five suits into a drawer and holding up one with red cherries all over to admire. “I don’t want her to pee with excitement and soak her vest and hair like last time.”
“Ok,” he agreed. Hana swapped the cherries for teddy bears and turned to find the baby wearing a clean nappy and Tama prancing around the bed wearing his warlike face. He stuck his tongue out and Phoenix giggled fit to bust. She sounded like an air raid siren, the noise increasing in volume, holding and then winding down until Tama did the funny thing again.
“Please love, you need to stop doing that,” Hana whined, holding up the fluffy suit for his approval.
“But she loves it,” he said. “That’s cute.” He pointed at the suit and cavorted around the bed again, the baby’s eyes fixed on his antics.
“But next time Logan takes us to the marae and the pōwhiri begins, this child will be apoplectic in all the bits where you have to be quiet. Logan will be embarrassed. And if she wets herself like that during the haka, everyone will be offended.”
Tama stopped to concentrate and then grinned. “Yeah, but it’ll be so hilarious.” He bugged his eyes and stuck out his tongue and the baby’s face creased into hysterics. Hana slapped him on the backside and told him to get dressed. Phoenix tracked him out of the room with her eyes and then pulled a sad face. “Oh, stop it,” Hana told her, “it’s for your own good!”
Phoenix wasn’t impressed with Hana’s banishment of her entertainment and was uncooperative as her mother fitted tiny arms and legs into the cute little suit. Hana took her to the lounge for a feed, but already full of the breakfast rusk Logan fed her, she mucked around. “Tama, stop it!” Hana complained. “You’re distracting her.”
“I’m not,” he lied, popping behind the kitchen counter. Phoenix laughed and sicked up milk, thankfully onto the bib.
Over at the boarding house, Logan finally sat down with his reports, not looking forward to wading through them. He noticed with surprise they were back in departmental order, better still - in class order. A quick shuffle through showed they were not only in alphabetical order by student surname, but had also been corrected with a red pen in a gentle, slanting hand. Gratitude washed over him, appreciating the beautiful redhead who just saved him an hour’s work. He smiled and stroked the pages with tender fingers.
A knock on the door disturbed him and Logan ignored it, not bothering to examine the caller through the glass. The knock came again with more persistence and Logan stood and locked it, seeing Odering through the mirrored glass. “Piss off!” he shouted. “Go and mess with someone else; I don’t have the energy.”
“Open the bloody door, Du Rose!” Odering shouted, attracting attention from passing boys. Logan unlocked the office door and sat down, leaving the policeman to enter without invitation.
Logan shook his head. “I’ve had enough of you jokers for one day; I’m not in the mood, so go away.”
“Are we talking about Senior Sergeant Johal?” Odering asked softly. “Or me?” He pulled out a chair from the desk next to Logan’s and sat down. “I hope you got things sorted out with your wife last night.”
“Like you actually care!” Logan scoffed.
Odering leaned forward in the creaky seat. “You know something, Mr Du Rose. And I’d like you to share it.”
“Or else what?” Logan eyeballed him and the detective kept his cool, allowing himself to be observed by the piercing, grey eyes. Odering waited a few beats before answering. “Bodie Johal’s been recommended to me as a kind of ‘sidekick’ as I climb the greasy pole at HQ. I can take that recommendation or I can squash it. It’s up to you.”
Logan looked at the detective aghast, a smile breaking over his face. “The kid hates my guts,” he said in astonishment. “Why would you hand me his career on a plate? As my wife would say, ‘you’re barking’ and I’d agree with her.”
“Up to you, Mr Du Rose,” the cop said airily as though he didn’t care either way. “He saved your life last year jumping into that lake after you. If he hated you, he could have waited a few minutes so you drowned, but he didn’t. You decide, Logan. I’m offering you the power and I know that’s exactly how you like it; how you’ve always liked it.” Odering stood and wandered around the office, looking at the wonky pictures on the wall which Logan spent his life straightening. Year group photos smiled back at him, generations of boarding house boys doing other things with their lives decades later. Odering turned on his polished shoes and clicked over to the door, putting his hand on the handle and waiting. Logan’s hand brushed the pile of finished reports his wife had laboured over.
“Wait,” he said as Odering depressed the handle. The man froze in position, without turning around. “Does Bodie want this?”
Odering nodded his head, smiling to himself. “More than you have any idea, mate.” The detective’s voice was soft and lyrical.
Logan hesitated and cleared his throat. “I strongly recommend you take the drug dogs into the gully fairly quickly. It might have been moved, but I suspect there’s been significant activity down there recently. It’d be a great idea to bust that old shed open now too.” Logan turned back to his reports as Odering nodded his head once.
“The one by the tennis courts?”
“Yep.” Logan lowered his voice and told the Acting Detective Inspector in a clipped monotone, “If you double cross me on this, I’ll make your life impossible. You have no idea what kind of friends I have in high places; just so you understand me.” Logan picked up a pen, scribbling onto a blotter to make sure it worked.
The detective smiled broadly and his opponent heard it in his voice. “I think we understand each other perfectly, Logan. Haven’t we always?”
Odering left the boarding house smiling from ear to ear. He summoned Bodie and ordered him to break into the shed, using whatever it took. Then he called the dog squad and sent them into the gully.
Logan shook his head and thought about the Old Boys’ network. The old adage was true in New Zealand; it wasn’t what you knew, but who. Odering was two years older than Logan in school. He was one of the good guys but still broke Logan’s nose in a fight at the start of the younger boy’s fifth form year, after Michael bedded Odering’s younger sister. Michael possessed a terrible reputation, always staying out long after bedtime and getting other boys to cover for him. Karl Odering arranged a fight with Michael to defend his sister’s honour but as usual, the cowardly charmer sent his haemophiliac kid brother.
“Where’s your brother?” Odering demanded when faced with Logan. “Walk away, it’s not your fight.”
“He’s not here.” Logan’s grey eyes observed the older boy with cool detachment. “So it’s me or nothing.”
“I can’t fight you,” Odering said again, glancing around at the gathered audience. “It’s not a fair fight.”
Logan shrugged. “It’s me or nobody,” he repeated.
Logan beat the taller, bigger boy to a pulp, taking an unlucky elbow to the face and shattering his nose in two places. He bled profusely over his opponent, terrifying the onlookers enough to break ranks and find an adult. Logan leaned over Odering, his blood running into the other boy’s face and hissed, “Quits?”
Karl Odering nodded and they stood up, shook hands and walked away like it was nothing. Angus Blair appeared to clear up the mess and drove Logan to Auckland general hospital, yelling at him all the way there and all the way back. He would have continued his broad Scots diatribe during the procedure to set the boy’s nose and give him a factor eight infusion, had the nursing staff allowed him into the room.
Logan recognised Karl Odering the previous year when he appeared by Hana’s hospital bed after an attack. The ego dance began again, satisfying in a primitive, macho way. When angered, Odering revealed the scar above his left eyebrow which Logan caused with a well-timed head butt, and Odering enjoyed the slight kink in Logan’s nose when he was trying to concentrate.
The teacher took his sheaf of reports and strode to the main building to deliver them, his cowboy boots clicking against the road. He slapped them on Amanda’s desk and turned to walk away. “Logan,” she called out. “What are these?”
“Reports,” he said, his face blank. “Angus insists on seeing the quality of work his staff produce and he’ll love those. Not!” He jerked his head towards the sheaf of paper and turned again
“Logan!” Amanda raised her voice, sounding desperate. He stopped and stood still without turning around. “What can I do to make it right again?” Amanda asked. “I miss Hana.”
Logan’s movements were effortless as he walked back into her office and leaned over the desk towards Amanda. Something nasty and latent brooded in his eyes and she swallowed. The receptionist waggled her ears and ignored the ringing phone, hoping to hear gossip. Logan’s eyes made Amanda cringe with the intensity of his gaze. “I suggest,” he said quietly. “I suggest you work out who the good guys are, as opposed to the bad guys. And then remember to shaft the right ones.”
Amanda’s hopes plummeted and anger lit her pink cheeks with embarrassment. Her pupils dilated at Logan’s proximity and the musky scent of his aftershave. She wasn’t over her fantasy and he saw it in her face. “Stay away from us, Amanda,” he whispered and with a sad smile he left, taking the stairs up to the first floor three at a time on his long legs
Amanda sank into her office chair and put her head in her hands. She needed someone to look after Millie because there was an outbreak of diarrhoea at the nursery. Hana was her last hope. She shook her head at her own stupidity but the obsession refused to be banished and each sighting of Logan raced her heart and set her aquiver.
Logan’s Year 11 class lined up outside his room and automatically straightened as they watched him stride towards them. A boy checking out a ‘rateyourteacher’ app on his phone snorted. “Look at this,” he whispered to his friend. “These are hilarious. ‘Peter North runs like he’s got a rod stuffed up his arse.’ It’s signed, Cowboy.”
The boy next to him jabbed him in the ribs and he stopped and bit his lip as Logan looked at him in expectation. “Something you’d like to share, Mr Clarke?”
“Nothing, sir,” the boy gulped, switching the phone off and shoving it in his pocket. Logan unlocked the classroom and the boys filed in.
“Check his,” his mate begged in a whisper, as they sat at their desks.
“No point,” the boy mouthed back. “They’re all so scared of him, they only put nice stuff!”
Logan turned to the board and hid his smile. He loved that site. He checked it regularly and left the comment about Pete to see if he’d notice. Pete put a dodgy one back about Logan, but an administrator deleted it. Logan turned back to the class and rested his cowboy boot on the seat of the chair in front of him. He started teaching the finer points of the poetry of WB Yeats, with the faintest of crinkling around smiling eyes.