“It was so cool; I can’t wait to tell Ma how it went,” Tama gushed for the twelfth time between the outskirts of Auckland and the edge of Hamilton. “Never expected them to want me; I thought it was about them getting rid of applicants. My interviewer said I’m in the final five percent. There were over a hundred people at the first fitness test and they picked me!”
Logan looked sideways at the excited young man. He prayed to Hana’s God to give the kid a break, just this once. “Hey, mate, it’s gotta be your turn for something good to happen.” He let the teenager prattle on and on about the other interviewees who sat nervously waiting for their interview and the camaraderie already budding. Logan smiled to himself, crinkling the ugly scar at the side of his right eye and looking forward to the upcoming holidays.
“Where do you want to be until you leave?” he asked and Tama furrowed his brow.
“Are you going back to the hotel or staying in Hamilton?” He clapped his hands in excitement. “Because I leave in just under two weeks to start my training.” His eyes sparkled.
“I’ve told Hana she can choose,” Logan said, “so Culver’s Cottage or the hotel, but you’re welcome at both.”
“Hey, thanks Uncle,” Tama said. “She was talking about the hotel yesterday, so I guess she’s decided.”
“That’s awesome.” Logan grinned, thrilled his favourite place was slowly becoming hers. “I’m considering asking her father and his wife to join us as guests and maybe her brother.”
“I haven’t met him,” Tama commented.
“You will soon,” Logan replied with a smirk.
“Will you ask Leslie to look after Phoe while you’re at home?”
“Why?” Logan narrowed his eyes.
“To give Ma a break. She needs a proper rest; she looks permanently knackered.”
“No, she doesn’t!” Logan sounded offended and Tama changed the subject.
“Shall I pretend I didn’t get in?” He giggled. “Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll look really cut up and see how long I can trick her for.”
Logan shook his head and sighed, wondering when they young man would stop behaving like a child.
Logan parked outside the unit and Tama couldn’t contain himself. “That sad face is pathetic,” Logan called as the teenager struggled to look miserable.
“Hurry up!” Tama hissed. “I don’t wanna knock in case Phoe’s sleeping. Please, be quick!” He bounded up the steps like a gazelle.
“Idiot!” Logan laughed and threw him the keys. Tama burst into the unit and Logan ran smack into the back of him as the teenager ground to a halt in the tiny hallway. Standing by the window was a stranger, a tall, dark haired man with green eyes and he clutched Hana’s baby. Phoenix lay passively in his arms, a smudge of purple stuff around her tiny sleeping lips.
“What’re you doing?” Tama snapped, his body stiffening.
Logan put a restraining hand on his upper arm, pushing past and offering his hand to the stranger cradling his child. “Logan Du Rose,” he said politely. “I guess you must be Mark?”
Mark’s face lit up. “Yes, Hana’s...brother. Unfortunately, I need leave in a short while. I’m operating at four. Hana put pasta in the oven for everyone, but I turned it down an hour ago to stop it burning.”
“Is Hana in the bathroom or something?” Tama asked, still suspicious and fighting the urge to rip his adopted sister from the man’s arms. Mark shook his head and looked concerned.
“No. I’m worried about her actually. A man came by and asked her to go with him. She didn’t want to, but he persuaded her. I offered to look after Phoenix and she left after some deliberation. I’ve spent the last hour thinking it through and I’m certain she felt afraid. She gave me this odd stare as she left but I’m worried I read into it too much. We only just reconnected after almost three decades and I might be overreacting.” Mark winced, looking apologetic. “I’m very glad you’re here.” The surgeon seemed uncharacteristically flustered.
Logan shook his head. “Start at the beginning. Who came for her?”
Mark scratched his head, mussing his neat hair but not for the first time that afternoon. “I don’t think the man was called James because he intended to take her to see James. At least, she thought that’s who he meant and he agreed with it. His actual words were ‘a student’ and Hana provided the name.”
Logan ran his hands across his face, alarm bells sounding in peels in his head. Tama hadn’t moved but fixed his grey eyes on Mark’s face with terrifying intensity. “What did he look like?” He gnawed at his bottom lip and Logan shook his head.
“It’s not Laval, Tama. Don’t even go there. The old one’s banged up and the young one’s dead.”
“My goodness!” Mark’s tone contained horror. Tama repeated his question and Mark used his sharp surgeon’s mind to recall the details of the caller, picking up on the men’s panic. “I’m afraid short, balding and round will account for a lot of people,” he said, his eyes channelling fear.
Tama took a step towards Logan. “She wouldn’t leave Phoe, not after last time. No offence.” He raised his hand to placate Hana’s brother, who nodded.
“Yes, well clearly I have literally been left holding the baby and I really must go,” Mark said and Tama rolled his eyes at the polite English reserve.
“This is really bad, Uncle Logan.”
Logan stopped Tama’s rambling with a look and turned to Mark. “You’re right, the description’s no help. But you’re certain Hana knew the man.”
“Yes.” Mark chewed his lip. “Damn, I feel awful. She didn’t say his name although she knew him and there was a queer moment when he grabbed at her wrist and she yelped in pain. Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. I should’ve realised.”
Logan forced himself into action. “Son,” he said to Tama, “please look after your sister. Mark, you come with me. Tama, call Bodie or Odering and if you can’t get either of them, dial 111.” He threw his phone at the young man who caught it one handed.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, pointing to Hana’s abandoned phone next to the kettle. “She didn’t have a chance to take it.”
Tama swallowed, panicking as Mark tried to hand him the baby.
“The police will find her,” Mark said, shifting on his feet with anxiety. “I won’t be much use, I’m afraid.”
“You’re coming anyway,” Logan hissed and Mark’s eyes widened.
Logan kissed his child on her sleeping forehead and stuffed Hana’s phone in his pocket. Pushing Mark outside, he waved his arms in frustration. “Which way did they go?”
“That way,” Mark pointed definitively towards the tennis courts and the gully. He seemed sure and Logan set off at a fast jog, Mark pacing alongside after tying his shoelaces. Larry’s old shed door swung open and the men surprised a female cop who jumped, her striking blue eyes widening in alarm. A white suited man stood inside, fingerprinting the light switches.
“Did you see a woman go past here about an hour ago?” Logan asked, his breath coming quickly. “She’s slender and pretty with auburn red hair. She was with a guy, short, fat and bald.”
Mark winced at Logan’s description and the forensic cop nodded. “Yep, they went down there towards the gully. My colleagues cordoned off the right fork, but they went left anyway. I shouted, but they ignored me so if you see them, they need to come back up. There’s a police investigation.”
Logan ran his hand over his face, trying to keep a cool head while his heart screamed at him to react. “Tell Odering Hana Du Rose is missing. Someone came for her and she’s gone and we don’t think it was willingly.”
The forensic cop stopped brushing the doorframe and swore but the female reached for her radio. She looked familiar, but Logan had seen so many cops in the last week, he’d stopped noticing them. “I’m so sorry,” she said, looking embarrassed. “I heard Jake shout but my sergeant briefed me to stay at the shed until it was examined but I should’ve investigated.” She looked upset, turning away as the radio crackled on her stab vest.
“Go and see Tama,” Logan interrupted, moving backwards at a quickening pace. “He’s in the unit at the end with my daughter. He knows what the guy said before he took my wife.” Logan called the rest of his sentence over his shoulder as he pursued Mark onto the slope into the gully.
“Sorry, I couldn’t stand there talking when Hana might be hurt,” Mark puffed, his breathing laboured.
The men crested the slope and Logan stopped, dropping to his knees and staring at the ground. An image of Hana in the same spot a year ago misted his vision as he searched the wet ground for footprints. A summer breeze blew her red hair as she stared up at him from the gully floor and Logan felt the same desire to kiss her. “Bastard!” he shouted and struck the floor with a closed fist.
“What? What?” Mark panicked, treading the ground as Logan blinked to clear the image. He trampled the area, destroying evidence of Hana and Logan shoved at his shin in frustration. Mark’s shoe dislodged a stone and it skittered into the bush, thwacking off the bark of a native punga.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked with impatience, seeing only dead leaves and mud. Lots of mud. “The police will send dogs, won’t they?”
Logan shook his head. “Hana’s trainers were by the door this morning but not when we got home.”
“No, she slipped them on,” Mark confirmed.
Logan nodded, satisfied. “I bought them for her; they’ve got a distinctive mark underneath, a circle with an arrow through it. Look for that impression in the mud. Then we can track her without running around like idiots, wasting time.” He glared at Mark. “And I’m not waiting for the cops this time.”
Feeling chastised, Mark searched around for the pattern Logan described, seeing nothing but the muck of a wintery dirt track.
“Got it!” Logan called, moving off at speed. He ran along the track into the gully, the trees rising around the men and dimming the afternoon light. The noises changed from human-generated, distant cars, schoolboy shouts and laughter becoming feral; a mammal, a rustle, a bird call and the sense of being watched by myriad eyes. Mark shivered as the temperature dropped away from the face of the weak sun.
“I need to call the hospital and explain,” Mark hissed, feeling the need to whisper. Logan ignored him and Mark jogged behind, texting an apologetic message to his colleague and pleading emergency. Twice he slithered in the mud and almost overbalanced in his effort to right himself. It was hard going as thick treacle spread underfoot the nearer they got to the water level. Small tributaries gathered pace, running towards the Mighty Waikato River and joining in a watery embrace all over Hamilton city, sacrificing themselves into its massive volume unnoticed. Logan ran on like a sure footed mountain goat. Even though his cowboy boots had smooth, worn soles, he didn’t slip once and Mark huffed and puffed behind him, cursing his haphazard footing.
Stopping at a fork in the track Logan halted and dropped to his haunches, studying the churned mud with a bushman’s eye. Mark watched in amazement as he separated hundreds of student footprints doing cross country from the single, partially obscured trainer tread. The circle and arrow took a left fork and disappeared as though Hana evaporated. “Don’t follow me for a second.” Logan jumped off the track and onto a steep bank a few metres above it. He disappeared over a ridge and then called to Mark. “This way!”
The older man treated the bank as though it was a rock face and navigated it with care, impressive despite his daily advance towards sixty.
“We really should wait for the cops,” Mark whispered breathlessly as he caught up with him at the top of the ridge.
Logan shook his head dismissively. “No way. I’ll find Hana myself and deal with whoever’s with her.” His eyes flashed with dark danger, twinkling in the dappled light beneath the trees.
Mark looked apprehensive. “I’m not a particularly good fighter. I swore off violence for life after the incident with Vik. It knocked me sick for weeks afterwards, not to mention finishing my dwindling marriage for good.”
“Do I look like a man who cares?” Logan hissed, the whites of his eyes shining in the gloom. Mark shook his head and saw the latent fury in the Māori’s face.
“Fine,” he conceded. “At least I can offer you my medical services then.” He followed like a faithful puppy as Logan half ran, half slid down the ridge, jumping off into a pile of leaves to cushion his landing. Mark copied, trusting finally that the other man knew what he was doing. The sides of the gully rose above them, higher than anyone passing through the city would guess. In places, the ridges were unassailable, sheer muddy faces worn by the passing of flood waters or slow nagging streams, depending on the season and weather. The mud was thicker at the bottom than Mark thought possible and clasped hold of his feet, threatening to pitch him over. Orange mud covered Logan’s expensive slacks to the backs of his knees and his cowboy boots vanished in a veneer of syrupy muck.
She came at them running, slipping and sliding in the mud, way off the beaten track. Her hair streamed red behind her like flames as she dipped and stumbled in the uneven landscape. Her breathing sounded ragged and laboured, her eyes like huge green emeralds in her white, frightened face. Mud streaked her face and hands from a tumble and ripped clothing streamed behind her, one layer indistinguishable from another. Hana rounded the bend and pitched straight into her husband, hitting and kicking, trying to scream but prevented by the constriction in her lungs.
Logan grabbed her forearms, even in panic avoiding the livid scar on her left wrist. “Hana, Hana, steady, babe. You’re safe.” He righted her as solidly as possible in the sliding earth and she clung to him, finding a lighthouse in the middle of a manic, stormy sea. Her breath caught in her chest and she gasped, pointing behind her and slipping as she pushed past Logan.
He worked it out, shoving Hana behind him and into Mark, just as the biology teacher rounded the bend and smashed straight into Logan’s fist. He went down like a skittle, flailing a little before lying still, his glasses bent upwards from the bridge of his nose like transparent butterfly wings. Logan rubbed his knuckles and flexed his fingers, relieved they moved without obvious damage. Mark watched him deliberately hit with his right hand, a boxer’s knockout punch. Logan kicked the man’s legs, making sure he was unconscious, then embraced his trembling wife.
Mark stepped towards the man on the ground, his doctor’s mind concerned. Logan shook his head, his eyes flashing. “Leave him.”
“But he’s injured!” Mark protested.
Logan’s face became blank, the nothing in his eyes terrifying. “Make your choice,” he hissed and Mark swallowed, recognising the ultimatum. Mark hesitated, watching the man’s fingers twitch and fighting the urge to intervene.
Logan comforted Hana, keeping her tiny frame upright against his body, holding her up. Her breathing slowed but didn’t lose its dreadful rasp. Mark reached out to take her pulse but pulled his hand back in fear, more lost than he’d ever felt. She left the unit in jeans and a floral top, both obliterated by brown and orange filth. Her blouse flapped at the shoulder showing a delicate, pale neck which was scratched and bleeding. The gully temperature dropped as daylight waned and Hana shivered with cold and shock. Logan stripped off his jacket revealing a neat, white shirt and cufflinks, an incongruous sight in the natural surroundings. “Here you go, babe.” He slipped it around Hana’s shaking shoulders and wrapped his arms around her again.
The man on the floor started to come round, shifting his legs and running his hand over his eyes, half submerged in water. Mark watched Logan’s jaw tense as he turned slowly, still propping up his wife. A terrifying ruthlessness crossed his face, unleashing a blackness which was terrifying to see and Mark stepped forward, placing a hand on Logan’s arm and shaking his head. “Don’t,” he said. “Please, don’t.”
Logan’s brow furrowed and he glanced again at the flailing man before the hatred in his eyes faded and he nodded. Voices and the excited bark of a dog heralded the cavalry, sounding like a war party as the cops rounded the last bend and approached the mud stained group. “Mr Du Rose?” the dog handler shouted and Logan nodded, narrowing his grey eyes as the biology teacher pushed himself to a sitting position, disliking his partial lie down in the gully.
The burly police dog stretched its leash taut as it made for the adults, setting up a victorious bark. Logan watched over Hana’s head as the handler patted the hound and rewarded its success. Other officers bypassed the giddy, slavering dog and stood over the man struggling in the water. Logan’s hand itched to give him another slap, needing to feel the pain of his fingers breaking to release the angry pressure building in his head. He tried to breathe it out through his nose, willing it to go as Hana shivered under his jacket, her head pushed into his chest. Mark stood by feeling useless, his clothing wrecked by the unforgiving gully mud.
“What happened?” The most senior cop’s voice sounded loud in the natural setting, jarringly bellicose against the trickling water and soft, rustling nikau palms.
Hana wailed, losing the last of her fragile nerve, “He wouldn’t let me go...”
The police officer glanced at Logan, seeing his battle for control and nodded. “Get him up and cuff him,” he told another officer. The dog, freshly rewarded, barked excitedly at its quarry as the biology teacher stumbled past, slipping and sliding without arms to balance him, a cop on either side. His nose bled in a steady trickle and Logan jaw worked as the teacher got eye contact with him. Logan mouthed, ‘You’re dead,’ and the biology teacher paled.
“I didn’t mean it,” he squeaked, blood leaking into his mouth. “She saw me; I didn’t have a choice.”
Logan waited for the knot of cops to pass, listening to the senior cop cautioning the fat man that everything he said could be used in court action. Logan worked his jaw and chastised himself for listening to Mark.
“I’m sorry,” Hana’s brother said softly and Logan darted a glance towards him. “I wish I’d let you hit him,” he admitted. “Sure feel like it myself now.” Seeing the state of Hana compounded his guilt and Logan nodded, accepting the apology.
Logan turned his wife gently and pushed her in front of him, keeping a firm hold on her shoulders as she picked her way through the muck. It took half an hour to get up the track into school, a dreadful journey which Logan would relive in his mind a million times over the next few weeks, punishing himself for missing the cues to disaster. It felt endless, Mark trudging along silently behind. At the top of the track an ambulance waited, its back doors flung open. Tama paced in front of it, pushing a sleeping Phoenix in the pram, up and down, up and down. Wheel tracks in the gravel betrayed his expression of anxiety.
An ambulance woman made straight for Hana as she crested the brow of the hill, offering her a blanket and leading her by the arm to the back of her vehicle. “Come in here and let me check you over,” she said, her tone light.
Reaching it, Hana saw the biology teacher sitting inside having a cut to his head dealt with by another paramedic. “No!” she cried. “You can’t make me.” She refused to go any nearer, reaching out a dirty hand for the hood of her pram and clinging to the fabric. “I want to go home,” she said pitifully to Logan and he nodded, shaking his head at the ambulance woman.
“We’ll be fine,” he said. “Thanks.” He led his wife around the back of the ambulance but the paramedic protested.
“She’s got deep gashes on her arms and neck,” she said, pointing at Hana’s torn shirt. Embarrassed, Hana raised Logan’s jacket and rearranged it over her cuts.
“Please, Logan,” she begged. “I want to go.”
Logan gritted his teeth. “You expect my wife to get in your van next to the guy who hurt her? Seriously?”
“Oh. I didn’t know.” The woman looked sorry and Logan relented.
“My brother-in-law’s a surgeon. We’ll be fine.”
Mark’s shoulders lifted and his posture altered at Logan’s familial acknowledgement. It was acceptance of gigantic proportions for a man who felt he had no right to expect it. The three men and one pram flanked Hana protectively as they walked away from the milling cops and chatter of radios.
Odering stopped a male officer following them, shaking his head. “I know where to find them,” he assured him. Then he raised an eyebrow. “Unless they take off elsewhere, which wouldn’t be the first time the Du Roses gave me the slip.” Odering crooked his finger at the female officer standing by the shed, her blonde hair flying free of her ponytail in the breeze. “Lucy, you go. Check her out as best you can, photograph anything important and bag her clothing. If she says anything, write it down.”
“Yes, sir.” The policewoman shadowed the family unnoticed, slipping into the unit behind Mark and ignoring the anger on Logan Du Rose’s fearsome face when he noticed her. Tama’s reaction was different.
“Luce! I’m glad you’re here; it’s been a bloody nightmare.” He seized her in strong arms and buried his face in her blonde hair and the policewoman’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment.
“No, Tama,” she said, biting her lip. “I’m on duty.”
Logan visibly relaxed. “So you’re Lucy?” he said, smiling at her self-conscious nod. “Well, Lucy, I’m taking my wife to the bathroom to help her get this dirty clothing off.”
“No! Please, Mr Du Rose. I have to be there!” Lucy followed them down the hallway, avoiding the blobs of mud littering the laminate floor.
“Leave her alone!” Logan snapped as Lucy pushed on the bathroom door, resisting his strength. He poked his face through the gap, his eyes centimetres away from Lucy’s. “If you don’t allow my wife her dignity, I’ll throw you out. Do you get it?”
Lucy swallowed and nodded, holding out the clear plastic bag in her hand. “Please can you put everything in here?”
“Everything?” Logan’s nose wrinkled and rage and fear blazed through his eyes.
“Yes, please. I’ll wait here.”
Logan accepted the plastic bag and shut the door in the policewoman’s face. Lucy gazed at Tama who watched from the archway into the lounge and he rolled his eyes and drew a line across his throat.
Logan ran the shower, unable to look at Hana as she shivered in the corner. He readied his face, assuming a businesslike guise before turning towards her. A flutter of tears dripped from Hana’s chin, bouncing off the linoleum like dropped pearls and Logan reacted instinctively, enfolding her. “Hey, baby, shh. Everything’s gonna be ok now, I’m here.”
“Why me?” Hana’s voice sounded harsh, echoing off the tiles. “Why is it always me?” Her green eyes flashed with injustice and bitterness. “What’s wrong with me, Logan?”
His arms tightened around her and he kissed the top of Hana’s head. “Nothing, babe, nothing. This isn’t your fault.” His voice wobbled and he fought his demons by becoming busy. “Let’s get this mud off you.” He peeled his jacket away, dropping it onto the floor and seeing again the awful scratches and cuts on his wife’s bare arms. Hana’s nails were lined with orange mud, chipped and ragged. “Do you need help with your jeans?” Logan asked, chewing his lip.
Hana shook her head and fumbled with the zipper, hauling her pants down and struggling to step out of them. “This is ridiculous,” she sighed with exasperation as they caught over her feet and turned inside out.
“Sit on the side of the bath,” Logan told her. Hana sat and he pulled the material over her feet, taking her socks with them and throwing everything on top of his ruined jacket. Her jeans were shredded in places but had protected Hana’s legs from the spiteful cutty grass and bush lawyer lurking in the gully. Faint red scratches marked her flesh and Logan watched her face for anxiety as he lifted her blouse over her head and undid her bra. As she stood naked in front of her husband, her body trembling from delayed shock, Logan noticed bruising round Hana’s waist and upper arms. Hand marks on the underside of her jaw finished in deep scratches at the back of her neck and Logan balled his fists in fury.
“It hurts,” Hana said, lifting her hair and pressing her fingers against the raw skin. She winced and Logan pulled her hands away.
“It’s gonna sting but we need to wash it.” He bit his lip. “Hana...”
Her green eyes turned towards him and Logan took a deep breath as she pressed her breastbone and closed her eyes.
Lucy knocked on the door, seeing the obvious agony in Logan’s face as he opened it and handed the bag of clothes through a small slit. “We need a doctor to check her out,” she whispered as sensitively as she could. “It’s important; it might be the difference between her attacker going to prison and getting away with it.”
Logan nodded. “Ok,” he said. “We won’t be long.” Then he closed the door in Lucy’s face and locked it.
“Won’t I do?” Mark asked. “I’m her brother. It might be kinder.”
Lucy shook her head. “Sorry, we have procedures. She has to be questioned properly and checked over by our doctor. I know it seems harsh, but it’s about continuity of evidence. She shouldn’t be showering here; my superior will kill me.”
Mark nodded and sat on the sofa with a bump, rubbing his hands over his eyes. The baby slept in the pram and Tama inspected the contents of the oven, bringing out the cold pasta dish. “Was this our lunch?” he asked and Mark nodded. The cheese had become a wooden, impenetrable layer, brown and crusted. “Want some?” Tama asked and Mark shook his head. “I’m hungry,” Tama mused, venting his anguish by exercising his best teenage skill. He filled a bowl and microwaved the pasta, pushing the leathery food between his lips with automaton movements.
“I feel bad for this,” Mark whispered, changing his mind and copying him. They ate standing, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“It’s only natural,” Tama replied, his mouth full. “Once, Logan smacked me in the face and I ate five cheeseburgers. It really helped.”
Mark stopped eating, the pasta tumbling from his halted fork. “Logan hit you in the face?”
“Ah yeah. But it was ages ago and I asked for it.”
Mark swallowed and eyed the archway nervously. “That’s awful. Your own uncle hit you?”
Tama raised an eyebrow and glared at Mark. “Yeah. But I did something wrong. Hana’s first husband didn’t ask you to beat the crap out of him for standing by her, did he?”
Mark’s complexion paled and he placed his unfinished food on the counter with trembling hands. Oblivious, Tama folded wedges of rubbery cheese into parcels and popped them into his mouth one at a time, a sudden look of guilt crossing his face. “Oh. Sorry, Luce. Want some?”
“No, thanks.” Lucy kept her vigil, leaning with her back against the archway, nervously fiddling with the curly wire of her radio earpiece.
“I might eat it all,” he said, scraping the remnants into his bowl. “Logan never eats when he’s had an upset.” Tama wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put the platter into the dishwasher, gobbling the last mouthfuls as he heard the sound of the bathroom door opening and voices.
Hana appeared in the lounge dressed in clean track pants and a hoodie of Logan’s. “I’m not going!” she said miserably. “I need to feed my daughter.”
As if on cue, Phoenix popped her head up, pulling a funny face as she strained to see over the side of the pram. Tama unhooked her straps, waiting for Hana to settle on the sofa before handing her the baby. Hana seemed oddly composed as she relaxed into the familiar routine with her child, but Logan paced the floor in his dirty clothes, unable to stand still.
“You and Mark need a shower, love,” Hana remarked. “You’re making a mess.”
Logan looked down at the bottom of his pants and swore as if seeing the orange stained fabric for the first time. He turned on his heel and the others heard the linen cupboard door opening as he fetched a clean towel. Hana fed her baby, gently stroking Phoenix’s downy head with fingers which shook less with every passing minute. Lucy waited by the front door and Tama sat on his usual seat, watching TV with the volume turned down. Mark felt too dirty to sit, hovering by the breakfast bar and feeling stunned by the calmness of his sister. In his memories, she was highly strung and volatile and he hardly recognised the girl she was in the woman regally feeding her baby on the sofa.
Hana felt his eyes on her and looked up, forcing a smile onto her face. “Sorry, Mark. It wasn’t the afternoon I’d planned for us,” she said. “You must be starving. I’ll get you something to eat in a second.”
Mark looked guilty and Tama half turned his head. “It’s sweet, Ma, I’ve fed us both.”
Mark bit his lip and pulled a face at his partner in crime as Logan emerged from the bathroom with a towel round his waist. “Bathroom’s free,” he said, running a slender hand through his dark waves. He turned and saw the look of horror on Lucy’s face as his exposed scars came into view and bit his lip. “Can’t you just go?” he asked nastily and Lucy blanched.
“No, I have to wait for your wife. My inspector wants us to leave now; he’s already at the station.” Lucy wished Odering would burst in, taking charge of a situation she had long since lost control of. She couldn’t say he hadn’t warned her. ‘Watch Du Rose,’ he’d said and she’d ignored him, thinking the handsome Māori was as puppy-dog-like as his nephew.
The hot water had angered Logan’s scars, making them ridged and red, the operation wound from the removal of his spleen less awful than the ragged trail under his right arm. The latter snaked down his body, disappearing into the towel. Mark eyed it with a surgeon’s interest, calculating the level of bacterial infection which might cause a mess like that, added to the complications of Logan’s haemophilia.
Lucy couldn’t take her eyes off it and Logan retreated to the bedroom to dress, feeling self-conscious and irritated by the strangers’ presence in his safe place. Tama lent Mark clothes and the older man wandered into the lounge after his shower, clad in a pair of school track pants and a tee shirt which proclaimed the wearer to be ‘too hot to handle’ in neon print over a black background. “I look like a thug!” he complained and Tama sniggered.
Logan gave into his compulsion, sweeping and mopping the floors between the hallway and bathroom. He threw the hall rug out of the front door, unable to get the orange mud off. He eyed the lounge floor with eagerness, deciding he’d clean it later during the sleepless night he anticipated.
Mark’s voice cut into the silence, clearing his throat and directing his question at Hana. “Have you any injuries you’d like me to look at?” he asked, keeping his tone light.
Logan stood transfixed as Hana smiled and shook her head. “Just bruising thanks, love and a few scratches. The biology teacher pulled me around and I fell a few times, but he didn’t deliberately hurt me. He spent more time panicking about things I didn’t understand. He was crazy...”
“Mrs Du Rose,” Lucy interrupted. “I need you to come with me now and put your statement on tape. You remember the drill from last year, don’t you?”
Hana nodded, winding her baby over her shoulder. Standing up, she handed Phoenix to Tama. “Please can you feed her something from the ice cube trays in the freezer?”
“Yup.” He took the snuffling child and gave Hana a smile of encouragement.
Hana hunted in the hall cupboard for a pair of plimsolls, her finger too sore to tie laces. Logan walked up behind her. “What’re you doing, babe? That cop looks like she’s about to blow a gasket.”
“Sorry.” Hana sniffed and drew her sleeve across her eyes. “I usually grab my trainers but my fingers hurt too much to do laces and my boots have zips.”
“I’ll help you,” he soothed, seeing the damp tear tracks on her cheeks. “Come out of the way and I’ll fetch something.”
Hana stood, resting her palm against the wall as she hauled herself up. Logan snatched a pair of ankle boots from the cupboard but Hana shook her head and backed away. “They’ll look stupid with track pants,” she said, her tone becoming hysterical. “I don’t want to look stupid on top of everything else.”
Logan gritted his teeth and reached towards the back of the cupboard. “Do these old tennis shoes still fit?” he asked, biting down on the growing irritation. At Hana’s nod he helped to push her feet into them and fastened the laces.
“What about when they need to come off?” Her eyes were wide and frightened. “You won’t be here when I have to take them off.”
“I will,” Logan promised. “Pete’s covering my shift.”
“I can’t do this.” Hana shook her head and backed away, tripping over the discarded ankle boots. “I can’t live like this with you at work all the time and me alone. It’s not safe for me here; I need to leave.”
“Hey!” Logan pulled his flailing wife into his arms. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time, babe.”
Hana nodded and took fortifying breaths to calm herself, reassured by Logan’s strength. “Ok,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”
In the lounge, Hana stood on tiptoe and hugged Mark, thanking him for coming to visit as though he’d popped in for tea and enjoyed a pleasant afternoon with his sister. She kissed him on the cheek and promised to call him. “Bye, Phoe, see you soon,” Hana said, blowing a kiss to her daughter, who began to grizzle.
“She’ll be fine,” Tama said. “Get gone and then you might come back soon.”
With a wide-eyed look of fear, Hana accepted the warm coat her husband handed her and climbed into the waiting police car. Logan accompanied her and Hana calmed, linking her sore fingers through his in the back of the car and staring blankly as the town whipped by through the windows.
At the police headquarters, Hana went to the suite she’d been in once before. “It’s where they put women victims,” she whispered to Logan and he frowned.
“How do you know?”
“I came here the night I was mugged by Flick’s son. They took photographs and made a statement.”
“You didn’t know me then.” Logan sat in the seat next to Hana, keeping hold of her hand.
She smiled, a pained, forced expression for his benefit. “But I had noticed you,” she said wistfully. “I just didn’t think you’d be interested in someone like me.”
“Stop,” Logan told her, his eyes narrowing. “You’re beautiful, Hana. Don’t go down that road; there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“So why does everyone attack me?” Her voice emerged as a whine and she closed her eyes, hating the sound of it.
Last time Hana sat alone in the prettily decorated room, but this time her husband accompanied her, his arm protectively around her shoulders. “I’m sorry I don’t have answers, babe, I really am.” The agony in his voice sounded painful and Hana selflessly suppressed her misery, hating the effect it had on Logan.
The police doctor took her behind a screen to assess her injuries, standing back for Lucy to photograph them. He asked searching and invasive questions which she answered truthfully. The fat little man was nothing like Laval. “He didn’t touch me like that,” she whispered, aware of Logan on the other side of the screen. “The biology teacher took me to the gully to frighten me into silence. He said if I saw what was there, it made me complicit.” That he might have killed her seemed a distinct possibility. He’d done it before, after all.
The statement taking process happened in the suite. Gently, Lucy and another woman officer coaxed out Hana’s tale. Logan kept physical contact with his wife throughout, giving her a sense of strength and protection with his thigh lightly touching hers.
“The biology teacher came to the house. He said a student wanted to see me and made it sound urgent. I assumed he meant James because he’s been distressed the last few times I’ve seen him and the biology teacher agreed, although he didn’t actually name James. I shouldn’t have gone with him.” Hana stopped and ran her hands over her face, wincing as her cuts oozed.
“What do you mean when you say, you shouldn’t have gone, Hana?” Lucy’s question made Hana’s brow furrow.
“Why do you think?” Logan bit, gritting his teeth.
The other officer eyeballed him. “You need to stay quiet, Mr Du Rose, otherwise you must leave.”
Hana fidgeted, Logan’s anger communicating his stress. “I had an instinct about it,” Hana admitted. “But I foolishly ignored it, not wanting to look stupid in front of Mark, my brother. The biology teacher took my arm and I cried out and it all seemed so ridiculous. I let the pressure get to me and should have stood my ground.”
“What happened next?” the woman asked.
“We went towards the gully. It felt wrong and his grip on my arm was painful. At the old shed near the tennis courts, I saw another cop and you.” Hana indicated Lucy with a jerk of her head. “I tried to make you understand I was in trouble but the biology teacher gripped my hand and twisted my sore wrist to stop me screaming. He had a knife and pushed it into my back.” Hana rubbed at the skin on her left arm through her clothing as the memory disturbed her. “He said he’d go back for my baby and hurt her; he didn’t even know her name.” Hana turned towards Logan, her face a mask of horror. “He said he’d hurt her and I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know if Mark could stop him if he went back to the house for Phoe. I should have thought it through. I can’t believe I fell for his threats.”
“It’s natural,” Lucy reassured her in a soft voice. “What mother wouldn’t protect her child?”
“But it’s not logical!” Hana snapped. “If he went back for Phoe, where would he put me? It’s a bloody gully! He couldn’t keep me and leave me, could he?”
Logan gritted his teeth and wished he’d given the man more than one slap to the head. Lucy widened her eyes in warning and he avoided stating the obvious. The man could’ve tied Hana to a tree and gone back, but the look of rage on her face made him bite his tongue. Instead, Logan took Hana’s hand in his, grounding her in the present.
Lucy shook her head slowly at him. “Leave her to process it,” she whispered. “Don’t interfere.”
Logan felt mercenary doing what was best for the cops in their quest to gather fresh, recollected evidence. He doubted it was best for his wife. She still woke in the night reliving her earlier kidnap, believing blood still spurted from her wrist and squeezing it so tightly she hurt herself again. Logan ignored the cop, stroking Hana’s hand and concentrating on his wife’s words as she focussed her blame on the unfortunate Lucy. “I wanted you to help me but you were busy. The whole thing felt unreal. He was hurting me; why couldn’t you see that?”
Lucy gulped and Hana raged on. Her reaction seemed different to how she behaved after Laval kidnapped her. Then she had hidden from the memories, reluctantly given a police statement and cowered behind Logan’s authority. He hoped her anger would see her through in a better state this time.
“I know it seems stupid that I went with him, but he’s my tenant and I know him from work. I was scared of overreacting but now I feel so foolish.” Hana snatched a tear from her cheek with careless fingers, rambling, going backwards and sideways without progressing. The female officers looked at each other in a well-used formula for dealing with hysterical victims of crime.
“Did Alec Petersen say anything to you as he pulled you along by your arm?” Lucy asked.
Hana and Logan stared in confusion. “Who?” Logan asked and the cops eyed each other warily.
“The man who took your wife into the gully.” Lucy peered at her notes with a furrowed brow. “That’s who we’ve got in custody anyway.” She shot a nervous look at her colleague.
“The biology teacher,” Hana sighed. “It’s ridiculous. The school isn’t huge but we could never remember his name. I should have learned it, not that it would have helped me.” She pressed her hand over the top of her stomach and winced. “Do we have to do this now? I’ve got bad indigestion.”
Logan put his arm around Hana, feeling her agitation as a vibration through his fingers. Pain made her breath catch in her chest. “She’s had enough,” Logan said, his voice a low, warning growl.
The other female cop left the room and returned seconds later, handing a pack of antacids to Hana. “I managed to catch the medic,” she said with a smile. Hana took a tablet, thought for a moment and then took another, twisting the box around and around in her fingers. Logan confiscated it as she reached in for a third.
“I was asking you if the biology teacher said anything to you,” Lucy continued.
Hana nodded. “Yes. He was furious about my rental property. I’m selling it and an agent looked around earlier in the week and let the tenants know I was listing it. He offered them first option, but they declined. The biology teacher was angry because they’re happy there. He said they couldn’t afford to buy the house and wanted to convince me not to sell. He said his wife was terribly upset and it was all my fault.”
It didn’t escape the notice of either cop that Logan Du Rose looked utterly stunned at his wife’s revelation. He looked sideways at Hana with his mouth open and when she caught his eye, her face flooded with pain. “I wanted to surprise you, Logan. Everything you said outside the tennis courts was true. That house is part of the old Hana, Hana Johal. I’m not her anymore and I don’t need her things. It marked part of my clearing out process.” Hana smiled and her face lit up with an inner beauty. “It’s been very releasing.” She directed her words towards Lucy. “My husband’s building the most beautiful house on top of a mountain. I wanted to sell some of my assets and contribute so it’s mine too.” Her face fell. “The biology teacher was furious. He insisted it wasn’t about what I wanted, it was about what his wife wanted.”
Logan looked away and rubbed his hand over his face. Hana sighed and her courage wavered. “He kept saying, ‘I know you know about it.’ He kept saying that over and over again and I didn’t know what he meant. He also said, ‘You saw me.’ But I hadn’t seen him for ages, not since I went to the staffroom to see Loge a week ago, or was it the start of this week?” Hana rubbed her hand across her stomach again asking, “I want to go now. Please could we do this tomorrow?”
Lucy shook her head, deliberately ignoring Logan who looked like he might take his wife and leave if she protested again. “Not much longer now, Hana,” she said. “Tell us how you got that bruising round your waist and the scratches on your arms and neck?”
Hana let out a huge, impatient sigh. “He led me into the gully on the track, then he made me climb up a bank. I couldn’t get up so he hauled me round the waist. It hurt and I cried out. I’d had enough and I knew I needed to get away. I pushed him and he shoved me backwards against a tree, holding me round my neck. It took my breath away and made me feel weak. After that, he shoved me in front of him so I couldn’t turn. Parts of it were steep and I fell a lot. I kept grabbing roots and grass to stop me falling but the ferns were spiky and tore my hands and arms.” Hana looked at her husband. “Did you know ferns were spiky? I didn’t.” She touched her stomach again in the same place and winced. “He produced this sharp knife thing near the shed when we saw the cops and after I pushed him, he dug that in my back a few times as he got angrier and angrier.”
Logan shook his head and struggled to keep control. It explained the short nicks along Hana’s lower back which he saw as he helped her shower. He knew if he reacted the cops would insist he left, leaving his wife vulnerable and alone. Again. He worked at containing his fury, using old techniques to shield his emotions. He’d had years of practice and retreated as far behind the familiar mask as he dared, without detaching from the situation.
Hana continued, her head high as she exuded bravery. “We walked for ages along the gully, miles. I didn’t know the gully was that long. Then we came to a really dense area. He made me go ahead into some bushes where there were loads of punga and other palms. I kept falling over the ground cover. Right in the middle was this electric fence on a battery thing and he turned it off with a key. Then he made me go in front and push through these tall leafy plants, like the ones on James’ plane. He morphed into a biology teacher, telling me how much water the plants need and how often he has to go down there to make sure they’re growing ok. He said he wanted to make enough to buy my house and had almost raised the deposit, but wanted me to wait before listing it and then he would pay full price. ‘How did you find out about me?’ he asked and I kept quiet because I didn’t know what he meant. He asked me again and I told him I didn’t know anything about him, so he slapped me across the face. ‘I saw you playing tennis and you saw me,’ he said. ‘You waved and then you sent the agent round because you knew.’ I remembered seeing someone walking past, but it was dark and the floodlights from the courts blinded me to anything outside. If I waved, it would be out of politeness. I told him that and he called me a liar. He said Larry Collins and he alternated the runs to the furthest plantation and he was fed up of doing it by himself now. The cops found the other one, but they’d never find this one; it was too well hidden and he walked a different way every time.”
“What else did Petersen say about Larry Collins?” Lucy asked.
Hana rubbed her stomach and ribs again. “He said Collins got greedy and harvested too early. They argued over it. He found out Collins sold privately to other buyers outside their agreement. Their regular buyer complained and threaten to cancel future orders if it didn’t stop and said he wouldn’t stop at ruining their business; he’d mess them up too.”
Hana’s breath caught in her chest and she filtered each exhale through pursed lips. “Please,” she begged, “let me go now?”
As Lucy anticipated, Logan stood up to leave, his height intimidating and his body language full of challenge. He helped Hana from the sofa with tender, careful hands, despite his threatening stance.
“One more question,” Lucy begged. Logan’s grey eyes narrowed and his patience looked ready to snap. “You’re sure you didn’t know anything about the marijuana growing the teacher was doing?”
Logan looked incredulous and Lucy held up her hand. “I need her to verify that fact in case it comes up later.”
Hana shook her head. “Of course I didn’t!” Her eyes widened in shock. “I’m sorry; I’ve told you all I can.” She turned to Logan. “Please, Logan, I want to go back to my daughter now.”