Desecration

by J. F. Penn

  She clenched her fists, remembering the sensation of holding Polly’s hand and the fierce determination in her daughter’s eyes when she wanted to learn something new. She could have been the next Stephen Hawking, Jamie thought, smiling a little because every parent would say that their kid could achieve something unique and amazing. But hers could have, for sure, because Polly’s mind had been special and sometimes Jamie wondered how she had brought such a being into the world.

  Jamie thought of her own mother, years of not speaking creating a wall neither of them could cross. She rummaged in the back of a drawer and pulled out a card, the one that had finally broken their relationship years ago. It had a quote from the gospel of John 9:2-3.

  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who has sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

  Jesus had healed the blind man and Jamie’s mother had said to pray in faith that God might work a miracle in Polly’s life. But Jamie could never reconcile the thought that God would have condemned a little girl to a life of torture in order to save her later. Her mother’s constant acceptance of suffering as God’s will was something that Jamie couldn’t bear, as if the violent anguish she saw every day was condoned by the Almighty. She hadn’t spoken to her parents for six years now, and cutting them completely out of her life had made the separation easier. It had just been her and Polly against the world, fighting for one more day. And now it was just her. Jamie pulled Polly’s cuddly dog, Lisa, to her chest and the tears came again as she wept for an empty future.

  Chapter 15

  The night was long and lonely. Even when Jamie managed to drop off to sleep, exhausted from weeping, she woke with a start from nightmares of Polly dying over and over again, forced to watch as she had to let her daughter go. In the end, although she knew that she should rest, Jamie could not bear lying there any longer.

  Standing in the shower, she tried to think of what was supposed to happen next. Time seemed to have slowed down and her brain just wasn’t functioning properly. The pills in the cabinet called to her again and she rested her palm against the wall, anchoring herself to the physical world as the wave of longing washed over her. It was all she could do to resist the pull of oblivion. Fight it for just another heartbeat, she told herself, for this too shall pass.

  Eventually, she managed to drag herself out of the bathroom and started getting ready to go to the funeral directors. Jamie was dreading the practicalities and the finality, holding onto the last moments she had cuddled her daughter on the bed. That was what she wanted to remember. That, and living as passionately as Polly had wanted her to. Jamie’s hand flew to her mouth and she held back a sob as the wrenching in her chest made her stop dead in the middle of the room. This was how people died of a broken heart, and even with all her years of police work, she hadn’t been prepared for the violence of her own grief. She breathed into the silence until the tightness eased and she could move again.

  It was still early but Jamie rang Detective Superintendent Dale Cameron anyway. He didn’t answer so she left a brief message, grateful that she didn’t have to talk to him because she couldn’t bear his false sympathy right now. She followed up with an email to him and the HR department taking her allotted bereavement leave. She had told the Met about Polly’s illness previously and given them notice of her potential need to be off work, so there would be no problem with it. Jamie felt a lingering guilt and responsibility over Jenna Neville’s case, especially as Cameron had seemed to be directing the investigation away from the Nevilles. She still had her notes on Esther Neville to file, but her suspicions paled into insignificance now. They would have to find someone else to continue the investigation, because nothing else mattered anymore.

  ***

  The entrance hall of the funeral directors was tastefully furnished with fresh flowers and cream decor, a light and airy atmosphere that seemed a respectable overlay for what must happen behind the scenes. Jamie didn’t want to think about Polly’s body being prepared for cremation: she wanted to remember her alive and vital, not as a shell of a corpse. In other cultures, in other times, she would have been the one washing the body and preparing her daughter for the grave. Perhaps that would have been a way to help the desolation, but Jamie couldn’t bear the thought of grieving so openly in front of others. This pain was hers to bear privately.

  She rang the bell, pacing the little room with barely controlled nervous energy. As Jamie waited, her phone buzzed with a text from Missinghall.

  So sorry about your daughter. FYI. Day-Conti arrested for Jenna’s murder.

  Jamie frowned. Firstly at how her private life had been so clearly exposed but also, she couldn’t understand how Day-Conti could be arrested, given the little evidence against him and the open lines of investigation still to be followed up. Jamie wondered whether her visit to Esther Neville had stirred the hornet’s nest. Had Cameron used her absence to change the direction of the case? But then again, what did it even matter? She had more important things to think about right now. She pushed the investigation from her mind.

  A door at the back of the entrance hall opened and the funeral director stepped out, rubbing his hands together in an awkward way.

  “Ah, Ms Brooke,” he said without meeting her eyes and Jamie felt her heart thudding in her chest.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, sensing the man’s discomfort.

  He pursed his lips and twisted his hands, adjusting his tie. “I’m so sorry, we’re investigating right now. This has never happened before.”

  “What’s happened?” Jamie cut him off, impatient for him to get to the point. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, no one called you?” The man looked embarrassed and shocked. “I’m so sorry. It’s your daughter’s body. It’s missing.”

  Jamie’s head spun, confusion buzzing in her ears. “What do you mean it’s missing? How can that even happen?” Her voice escalated to a shout. “How can you lose my daughter?”

  The man wrung his hands together, clearly distressed and worried about his business.

  “I’m so sorry, but there was a break-in last night and by the time security got here, her body had been taken.” The man was flustered, his face reddening with every second. “It’s never happened before and to be honest, we don’t know why anyone would even want to steal a body.”

  Jamie felt a chill at his words and rising anxiety rippled through her body. It was too much of a coincidence. Jenna had been investigating the theft of bodies and was then killed, and now she was analyzing the same evidence. Was this some kind of retribution for her investigation?

  Hysteria rising within her, Jamie felt a desperation to shake the man. It seemed too much to take in and she was only just clinging to the edge of sanity. The funeral director was still speaking but Jamie was no longer listening. She was thinking back to Esther Neville’s clinical detachment about bodies, the horrors of Day-Conti’s studio, the evidence against Mascuria and Christopher Neville. The last forty-eight hours had been steeped in dissection, mutilation and desecration. This theft had to be related.

  Inside, Jamie was screaming. Someone had taken her daughter. Someone had known about Polly’s condition, her death, and because of her, they had taken her body. She had to do something.

  “Have you called the police?” Jamie asked, her voice outwardly calm.

  “Of course, they’re sending someone down to interview the staff soon.”

  Jamie knew this would be a priority for the Met. The theft of a body was unusual at the best of times, but when it was the daughter of a serving officer, she knew they would fast-track the case. The police had their problems, like any organization, but they certainly looked after their own.

  She called Dale Cameron’s office and was put straight through. She explained what had happened and her suspicions surrounding the Neville case.


  “Jamie, this is terrible … unbelievable. Of course, I’ll contact the officers assigned and explain the situation. We’ll find Polly’s body, I promise you.” He paused and Jamie heard caution in his silence, before he continued. “I can’t believe it’s related to the Neville case, though. And, of course, you know that you can’t be involved in either now. You’re too close.”

  “But, Sir …”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Jamie, but you’re now officially on extended bereavement leave. I’ll keep you up to date.”

  Jamie’s heart was thumping and her fist clenched the phone tight as Cameron hung up, dismissing her with barely concealed relief. But there was no way she could stay out of this case, especially as she was sure that the theft was related to Jenna’s murder.

  Looking at her watch, Jamie suddenly felt a sense of lost time. It was Friday morning and the Lyceum had been marked on Jenna’s calendar for tomorrow night. It was one of many unanswered questions in this case, but she remembered the news clippings from Jenna’s office, the stolen bodies marked with L. Images of the specimens from the John Hunter museum flashed before Jamie’s eyes, twisted spines and diseased body parts floating in formaldehyde, torn from the bodies of their owners. She had to find Polly before she was displayed in a labeled bell-jar, her flesh carved up and trapped in liquid limbo. She would let the Met start their own investigation, but there was no time to follow the correct protocol. She needed to bring her daughter home.

  Chapter 16

  This part of London was always busiest in the dark. Artists worked nights and slept the days away, and the oldest profession in the world was always active. Debilitated from grief and lack of sleep, Jamie had taken a couple of ephedrine tablets, stimulants that would keep her awake for the investigation ahead. She wouldn’t rest until she held Polly’s body in her arms again. With the spike in energy helping her recover, at least physically, she parked the bike and slipped along the street towards the studio of Rowan Day-Conti.

  Since he was still in police custody, Jamie knew that his flat would be empty. She was determined to find out more on his sources for the bodies he worked on and the mysterious buyer for the naked female sculpture. Tugging her leather biker’s jacket tighter around her, Jamie pulled a pair of thin gloves from her pocket. Slipping them on, she flexed her fingers and then rubbed her hands together. The night was cold and Jamie felt light-headed, her body fevered, running hot and cold. The tears had finally dried up, to be replaced by anger and determination. The thought of someone using Polly’s body in an artistic collection of mutation made her want to vomit. It was an abomination.

  She was about to commit a crime by breaking in, but Jamie understood the risks she was taking. She could lose her job or even face charges if discovered, but right now, it felt like her life was over anyway. She would leave her colleagues to pursue Polly’s case in the legal fashion, but she needed to follow the less respectable route, as time was critical. This had to be connected with her own investigation of the Jenna Neville case, and perhaps, in finding Polly, she could also bring Jenna’s killer to justice.

  Arriving at the flat, Jamie blocked the view of the lock with her body and, without looking around, picked it to gain access. There was no elaborate security at the studio. Why bother when no one would want to steal the dead bodies Day-Conti worked on, but then why steal Polly’s body, she thought. Rage bubbled again and Jamie’s face hardened with resolve.

  Inside the flat she put on a head torch, the powerful beam stretching all the way to the high ceilings of the warehouse space. The hum of a generator pulsed gently in the background, keeping the remains cool. The smell of death seemed stronger now, disinfectant barely hiding decay. Jamie imagined the naked body of the decapitated young woman lying behind the panels, alone in the dark. She shuddered, imagining the flesh reanimated, body lurching blindly for a weapon to avenge her mutilation. Jamie shook away the thoughts. These bodies were dead flesh, preserved as an echo of reality, with not a shred of humanity left. What had defined those people was gone, back to the stars and the earth.

  Jamie shone the torch back to the staircase that led to Day-Conti’s living space. How the man could live in such proximity with the dead, she didn’t know, for the smell must impregnate his clothes and his skin. Jamie padded across the floor and up the stairs, freezing as a creak echoed through the space. But no sound came after, no answering noise, so she continued upwards. At the top, she opened the door into the living area. Incense, some kind of heavy patchouli, hung in the room, disguising the smell of the dead but pungent with its own depth of scent. Jamie wrinkled her nose. Perhaps Day-Conti had damaged his sense of smell with all the preservatives. Jamie tried to imagine Jenna here, their intimacy amongst the dead. What had she been thinking? Had she been pursuing a similar goal in trying to discover the origin of the bodies and who wanted such specimens? Or had she really loved him?

  Shining the torch around, Jamie could see the place was sparse and minimalist, with a basic desk in the corner and a second-hand filing cabinet against one wall. Jamie pulled it open, using her head torch to illuminate the thin folders within. One held clippings, with articles on the New York Bodies exhibition, interviews with practitioners of the plastination process and controversies over provenance of the bodies. Another file contained receipts, thrown haphazardly into paper envelopes marked with the month of spend. Jamie opened one and thumbed through the paper, looking for where Day-Conti bought his materials. The vendor of the plastics could be a lead, so she snapped a picture on her smart phone and replaced the receipt.

  Jamie opened another file. In it were five separate sheets, each one an order form for an unspecified piece of art. There was only one name, Athanasia Ltd, and as the item would be picked up by courier from the warehouse, there was no delivery address. The company name rang a bell and Jamie Googled it on her smartphone. Athanasia, meaning the quality of being deathless or immortality. She took more pictures.

  Pulling more files from the cabinet, Jamie discovered notes on different artistic projects, records and photos of stages of the plastination process for each artwork. She laid them out on the desk, scanning pages, and replacing each as she processed them. She flicked open one folder and stopped suddenly, appalled by what she saw. It was a child, no more than ten years old. A boy with deformities of the spine and twisted limbs was posed naked on a metal table that Jamie recognized as the one downstairs where the woman now lay. In the first picture the boy was lying, eyes closed, almost sleeping, as if he could wake up. The next picture showed the body turned onto its front, the spine dissected so as to demonstrate his deformity more clearly.

  Jamie gulped for air, feeling the rise of vomit as her stomach clenched at the violation of the child. Seeing a door off the main room, she barged through it into a tiny bathroom. She fell to her knees, holding the toilet bowl as she heaved the meager contents of her stomach out, shaking with the effort as her head spun. She retched again, the sound reverberating around the flat and then she was dry heaving, her stomach spasming.

  Finally Jamie lay down on the floor, placing her aching head on the cool tiles, waiting for the tremors to pass. The image of the dissected spine hovered in front of her eyes and she wished she could go back and un-see it. That little boy was tortured in life with disease and then mutilated in death. And to what end? Did the same people have Polly’s body, because that close up of the spine could have been her daughter’s. Jamie wished for a moment that Day-Conti was here and her hands clenched into fists at how she would teach him some respect for the dead.

  Pushing herself up from the floor, Jamie took some deep breaths. She swilled her mouth out with water from the tap, and spat into the toilet, flushing the evidence away and pouring bleach down after it. She wiped the floor tiles with disinfectant and toilet paper and flushed that too.

  Walking back into the main room on unsteady legs, Jamie snapped some photos of the image of the little body, trying to separate her emotions from what she was seeing. This was
evidence, and this boy was dead. It wasn’t torture when the body was no longer alive, was it? Jamie replaced the files into the filing cabinet, careful to put them back in the right order. She shone the torch around the room again, preparing to leave, and the light flickered on a photo in a frame next to the bed. Rowan and Jenna, lit by the summer sun, sitting by Camden Lock and eating ice-cream. Rowan’s arm was around her shoulders and Jenna’s smile was wide, natural and at ease. Jamie felt sure that he wasn’t responsible for her murder. He might well be guilty of other crimes, but not this one, and she wondered again what strings Cameron had pulled to get him arrested while the Nevilles walked free.

  Next to the photo was a diary, just a small one, easily overlooked. Jamie picked it up and opened it to the past week. Day-Conti had TG as a regular Friday night appointment and sometimes TG O. TG must be Torture Garden, the club that Day-Conti frequented, but who was O, and would they be there tonight? Jamie looked at her watch. Just before midnight. She replaced the diary next to the bed and slipped down the stairs into the night.

  Chapter 17

  Jamie cruised past the entrance to Torture Garden, slowing down on her bike to get a look at the crowd entering the club. Everyone was dressed up or carried bags, presumably with costumes, that were being searched by the bouncers. Parking a few streets away, Jamie used the mirror on the bike to apply heavy kohl eye makeup, and for good measure, did her lips in black as well. She let her hair swing loose. With pale, feverish skin and deep shadows under her eyes, she looked ghoulish, and black leather suited any occasion. Polly wouldn’t like this look, she thought, and a lance of pain thrust through her with the realization that her daughter would never judge her outfit again.