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.
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.
Jill put down the phone. If Perris knew anything he wasn’t about to share it with her. If Rimis ever found out she’d spoken to Perris, he’d read her the riot act, again. And in the end the phone call had been a complete waste of time. Jill checked the time on her phone. Adam Lee would have to wait until this afternoon.
Jill left Chatswood Station and thirty minutes later she walked through the automatic glass doors to the offices of Access Security. The receptionist asked her to take a seat. Five minutes later she was led down a corridor and into the manager’s office. After the introductions, the manager handed Jill a series of photos. She laid them out in front of her on his desk and studied them. ‘What? This is all you’ve got?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he said.
‘I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but it’s obvious from the quality and number of photos, the CCTV coverage on the site is grossly inadequate. I know you’ve got foot patrols at regular intervals, but what happened last night may have been avoided if…’
The manager raised both hands. ‘I agree with you one hundred percent, Detective. I can’t tell you how many discussions and meetings I’ve had with the university about increasing the security at Callan Park, but it’s all about budgets and cost-cutting these days. There’s talk the Federal Government plans to axe $2.5 billion dollars from funding to universities and student support programmes in the next budget. The reason the CCTV is there at all is because a few of the students and lecturers had their cars vandalised a few weeks ago.’
What else was there to say?
On the way back to the car park, Jill stopped and looked at the grainy photos again. They’d been printed on heavy gloss paper and showed a lone figure in a hooded tracksuit. The face was obscured and it was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman. It could be Robbie, but Jill knew there was little, if any chance of a formal identification based on these photographs.
Once she was behind the wheel, Jill threw the envelope on the passenger seat and punched Fin Calloway’s address, which she’d committed to memory, into her GPS. She looked at the display. She was nine kilometres from Fin’s apartment. The GPS told her she’d be there in eleven minutes.