Asylum Read online

  ‘It’s not my decision to make. He’ll be put on the routine schedule, which means you could be waiting anything up to five days for a result.’ Doctor Ross wrapped her woollen scarf tighter around her neck. ‘I can’t wait any longer for this rain to stop. I’m going home. I’ve been working since four this morning.’

  Rimis watched her run back to the car park; she was like a ghost moving through the dappled shadows. There was something about Greer Ross. Perhaps it was her ebony hair, or the way her hips swayed when she walked, something Rimis had noticed when he’d first met her during the Freddie Winfred case.

  ‘Call me!’ Rimis said.

  She raised a hand and was gone.

  Patullo returned a few minutes later with a space blanket and two umbrellas. Jill draped the blanket around her shoulders.

  Rimis placed his hands on his lower back and arched slightly.‘I want a word with Mr Hill.’ Rimis grabbed an umbrella from Patullo and made for the ambulance with Jill and Patullo in tow.

  ‘We’re taking Mr Hill to the hospital, he’s not in any state to answer questions,’ the paramedic shouted to Rimis through the rain. ‘He’s in shock and he suffered a heart attack a few months back. We can’t afford to take any chances with him.’ The paramedic slammed the ambulance door shut, and with his head down he ran around to the driver’s door.

  ‘What about the dog?’ Rimis asked.

  ‘One of your officers called a local vet. The vet said he’d look after him until Mr Hill’s released from hospital.’ The paramedic jumped in behind the wheel and the ambulance slowly moved away.

  ‘Let’s get out of this rain,’ Rimis said. They found cover under an awning of the nearest building. Rimis looked at Patullo and shook his umbrella. ‘Have you got an address for the deceased?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Patullo stomped his feet and blew into his hands.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He lives here.’

  ‘What do you mean, he lives here?’

  ‘I didn’t mean in the grounds. He lives over in Glover Street, on the other side of the park. It’s only a short walk from here.’

  ‘Next of kin?’ Rimis asked.

  ‘He’s got a sister,’ Jill said.

  Rimis glanced at Jill, hesitated, turned back to Patullo. ‘What about a suicide note?’

  ‘No sign of one. Forensics checked the tower. All they found was a Dolphin torch, a backpack and a navy rain jacket.’

  ‘What was in the backpack?’ Rimis asked.

  ‘His wallet, a mobile phone, a set of keys.’

  ‘We’ll want to check out the tower and his accommodation. Now I’m wide awake, I might as well take a look at both.’ Rimis turned to Brennan. ‘I’ll get Patullo to drive you home.’

  ‘No, I’d rather stay.’

  ‘You sure?’ Rimis said.

  Jill looked up at him and nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘What should I do now, sir?’ Patullo asked.

  ‘Best thing you can do is get that lot over there to go home.’ Rimis jerked his head toward the onlookers, still braving the miserable weather.

  Jill tried to put herself in Robbie’s shoes, tried to picture what had happened. She imagined Robbie making his way across the car park to the tower, splashing through muddy puddles. Was he being chased? Was he pushed from the tower?

  Did he fall, or did he jump? The icy wind changed direction. It looked like he’d jumped — landed feet first Doctor Ross had said. But it made no sense to her. Robbie? Top himself? No, there was no way she was buying it. Then she remembered…there was something important she had to tell Rimis.

  After Patullo walked off, Jill spoke to the detective inspector in a soft voice. ‘Boss, there’s something you should know.’

  Rimis looked to be deep in thought.

  Jill took a breath and tried to block the image of Robbie’s broken body.

  Rimis turned to her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Robbie was scared of heights.’

  Rimis frowned. ‘If he was scared of heights what the hell was doing up in the tower, then?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’

  Rimis thumbed the switch of his Maglite and directed the torch skywards towards the tower. The beam of light caught the teeming rain in its field.

  ‘Brennan, you’ve been in this job long enough to know, desperation is a powerful motivator.’ Rimis paused. ‘You must be…well, seeing him like that must have been…’

  Jill bit her lip. The last thing she wanted was Nick Rimis’s sympathy. In the Chatswood detectives’ office she and Jenny Choi were the only female officers. Men dominated the ranks and that meant she had to out-perform them. Jill Brennan had paid her dues. She knew how to handle herself after years on the street up at the Cross. She could also shoot as well as the best of them, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Neither did her first-class honours degree in law or the fact she topped her graduating class at the academy or passed her detective’s course with distinction.

  Rimis reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of mints. ‘Want one?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jill pushed a mint up with her thumb and popped it into her mouth.

  Tell me about him,’ Rimis said.

  ‘We met at the Academy.’ Jill looked him in the eye, knew he was after more, but that was all she was prepared to give him for now.

  The rain abated.

  ‘Detective Inspector? Can we get a few words from you on what happened here tonight? I understand the deceased was a police officer.’

  Rimis turned around. Katrina Andrel shoved a microphone in his face. Rimis had been caught off-guard. ‘Christ, Katrina. Where did you come from?’

  ‘It will only take a minute, Nick.’

  ‘We’re very busy right now.’

  ‘Can you at least give me a name?’

  ‘The family hasn’t been informed and you know as well as I do, we can’t release a name to the public until then.’

  Katrina Andrel was a piranha, a glammed-up ambitious bloodsucker. No morals, no principles, just the exclusive; end of story. Rimis knew the media had its uses, but not tonight.

  Rimis gave Andrel a look that matched the weather. ‘I’m sure the commissioner will hold a press conference first thing tomorrow morning. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until then.’ He gave a dismissive nod, but Andrel didn’t take the hint.

  ‘What do you think about the rise in suicides in the police force and emergency services?’

  She could ask all she wanted but he wasn’t about to make any comment. And he knew what the stats were based on coronial cases. He knew the number of police officers, paramedics and fire fighters who took their own lives had increased over the past few years.

  ‘No comment, Katrina.’ Rimis turned his back on her. It was just like the woman to sensationalise a tragic situation. ‘Come on, Brennan,’ Rimis pulled up the hood of his jacket and looked back at Andrel. ‘It’s too cold to be standing here in the mud.’

  Jill and Rimis made their way over to where the crime-scene officers were working. They were packing up, taking down the arc lights and folding up the cords. Jill recognised Senior Sergeant Hammond amongst them. He’d been a close friend of her father’s and she remembered playing with his daughter when they were both children. The girl, whose name escaped her, had her father’s red hair and pale complexion. Jill pulled the blanket from her shoulders and scrunched it into a tight ball.

  ‘Hello, Jilly.’ Sergeant Hammond stopped a few steps away. ‘Lovely evening.’ Hammond gave a hearty laugh but then leaned in, more serious. ‘I heard on the grape vine you’d made detective. Mickey would have been proud of you.’

  ‘I like to think so, Uncle Phil. But you know what Dad thought about me joining the force.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember, but I can’t say I blamed him. If my Mel had wanted to join up, I would have tried to talk her out of it.’ He stared down at Jill’s shoes, covered in mud. ‘You should have worn your boots.’

  Jill saw the
look on Rimis’s face and resisted the urge to give him an elbow to the ribs.

  ‘What are your first impressions?’ Rimis asked Hammond.

  ‘Lonely spot like this?’ Hammond scratched his head. ‘It’s got all the signs of a suicide jumper, I’m afraid.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And Callan Park of all places.’

  Rimis gave a nod. ‘Prints?’

  ‘We didn’t find much, not surprising with the weather the way it’s been over the past week and more rain expected tomorrow. But we did find a partial footprint on the first step leading up to the tower. Looks like it matches the deceased’s shoes. We’ll know for sure when we get them back to the lab.’

  ‘What about the door lock?’

  ‘No prints there, either. But he was wearing gloves. We don’t know how he got into the tower because the lock was intact. He must have had a key, unless it was already open.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Rimis asked.

  ‘There was one thing. I found these, but I don’t know what to make of them.’ He held up an evidence bag.

  Jill took the bag from Phil Hammond. Inside were three white feathers, but they didn’t look like they were from any bird she’d ever seen. They were downy, white, looked man-made and no bigger than a fifty-cent piece.

  THREE

  Rimis and Jill trekked back across the car park to the clock tower and ducked under the police tape. Jill handed the rolled up space blanket to a uniform and followed Rimis into the tower. The air was cold and dank, the smell of rats and mice fading away under years of dust. Rimis pulled the hood of his rain jacket back and raised his torch to shoulder level. They both swept their torches across the walls and up and down the narrow stairwell. Jill waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. White rivulets streaked the walls and leaf litter and dry twigs scattered the floor. The place was thick with cobwebs. Rimis pushed aside a spider’s web with one hand, gripped the wrought-iron banister with the other.

  ‘Hate spiders. What about you, Brennan?’

  ‘I don’t have a problem with them as long as I can see them. It’s cockroaches I don’t like. Just looking at them makes my skin crawl.’

  ‘And here I was thinking you were fearless,’ Rimis said.

  Jill knew she was anything but fearless. She stopped on the stairs, grabbed the balustrade, smooth from countless hands over countless years. Her heart was racing and the walls were crowding in on her.

  ‘Brennan where are you?’ Rimis called from further up the stairs.

  Jill took a deep breath, called out to him, her voice controlled. ‘Coming, boss. I’ll see you at the top.’ She waited out the anxiety attack and minutes later the moment had passed. She continued up the stairs and at the end of the climb, she stepped into a pool of rank rainwater. Rimis was standing by the double arches, leaning out over the ledge. Jill walked up to him and stood beside him, but she couldn’t look down. Instead, she looked out across the bay. She heard the boats strain against their moorings. The Parramatta River was a full, five-hundred-metre-wide streak ruffed up with waves almost a metre high. On the opposite bank, the lights of Drummoyne were barely visible through the rain. They had a closer look around, but there was nothing worth noting so they headed down.

  They walked out from the tower and into the courtyard. The showery drizzle had stopped. Jill’s nose had started to run and she brushed the cuff of her rain jacket under her nose. She remembered the stories she’d heard about Callan Park when she was at the Academy. With institutions like Callan Park closing, the police had become de-facto mental healthcare workers. The result? Nuffies. She had seen a lot of them up at the Cross; the land of the lost. Living on the streets, recycled over and over again through the criminal justice system with no long-term solution in sight. Jill massaged the knots in her neck and watched Rimis struggle with his torch. It kept flickering on and off. After he rapped the head of it against the palm of his hand a few times, the beam shone brighter.

  Watching Rimis’s torch flickering made Jill think of a B-grade horror movie. She shivered, regretted she’d been so quick to hand back the space blanket.

  Jill paced around the patch of ground where Robbie’s body had landed. ‘What is this place, anyway?’ Rimis asked. ‘Jill?’

  ‘Sorry. What did you say?’

  ‘I asked you about this place.’

  Jill looked over at him, not exactly in the mood to give a history lesson. Especially when the history was marked by questionable treatments and callous approaches to mental illness. Still, it might stop her from seeing Robbie’s body… lifeless, broken. Callan Park with many of the buildings condemned for demolition was in a state of flux as local residents and Leichhardt Council fought with the state government over the property and its future usage.

  Jill took a breath and pulled her coat tight around herself. ‘Callan Park Lunatic Asylum was Australia’s largest public works project of the nineteenth century. Sydney University leases it now from the state government.’

  Rimis looked up at the tower. ‘Wonder what that ball up there is.’

  ‘There’s an underground water reservoir beneath the tower. The ball rises and falls depending on the level of the water in the tanks.’

  ‘How come you know this stuff?’

  ‘I took a class on early Australian architecture at university. I came here sometimes to sketch the buildings.’

  ‘You sketch? Any other hidden talents I should know about?’

  She shook her head, sighed and took in the sandstone buildings. ‘All these renovated buildings you see are part of the Kirkbride block. They were named after an American physician and asylum superintendent.’

  ‘Go on,’ Rimis said.

  ‘Kirkbride came up with a design for asylums based on the principles of Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale thought gardens, open walkways, sunlight and fresh air were important in a patient’s recovery.’ Jill looked at the exterior of the buildings decorated with extravagant stone carvings. She wondered why good intentions often had the habit of turning into disappointment.

  ‘What happened to all the patients?’

  ‘The last of them were transferred to Concord Hospital in 2008.’

  A beat of silence.

  ‘I don’t suppose they call them lunatic asylums anymore?’

  It was too dark for Jill to read Rimis’s expression. ‘No, and they don’t call them lunatics either.’

  FOUR

  David Cheung reversed his shiny black BMW out of his driveway. He drove down the street, adjusted the rear-view mirror and glanced back at his house; three storeys of glass, marble and steel. It had taken eighteen months and three million dollars to build on the side of a sharp cliff in Northbridge, an affluent suburb on the lower north shore of Sydney, seven kilometres north of the central business district.

  He came to a set of traffic lights, stopped on the amber and thought about his now-empty safety deposit box and the locked leather case beside him on the passenger seat. He was about to become two hundred thousand dollars poorer, but at least his family would be safe.

  This morning he’d gone online and booked two one-way tickets to Hong Kong. The Qantas flight was leaving at 11:35 tonight and his wife had promised she and their son would be on it.

  Constable Delaney looked at his watch, adjusted his Kevlar vest. ‘We’ve got about an hour and a half until our shift ends. Wanna go down to that noodle place at the Interchange and grab something to eat?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Constable Troy Baker said. ‘But first I want to do a drive-by Douglas Avenue and see if those kids turned the music down like we asked them to. Don’t want to have to deal with another complaint from the neighbours.’

  Five minutes later, the highway patrol car pulled into Douglas Avenue in North Chatswood. The street was quiet. The party was over.

  ‘Hey, look.’

  ‘What?’ Delaney wondered what Baker had seen.

  ‘Pull over.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said pull over.’

 
; Delaney slowed down.

  ‘That BMW there.’ Baker pointed to the car. ‘There’s something odd about it, look at the way it’s parked.’

  Delaney moaned. ‘All right, but can we be quick about it? My stomach’s doing backflips.’ He stopped the patrol car alongside the Beemer.

  They reached for their torches, got out of the car and walked up to the BMW. Delaney tried the doors first. They were unlocked. There was a briefcase and a mobile phone on the passenger seat.

  ‘Why would anyone walk off with their phone on the seat and the car unlocked?’ Baker said.

  Delaney shrugged. ‘Maybe the car broke down.’

  ‘They’d ring for road-side assistance and wait in the car, wouldn’t they?’ Baker picked up the phone with gloved hands. ‘The phone’s got plenty of battery left on it.’

  Delaney gave another shrug. ‘Joy-riders? Kids from the party?’

  ‘Better run a check; see if it’s been reported stolen.’ Baker walked around the car, inspecting it for damage. The driver’s side wing was smashed and the headlamp glass was shattered. Delaney went back to the patrol car and entered the license plate number into their in-car data terminal. He waited. The car was clean. He joined Baker back at the Beemer.

  ‘No report of it being stolen,’ Delaney said. ‘Now can we go and eat?’ He shivered, the cold and damp biting through his clothes.

  ‘There’s something fishy about this,’ Baker said. He adjusted his leather gloves and leaned into the car, pulled out the briefcase and placed it on the bonnet. After he flicked the locks, he shone his torch on loose papers, pens, and a glasses case. ‘Dr David Cheung, it says here on his business card. He’s an ophthalmologist, based in Victoria Avenue.’

  Delaney removed a glove and placed his hand on the bonnet. ‘Must have been here for a while, the motor’s stone cold.’

  ‘Did you notice it when we were here before?’

  Delaney shook his head. ‘No, but the street was packed with cars from the party.’

  Taylor leaned into the car and grabbed the mobile phone from the passenger seat. It wasn’t password protected and the last call made was to ‘home.’ Baker handed it to Delaney. ‘See if the family knows where he is. I’ll check the boot.’