Asylum

by Amos, Gina

  ‘Definitely one to get off the streets.’

  Choi nodded but then leaned forward. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to Robbie Calloway. I heard you two used to be an item.’

  Who didn’t know about her and Robbie? ‘Yeah, we went out for a while.’

  ‘Did you know he had gambling debts?’ Choi asked.

  Jill raised her eyes. ‘We were close, but not close enough for him to discuss his financial situation with me.’ Jill rested her eyes on Jenny Choi. ‘How do you know about his gambling?’

  ‘I had a call this morning from a DS I know. We were talking about Robbie. He told me he’d bumped into him at Randwick racetrack a few months back. Robbie was laying down some pretty serious bets, boasting to him about how much he’d won.’ Choi dropped her feet to the floor. She unscrewed the cap of the bottled water and took a swig. ‘I figured if he’d won money, he must have lost some as well, so I asked around. One of my sources told me he owed money to Billy Veland.’

  ‘Veland’s got some pretty unpleasant types working for him, hasn’t he?’ Jill asked.

  ‘Yeah, but he’s small time, mostly lends money for credit card and mortgage payments.’

  ‘Still…definitely worth a follow up. So, where do I find him?’

  ‘He’s got a shoe repair shop in one of the arcades in Lane Cove. He’s a short, surly type.’

  The case may be closed as far as Rimis was concerned, but Jill still had questions that needed answers.

  THIRTEEN

  Jill and Jenny Choi walked through the automatic glass doors of North Shore Hospital. The foyer resembled a lounge at a busy international airport with rows of flower stalls, gift shops and comfortable lounges. The aroma of fresh coffee masked the smell of cleaning agents and antiseptic.

  ‘I could do with a coffee,’ Choi said.

  ‘I hate hospitals, the less time we spend here the better.’ Jill shuddered. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No worries, I can wait until we get back to Chatswood.’ Hospitals held too many memories for Jill, especially North Shore Hospital. Memories of her father as he lay in the intensive care, memories of herself as a patient here after Kevin Taggart had attacked her in her apartment.

  Jill and Choi joined a line of visitors and queued for the lifts. While they waited, Jill thought about Adam Lee and why she’d joined the force. She’d thought she’d be able to protect someone like Adam but she’d been fooling herself. In all the years she’d been a police officer there had never been a single person whose life she’d been able to change. The ping of the open lift caught her attention and brought her back to the moment. She jostled for a space next to the lift door and pressed the button to level fourteen.

  Jill followed Choi out of the lift and past the nurse’s station to Adam Lee’s private room. Choi knocked on the door. They walked in to see him propped up against a pile of pillows, the television set on and a tray stacked with uneaten food at his bedside. The file said Adam Lee was nineteen but he looked more like sixteen with his baby-face and high cheekbones. His eyes were dark and his black hair was cropped close and fashionably styled.

  Adam Lee turned his eyes away from the television and looked at them. ‘How are you Adam? You’re looking much better than the last time I saw you,’ Choi said. ‘I see you’ve still got the tubes in.’

  ‘Yeah. But they said I could be going home in a few days.’ Adam looked at Jill.

  ‘This is Detective Jill Brennan,’ Choi said. ‘She’s working with me on your case.’

  Jill smiled. She wanted to put him at ease so he’d open up to her. ‘You’ll be pleased to be going home, then.’ Jill pulled up a visitor chair and sat down beside him.

  On the surface at least, Adam looked like he’d made a good recovery.

  Uniform had been conducting extra patrols at the Interchange and they appeared to be effective because there hadn’t been any similar incidents reported.

  ‘Adam,’ Jill said, ‘given you’re about to leave hospital it’s even more important you tell us who attacked you. If the person who did this to you goes unpunished, there’s a good chance he’ll attack again. You may even be targeted. You might not be so lucky next time.’ She leaned forward. ‘Instead of a collapsed lung it could be something worse.’

  He gave a shrug, turned up the TV.

  Jill wasn’t going to be put off that easily. ‘Or maybe they’ll go after your family.’

  He gave her a glance at that one.

  Jill continued. ‘When Detective Choi came to speak to you last time, you said you didn’t know who attacked you or anything about an organisation called the Red Cave Gang. I’m sorry, Adam but I don’t believe you. It’s important you tell us the name of the person who stabbed you so we can question him. And hopefully, if he’s part of this gang, we’ll be able to put a stop to their operation.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Give me a break.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I don’t know about any gang, but the dude who did this to me was Benny Cheung. His old man was an eye doctor. Had a shop on Victoria Road next to the disposal store.’

  Cheung. Jill recognised that name. The guy found in the boot of his car. ‘So, tell me, what happened?’ Jill leaned forward. She had a pen and her notebook in her hand.

  ‘I was minding my own business. I’d just got off the train. I’d been in the city with some mates and I was walking back to my old man’s restaurant when he attacked me, right out of the blue. He pulled a knife on me then took off after he stabbed me.’

  ‘You told Detective Choi you had no idea why he pulled a knife on you. Is that still the case?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘He just went crazy.’

  Jill knew it was Adam Lee’s word against Benjamin Cheung’s. The CCTV camera where the attack occurred had been smashed the day before and hadn’t been replaced. Unfortunate or convenient for Lee? She also wondered why Adam was now prepared to talk and why he’d referred to David Cheung in the past tense. What had the Cheung family been involved in? Were they members of the Red Cave Gang? Whether they were or not, it didn’t matter now. The father was dead and his wife and Benjamin were missing. She grabbed the remote control for the television and turned it off.

  ‘Hey, I was watching that.’

  ‘I need your full attention here, Adam.’ She put the remote down on his bedside table.

  ‘Did anyone see Benjamin Cheung attack you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So, nobody came to your aid?’

  ‘It was late, the mall was deserted.’

  If there had been any witnesses Jill wondered if they’d come forward. If the attack on Adam had anything to do with the Red Cave Gang, any witnesses would’ve been warned off. ‘Thanks for co-operating, Adam.’ Jill handed him back the remote control. ‘We might be back with more questions, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries, I’m not goin’ anywhere.’ Adam turned the television back on.

  Jill and Choi left the room and took the lift down to the lobby.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling he wasn’t being totally honest with us. What do you think?’

  ‘I agree but at least he gave us a name,’ Choi said. ‘And a very interesting one at that.’

  ‘I’m a bit suspicious though. Why is he speaking to us now? What’s changed?’

  Jill shrugged. ‘Maybe someone convinced him to offer up Benjamin Cheung’s name.’

  FOURTEEN

  Jill and Fin were on their way to the morgue. At least Fin had made some effort. She’d showered, her hair was washed and she was dressed in a pair of denim jeans, a pale blue shirt and a black knee-length coat. She’d even managed to cover the smell of booze. Mints and perfume were working overtime.

  It was normally a ten-minute drive to the morgue but the tail end of the peak-hour traffic made for slow going — not helped by the rain. Jill kept the headlights on and the wipers turned to intermittent. It would have been smarter if she’d taken the back streets instead of busy Parramatta Road. She backtracked, turned right at Barr St
reet and a few minutes later pulled into the car park at the rear of the Glebe Morgue.

  Jill walked with Fin along the building’s corridors, which smelled of formaldehyde and air freshener. When they reached the viewing room, Jill pushed open the door and they walked in. Jill had stood in this room with its dusty plastic flowers and tissue boxes more times than she would like to remember. An on-call counsellor who was in the room had her head bowed, respecting the formalities. Words of comfort and commiseration would be offered after Fin ID’ed Robbie.

  ‘Fin, is this Robert Calloway, your brother?’

  Fin nodded and held her hands to her face. ‘Yes, oh my God.’ Fin slumped into Jill’s arms.

  ‘How about we have a cup of tea?’ the counsellor said. ‘We can go into my office and deal with the paperwork there.’

  ‘We just need you to sign a form,’ Jill said to Fin. As if grief wasn’t enough, there were also the rituals of death to be performed: decisions to be made, funeral arrangements, Robbie’s estate.

  Eventually, Jill managed to get Fin out of the morgue and into her detective’s car. It was raining when they arrived at Fin’s apartment. Jill buttoned her coat. ‘I’ll walk you up.’

  Fin fumbled with her house keys. Jill gently took them from her and opened the door.

  ‘Is there anyone I can call to be with you, Fin? You shouldn’t be alone.’ Jill remembered similar words spoken by Rimis the night Robbie died.

  Fin didn’t answer immediately. She wiped her nose with a crumpled tissue and collapsed onto the sofa. ‘There’s no one. The doctor came last night. He gave me tablets to help me sleep. I think I’ll take one.’

  Jill reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a card. She wrote down her private mobile number. ‘Here, take this. You can call me 24/7. I’ll always answer it. I’m here for you, Fin.’

  Jill returned to the station and drove into the basement car park. She switched off the engine and let her head sink onto the steering wheel. The police radio crackled in the background.

  Mental images of Robbie came to her. Robbie at the beach with his surfboard, zinc cream on his nose. Robbie in his police uniform, tall and straight. His cheeky grin. Robbie propped up at the bar of the pub they used to frequent. Robbie in a body bag at the base of the clock tower.

  Jill went over the last time she’d seen Robbie. New Year’s Day. Jazz playing in the background, leftover tinsel and gaudy lights from Christmas still hanging above the bar. Robbie had spoken to her about his future and the plans he had to keep rising up the ranks. They’d joked that one day she’d be reporting to him.

  In that last phone call, had he been reaching out to her? She’d never know. She slammed her fist against the steering wheel, and then gripped the wheel, tight, with both hands. A few seconds later tears streamed down her face, the sobs coming hard and fast.

  FIFTEEN

  From the window in his office, all Rimis could see on Archer Street were the tops of umbrellas. Buses rumbled by, splashing up water from the gutters. When the call had come through on Friday night he was told the body of a police officer had been found at Callan Park. He had no idea Brennan knew Robbie Calloway. He ran his hand through his hair. Choi had said Brennan seemed tired and that maybe she needed time off. Knowing Brennan she wouldn’t be sleeping because of the events of the last two days. He wasn’t surprised. She reminded him of what he was like when he first got his detective’s designation. She was bull-headed, tenacious and just as much a pain in the arse as he’d been — perhaps, still was.

  Robbie Calloway’s death was an open-and-shut case even though the autopsy hadn’t been done. Calloway had landed feet first, he had a gambling problem, had visited mental health sites and his home reflected a man in trouble. Soon the file would be archived. Brennan was far from convinced Calloway had taken his own life but he hoped for her sake she’d accept his death and move on. If she continued to pursue the case and go against orders, it could affect her career.

  Still, it was interesting that Scott Carver had reservations too.

  There was a knock on the door. He turned around. Brennan. He knew she’d been to the morgue with Fin Calloway. ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘I’m okay, but I can’t say the same for Fin Calloway.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want time off?’ Rimis asked.

  ‘No need for that.’

  Rimis nodded. It probably wouldn’t be the last time he made that offer. He walked back to his desk and told her to take a seat.

  Jill leaned over and handed him an A4 envelope. ‘Here are the photos from the CCTV cameras at Callan Park.’

  He flicked through the photos. ‘This is all you’ve got? What about footage from the cameras in the courtyard?’

  ‘They weren’t operational,’ Jill said. ‘And there are no other cameras apart from the one in the car park.’

  Rimis rolled his eyes and slid the photos back across the desk to Jill. ‘You better give Scott Carver a call and tell him the CCTV was a waste of time.’

  He couldn’t believe the lack of security in Callan Park. It was different when he started his career, all you had to rely on were witnesses, but over the past decade, Sydney had become a city of cameras — public and private. Policing had changed with the technology, now it was standard procedure to look for cameras at every crime scene.

  ‘There’s not much to work with,’ Jill said. ‘The security company tried to enhance the tape but it’s low-grade, and there’s not much of it because of the camera angle. Hard to tell, but it could have been Robbie based on the frame and height. And the rain jacket looks like the one Patullo found in Robbie’s backpack. When I was in Fin’s apartment, I noticed she had one exactly the same.’ Jill flipped the pages of her notebook. ‘The next movement was Patrick Hill’s dog running across the car park. That was at 10.36 pm. Eight minutes later, Mr Hill appeared. It matches his story. Patullo and his partner arrived at 11.02.’ Jill snapped her notebook shut. ‘That’s it. No one else, not surprising. It was a god-awful night to be out.’

  Rimis leaned forward and looked at the photos again. ‘It could be Robbie Calloway or any number of people. Navy blue rain jackets are a dime a dozen. You said yourself Fin had a rain jacket just like it. Christ, even I’ve got one.’ He leaned back. Sighed. ‘Look, Brennan, I think you need to drop this. You’re letting your imagination and your feelings run away with you. Besides, we don’t have the resources or the manpower to have you running around looking for evidence of foul play when there clearly is none. You know we’ve got a backlog of cases that need our attention.’ Rimis didn’t think she was listening.

  ‘There’s another way of getting to the tower without being seen,’ Jill said. ‘Someone could have approached from the east, along Kirkbride Way and —’

  ‘You’re clutching at straws, now.’

  Jill glared at him. ‘We’re still waiting for the autopsy results.’ He paused. ‘You need to let it go.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘I said, let it go.’ Rimis pushed his empty coffee cup to the side of his desk to make a point. Then, he looked at her. ‘What do you expect the tox reports will tell you, anyway? Even if they show alcohol or drugs in his blood, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. In fact, it will prove the opposite and support the theory he jumped, or fell from the tower while under the influence.’

  ‘But —’

  Rimis shot to his feet. He had to be firm with her…it was the only thing she’d respond to. ‘I mean what I say, Jill. Leave it alone, the less attention drawn to Robbie Calloway’s suicide, the better. You have to learn when to obey orders. I’ve covered for you before, but this time powerful people are involved, the type of people who wouldn’t think twice about kicking your arse from here to kingdom come.’

  ‘What do you mean powerful people?’

  ‘For starters, the Police Commissioner and then there’s the Premier. It seems Katrina Andrel has a bee in her bonnet about their failure to act on the increase in suicides in the emergency services over
the past twelve months. Nobody, wants to dwell on what’s seen in the press as our failures…failure to protect one of our own.’ Rimis sighed and ran his hand across the back of his neck. ‘Listen, Jill, we’ve got more pressing things on our plate at the moment. Real criminals. Remember them? I want to know if Asian gangs are involved in the Adam Lee knife attack and David Cheung’s murder.’

  SIXTEEN

  The wind picked up. Rimis gripped his coat closed with one hand and darted across the road to the Great Northern Hotel on the corner of Mowbray Road. He would have preferred to meet DCI Scott Carver at Otto’s Bar, but it was on the other side of town and he had a pile of paperwork waiting for him back on his desk.

  The hotel’s wood-panelled interior, antique Chesterfield lounges and faux deer head, reminded him of an old English hunting lodge. He spotted Carver sitting at a table next to the open fire, studying the lunch menu.

  There were advantages to being a DI, Rimis thought as he stopped at the bar but he thought he’d be pushing his luck if he ordered a glass of red, so he ordered tomato juice instead. When his drink arrived he went over to join Chief Inspector Carver.

  Carver stood up. ‘Good to see you again, Nick.’ They shook hands.

  ‘Good to see you too, Scotty. It’s blowing a gale out there.’ Rimis put his glass down on the table and draped his coat over the back of the chair. He glanced up at the flat-screen television mounted on the wall. The soccer was on and Argentina was playing Uruguay. The volume was turned down low. He picked up the menu and gave it a momentary glance.