by J. F. Penn
Contents
Desecration
Quote
Prologue
Chapter 1: Lavender Hospice
Chapter 2: Hunterian Museum
Chapter 3: Neville Residence
Chapter 4: Rotherhithe
Chapter 5: Hoxton Studio
Chapter 6: Lincoln's Inn Fields
Chapter 7: British Museum
Chapter 8: British Museum
Chapter 9: Lavender Hospice and tango
Chapter 10: New Scotland Yard
Chapter 11: New Scotland Yard
Chapter 12: Hunterian Museum
Chapter 13: Neville Pharmaceuticals
Chapter 14: Lavender Hospice
Chapter 15: Funeral Directors
Chapter 16: Hoxton Studio
Chapter 17: Torture Garden
Chapter 18: Bar-Barian
Chapter 19: Bloomsbury
Chapter 20: Big Yellow
Chapter 21: Hellfire caves
Chapter 22: Lab
Chapter 23: Morgue
Chapter 24: Morgue
Chapter 25: Lyceum
Chapter 26: Lyceum
Chapter 27: Lab
Chapter 28: Hospital
Thank you
Author's Note
About J.F.Penn
Acknowledgements
Desecration
Desecration
J.F.Penn
Copyright © J.F. Penn (2013). All rights reserved.
www.JFPenn.com
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.
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“One of the most original mystery/thrillers that I've read in a long while. Its topic of life and death, soul and body is harrowing and poignant, shocking and profound.”
David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art and author of over 40 novels
"A riveting exploration of the dark side of the human heart"
New York Times Bestselling Author CJ Lyons
"In a book which takes the reader on a journey to hell and back, J.F. Penn demonstrates her huge talent for conveying the depths of human depravity."
Amazon #1 Bestseller, Rachel Abbott
“The violation of the body would be the revelation of its truth”
Andreas Vesalius, 16th century physician, founder of modern human anatomy
Prologue
The body of the young woman lies on her back, blonde hair neatly arrayed in a sunburst around her head. She looks like an angel and I bend to adjust a lock of her hair, carefully disguising the deep wound in her skull. At least I can leave her face looking as beautiful as it did in life. Her lips are still painted with wine red lipstick, slightly smudged from where she drank with me. But that mouth whispered words of disturbing truth not so long ago, and I couldn’t let her unleash that reality into the world. There is too much at stake and even she was not enough to make me give that up.
I pull on a pair of sterile gloves and breathe a sigh of relief as I slip into my second skin. They make me feel safe, a barrier against the world and yet somehow heightening the sensation in my hands. I always carry a pair, and tonight they serve a noble purpose. I brush her lips with gentle fingertips, some part of me wanting to feel a last breath. But I know she is dead, for I feel the lack of her. What made her alive is now gone and I wonder if she is already on another plane of reality, wondering how she got there, questioning why this life flew by so fast. This is but a body, just another corpse, and I know how to deal with corpses.
In a medical institution, it isn’t hard to find a scalpel and I pull open the drawers in the training lab until I find an appropriate one. Returning to the body I use the 22 blade to cut a line through the crimson satin dress that clings to the curves near her hips. The material bunches slightly so I have to hold it down for the scalpel to slice through, but I manage to cut away a square of material, like operating drapes revealing the area for treatment. The blade is so sharp that I can sense the layer of material separate from the firmness of her skin and I feel a rush of pleasure at the sensation.
Beginning the incision, I slice across the soft lower belly. Her flesh is still warm, skin smooth and untainted, and I envy the beauty she carried so unconsciously. The scalpel slices down, a precision instrument in my hand and a line of blood rises to the surface. Even though her heart has stopped, it is as if this body still clings to life.
I feel something, a breath of air on my cheek and I freeze, scalpel in place on her skin. I know it must be nothing, but a shiver passes over me regardless. Perhaps it is the soul of the newly deceased taking one last look around this cabinet of curiosities, trying to understand her place amongst the many dead. For her body lies surrounded by tall glass display cases, packed full of the anatomical preparations for which the Hunterian Museum is famous. Body parts line up here in a macabre apothecary’s shop, strange and bizarre with colors of pus, bone and decay. It is hard to tell what lies inside the conical jars of varying sizes until you lean closer to look inside or read the brief text that refers to each specimen. Stoppered and sealed with black tape, beads of condensation have formed on the lids as if what is inside still breathes. I can almost hear the dead cry out, drowned again each night in liquid preservation, and it makes me want to emulate the master anatomist in my own work. I stop for a moment to gaze at my inspiration.
Some of the organs are flower like, petals opening and fronds almost waving in the liquid, like sea creatures of delicate, strange beauty. Ruffles like tissue paper conceal a parcel of flesh that was once part of a living human. In one container sits a gigantic foot, cut off at the ankle, swollen with elephantiasis to four times life-size. Black toenails erupt from the end of grotesque toes, skin swollen to bursting, puckered and discolored. Every time I look into these cabinets I see something new, even though I have been coming here for many years, a pilgrimage to that which gives meaning to my own work. I glimpse the trunk of a baby crocodile, decapitated with its legs and tail brutally sawn off. Next to it, the trunk of a human fetus, barely as big as my hand, limbs and head removed, the tiny chest opened up to reveal the internal organs.
There are lizards, cut open, limbs posed as if they are running away, scuttling across this landscape of trapped souls. The body of a crayfish, tail curled under, protecting thousands of tiny eggs, and next to it, fat grubs and caterpillars, the larvae of hybrid insects. Quintuple fetuses are displayed in one case, tiny bodies with mouths open in horror, like corporeal dolls the color of ghosts. For the early anatomists were allowed to use the bodies of those that died within the mother, considering them specimen before human. Nowadays I have to work in secret, wary of judgment from those who don’t understand the mysteries I can solve with flesh. This body is so precious that I cannot waste the opportunity to take what might further my research.
The sounds of the party filter upwards, laughter made louder by alcohol. Returning to my work, I cut into the young woman’s flesh, digging down through the layers to reveal her inner organs. I use a self-retaining retractor to hold open the flap of skin and tissue to give me better access, blood slipping over my hands as I work faster now.
My gloved fingers probe her gently, making sure that nothing is damaged. The fetus is barely nine weeks old. Dead, like the mother, or soon will be. But its existence won’t be wasted. Indeed, the knowledge it may reveal could be a greater achievement than most people could even dream of. I must get it back to the lab quickly.
Noises come from the hallway at the bottom of the stairs to the museum. I freeze, listening intently as my heart pounds in my chest. I can’t be caught here, not like t
his. The work is too important and this specimen in particular must be studied. With the final cuts, I remove the uterus, placing it in her handbag that will have to do in place of an organ case
My work completed, I move to the doorway, hidden in the shadows. It sounds as if the people on the stairs are flirting and kissing, the party lubricated by enough alcohol to release the usual inhibitions. The noises grow fainter and I slip down the stairs as the unknown couple head off into a darker corner to fulfill their desires with each other. I pity them, for they can only find what they seek with living flesh. They know not of the darker pleasures of the anatomist.
Chapter 1
From outside, the Lavender Hospice looked like a school, with bright murals on the walls, a playground with swings, wood chips to stop the children hurting themselves. But those who entered this building wouldn’t leave again and their voices were silenced too soon. Jamie Brooke pushed open the gate, hearing the usual squeak. She flinched slightly, adding the count to the list in her head, totaling the number of times she had walked through it. When she had first brought Polly here, finally unable to care for her at home, the doctor had said it wouldn’t be long, maybe a matter of weeks. But the gate had squeaked ninety-seven times now, twice a day, so it was day forty-nine. Jamie sent up a prayer, thanking a God she didn’t really believe in but still pleaded with each day. Let her live another day, please. Take the time from me.
The red wooden elephant by the door was looking a bit disheveled these days and Jamie made a mental note to talk to the Administrator about it. She knew the kids adored the jolly elephant, even though few of them ever made it outside to play on him. Practical help was about all she had left to offer.
Jamie checked her watch. She had moved to a tiny rented flat just down the road from the hospice, to be here for Polly as often as she could. Her job as a Detective Sergeant with the Metropolitan Police made the hours she visited complicated, but the nurses here were patient, understanding that as a single mother with a crazy job, she was trying the best she could.
Feeling tears prickle behind her eyes, Jamie took a deep breath, fixing a smile onto her face as she pushed the door open and entered the hospice.
“Morning,” Rachel O’Halloran, the senior night nurse called cheerfully, as Jamie walked through the hallway.
“Hey Rachel. How’s the night been?”
Rachel’s face was a study in compassion and Jamie knew how much she loved the kids in her care, some here so briefly. There were people on this earth who were here to ease suffering and Rachel was one of the best, Jamie thought, and the kids instinctively loved the nurse in return.
“We had to increase Polly’s morphine as she is getting a lot of pain from her spine now,” Rachel said, “and her breathing is much worse. She might be drowsy when you go in.” She paused, her eyes serious. “We need to talk, hun. You can’t leave it much longer.”
Jamie stood silently, closing her eyes for more than a second as she fought to keep her feelings under control. Despite her compassion, Rachel was an angel of death, her gentle arms helping the children to find their way onwards. But for parents, she represented only intense pain, for there was no avoiding the future she embodied. Jamie opened her eyes, hazel-green hardening with resolve.
“I’ll come by on the way out.”
Rachel nodded, and Jamie walked down the hall towards her daughter’s room. The children’s paintings on the wall attempted to add a veneer of hope to the place, but Jamie knew that the hands that had colored them were cold in the ground and the sorrow of years had soaked into the building. Parents and staff all tried to keep the spirits of the children up, organizing as much as possible to keep them occupied. But it seemed in the end that many of the little ones were more ready than their parents to slip out of the physical body. Exhausted with pain, debilitated with medication, their souls were eager for the next chance of life.
Jamie stood to the side of Polly’s door, looking through the window at her daughter, whose body was distorted by motor neuron disease. Polly had Type II spinal muscular atrophy, and she was already past the life expectancy of children with the disorder. The deficiency of a protein needed for the survival of motor neurons meant that, over time, muscles weakened, the spine curved in a scoliosis and eventually the respiratory muscles could no longer inflate the lungs. Polly was already on breathing support and despite several operations, her physical body was now twisted and wasted. But Jamie could still remember the perfection of her beautiful baby when she had been born nearly fourteen years ago, and the joy that she had shared with her ex-husband Matt. He was long gone now, out of their lives with another wife and two perfectly healthy children he could play with to forget his past mistakes. Sometimes the anger Jamie felt at Matt, at herself, even at the universe for Polly’s pain, made her heart race and her head thump with repressed rage. Her daughter didn’t deserve this.
Jamie knew that the cause of Polly’s disease was a genetic flaw on chromosome 5, a mutation somehow created from the alliance of her own body with Matt’s. Perhaps it was some kind of sick metaphor for their marriage, which had collapsed when Polly started suffering as a toddler. But however difficult the journey, Polly had been worth every second. Jamie had always told her daughter that they were an unbreakable team, but now the bonds were beginning to fray and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Jamie glanced in a mirror that hung in the hallway, visualizing the embedded genetic flaws on her own skin. If only she could dig out the part of her that worked and give it to Polly. Her long black hair was coiled up in a tight bun and she never wore make up for work. But with the dark circles getting worse under her eyes, Jamie thought she might have to consider changing her own rules. She looked pale and young, although she was the mature side of thirty-five these days. She touched her hair, tucking in a flyaway strand, claiming the little control she had left, clinging to this tiny victory. Threads of silver ran through the hair at her temples now, but the stress of the Metropolitan Police was nothing compared to living under the threat of Polly’s death. Her daughter’s every breath was precious at this point and Jamie fought for time away from the force to spend at her side. She turned the handle and went into the room.
“Morning, my darling,” Jamie said as she approached the bed where Polly’s twisted and wasted body lay, a tracheostomy tube in her neck helping her to breathe. She kissed the girl’s forehead and put the wireless keyboard into Polly’s hands, turning on the tablet computer, her daughter’s link to the world. Her respiratory function had become so poor that the speaking valve was now useless but that couldn’t stop her inimitable daughter. Jamie stroked Polly’s hair as she watched her thin fingers tap slowly on the keyboard. Mercifully, the muscle wastage had started near the core of the body and left her extremities still able to move, so they had this method as well as lip reading to communicate. Jamie knew how important the computer was to Polly, the connection to her friends and a world of knowledge online, but the speed of her typing was painfully slow compared to even days ago.
6 videos last night. 3 more to finish multivariable calculus, Polly typed.
She had been progressing fast through the pure and applied math syllabus of the Khan Academy, an online video school designed to help children learn at their own pace, since many were capable of surpassing their classroom teachers. It was part of the incredible transformation of education, from an era of treating all kids the same, to targeting their specific talents and interests. It was also a godsend for children like Polly, who wanted to devour information non-stop. Even while her frail body lay dying, her brain was desperate for knowledge, although the drugs and her increasing weakness were now slowing her down. She was kept alive by the strength of her will, but that was dwindling like the leaves on the trees in the approach to winter.
Jamie knew that her daughter was fiercely intelligent and creative, as if in some way nature had made up for her physical flaws by giving her soaring intelligence. A picture of Stephen Hawking hung on th
e wall of Polly’s room. The scientist was her idol, and she devoured his books - even at her young age she seemed to grasp concepts that her mother found difficult. Jamie had tried to read ‘A Brief History of Time’, but just couldn’t fathom the science. Polly had explained the concepts in pictures and for a moment, Jamie had glimpsed the far galaxies in her daughter’s mind. She had felt like the child then, instead of the mother. To be honest, she felt like the child now, as if nothing could ever be right with the world unless Polly could run and laugh again. But that couldn’t be. This was not a journey Polly could return from and Jamie knew she couldn’t go with her. Not this time.
Jamie met Polly’s vibrant brown eyes, bright with a lively intelligence.
“I’m so proud of you, Pol, but you know I don’t even understand what that means. Your Mum isn’t exactly a math whiz.”
Jamie pushed away the fleeting thought that it was pointless to learn when the brain would be dead soon. Polly’s fingers continued to tap.
I’m doing the cosmology syllabus next. I’m beating Imran.
Jamie smiled. Imran was in a room down the hall, his body ravaged with terminal cancer but, like Polly, he was determined to cram as much into his intellectual life on earth as he could before he left it. On good days, when the drugs didn’t rob them of consciousness, the teenagers could compete on the levels of Khan Academy. Both were competitive and determined to win. Jamie and Imran’s parents were constantly astounded at their achievements, and Jamie credited her daughter’s drive to succeed with preventing her own spiral into depression at the impending loss.
Did you dance last night?
Polly’s eyes were brimming with the more detailed questions that Jamie knew she wanted to ask. She didn’t need to type them because the conversation was one they had played out for years. Polly’s greatest frustration with her body was not being able to dance and five years ago, she had asked Jamie to do it for her. “Dance Mum, please. Dance for me,” she had pleaded. “And then come back and tell me about it. I want to know about the dresses and all the different people and how it feels to move so gracefully.”
