The following morning Jill drove across town to Callan Park. The early Sunday morning traffic was light across the Anzac Bridge. Jill thought back to her short stay in hospital. After Fin had taken her life, Rimis had insisted she return to her hospital bed. She smiled when she thought of Scott Carver and Nick Rimis. They had been like schoolboys vying for her attention. They’d both arrived at the same time and brought flowers and chocolates from the team. Rawlings, Choi and Chapman had brought magazines and fruit. Bea, Harry and Callum had also come to visit, staying by her bedside, talking and watching television with her. She considered all of them family. But she still wanted, needed, more. She’d decided to apply for extended leave. Spain. It was time to go in search of her mother’s family.
Jill pulled into the car park behind the Kirkbride Complex and sat for a long time before she got out. She was still angry with herself for not being able to save Fin and of course there was the lingering guilt over not returning Robbie’s phone call. If she had called Robbie, it may have stopped the tragic chain of events that had led to four deaths: Robbie, Patrick Hill, Vincent Wan and Fin.
Jill found a place to sit in the grassy courtyard and pulled out a sketchpad, a black crayon pencil, and a small sheet of plastic from her backpack. The light was soft and hazy and the walls surrounding the courtyard provided protection from the wind. Jill’s shoulders dropped and as the sketch took shape on the paper in front of her she started to relax.
Half an hour later she was done. She looked up, studied the tower and compared it with the sketch. It was a fair attempt. The decorative stonework moldings, the circular elements of the facades and the double-arch openings had been captured to her satisfaction. A copper ball and weather vein sat on top of the pyramid-shaped roof and she decided to leave the details to the end. Above the lintel was a date stone with MDCCCLXXX111 carved into it. She shifted her weight and resettled the sketchpad on her knees. She was thinking about the Roman numerals when she heard a familiar voice behind her.
‘Might of known you’d be here.’
Jill dropped her sketchpad and turned around.
Rimis smiled and peered over her shoulder at the sketch. ‘Not bad,’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’ Jill asked.
‘Thought I’d take a look at this place in the daylight and under different circumstances.’ Rimis looked up at the tower, then back to Jill. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘The bruising is fading, but my ribs still feel like I’ve been trapped in a cardboard compactor for the past week.’ She went to pick up her backpack.
Rimis grabbed the backpack for her.
‘I had a call from Greer. I was going to wait until tomorrow when you came into work to tell you, but I might as well tell you now.’
Jill raised her eyebrows.
‘It’s Fin’s autopsy report. She was suffering from a condition called TLE, temporal lobe epilepsy.’
‘I didn’t see her have any fits,’ Jill said. ‘I thought the blackouts; loss of memory was to do with her heavy drinking.’
‘With the kind of epilepsy Fin had, there isn’t any jerking or loss of consciousness. According to Greer, it can cause changes in mood and personality, usually anger and rage. Also hallucinations.’
‘What about her memory loss?’
‘Apparently when the seizure happens, you can wake up with no memory of where you went or what you did. You can find yourself lost, or in an odd place or situation. The waking up happens when the seizure finishes. Greer told me of a case study she’d read. A woman with the condition drove up a motorway in the wrong direction and ploughed into a family sedan. The occupants of the van were all killed but she escaped injury. She had no memory of getting into the car.
Jill noticed Rimis staring at the tower. She could only imagine what he was thinking.
‘The sad part about it,’ he said, ‘is Fin may have responded to medication.’
Jill knew Rimis was a kind, sensitive man underneath his gruff exterior. He reminded her of a younger version of her father. She suddenly thought it sad that, like her, he had no other plans for a Sunday afternoon other than to revisit a crime scene. Although he’d called Doctor Ross Greer…again.
‘How’s Greer?’ Jill let the question hang, fishing.
Rimis smiled, but then looked off into the distance.
Jill would never get an answer…or maybe she just had.
They stood in silence, taking in the gardens for a few minutes.
Rimis cleared his throat and turned to her. ‘Do you ever regret joining the force?’ Rimis asked.
‘I’ve always felt it was the right decision.’ But after recent events, Jill wasn’t so sure anymore. She let her head fall back and looked up at the sky. It was good to see the sun again after so much rain.
‘Feel like a walk?’ Rimis asked.
Jill nodded. The grass was lush; the pale blue sky was furrowed with wispy bands of clouds.
‘After all that’s happened here, it’s still a beautiful place,’ Rimis said. Jill agreed with him and for a moment she tried to imagine Callan Park, as it once must have been when good people with good intentions designed it. The open fields sloping down to Iron Cove Bay with man-made lakes filled with ducks and swans, vegetable gardens, tennis courts. There had even been a piggery once.
They walked together enjoying each other’s company without talking. They came to a tall sandstone wall.
‘Do you know what they call this?’ Jill asked.
‘A sandstone wall?’
Jill smiled. ‘It’s called a ‘Ha-Ha’ wall. It’s a landscaping device. It was used to provide views of the landscape beyond. Patients felt secure without feeling enclosed. Maybe that was why Fin was drawn to the tower. Like the Jacaranda tree when she was a little girl; she felt safe.’ Jill needed to find somewhere where she felt safe. Somewhere she could see the world in a better light.
Jill took her backpack from Rimis and they walked together across the grounds. The mid-morning light filtered through the leaves of the trees and as she looked back at the tower, she thought of Robbie and Fin, whose lives she was unable to save, and Adam Lee and Vincent Wan. She had to let them all go. It was time to get on with her life.