As the town of Rufus disappeared in the rear-view mirror, I thought about the story Starcy had just given me.
Jesus, what a mess. What a life Nash had endured. No wonder he’d chosen to lose himself in the isolation of the bush. Eagles and apples and rolling green paddocks were a much less toxic environment for him, less likely to trigger the symptoms of his illness.
He’d endured years of abuse and struggled to rebuild his life, not just once, but twice: first by joining the police, then by working with wildlife, only to have it all fall in on him both times.
Now he was stuck in isolation in the remand centre, with the very real prospect of a much longer stretch dangling over his head. From what Starcy had told me, I was the only person who cared enough to try and break that isolation – and I was forbidden from having anything to do with him. Starcy had said he’d try to get down to see him some time soon, but given the old policeman’s age and infirmity, not to mention his inability to drive, I couldn’t see much help coming from that quarter. Nash would be wasting away in a prison cell, uncertain of whom he could trust, torn away from the wild things that were his only form of therapy.
Maybe not though. According to Starcy, at least one other person had been there for Nash in the past, and would perhaps be willing to step up again. The psychiatrist, Damien Rush. He’d spoken in Nash’s defence in court, had apparently kept up a relationship, even if only a professional one, since his teenage years. But I knew nothing about the doctor, not even whether he was still alive and compos mentis, or still practising.
I pulled over, got on to my phone and spent a few minutes trawling the internet. Rush kept a low profile, but eventually I found him, or at least a psychiatrist of that name. He was based in a private hospital, the Nexus, in the upper-middle-class Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe.
I checked the time. Three thirty. I could be there in an hour. Whether or not I’d get to actually meet the man was another matter. Given the state of the nation’s mental health – wasn’t a quarter of the population on psychiatric medication at any given time, and weren’t they just the ones well enough to realise they needed help? – I presumed that, if Dr Rush was there, he’d have patients sitting on each other’s laps in the waiting room. The last thing he’d want was an unannounced visit from the not-quite-partner of a former patient.
But what did I have to lose? I drove down to Ivanhoe and located the hospital: a double-storey building with the name Nexus under a crown on a sign at the door. The waiting room in the mental health department was about what I’d expected: crowded, jittery, nervy, with a nimbus of anxiety and depression lowering over it. There must have been several doctors on the go at once; the patients came and went at a rate of knots.
The receptionist looked at me, aghast, when I said that no, I didn’t have an appointment, that I wasn’t a patient, that I was here on behalf of a friend and hoping for a few minutes of Dr Rush’s precious time. I thought about telling her it was a police matter, but I’d been stretching that line to breaking point of late and was worried about what would happen when it snapped. Sooner or later, if I kept flashing my ID around, word was bound to get back to my bosses. The receptionist said she’d give the doctor a message but she doubted he’d be able to see me. She asked if I wouldn’t like to just leave my details and she’d pass them on, but I said I’d give him a written message now and wait for a reply.
She gave me a notepad. I decided to lay it on the line. This guy, after all, was a shrink; if I laid it anywhere other than on the line, chances were he’d spot it. I wrote that I was a friend of his old client Nash Rankin’s, that Nash was in deep trouble and needed Dr Rush’s support, that I was desperate and could see no other options.
The receptionist left me alone for a couple of minutes while she went into the doctor’s rooms, then came back and resumed her seat. The crowd thinned out. At around six thirty the receptionist closed down her computer, stood up and pulled on a coat. Then she took another look at me, must have taken pity. She said she’d see what she could do to move things along. She went through to the office then came out and said Dr Rush could see me – briefly – when his current patient left.
Not long after she departed, the internal door swung open and two men appeared. The first was a frazzled character with a ragged beard and yellow teeth, gaunt, in his sixties. The other was clean shaven, bouncy, brisk, with a bright red bow tie and a confident gaze. I was surprised – though maybe I shouldn’t have been, given the crowded room and the fact that psychiatrists spend their lives poking around other people’s neuroses – when the doctor turned out to be Mr Frazzled. He bade the patient farewell, introduced himself as Damien Rush then told me he could spare five minutes but that he had an important family conference up in the wards at seven.
He led me into an office fitted out with plump chairs, an overflowing desk and crowded shelves. The walls were covered with calming works of art and framed degrees from sandstone universities. The first thing he said when he closed the door behind us was that, for reasons of patient confidentiality, he couldn’t discuss his former patient’s medical condition. I assured him I wouldn’t have expected any less and asked if he’d been in touch with Nash Rankin in recent years.
He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had a private conversation with him since I testified on his behalf in court seven years ago. I’d already been treating him for some time.’
‘He came to you as a private patient?’
‘I was a member of the crisis-management team Family Services put together after the authorities broke up what the press took to calling the Revelators. I saw Nash on a semi-regular basis, though the appointments became less frequent as he grew older. I thought he was coping well with his condition. Working as a police officer seemed to suit him, give him a new sense of purpose, but then there was that terrible relapse that saw him charged with murder. I was pleased to be able to testify for his defence. He’s a singular young man with a strong altruistic streak. If he did commit an offence, I doubted he was aware of it.’
‘You haven’t heard anything about him lately?’ I enquired.
He frowned and waved a hand at his dishevelled office. ‘There’s an epidemic of anxiety rampaging through society right now, especially since Covid. There are stressed or depressed people everywhere you look – even more in places you might not think to look. Those of us on the front line can get a little overwhelmed.’
‘Tell me about it. I’m a police officer when I’m not running round after Nash.’
He raised a brow. ‘I’m sorry, what was your name again?’
‘Jesse Redpath. Leading Senior Constable.’
He leaned back in his chair and stroked his straggly beard. ‘Then I’m sure you understand the situation.’ He sat up straight. ‘So how can I help you today?’
‘Nash is back in custody,’ I said. ‘Accused of killing a neighbour up at Wycliff Rise.’
Rush sighed, shook his head, said he was saddened to hear that, but not especially surprised.
‘I see patients like Nash every day of the week,’ he explained. ‘They may not all kill someone, but for far too many of them such a tragedy is only a missed medication or a traumatic episode away. I don’t imagine I’m breaching patient confidentiality by admitting that Nash was suffering from severe psychosis – it was all over the news at the time of his trial. When he was having an episode, he was incapable of distinguishing hallucination from reality. Like so many patients, he was reluctant to stay on his meds; he felt they were affecting his consciousness, giving him what he called brain fog. That may have been so, but the alternative – as I fear Nash is now discovering – can be infinitely worse.’
That was all cheery news, especially for someone who, like me, was involved with Nash.
‘The thing is, Doctor, Nash needs help. Now. He’s so isolated. He’s got very little in the way of family or friends. I’ve only met him a few times myself, so I suppose I can’t even say we’re that close. But I do want to support him. Desperately. From what I can gather, I’m about the only one.’
Rush nodded thoughtfully, then asked if I’d visited Nash in prison myself.
‘Ah, there’s a slight problem. As I said, I’m a serving police officer. My bosses think I’ve become a little too close to him.’
‘How close have you become?’
‘Too close for comfort.’
He leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling. ‘You do realise,’ he asked, ‘that a relationship with an individual like Nash Rankin is going to be fraught with long-term difficulty? There’s a reason so many patients with psychological profiles like his end up living and dying alone. Sometimes solitude is their preferred mode of existence. They find human relationships too intimidating. Too dangerous, for all involved.’
‘I understand that,’ I said, though I was struck by the negativity of the comment. I’d never been to a psychiatrist, but if this was the best the profession had to offer, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to seek one out. ‘The thing is, Doctor, I’m worried about him, but I’ve been formally warned off having any direct contact. I’m under suspension at the moment. They think I helped him evade arrest.’
He sighed sympathetically then nodded. ‘That does sound awkward. And he has no one else?’
‘Not that I’ve been able to find. There’s a couple of old friends from the force but they’re mostly out of action these days. I was wondering if there was any possibility of your taking him on as a patient while he’s on remand?’
He looked doubtful. ‘I’d honestly love to help, but that could be an extremely difficult process, given the parlous nature of mental health treatment in the justice system today.’
He fashioned his fingers into a little church. I noticed there was a slight tremor in his hands. Old age, I wondered, or the manifestation of some underlying condition?
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ said Rush, turning his attention to his computer. ‘At Wycliff Rise, you say?’
‘That’s right.’
I couldn’t see the screen, but I assumed he was doing a review of Nash’s recent activities. He shook his head and gave the occasional click of his tongue. Then he turned back to me.
‘A terrible story,’ he said, to which I readily agreed.
‘You must understand,’ he continued, ‘I can have very little direct input into his treatment unless I’m formally appointed as his healthcare specialist. And the wheels of justice grind so slowly. Just getting to that stage could take months.’
I said I was worried Nash might not last that long, to which the doctor proposed a temporary solution.
‘I’ll do what I can to visit him, although it will only be on a personal basis at this stage. A familiar face could do a lot to lift his spirits and improve his mental wellbeing. I presume he’s in the remand centre?’
‘Last I heard.’
‘That’s good. I have had other patients in there. Access is a little smoother, provided he’s not in isolation. I should warn you, though, not to get your hopes up. Anything I can achieve in a visit or two will be no more than the first steps in a journey that will take years, possibly a lifetime. I’ll try to see him next week, though I can’t promise anything. This is a busy facility. We regularly get overwhelmed by emergencies.’
I thought about Nash’s face as he was led away to the ambulance, his isolation in the hospital, his hunger for wilderness.
‘Doctor, I’m pretty sure Nash is one of those emergencies.’
He smiled a thin, troubled smile that barely bothered his beard.
‘We’ll see what we can do.’
He stood up and ushered me to the door.
As I made my way out to the lifts, I experienced a pang of disappointment. This was the bright spot on Nash’s horizon? His best option for succour? A medical expert who looked overdue for retirement and who said he would do his best but couldn’t promise anything other than a possible visit the next week.
Nash was in a bad way.
I needed to do more.
When I reached the foyer I pulled out my phone and dialled Starcy. He answered straightaway. I asked if he was still planning to visit Nash.
‘Course I am. I said I would.’ That didn’t surprise me. If Starcy said he’d do something, he’d do it. But then he added: ‘Might have to make it by taxi though. My mate can’t drive. His knees are playing up as well.’
‘What is it with you old coppers and your knees?’ I asked. ‘Must be all that kicking you used to do.’
His laughter rang out through the foyer.
‘I was wondering if I could give you a lift down to the remand centre?’ I continued. ‘I can’t go in myself, but I could drop you off and wait outside.’
‘Sounds bloody marvellous. I can teach you a thing or two about kicking villains on the way.’
‘Can’t wait. How’s tomorrow work for you?’
‘Works well. Bring your ID. I’ll see if I can get you in.’