Hana Du Rose Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1 - 4

by Bowes, K T

  “I bet he’s married,” Hana said, keeping her tone light and telling herself she didn’t care.

  Turning left out of the gates and heading south, there was the promise of an uninterrupted and pleasant stroll, punctuated twice by traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. At the end of the road beckoned the mysterious Waikato River with its undercurrents and swirling dark waters, fascinating to watch and hypnotic in its unrelenting movement. But half an hour was never enough time to reach the river and return so the goal was futile, but persuasive anyway. The walk was satisfying although the decision to turn back delayed. They put it off until the last minute, running to make it back to their desks in time; or else incur the wrath of the administrative director who had eyes in the back of his fuzzy head and a stop watch on each employee.

  The conversation was cheerful and light, if a little distasteful. Sunita’s toddler son, Amrit had that morning demonstrated his use of the potty with the dexterity and intelligence recounted only by a mother. As she slipped her untouched chocolate spread sandwich back into its wrapper, Hana bore the entirety of the proudly recalled graphics. “I’ve never seen one that shape before,” detailed the proud mother. “It was just like a Mr Whippy ice cream. All it needed was a flake...”

  Hana pulled a face, concluding that Sunita’s role as a scientific laboratory technician was definitely her ideal career. Marching with purpose towards the first set of traffic lights, Hana spotted a smattering of distinctively striped blazers occupying the low wall outside the dairy. The boys had raided the ice cream freezer inside and were enjoying the fruits of their labour, leading to a potential Saturday dean’s detention for being off-site without permission. Hana stood for a moment at the lights, trying to identify of the boys against the glare of the bright noonday sun.

  “Stupid little idiots!” Sunita exclaimed. “Students aren’t supposed to leave the premises without permission.”

  The boys believed members of staff were both cruel and boring, had never been children themselves and deliberately worked to remove all traces of fun from the lives of those in their care. Staff gave the usual line about accountability, health and safety, loco parentis, and needing to know a student’s whereabouts at all times. But another reason was more compelling.

  The previous day a group of Year 9s were approached outside the same dairy after school by an unidentified male who threatened them with a knife, stole their wallets and phones and punched one boy in the face.

  “Angus mentioned it at staff briefing this morning,” Sunita raged, scandalised. “Stupid boys!”

  “I thought you were busy ogling the new head of English,” Hana joked and Sunita bobbled her head on her shoulders and smirked.

  “I did my ogling after that. My Gurdip’s fine, but eesh, that dude’s hot. The lab assistants are going crazy over him. Pamela thinks he might be gay though.”

  “Why?” Disappointment laced Hana’s voice and Sunita grinned. “She asked him out on a date and he said he was involved with someone. She stuck her boobs in his face and everything and he didn’t bat an eyelid.”

  Hana gaped. “How did she manage that?”

  “What? Asking him out? Easy, she just said...”

  “No.” Hana shook her head. “Sticking her boobs in his face. She’s tiny and he bumps his head on doorframes! Did she stand on a chair?”

  “No, silly!” Sunita slapped her arm. “He was sitting down and she leaned over. Peter North practically put his face in her cleavage but the other guy didn’t even look. She was most offended.” The women reached the pedestrian lights and observed the boys across the road. Sunita shook her head. “The principal’s sent letters home to parents and the boys were warned in tutor groups not to come off site. He said the police would be out looking for the culprit all day.”

  “Well good luck with that!” Hana mused, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “They haven’t got a clue who broke my windscreen or tried to nick my handbag.”

  She looked across the road at six silly boys sitting on a wall, licking triple scoops of high calorie, artery clogging ice cream and wondering what the red stain on the pavement was all about.

  “Oh, sod this!” Sunita snapped and launched herself off the curb and into the moving line of cars. As the redhead stood at the crossing shielding her eyes from the sun and trying to identify the offenders, Sunita dodged traffic and made a swift beeline for the boys. Like sitting ducks, they didn’t see her coming. As Sunita popped onto the pavement in front of them, the boys gazed up at her nonchalantly, an expression which changed the instant they realised she was school staff.

  The choices they faced flashed across their faces. “Blag it out,” one boy hissed, while three of his compatriots shouted, “Run!”

  The latter choice had the required pulling power as chaos ensued. Two of the boys bent down for their rucksacks and bumped heads, resulting in one donating his triple scoop into the other’s lap. The cold unpleasantness on his crotch caused the boy to leap up, accidentally smearing his cone up the side of the other boy’s surprised face. Sunita maintained her pose on the pavement looking stern and the other four boys decided that having messed up the ‘run’ choice, they should ‘blag it out.’ Even to Hana’s trained eye, that choice was rapidly looking shaky.

  Arriving slower but no less determined, Hana surveyed the scene. Three boys stood frozen in time whilst large ice creams obeyed the law of physics relating to solids becoming liquids and dripped along their wrists, heading for their elbows and the long dive towards the concrete floor. For one poor boy it launched into his open bag onto what looked like a maths book. A blonde Year 11 stood with his legs bowed, a horribly suspicious looking chocolate-brown gunk covering the crotch area of his shorts and dripping down his legs and into his sandals. His olive skinned friend wore an expression of disbelief, coupled with a helping of ‘goody gum drops,’ which began at his left eye and ended in a blue gumdrop up his nostril. The remaining child stood in full view of Sunita, licking his ice cream as though nothing had happened.

  “Stop licking!” Hana growled at him, with an exasperated edge to her voice.

  The Somali boy stopped but continued to clean up his cone with his finger as she looked away. The women walked the boys back to school and gave up their fast disappearing lunch break. Back in the reception ten minutes later, much interest greeted them. A rainbow of ice cream stains graced the arms of those who failed to find a bin along the route and deemed it inappropriate under the circumstances to continue eating. Clutching empty but saturated cones, the boys stood on the polished parquet floor awaiting their fate. The child with the stained crotch endured complete humiliation walking bow-legged past the handball-playing groups in the courtyard. The stain was brown and darker once dry and coupled with the running mess down his legs, resembled something entirely other than ice cream. His accomplice had snorted the jellybean from his nose and too frightened of Sunita to throw it on the floor, he ate it as they entered the gate much to the muted hilarity of the boy next to him.

  Unperturbed, Sunita continued her potty dialogue for Hana throughout the journey and all six boys silently vowed never to eat ice cream again, especially not chocolate. Abdul, the Somali boy devoured his melting ice cream during the journey and was the only one not wearing any of it.

  As Sunita and Hana made arrangements to venture out again the following day, the school grapevine summoned the veritable Alan Dobbs to the helm and they retired as the fireworks began. The English teacher was on duty in the courtyard and Sunita dug Hana hard in the ribs. “Look, look...no don’t look.”

  “Which do you want me to do?” Hana grimaced, rubbing her side.

  “The head of English is staring at you,” she hissed and Hana felt her cheeks colour.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Hana replied and stole a look in the direction of Sunita’s head jerk. The man’s grey eyes fixed on Hana’s and he offered her the briefest smile. She returned it without looking an idiot for a change.

  “Talk to him,” Suni
ta urged, giving Hana a small shove.

  “No!” Hana looked at her friend angrily. “We’re not twelve-year-olds. We’re grown adults.” She drew herself up to her full height. “I’m a grandmother. Anyway you said he was involved with someone.”

  Sunita giggled. “I think he was lying to get rid of Pam. Gorgeous as he is, I don’t think he’s got anyone taking care of him, if you know what I mean. So cut the crap and just ask him out.”

  Hana’s jaw dropped. “There’s no way he’d be interested in someone like me!”

  Sunita looked at her in surprise. “You underestimate yourself, Hana. You’re beautiful and unattached and if he’s not married, you need to jump on him.”

  Hana bit her lip and looked scandalised. “I will not!”

  Sunita shrugged and turned towards the main building. “Well someone else will then, but at the moment it looks as though he hopes it’ll be you.”

  Hana stole a look at the grey-eyed man and he smiled again. He was gorgeous. She smiled wistfully at him, pushing out of her mind and body the obvious attraction. She’d seen too many silly women in her lifetime to want to throw herself at any man. Silly women, just like she was once.

  Chapter 11

  The aroma of the great-unwashed mass of boyhood wafted in mists around the main building before dispersing itself into the clear Waikato sky. Doors were kept open to encourage the exit of the pong and the birds twittered and called busily from the huge oak trees which lined Maui Street. During lessons the school was relatively quiet, punctuated occasionally by the hum of voices and the scrape of chairs.

  It was a safe time for a person of below average height to venture out of the student centre and avoid the crowd of unpredictable males. With this fact in mind, Hana set off for the life skills classroom, armed with a stack of prospectuses for the brochure racks and a few posters she sorted out from the stack lurking under her desk. The life skills teacher was a matronly lady who had worked at the school for nearly thirty years and whom the boys referred to as ‘Nana.’ One Year 9 claimed she had taught three generations of his family. That was clearly going a little too far for portly Mrs Bowman, only admitting to having taught two of them. She would not have been amused to learn that all three generations in question claimed to have called her ‘Nana,’ suggesting her wrinkled appearance and supersize dresses were not a thing of recent acquisition.

  If talking had been an Olympic sport, Mrs Ethel Bowman would be a gold medal holder of several years standing. She loved to gossip and would engage her listeners in such a way as to ensure they could never leave. It was not that she was scintillating, more that she had perfected the art of conversation manipulation. Like a spider injects its prey to hold it still before cocooning it, so did Mrs Bowman. “You’ll never guess what...” she would start, darting out some paralysing fact about someone and shocking the victim into silence. Then slowly she would wind in her listener, until they were no longer able to discreetly disentangle themselves without strangling their reputation, or someone else’s.

  Hana entered the apparently empty classroom, hoping to sneak over to the brochure rack and replenish it before being discovered. The rack sat next to an ancient computer which served as the classroom’s gateway to the internet. Hana unloaded her heavy stock of books into the flimsy shelves; shifting the remaining ransacked brochures and pamphlets into their designated places. A Year 10 student sat at the computer desk surfing the internet. As Hana glanced at the screen, she saw him flick from a chat room back to the careers website and frowned at him. “I’m sure that’s not what you’re supposed to be doing.”

  The child was frail looking, barefoot and suffering from a nasty cold, judging by the vigorous sniffing. He stood up hastily to leave and fumbled for the large rucksack underneath the desk whilst wiping his runny nose on the sleeve of his grey school shirt. As he bent down to retrieve an errant sandal, he let out a huge sneeze, complete with a large green gob of snot that catapulted out of his swollen nose with great purpose and landed in the middle of the screen. Before Hana could utter a word, he was off and running, sniffing and snorting and wiping his nose on his sleeves.

  Momentarily distracted, Hana was caught by the formidable Mrs Bowman, standing in front of the monitor, watching as the snot turned from a blob into a streak and in keeping with the laws of gravity, headed downwards. Mrs Bowman with her practiced eye surveyed Hana, hands on giant, wobbling hips. She observed the alien on the screen and wrinkled her face in distaste. “Would you like a tissue, dear?” she asked, failing to hide her disgust.

  “Oh, er...” Hana felt perplexed until she realised the implications of the question. Finding the explanation far too complicated, she chose to play dumb and answered, “No, thanks.”

  Leaving the snot to bake quietly on the screen, Mrs Bowman turned her attention back to Hana who attempted to finish her task before making a hasty exit. Hana’s fate was sealed, at least for the next half an hour.

  Flinging herself into her chair, back in the office much later, Hana felt exhausted. Gossip was definitely overrated and something she generally avoided. In the end, in order to escape, she was rude to the insidious old woman. “Life is complicated enough, without having to involve myself in other people’s business!” Hana groaned to Sheila. “I thought I was never going to get away alive. No wonder the tech guys call her the Queen Bee!”

  “What did she tell you?” Sheila struggled to curb her excitement for gossip and Hana frowned.

  “You really don’t want to know!”

  “Oh, well, if you’re telling, I’m happy to listen.” Sheila looked hopeful as she sat in Rory’s chair, deliberately fiddling with the settings.

  Hana shuddered as she remembered how Mrs Bowman’s ample frame wobbled and shook with glee, armed with all the delicious details of who in the dean’s office was fraternising with whom, where and when. One particularly spiteful piece of information related to the new head of English. Mrs Bowman brimmed with bile at her relayed tale of vice and spice, reliably told to her by someone in the administration corridor.

  Hana turned to Sheila, burdened by the unfortunate knowledge. She changed her voice into a squeak and did an impression of Ethel Bowman. “That poor Logan Du Rose,” she mimicked Ethel’s bristling shrug, “was publicly dumped at the altar only a few short weeks ago by a harlot from Auckland. What can one expect from an Aucklander? He was left to fend for himself with the bruising and facial injuries sustained during an altar side battle with the hussy’s other man.”

  “What facial injuries?” Sheila’s eyes widened.

  Hana cringed. “Yeah, that’s what I said.” Too late, Hana saw the warning signs as she slid down the familiar slippery slope into complicity. “I said, ‘He was fine last week!’ and that’s when she got me!”

  “What did she say then?”

  “Oh, nothing much.” Hana blushed and busied herself with her work. Looking disappointed, Sheila went back to messing up Rory’s desk. Hana pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting the pressure build up behind her eyes. Ethel’s words bit into her psyche, barbed and full of implied meaning.

  “Oh, you’ve noticed him? He is rather tasty. Some of the science girls are working up to asking him out. You should get a move on.”

  The usually politically correct Hana, felt the warm glow of injustice rising in her placid heart and stunned the overflowing Mrs Bowman with her words, falling into a carefully laid trap. “I don’t need a replacement for my husband, thank you. And you shouldn’t spread grossly inaccurate lies about people. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for any injuries he might have.” Hana had stomped out of the classroom and across to the main building, snagging her tights on the rough doorframe in her hurry to escape.

  Far from being offended, the large woman waddled to the door and watched Hana strut across the courtyard with a supercilious smile on her whiskered face. The story had taken another sordid twist in her imagination. Many a marriage had been jeopardised at the bored fantasising of thi
s matriarch.

  Hana sat back in her chair and scrabbled with her feet under the table to retrieve her footstool. It often became stuck in the space under the desk and lodged between the kickboard and the wall. Further groping around showed it to be firmly wedged in and the usual trick with the feet failed dismally. Plan B involved kneeling on the grotty carpet to grovel under the desk. Hana avoided that for as long as possible but feeling a desperate need to retrieve the stool, she resorted to the unpleasant alternative, noticing the ugly ladder snaking through her tights.

  Crouching under the desk had some benefits, she discovered. “Ah, interesting,” she said to herself.

  “I’m just going to class,” Sheila called as she left the room.

  “Ok.” Hana’s voice sounded muffled. Laid next to the skirting board was a mint that should have been on her keyboard after the holiday, evidence that the cleaning company had disinfected her keyboard and phone and left her this little gift as goodwill. Everyone got one, but North usually ate them all before anyone else arrived for work on the first day of term. He came in especially. “Haha, missed this one, Pete,” Hana snickered. The mint was still wrapped and Hana knelt on the brown carpet contemplating its consumption as she rested her weight on her elbows and peered closely at it. An initial prod revealed a definite squishiness that wasn’t a good sign. “There it is!” she exclaimed, finding a list she lost last week, neatly typed up on yellow paper. “Shame, I already printed another one.”

  A further minute sat there on her haunches with her backside sticking out from under the desk, revealed some little raisin like shapes near the back corner, a bit like chocolate bits. Fortunately, before Hana had the chance to reach out and pick one up, she spotted a sharp movement and realised with horror that she was staring at the owner of them. A large brown rat perused her from the darkest, most hidden area behind the desk.

  Beady eyes like blackcurrants stared at Hana with an almost daring attitude whilst it weighed up its options. A cardboard box sat immovably to its left, housing rolls of backing paper for displays and which Hana realised may have been sacrificed for bedding. Numerous thoughts went through her mind at warp speed. A mouse was one thing; Izzie loved mice and had always wanted one but a rat was a different matter. Stories of rats going for your throat when cornered, inflicting a disease fuelled bite leading to all manner of horrors…Still she crouched there, frozen, knowing she would have to do something but not sure what. It was the rat that lost its nerve first and moved slightly. It was enough.