Rimis was at his desk, feet up. There was a knock at the door. He jerked forward, opened his eyes and dropped his feet to the floor. Today Choi was wearing an orange jumper, teamed with a knitted black-and-white striped beret. Rimis thought she was doing a good impression of a teapot cosy.
‘Don’t just stand there, Choi, come in and sit down.’ Rimis sat upright and straightened his tie; embarrassed he’d been caught napping. ‘So, what is it?’
She stood at the door. ‘Have you forgotten the meeting? Chapman’s ordered pizzas.’
He had forgotten. He got to his feet and walked with Choi down the hall to the major incident room. Three boxed pizzas were sitting in the middle of the table, a pile of white paper napkins and bottles of water next to them. The room was humid and the smell of pepperoni overpowering.
The team was assembled when Rimis arrived. Rawlings was standing by the window with a slice of pizza in his hand, while Brennan and Chapman were sitting at the meeting table with notepads in front of them. When Rimis sat down, everyone stopped talking. Rawlings took his assigned seat. Choi sat down next to Rimis and offered him pizza but he waved his hand. She closed the pizza box and pushed it away.
Rimis cleared his throat. ‘Welcome back, Brennan. Hope you enjoyed your holiday.’ A few light-hearted sniggers broke out around the room. ‘Okay, everyone, listen up. As you know, yesterday Brennan discovered Patrick Hill was actually Robbie and Fin’s uncle, at least half-uncle.’ He motioned to Brennan and she gave a nod. Rimis continued. ‘He changed his name by deed poll from Patrick Reilly to Patrick Hill. We have unconfirmed claims he sexually assaulted Fin Calloway when she was a minor and he was behind the wheel when Mr and Mrs Calloway died in a fatal car accident. Chapman, you’ve been looking into the grandmother’s will.’
‘Yes, boss.’ Calloway tugged at his tie. ‘Robbie and Fin Calloway were the only beneficiaries, which means she’d cut her son, Patrick Hill /Reilly out of her will completely. Hill must have been pissed, maybe even driven to kill.’
‘What if Hill hadn’t died, he might have had Fin in his sights,’ Jill said. ‘With Robbie and Fin out of the way, it would have left the way open for him to step up and claim his inheritance.’
‘But surely Hill could have contested the will through the courts, without resorting to murder,’ Choi said. ‘And he hardly needed the money, he had enough didn’t he?’
‘For some people there’s no such thing as enough.’ Rimis looked at Choi trying not to focus on her beret. ‘Money’s right up there when it comes to motive for murder. He may have also regarded the inheritance as his right.’
‘But Patrick Hill?’ Choi furrowed her brow. ‘He was hardly a match for Robbie Calloway. Calloway was one hundred and eighty centimetres and weighed in at ninety-two kilos. And it’s unlikely now Hill’s dead. That’s if we’re looking at the same perp for both deaths.’
Rimis gave a quick nod. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t involved in Calloway’s death in some way. And two people dead at the same location…they must be linked. Especially given the victims are blood relatives.’
‘So if we’re treating Robbie’s death as suspicious our only suspect is Hill but he’s not much use to us now he’s dead.’ Brennan leaned across and grabbed a slice of pizza.
‘Of course it may turn out Robbie and Patrick Hill were killed by the same person,’ Rimis said. ‘Or in the case of Hill, we could be looking at manslaughter by criminal negligence.’
‘Huh?’ Rawlings managed through a mouthful of pizza.
‘I was at the morgue with Doctor Ross this morning and part of the afternoon. Her findings confirm Patrick Hill died from a heart attack. The shot to the forehead was inflicted post-mortem.’
‘Who shoots a guy who’s already dead?’ Rawlings asked.
‘Good, question, Luke but it’s not who, but why,’ Rimis said. ‘We could be looking at someone who wanted him dead or at least to give him a good scare. And if murder was the intention, they may have felt they were cheated out of killing him, so they shot him anyway to satisfy themselves.’ Rimis leaned over and grabbed a slice of pizza, which was looking more enticing by the minute. ‘Anything from the public?’
Choi shook her head. ‘Nothing to get excited about and we don’t have any witness statements because there weren’t any witnesses to either death.’
Rimis held his tie and took a large bite of pizza.
Brennan ran her eye over her notes. ‘Here’s what we know about Patrick Hill,’ she said. ‘He was a man of habit, he liked his routine, so what was he doing at the tower? It wasn’t part of his normal route. He only found Calloway because the dog led him into the courtyard where the tower is. I’d have thought the clock tower would be the last place he’d want to be.’
‘He could have been meeting someone,’ Choi said.
‘Yes, but who and why?’ Rimis glanced around at his team.
‘Or maybe Hill was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ Chapman said. ‘He walks into the courtyard to take another look at the tower, indulges his curiosity, but comes across someone who’s there for the same reason. Something happens, robbery gone wrong? His wallet was, is, missing. A druggie? He has a heart attack but the perp shoots him anyway. It makes him feel better.’ Chapman formed a gun with his fingers and held it to his head.
‘Or what if Calloway’s death was a planned murder, an attempt to divert us away from the real target, the second death…Patrick Hill?’ Choi asked.
Rimis sighed. Too many theories. ‘We need much better profiles of Patrick Hill and Robbie Calloway.’ He turned to Choi. ‘Choi, you were looking at the latest footage from the CCTV cameras. What did you find?’
‘No, luck,’ Choi said. ‘They’re still having teething problems with the installation. They did take Jill’s advice and installed extra cameras to cover the tower and the eastern gates, but they were misconfigured. There are no visuals.’
‘Shit. What about you, Chapman? Have you started on Hill’s computer yet?’
‘Yes, boss. I’ve been going through his emails but nothing to report.’
Rimis nodded and turned to Rawlings. ‘Rawlings, you found out Hill had a key to the tower, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, he’s the secretary of the Friends of Callan Park. They run tours of the asylum a couple of times a year. He’s got keys to the Kirkbride tunnels as well. The secretary told me Hill lost his set a few months back and they had another set cut. He had a habit of leaving them in the locks. Look, I’ve been thinking, boss —’
‘That’ll be a first.’ Choi laughed. Chapman sniggered.
‘Quiet,’ Rimis said. ‘Let’s hear what Rawlings has to say.’
‘I’m still wondering if it’s political. It might have something to do with the Callan Park Trust Plan.’
Choi looked across the table at Rawlings. ‘Luke actually has a point. It might be worth checking with the Department of Planning and the Friends of Callan Park to see if they’ve received any nasty threats or petitions recently.’
‘You mentioned that before I went on leave, Luke,’ Brennan said. ‘Haven’t you followed it up yet?’
Luke paused mid-gulp, then said: ‘We’re not all the obsessive types like you, Brennan.’
Before Jill could get a word in Rimis gave her a warning glare then turned to Rawlings. ‘Look into it Rawlings, but don’t go stepping on anybody’s toes. The last thing we need right now is to get the media whipped up into a frenzy. The official line is that these two deaths are unrelated. At this stage we aren’t mentioning the bullet wound to Hill’s head. We need to keep that information from the public for the moment. And we’re still looking for Calloway’s gun. The bullet from Hill has been sent to ballistics and given the ballistic fingerprints of all police guns are in the database we should know soon enough if the bullet was fired by Calloway’s gun. If the bullet was fired from his gun, the most likely person with access is Fin Calloway.’
Jill nodded. ‘I don’t know what she’s capable of, boss. She’s not exactly emotionally stable.’
‘No,’ Rimis replied. ‘And it looks like Robbie Calloway was worried enough about his sister’s mental state to be looking into treatment for her. Which explains his laptop’s browser history of mental health sites.’ Jill had been right all along, but he hadn’t trusted her instincts.
The meeting went on for a further fifteen minutes. The time was spent going over what they knew, point by point. There was a chain of events beginning with Calloway’s death. Rimis brought up the white feathers. ‘Brennan has a theory about the feathers we found up in the tower and in Hill’s mouth. Brennan?’
‘You’ve probably heard about the practice of young women handing out white feathers to men out of uniform during WW1, to imply that the man was a coward. But during my research I found they have another meaning. Some people believe that guardian angels and dead loved ones send white feathers to comfort their charges. The feathers mean your guardian angel is close, that you’re being protected.’
Choi crossed her arms. ‘But how does that relate to Robbie and Hill?’
Jill shrugged. ‘I don’t know…yet.’
After a few moments of silence, Rimis stood up. ‘Okay people, we’ve got lots of theories to chase down. We need to find out who or why someone wanted Robbie Calloway and Patrick Hill dead. We’ll start with Hill’s detailed life history and I want twenty-four-hour surveillance of the clock tower, and that goes for Patrick Hill’s house, as well.’ Rimis turned back to the interactive smart board and looked at the photos of Robbie Calloway and Patrick Hill. Alongside them he drew an arrow and scribbled down Fin Calloway’s name and followed it by adding a question mark.
‘I think it’s time we called Fin Calloway in for a friendly chat,’ Rimis said. ‘Choi why don’t you speak to her, given Brennan knows Fin personally. And Brennan you seem to have made an impression on Adam Lee. I want you to pay him a visit, see if there’s a connection between him, the Calloways or Hill.’