Asylum

by Amos, Gina

  ‘Strange you should say that. You’re the second person to voice that concern.’ Rimis pointed to one of the visitor chairs. ‘Have a seat.’

  ‘Who was the first?’ Carver asked as he pulled at the creases of his trousers and sat down.

  ‘Detective Brennan.’

  ‘Jill? I wouldn’t mind hearing her thoughts,’ Carver said. ‘Is she in?’

  ‘I’ll check.’ Rimis picked up his phone and dialled her extension.

  A few minutes later, Jill knocked on Rimis’s open door and saw Scott Carver sitting across from Rimis.

  ‘Come in, Brennan.’ Rimis stretched back in his chair. ‘DCI Carver would like to talk to you about Robbie Calloway. He wants to hear first-hand your impressions from last night.’

  Carver stood up and took Jill’s hand. His grip was firm, strong and warm. Their gazes held and an intense feeling flared up inside her. She tugged her hand back but he tightened his grip for a moment before he released her.

  Scott Carver was slimmer than she remembered. With broad shoulders, a strong jaw and those eyes of his; eyes that made you want to look away in case he worked out what you were thinking. And she’d forgotten how tall he was. At around one hundred and ninety centimetres, his height put her at a distinct disadvantage. Scott Carver’s career, like hers, had been fast-tracked. Area Commander Carver was headed for the top job one day and looking at him now she understood why; he had a strong and powerful presence.

  ‘Detective Brennan.’ He smiled as if they were sharing an inside joke. Jill felt small and compact next to him and was embarrassed by the warmth she felt in her cheeks.

  ‘Have a seat, Brennan.’ Rimis looked at her, then looked at Scott Carver. ‘Am I missing something here?’

  ‘We have mutual friends,’ was all Jill said. If it hadn’t been for the Taggart case she’d been working on when she first met Scott Carver at a birthday party for Bea’s son, she would have given into Bea’s nagging and gone out with him.

  Jill sat down. She wasn’t sure why she’d been called to Rimis’s office. If it was about what happened last night at Callan Park, surely Rimis could have told Scott Carver the details.

  ‘I hear you don’t think Robbie Calloway’s death was suicide? Why?’

  Jill looked at Rimis, then back to Carver. She adjusted her ponytail. ‘I’ve known Robbie Calloway for many years. We were at the Academy together and in all that time I never knew him to be depressed about anything. He was always upbeat and confident. I’m sure he would have told me if there was anything bothering him.’

  ‘Have you read the newspaper this morning?’ Carver asked.

  ‘Not yet, but I caught the segment on Robbie on The Morning Show before I came into work.’

  ‘I heard you’d been in a personal relationship with him. It must have been a terrible shock for you,’ Carver said.

  ‘Yes it was.’ Seems news, or more like gossip, travelled fast. And now it was Scott Carver, of all people, talking about her relationship with Robbie. She was silent, staring at the cup of coffee on Rimis’s desk and wishing she could get her own caffeine fix…or maybe something stronger.

  Carver shifted in his chair. ‘I know it’s been less than twenty-four hours, but are you following any leads to suggest his death was anything other than suicide?’

  Jill was relieved to focus on the case.

  Rimis said, ‘I think —’

  Jill cut him off. ‘There’s a CCTV camera in the western car park not far from where Robbie’s body was found. It could be useful in telling us what happened last night. I’ve been onto the security company this morning and they told me the camera was only installed a few days ago after some of the university staff had their cars vandalised. I’m going to see them later this morning and take a look at the tapes.’

  Carver leaned back in his chair. ‘Good idea, the tapes might shed some light on Calloway’s movements and death.’

  ‘What about the door knocks?’ Carver asked Rimis.

  Rimis shook his head. ‘They weren’t much help. Everyone was either out or at home watching the footy.’

  ‘I called all the local real estate agents in the area,’ Jill said. ‘And when I finally got onto the managing agent for the property in Glover Street, they told me Robbie only moved in a couple of weeks ago. But here’s the interesting thing,’ Jill shifted to the edge of her chair, ‘he only wanted to sign a lease for three months. Apparently he was pretty pissed off when the agent insisted on a six-month lease.’

  ‘What can you tell me about the sister?’ Carver asked.

  ‘I’m going to see her this morning after I’ve finished at the security company.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time on this, Brennan. There’s no doubt in my mind it was suicide,’ Rimis said.

  ‘Maybe Detective Brennan should follow her instincts on this one, Nick. After all, she did know him better than any of us.’

  For a few moments nobody spoke. It was Carver who broke the silence. He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting in North Sydney in half an hour, I should be going.’ He got to his feet and looked at Jill. ‘Let me know what you find on the CCTV. With no witnesses, it might hold the key to what happened last night.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Jill stood up.

  Scott paused, looked at Jill. ‘Robbie was a bloody good cop. He’ll be missed.’

  Rimis got to his feet to see Scott Carver out and Jill went back to her desk.

  Five minutes later Rimis stormed down the corridor towards the detectives’ room. ‘Brennan!’ Rimis roared her name so loud, the whole station shook. ‘In my office, now!’

  Jill hurried down the corridor, barely managing to keep it together. What was wrong with the man?

  ‘Come in and close the door.’ Rimis slumped down in his chair. ‘For Christ’s sake, Detective, what did you think you were playing at?’

  The use of the word detective had the same effect on her as when she called Rimis, sir. Nick Rimis was seriously pissed off with her for some reason.

  ‘Sit down!’

  Jill adjusted herself in the chair, straightening up for whatever was coming.

  ‘I’m only going to have this discussion with you once,’ he began. ‘You’re part of a team. You’re an intelligent woman and I know I don’t have to give you the definition of team. You just can’t go off half-cocked every time you come up with an idea based on some crazy hunch you might have.’ Rimis was pacing a short track on the carpet behind his chair.

  Jill had only seen Rimis like this once before, when Rawlings had stood in a pool of blood at a crime scene. She knew it was best not to say anything and to wait for him to calm down.

  Rimis walked over to the window. He had his hands clasped behind his back and she could hear him swearing under his breath. A few moments later, he turned around. His face had almost returned to its normal colour.

  ‘The Commissioner is on the warpath. The media is hounding me.’ Rimis ran his fingers through his hair. His voice dropped. ‘For Christ’s sake, Brennan why do you always want to make every case your personal crusade? I know you’re upset over Calloway’s death but you should have run it past me before you started your own investigation instead of springing it on me in front of Carver.’

  ‘Sorry, boss. I was out of line.’ So that’s what this was about — she made him look bad in front of Scott.

  After a few beats of silence Rimis said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want a couple of days off?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She looked down at her hands in her lap. She thought Nick Rimis could do with a few days of leave himself.

  Rimis frowned. ‘Listen —’

  Jill looked up. ‘What do you want me to do? Take a day or two off, file my nails, get my hair done?’

  Rimis rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, Brennan, don’t be a pain in the arse.’

  ‘I can’t just sit around and do nothing. If I take time off and allow myself to grieve for Robbie, I’ll lose my edge. The adrenaline is the only thing that’s keeping me goi
ng.’ Jill rubbed her eyes. ‘Robbie’s dead and I know I can’t do anything about that, but I need to know why he died. I owe it to him and I owe it to Fin.’ Jill was about to say she owed it to herself but stopped short. She was wasting her breath. Everyone was convinced it was suicide.

  Rimis walked back to his desk and sat down. ‘I would never have taken you with me to Callan Park last night if I’d known the deceased was someone you knew. I thought I was doing you a favour getting you away from your desk.’ Rimis lifted his coffee mug, swirled it around and examined it. ‘I’ll be watching you, you know.’ He looked up at her. ‘If I think for one second this case affects the way you perform your duties, I’ll —’

  ‘Understood, sir.’ Jill got to her feet to leave.

  ‘No need to call me, sir.’ Rimis’s forehead creased into a frown.

  Jill tucked a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear and headed towards the door.

  ‘Jill?’

  She stopped, turned around.

  ‘Forget Robbie for now. I want you to go to North Shore Hospital and check on the boy who was attacked at the Train and Bus Interchange a couple of nights ago.’

  ‘Adam Lee?’ Jill had heard his name in yesterday morning’s meeting. He’d been stabbed.

  ‘Carver thinks his attack and Cheung’s murder last night have something to do with these Asian gangs operating across Sydney. See if you can get the boy to give us a name or description of his attacker. And take Choi with you. Lee will be scared, but I want you to remind him what he’s up against if he doesn’t talk to us.’ Rimis picked up a file and shook his head. ‘What was it about last night? Did I miss something? Was it a full moon?’ He flicked through the file on David Cheung. ‘I’ll have a word with Rawlings about the Cheung murder, I know it’s his case but I want you two to work together on it.’

  Jill nodded even though she wanted to focus on Robbie.

  ‘Listen Jill, if you change your mind about taking leave you can —’

  ‘Don’t worry, boss. You’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘Jill we’ve been friends…that is, colleagues for some time now. Why don’t you go away somewhere; get your head in order. Come back when you’re ready. We can always arrange extra leave if you need it.’

  ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘No,’ Rimis said, ‘it’s a lifeline.’

  EIGHT

  Rimis sat back in his chair and ran his hands down his face. Maybe he’d been too hard on Brennan. He knew first hand what it was like to go against popular opinion. In the Winfred case wasn’t he the only one who’d believed Kevin Taggart was a serial killer? Everyone else had thought he was a gifted artist, including Brennan.

  Brennan had been chosen for an undercover assignment into an art fraud racket in Eastern Sydney. But what had started off as a straightforward case quickly turned into a major murder and drug investigation. Rimis knew if it hadn’t been for his doggedness, Jill would have been Kevin Taggart’s next victim.

  He could at least give Calloway’s death a day or two of his team’s time, for Brennan’s sake. They could look into it in conjunction with their other cases. Rimis stood up from behind his desk and walked down the corridor to the detectives’ room. He headed straight for Matt Chapman’s workstation.

  ‘Find anything on Calloway’s laptop, Matt?’

  Detective Matt Chapman sat upright removed his dark-framed glasses and put down what remained of his sandwich. He’d been looking at the laptop before Rimis had interrupted him. ‘There’s nothing special about it, boss. You could buy one of these at any electrical store for a good price, especially if they were on sale. Still using Windows XP, a bit slow and out-dated, but does the job well enough.’ He wiped his mouth with a white napkin. ‘I found a range of browsing sites, a bit of soft porn amongst it all, nothing too erotic though, no anal sex, gang bangs or threesomes. His taste was for blondes with big tits, Caucasians mainly.’

  Rimis cleared his throat and shifted his feet. ‘Get on with it Chapman.’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’ Matt Chapman’s face reddened. He replaced his glasses and sat forward in his chair. ‘If you ask me, Calloway had nothing to hide.’ He tilted the computer screen back so Rimis could see it better.

  ‘What about Facebook?’ Rimis leaned towards the computer screen.

  ‘Just the usual snaps of pretty girls, him at the beach with his surfboard,

  drinking with mates, that sort of thing. A few photos of him at a racecourse, looked like Royal Randwick to me. He definitely liked to party. But there’s one name that keeps popping up. Fin, no last name, no photo tag. Don’t know whether they’re male or female. Could be a nickname.’

  Rimis crossed his arms. ‘Fin’s his sister.’

  Chapman nodded. ‘Thought you’d want to know, there are a few photos of Jill amongst them.’

  Rimis raised his eyebrows. ‘Nothing compromising?’

  ‘No. All pretty innocent.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He visited a few chat rooms, message boards, tweeted.’

  ‘Were there any visits to suicide sites, mental health helplines, gambling sites, that sort of thing?’

  ‘He logged onto Beyond Blue and the Black Dog Institute forums a couple of times, but he didn’t interact. He also logged on to a site called The Friends of Callan Park, and an online gambling site. As far as I could see, he didn’t place any bets.’

  ‘When did he last use his laptop?’

  Chapman passed him a print of the screen capture. ‘This was what he was looking at before he logged off at 7.36 pm the night he died.’

  Rimis took the sheet of paper, looked at it for a moment. ‘Know what it is?’

  ‘A continental goods warehouse in Chatswood. I had a quick look at the building’s paperwork but it all looks legit.’

  Rimis folded the sheet in two and put it in his pocket. ‘Have you had a chance to check his mobile phone and emails?’

  ‘We’ve made a list of recent calls he made and received. Rawlings is going through them now, matching names and addresses. He’s also checking the photos taken by the police photographer of the cars parked in Glover Street last night.’ Chapman rolled his shoulders back. ‘I’ve gone through most of his emails but there was nothing worth noting. I found some other photos, sandstone and derelict buildings, long verandahs, and grassy parklands. Also there are some photos of houses. They look like workman’s cottages to me, could be in Rozelle or Balmain. I’ll email copies to you, if you want.’

  ‘Good work, Matt.’

  On his way back to his office, Rimis tugged at his tie and made a mental note to clear the web browsing history from his computer.

  NINE

  Jill headed straight for the bathroom after she left Rimis’s office. She checked that none of the cubicles were occupied before she chose one at the end of the row. She sat down on the closed lid and wiped her nose with a sheet of toilet paper. She had to pull herself together. She couldn’t afford to fall apart the way she had during the Kevin Taggart case, if she did, she knew questions would be asked about her ability to do her job. The job. It meant everything to her. She flushed the toilet. At the washbasin she splashed her face with cold water and looked at herself in the mirror. If only she’d returned Robbie’s phone call. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking that if she had, he might still be alive.

  Two loud pings in succession signalled two new messages. Jill took her phone out of her pocket and read the first message. It was the security company confirming her appointment; the second was from Bea Travers. ‘Heard about Robbie. R u ok?’

  A few minutes later, Jill walked out of the bathroom and headed back to her desk. She logged on to her computer, checked her emails then sat back in her chair and stared at the computer screen.

  Her father had once explained to her that there were two types of police officers — the ones who could go home after every shift and switch off, and the ones who could never let go. She was the latter.
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  She took a sip of tea. It was stone cold, but she finished it anyway. Jill clicked on Robbie’s file. Questions needed answers. Sure, she was supposed to be heading to the hospital to speak to Adam Lee but a few minutes for Robbie wouldn’t make any difference to anyone. She stood and glanced around the cubicles…Rawlings was at his desk next to hers but he was busy working on a report and he had his earphones in. What Rimis didn’t know… She searched for the phone number for Manly Police Station, sat down at her desk, dialled and gave her name. Moments later she heard a gravelly voice on the end of the line. ‘DI Perris.’

  ‘DI Perris, this is Detective Jill Brennan from Chatswood Detectives,’ Jill said in a quiet voice.

  ‘What can I do for you, Detective?’

  ‘I wanted to speak to you about Senior Constable Calloway; he was a very close friend.’

  There was an unexpected silence down the phone.

  Jill cleared her throat. ‘I know this is an unusual request, sir, but I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about the last few weeks of his working life. Was he behaving in a way that —’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry Detective but there’s nothing to tell. Senior Constable Calloway was working on a number of cases prior to his death, but nothing that would make him want to…to take his own life.’

  She took a breath, but he cut her off again.

  ‘It’s obviously hard for you to accept his death, and the way it happened. I suggest you seek counselling…that’s what it’s there for. Now if you don’t mind, I’m about to go into a meeting.’

  ‘Oh…um, okay. Thanks for your time.’ She kept the sarcastic tone out of her voice.

  ‘You’re welcome. Goodbye.’ The line went dead.