The Hana Du Rose Mysteries Collection

ABOUT HANA-1-2

Sheila returned at the end of lunch, flustered and still wearing the glove. “I made those unruly Year 9 boys stay in for a lunchtime detention,” she complained. “It’s the first bloody day of term and they’re starting to play up! I coerced other staff members to cover Martin’s classes.” She sighed. “He can’t get off the toilet.”

Hurling herself into her office chair, she reached into her desk drawer and retrieved her sandwiches, staring at the gloved hand as though it belonged to someone else. With a shake of her head, she dropped it into the dustbin and bit into her sandwich. “Give them a month and that will be the worst class in the school, little buggers. What’s the world coming to?” Airborne crumbs flew across the desk and hit the computer screen as Sheila berated the class of fourteen-year-olds. “I’d prefer diarrhoea to teaching them.” Chutney oozed from the sandwich wrapper onto a significant memo which already sported a coffee cup ring over the words, ‘For your urgent attention.’

Hana smiled to herself. “Thank goodness I don’t have to teach,” she commented. “I’d be rubbish at it.”

“Ooh, talking of teaching, or teach-ers.” Sheila grinned, unaware of the blob of chutney on her chin. “Have you noticed the new English teacher? Logan something. He’s gorgeous!”

“Oh.” Hana looked embarrassed. “Tall, dark and wearing cowboy boots?”

“Yep, yep, that’s him. Did you see that body? He used the school gym this morning during his free period. I might join so I can watch. When did you see him?” Sheila peered up at Hana as the redhead hovered in the doorway.

“I dropped my handbag on the floor right in front of him. Anka and the school nurse said a car almost ran me over, but I didn’t see it. I crawled around the chapel carpark putting the crap back in my bag and only saw his shoes.”

“Yummy!” Sheila exclaimed. “He wears cowboy boots? So sexy. Did he help you?”

“No.” Hana shook her head as her embarrassment grew. “He just watched, like he’d never seen anyone grovel on the ground for a lipstick before. It was mortifying. I laddered my tights.”

Sheila poked at her squashed sandwich and then hurled it into the bin next to her. “I can’t stop looking at him. He’s got the nicest backside I’ve ever seen. Just like two little peaches in a...ahh back again Mr Dobbs?”

The afternoon whizzed by with administration jobs, keeping the budget straight and making posters advertising a visiting speaker for the next week. Hana left it until just before five o’clock to make her way back to the leafy suburb in the north of the city, to her empty house and equally hollow life.

Chapter 3The first week of term passed in a blur. On Friday, the staff and students assembled outside in the courtyard for the first of the whole school assemblies. The principal welcomed new students and reminded those from last year what he expected.

The day loomed hot and humid. Tempers snapped amongst the staff, even before the exercise of aligning six hundred chairs outside in the baking sun. Alan Dobbs ran around booming orders and introducing his unique brand of confusion. One minute there weren’t enough chairs. Then too many appeared and needed to be carried back inside by a troop of giggling boys. The invited guests arrived, but nobody remembered to greet them. A beaming set of new parents were sent in the wrong direction and later discovered sitting in the stands by the swimming pool.

So began the lengthy pōwhiri, the colourful welcoming of new students and staff by the impressive Kapa Haka boys. Garbed in their traditional feathered cloaks and loin coverings, the group of older students performed their school haka, filling the airwaves with guttural noises and fearsome display of aggression.

The principal’s address to staff and students proved rousing as always. He conducted his whaikōrero, or formal speech, in flawless Māori and repeated in his gentle Scottish lilt. Angus Blair spoke with conviction about his vision. “It is our intention to make the young men in our care into valuable contributors of society...”

Hana’s mind wandered as the principal outlined his expectations for the year, having heard it for the last fifteen years. Angus had made Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys into one of the best schools in the North Island. Parents boarded their children in the St Bartholomew’s boarding house from as far afield as Australia and Germany, to enjoy the strong academic and sporting acumen of the school. Angus’ strong Christian principles permeated every fibre of the school ethos and he was a man with infinite patience. Hana once overheard him say to a troublesome student, “You may have bounced out of every school in the district, but you’re here to stay. You’ll leave when your time is up and this school has turned you into the useful young man I know you can be. I have all the time in the world and nowhere else I’d rather be!”

When Hana’s husband died in a car accident nine years before, Angus called round to her house. She opened the door to him with reluctance, accepting his visit as the rudimentary five-minute-duty-call. He stayed for five hours, consumed most of a large bottle of red and shared his own experience of losing his wife to cancer months before. “We have to press on, dear,” he told her in a slurred Scots accent, the wine working its magic on both of them. “Otherwise, what’s the point of living?”

The ceremony went without a visible hitch from the perspective of the enamoured new parents. Those members of staff unfortunate enough to be near Sheila Jennings and son-in-law, Rory Kingston were privy to the resounding slap she meted out to him somewhere between the whaikōrero and waiata. The latter drowned out the argument with its rowdy singing. Both possessed faces like thunder and from her distant viewpoint, Hana anticipated the day going downhill fast.

Bored, she studied the new staff members seated on the steps whilst fanning herself with a programme. Angus favoured male teachers in his elite school for boys and this year they looked fresh out of university. Apart from one. The new head of English was Māori and handsome. He looked in his late thirties with jet black hair and olive skin. Even from the other side of the courtyard, Hana noticed his striking eyes. She shifted in her chair to admire the shapely bottom Sheila described with such enthusiasm, but unfortunately, he was sitting on it.

Hana peered too long, deciding if the man’s eyes looked blue or green. The new head boy gushed his acceptance speech at the lectern and sweated ribbons of fluid which left wet patches under his armpits. The handsome male teacher moved and Hana should have averted her gaze out of decency. Slow on the uptake, she discovered his full attention turned on her, as though he sensed her gaze. She gulped. Perched on a small library chair behind the Year 12s, she bobbed her head, sensing the pink blush begin in her cheeks.

Curiosity got the better of her and she peered between boys’ shoulders for another look. Hana stared straight into a pair of piercing grey eyes whose influence crossed the entire distance between them and drilled straight into her soul. She took a sharp intake of breath, causing the boys to look round as an unsettling déjà vu washed over her. The man smiled, an awkward, lop-sided expression, more from his eyes than his mouth. He pulled his gaze away and focussed on the head boy. Hana missed her opportunity to return the smile, convincing herself it was directed at someone else. Much as she wanted to appraise the striking man more, she resisted the urge in case she got caught again. She distracted herself with the excitement of a mental grocery shopping list.

Chapter 4A study class occupied the common room, overseen by the tall Māori teacher. He stood with his hands in the pockets of expensively cut trousers, his famous backside resting against the wall. The sole of his black cowboy boot rested against the wall behind him and he looked casual and yet dangerous.

Hana dashed past carrying a box of university brochures and sensed a small electrical current go through her body. She stopped, perplexed. A grey-eyed gaze met her confused expression and she experienced that odd sense of déjà vu again. Hana faltered, her brow creasing as she corrected herself, realising her staring bordered on rudeness. Feeling unsure of herself, she turned away and a student requesting help diverted the teacher’s attention. Drawn to the man in some inexplicable way, Hana dismissed the warmth of the schoolgirl-crush, which rose inside her, as ridiculous.

“I’m in my forties! This is stupid.” Hana flung her wares onto her desk and rested a hand over her chest, feeling the heightened thud of her heart through her porcelain skin. She eyed the back of her colleague’s head. Peter North snoozed with his wet cheek welded to a pile of reports. “Pete!” Hana shouted, wincing as he woke up with a start.

“What? What?” he screamed, standing up, his eyes wide and his wispy hair on end. “What happened?”

“I said I’m in my forties,” Hana repeated and Pete looked confused.

“You were yesterday too. It’s not an emergency!”

“No, but it’s also half past ten in the morning and you went to sleep after staff briefing. If Alan Dobbs catches you napping at work again, he’ll make sure Angus sacks you.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Pete sat with a thud, shedding a storm of dandruff around his chair. He pulled the reports towards him and peered at them.

“Pete?” Hana walked to his desk and stood next to him, pushing a few pieces of random paper with a slender finger. “Who’s that new teacher in the English department, the tall one?”

Pete’s eyes lit up with a mischievous smirk. “Why? Do you fancy him?”

Hana jumped back as though slapped. “I’m a happily...widowed woman.” It sounded wrong and she cringed. “Forget it, I only wanted to know where he came from.” She floundered. “He looks Māori and I wondered which tribe he belonged to.”

“Whatever!” Pete snorted with derision. “What would an Englishwoman know about tribes?”

Hana slapped him on the top of his fluffy head, regretting it as she unleashed another snowstorm. She wiped her hand on her skirt. “I’m half Irish and half Scots and if you call me English again, I’ll never cover for you with Dobbs for as long as you live!”

“Ngāpuhi!” Pete shouted, spinning his chair as Hana stalked back to her desk. “Ngāpuhi, but he’s from the mountains in the north of the Waikato. His family has links to Tainui and Logan’s fluent in four languages. He grew up on a farm and can teach sport, English, French, accounting and maths.”

Hana hugged the knowledge to herself, a flush creeping up her neck. She faced her computer screen and tapped out a memo Sheila asked her to send. Sensing Pete still staring, she glanced in his direction. “What?”

“Nothing.” He smirked. “I’ll tell him you asked.”

“Don’t you dare!” Hana hissed. “That’s mean! I’m not interested, in fact, I wish I’d never asked! I should’ve known I couldn’t trust you.”

“Hana!” Sheila’s voice issued from her office in the corner and with a glare at Pete, Hana trotted over to the open door and poked her head through. “Have you balanced that budget from last year yet? We need to close it off and I can’t get it to tally.”

Hana’s shoulders sank. “No, I’m still a hundred dollars short and I can’t work out where it’s gone.” She bit her lip in nervous anticipation.

“Well neither of us enjoyed a surprise holiday in Fiji over the summer, so it must be here.”

“I’ll keep looking,” Hana said, pulling her head from the gap and turning away.