Ward 19 (A Parva Corcoran Suspense Thriller)

by John L. Probert

  “Well, at least you have a social life,” Parva replied, looking at the wall clock. At nine fifteen on a Saturday night she was usually in bed with a something scientific to read and a bottle of Merlot, taking bets on which would send her to sleep first.

  “I can’t tell you much about these areas.” Morton pointed at the girl’s legs and her right flank, where the flames had burned away the skin and much of the fat beneath.

  “I know,” said Parva, “and otherwise?”

  “Same as the Leonard girl,” said Morton. “Death by a scalpel incision over the left carotid. Sections of skin removed from the right breast, but interestingly the nipple has been left behind. Also, in Patrica Leonard’s case, the skin of her abdomen had been removed, whereas you can see here,” he pointed at a thin open wound just below the girl’s bellybutton, “the killer appears to have started work and then stopped.”

  “Perhaps he was distracted,” said Parva, “or realised he’d already taken enough.”

  “Either that,” said Morton, nodding, “or he realised she wasn’t a very good specimen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Morton brought the overhead light down so that the skin of Jayne Pitman’s belly was brightly illuminated. “Patricia Leonard hadn’t had any children, and even though I didn’t perform the PM on your first victim I’m willing to bet if the skin was gone from her lower abdomen she probably hadn’t had any either. Whereas here…” Parva leaned closer and peered at where Morton was pointing. They were very subtle, but in the lamp’s harsh and unforgiving glare she could see the stretch marks that signified Jayne Pitman was mother of at least one child.

  “So he wants perfect skin,” she said.

  “Possibly,” said Morton. “Or at least healthy skin. And unblemished, too, I suspect.” He pointed at the tattoo that graced the skin of the upper part of her left breast. “No reason to leave that behind unless he wants his specimens unmarked.”

  “So he’s a collector,” said Parva, more to herself than Morton.

  “Possibly,” the pathologist replied. “The question is what is he collecting all this skin for?” He put down the scalpel he had been about to open Jayne up with. “Wasn’t there a case of a psychotic trying to make himself a girl's suit from the skin of his victims?”

  “Only in the pages of pulp fiction. If he was trying to make a girl's costume he’d have taken much more, and from the first girl as well. Our killer would have learned by now that you need to take a lot more than this, and that you need to cut a lot deeper or the tissues won’t hold together when you stitch them.” She picked up the magnifying glass that was on Morton’s instrument tray and examined the wound on Jayne’s right side. “This is all too precise, too uniform.” She picked up the steel rule and measured the depth of the incision at one of the skin edges. “Look how he’s only gone a few millimetres deep all the way round. He wanted skin and only skin. Patricia Leonard had virtually no fat on her anyway, and with this one, as you can see, it’s all been left behind.”

  “Maybe he’s binding books?” Morton joked.

  “Certainly there are collectors out there willing to pay a lot of money for books bound in human skin,” said Parva. “You wouldn’t believe how much a copy of 50 Shades of Grey inked in blood goes for on the black market.”

  Morton tightened his lips at her grim humour.

  “I understand there was something else found at the crime scene, too?”

  Morton nodded and picked up a small specimen jar. He held it up to the light and Parva squinted to see what was floating in the preserving fluid.

  “Any guesses as to what this might be?” he said, giving the bottle a little shake. A thin sliver of something bobbed around as he agitated it.

  Parva took the bottle from him and examined it more closely. “Judging from the fact that you have it in formalin I’m guessing it’s human tissue.”

  Morton nodded. “And what kind of tissue?” he asked.

  Parva frowned. She was in no mood to play twenty questions but she also didn’t want to alienate the only real ally she had. “Well, on the basis of the case so far, I’m guessing it’s skin?” Morton nodded. Parva looked back at the body on the table. “But not this girl’s skin?”

  Morton nodded again, more vigorously this time. “Not this girl’s, nor the last girl’s, nor the one before that.” He took the bottle from her and set it down. “I found it stuck to the flesh of Miss Pitman’s throat, just below the laceration to her carotid artery.” He paused. Parva didn’t say anything. She could see he was waiting to deliver the punch line. “It’s a piece of dead skin from an adult male. And that’s not all.”

  Parva remained stony faced but her mind was already whirring with the possibilities. “Give me the rest,” she said.

  “On microscopy the skin is filled with multiple granulomas – you know what they are?”

  Parva nodded. “Part of the immune system’s reaction to certain diseases.”

  “Precisely,” said Morton, “and only certain diseases. In fact there are only a couple of very specific conditions that produce a histological picture such as this specimen has. Which leads us to conclude…”

  “…that whoever this skin belongs to might be very sick,” she finished for him.

  “Very sick indeed,” said Morton. “On first glance I thought it might be leprosy, or possibly even syphilis, but the tissue is so widely infiltrated that the subject would have to be suffering from an advanced and extremely aggressive form of either.”

  “I suppose they have some other underlying condition that could have made it worse?” Parva suggested. “Some form of immunodeficiency?”

  Morton nodded. “That could fit. It’s certainly nothing straightforward. Like I said, if this skin belongs to your murderer then he’s a very sick man.”

  “With very sick skin,” said Parva, stroking her chin in thought. The idea was ludicrous, but people had killed for crazier reasons.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Morton, “and it’s ridiculous. These girls were all of different tissue types, HLA compatibilities and even blood groups. There’s no way all their skin would take if it was grafted onto his.”

  “Perhaps that’s why he’s still killing,” said Parva. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how insane the idea is, all that’s required is for him to believe it.”

  “So at least now you can narrow down your suspect list,” said Morton.

  “It would explain why he strikes at night, though. The question is, where the hell is he during the daytime?”

  7

  It was close to midnight when Parva finally got back to the cramped accommodation she had (grudgingly) been given to stay in on the hospital campus. Located on a fourth floor corridor where the rooms were usually reserved for doctors on call, the only one that had been free for her to use was at the passageway’s far end. The absence of a working light bulb served to coat the doorway in gloom and Parva had to use the light from her pen torch to find the keyhole. She dumped the bag she had brought from her car on the narrow bed, drew back the curtains, and opened the window. She was met by a blast of chill October air, but that was still better than the room’s musty smell.

  Parva leaned on the windowsill and looked out. Since the discovery of Jayne Pitman’s body the police presence had been stepped up considerably and all non-urgent hospital cases were either being delayed or diverted elsewhere. Not that that was turning out to be too much of a problem – the news had finally broken, and broken massively.

  All the news channels were using the ‘Hospital of Death’ item as their lead story and Parva had it on good authority that every major paper would be featuring it front page tomorrow as well. Malcolm Williams had already requested another audience with her.

  She looked at the bed. She was so tired even the dusty-looking magnolia sheets looked welcoming but sleep would have to wait. She still had to compile her report for the day and email it to her superiors. She opened her laptop and wasn’t in the least
surprised when she wasn’t able to obtain a WiFi signal. She carried the computer to the window. One feeble bar flickered for a moment before disappearing. Braving the night air Parva leaned out of the window and three bars magically appeared. She gave a resigned smile, went back inside, and started typing.

  Reports always helped to focus her mind and as Parva tapped away on the keyboard, she went methodically through every scrap of information she had been given that day. No matter how small, no matter how insubstantial, it was often the most seemingly insignificant piece of data that provided the key. Once she was finished she read everything through and straight away knew she was missing something.

  She tapped the edge of the worn desk in irritation. There was no way she was going to be able to get to sleep now, not with her mind racing like this. She typed ‘Further information on the above likely to be forthcoming’ at the bottom of the document, added her electronic signature and then pushed the window open.

  She leaned out and waited for the computer to pick up the signal again before she hit the ‘Send’ button. Then she replaced the computer on the desk and stared out of the window, trying again to focus on what it was she felt was missing.

  Her gaze drifted over the campus and settled on the tree by the hospital entrance, their branches being agitated by the wind. She was sure the building they concealed was relevant. Dr Williams had said it was soon to be demolished to make way for a new plastic surgery research unit. The killer was taking skin and was most likely suffering from a condition that caused his own skin to be diseased. There could be a link there but that wasn’t the whole of it.

  Parva picked up the computer and leaned out of the window again. Two bars flickered and stayed but refused to become three. She typed ‘Plastic Surgery St Margaret’s’ and hit the search button. Nothing happened. Parva looked down to see that she had lost the signal. She twisted to the right, waited until the signal decided to present itself once more and tried again. This time she got as far as a page of results before everything jammed. She tried clicking on ‘New Plastic Surgery Wing St Margaret’s’ only to be informed that the signal had once again been lost. She tried twisting to the left, lifting the computer up and even tried standing on a chair and leaning out. Nothing.

  Right, she thought, knowing full well there was little chance of sleep for her tonight if she wasn’t able to check the suspicion that had taken root in her mind. Parva picked up the laptop, grateful that she had charged the battery fully, made sure she had her keys, exited the room and made her way out of the building.

  The hospital grounds were quiet, and despite the police presence Parva was surprised how alone she felt as she stood outside the entrance to the residence block. One bar of WiFi signal flickered on and off. It increased to two once she had taken five steps from the building, and three once she was twenty feet away. She looked around. At least she was in a wide open space, she thought. There was little chance of anyone creeping up on her here.

  She repeated her search and called up the page she wanted. The article was from one of the local online newspapers and described how the last remaining part of the old hospital was soon to be demolished to make way for a new hospital wing. Parva already knew that and scrolled down, unsure of what she was looking for but convinced there was something important here. She found it three quarters of the way down the article.

  The proposed building wasn’t to be just any plastic surgery unit. It had a name. In fact it was to be named after one of the most eminent plastic surgeons to have worked at St Margaret’s. Someone who, with his exemplary record of research and success in the management of complex skin grafting, coupled with the considerable amount of work he did for third world charities, was sorely missed following his mysterious disappearance during a trip to Africa two years ago. But it was the name of the specialist in question that left Parva open-mouthed. Parva felt the soft pressure of surgical gauze over her nose and lips and took a deep breath of the sickly sweet smell of chloroform. She just had time to curse the stupidity of her own reflexes before everything went black.

  8

  When Parva woke it was with the kind of chloroform hangover she had read about in the textbooks, but had never personally experienced. As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she willed the pounding headache to subside and wished someone would turn off the bright light that was shining in her face. When she finally felt she had the strength to raise a hand to shield her eyes she realised she couldn’t because both her arms were tied to a chair.

  At least her legs were free, she thought, as she stretched them. She was still too drowsy from the effects of the anaesthesia to fully appreciate what must have happened to her and, while she knew she should be panicking, she couldn’t summon even the smallest reserve of energy.

  “Are you awake?”

  The voice seemed so distant that, as Parva tried to work out its source, she wondered if it was actually coming from another room. She tried hard to concentrate, keeping her eyes tightly shut and wishing away the pain that was drilling her temples.

  “I think you are,” the voice continued, distant but intelligible and familiar as well.

  “Are the lights too bright?” he said. “I think we can fix that.”

  Parva relaxed a little as she felt the intensity of the glare reduced, but she still kept her eyes shut, partly because of her head and partly because, now that she was beginning to wake up, it might be useful if her captor didn’t think she was quite as alert. Her plan lasted all of ten seconds.

  “Come on, you’ve had more than enough time to come round from the dose I gave you.”

  Parva opened her eyes.

  The owner of the voice was standing behind her and, despite her best efforts (and the fact that every movement of her head sent needles of pain spearing through her skull), Parva couldn’t twist round to see. Instead all she could do was stare at the wall in front of her. Once it must have been pristine and tiled in white ceramic but that was many years ago. Now much of the wall covering had come loose, revealing scarred plaster and concrete beneath. The few tiles remaining appeared to be smeared and stained but it was difficult to tell now some of the bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling just above her had been extinguished.

  Parva looked down at herself and was relieved to see that she was still dressed. Hopefully that meant that the killer didn’t intend to take her skin. At least not yet.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” said the voice behind her, “I intended to take you this evening anyway. Admittedly you did make it much easier for me than I was expecting, standing there so absorbed in what you were reading, facts that I must confess I am surprised you hadn’t discovered earlier.”

  Parva tried to reply. At first all she could manage was a croak that set off a bout of coughing. She sucked greedily at the water from the plastic cup that was thrust against her bottom teeth and then tried again.

  “I’m a doctor,” she said, “whoever you are, I must have told you that, because I told everyone. What I haven’t told anyone is that the job I’ve been given is part of my rehabilitation following my experiences with…with…”

  “Oh I know all about Professor Edmund Cottingham,” said the voice. “A brilliant man who, by all accounts, was rather too brilliant for his own good. I remember reading his confession in one of the more reputable daily papers. Having reached the pinnacle of his field in forensic pathology he felt so dissatisfied, so unfulfilled, that the only thing that could satisfy his intellectual needs was the devising and carrying out of murders that he knew no one would be able to solve.”“It frustrated him that no-one would ever solve them,” Parva interjected, “especially because he considered them works of art. So he eventually had to turn himself in.”

  “But not before making you part of his scheme?”

  “I was his trainee in forensic pathology,” said Parva, “But I knew nothing about what he had been doing. I had been helping him perform autopsies on people he himself had murdered and I had no idea. In fact I
knew nothing about what he was up to right up to the end.”

  “You mean right up to the point where he had you tied to a chair not unlike this one.” She felt someone tap just behind her right shoulder. “And had it connected to an electric current that would roast you alive if the police didn’t find you in time? Well, I sincerely hope you don’t think I have constructed something similar here. I have other plans for you. Are you awake enough now to have worked out who I am?”

  Parva nodded. Of course she had. The mounting fear that was threatening to turn into outright panic began to subside as she distracted herself with what she had discovered. The old Ward 19, which was doubtless the building she was now being held prisoner in, was being demolished to make way for a new plastic surgical unit, to be named after the most eminent specialist St Margaret’s had ever had in the field, a man who had travelled to Africa on one of his routine charity trips a couple of years ago and never returned.

  “What’s ironic is that the David Pike Memorial Wing will be a most fitting tribute to my son,” said Laurence Pike as he turned Parva’s chair around so that she was now facing him.

  “What’s ironic about it?” she asked, looking over his shoulder to see, with a shudder, the outline of an operating table in the gloom behind him.

  Pike looked disappointed. “Why, because he’s not dead of course,” he said. “In fact it would have been so much easier for all of us if he had died, especially his poor mother.”

  Parva kept talking while she surreptitiously strained at her bonds. “Did she kill herself?” she asked.

  Pike nodded. “For the first six months after he disappeared she was hopeful, always optimistic that he would turn up. He had been to some troublesome parts of the world before but had always been OK. But I knew there was something seriously wrong when, after all that time, we had still failed to hear anything. But it was when he came back that it all became too much for her.”