by J. F. Penn
“It depends on the procedure. The definition of vivisection is that the animal is alive when we experiment but of course we use anesthesia, so there is no pain. We also have an external ethics committee.”
“Why was Jenna so against this practice?”
“She believed it was morally wrong to inflict pain or injury on another animal, for whatever reason, and so any kind of animal experimentation would be unacceptable.” Esther shook her head. “But Jenna was short-sighted about this, she only saw the propaganda spread by the anti-vivisectionists, and she put everything in the same box.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jamie asked.
“Well, I agree that it’s pointless to test household products by spraying them into the eyes of rabbits, and there are some needless experiments where positive results on animals have no application to humans. But here, we carry out genetic research, and since we cannot experiment on humans, we must make do with animals, as did the great John Hunter. Although of course, he did experiments on live animals with no pain relief.”
“Which we would now consider barbaric and inhumane,” Jamie prompted.
“In our culture, yes,” Esther replied, her eyes curiously blank, her mouth tense. “But think of how operations were back then. No anesthetic and no antiseptic, they didn’t know about germs or infections. Surgeons would go from the dissection room to the operating theatre, reusing equipment that was encrusted with the blood of the previous patient and the gore of the recently dead. The patient would be tied up or held down, then the surgeon would progress as fast as possible. Many didn’t survive. Hunter became known as one of the greatest surgeons in England because he was so much better than the rest, and he was better because of his experiments. Dissection and experimentation were a means to gaining insight. It wasn’t a macabre obsession, it was more about expanding his own knowledge in order to help the living.”
Jamie was startled at her words, her passion suggesting that only the law was stopping her from experimenting on humans.
“And what exactly do you do here?”
Esther led the way into the next lab, dominated by a quiet hum of medical equipment and the smell of antiseptic. One side of the room had refrigeration units with clear glass doors. As they walked past, Jamie glimpsed racks of labeled test-tubes and larger jars containing monkey fetuses of varying sizes. She couldn’t help but stare at the recently extinguished lives, so similar to human babies but distinguished by tails and longer toes. It was eerily reminiscent of the Hunterian Museum, but these specimens were much more recent, and presumably modified by design.
They walked deeper into the lab to find a group of scientists in lab coats and expressionless masks surrounding a monkey. It was anesthetized and strapped to a bed, eyes shut, and Jamie felt her heart thump in her chest as she recognized a kind of kinship with the creature.
“This macaque has been exposed to specific environmental toxins whilst pregnant,” Esther said. “Now we’re waiting for some key stage developments, at which point we will operate and extract the fetus for further testing.”
“You kill it?”
Esther looked at Jamie, her eyebrows raised as if the question was entirely irrelevant. “It was never meant to be born, so how are we killing it by extracting it early?” Jamie said nothing, but she was beginning to see why Jenna had protested against her mother’s company. Esther continued in a superior tone. “Jenna accused me of being like Mengele, an animal Angel of Death. She painted me as this architect of Nazi-style experimentation, but I’m only seeking medical truth and these monkeys don’t even suffer any pain.”
Jamie was shocked to hear Esther mention Mengele. It seemed too much of a coincidence after Blake’s revelation. Could the book that he saw be here? She looked down at the face of the macaque, whose baby was about to be ripped from her body and she felt a wave of anger, as she supposed Jenna would have done. But had Jenna’s objection been enough for her mother to have acted against her?
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Jenna said. She spun on her heel and walked out of the lab, breathing deeply as she tried to regulate her emotions. A few moments later, Esther Neville walked out of the lab behind her.
“I didn’t think you’d be so squeamish Detective, considering you must see real violence on the streets.”
Jamie thought of what humans did to each other, supposedly prevented by the law, but that didn’t stop the horrors that went on behind closed doors. After all, there was no license from the Home Office necessary to have a child. These animals didn’t choose to be treated this way, but at least there was some legal protection in place to limit their suffering.
“Did Jenna ever come down here or visit the other parts of the lab?”
Esther nodded. “Of course, when she was younger I hoped that she might continue my work, but once she went to university and began to study ethics and law, we had to ban her. We even took out a restraining order to keep her from coming near the premises.”
Jamie wondered how far the conflict had gone between the members of the Neville family. A restraining order on their own daughter seemed extreme, and surely Jenna couldn’t have sat easily with them at the Gala dinner.
They walked towards the lift, and Jamie suddenly felt trapped underground in the lab, desperate to emerge into the light. Even though it was high tech and shiny, the lab felt like a dirty prison. Being kept down here in the dark and experimented on was a modern nightmare that wasn’t so different to the horrors of Hunter’s time.
“I’ll show you out,” Esther said, and Jamie thought she heard a tinge of triumph in the woman’s tone.
As the lift took them back up to the lobby, Jamie decided that she had nothing to lose by testing Blake’s theory.
“I need to ask a more personal question Lady Neville.” Jamie waited as Esther hesitated, then nodded. “Was Jenna your natural child?”
Esther’s eyes narrowed, her lips pursed and she began twisting her wedding ring, remaining silent as the lift door opened. In the lobby, Esther ushered Jamie into a small meeting room at the side of Reception, obviously keen not to be overheard as she finally answered.
“It’s an ironic twist of fate, Detective, and one which sometimes seems to occur when scientists investigate an area of medical research. Cancer researchers get cancer and neurosurgeons get brain aneurysms and I have a rare genetic mutation that means I couldn’t have children. It was this that led to my constant drive to eradicate mutation in animals and humans.” She paused and her eyes flickered to Jamie’s. “Back then, the lab was purely experimental, investigating mutations at a time when genetics was really just beginning. I worked with a fertility specialist to remove my mutation and enable my egg and Christopher’s sperm to make Jenna. So yes, she is my child, but she started life in the lab. She was a miracle, because so many of the fetuses we engineered were corrupted.”
“Could Jenna have had children?” Jamie asked quietly, her suspicions heightened as she realized that Blake had gleaned a truth at the Hunterian.
Esther stared out the window, silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was wistful.
“She shouldn’t have been able to.”
Jamie opened her mouth to ask more but at that moment her phone buzzed urgently in her pocket. She took it out and checked the display. The Hospice. Her heart hammered.
“I have to take this, sorry.”
Jamie stepped out into the corridor and answered the phone, a sense of dread rising within her.
“Jamie Brooke,” she said and it was as if her voice wasn’t her own.
“You have to come now,” Rachel said. “Polly needs you.”
A coldness swept over Jamie, raising goosebumps on her arms. She wasn’t ready. She leaned against the wall, her hand clutching it for support.
“I’m on my way.”
Chapter 14
Screeching to a halt outside the hospice, Jamie wrenched her bike helmet off and ran inside. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her with tears at
any minute but she had to hold it together. She had to believe that this wasn’t the end, not yet. Not her beautiful girl. She saw Rachel at the door of Polly’s room and her face crumpled.
“Breathe, hun,” Rachel said, her hand firm on Jamie’s arm. “Polly’s calm now, but she’s drowning in the respiratory secretions and we can’t suction it off fast enough anymore. She’s hypoxemic, which means she’s not getting enough oxygen.”
“Is she in pain?” The tears came now, streaming down Jamie’s face.
Rachel nodded. “She’s been in pain since she was a little girl, you know that, but now her body has had enough. We’ve given her morphine and midazolam to dull the discomfort, but you know her wishes. We haven’t fully sedated her yet, so she’s just conscious, waiting for you. But, it’s time, Jamie.”
Rachel stood back and pushed the door open and Jamie walked slowly into the room while the nurse followed behind. It was so bright, the sun shining in from outside. For a moment, Jamie couldn’t believe that anything bad could happen on a day like this, but then she looked at the bed. Polly was lying on her back, eyes closed. Her skin had a bluish tinge and her lips were almost lavender. Her rasping breaths were harsh in the room, and every inhalation was hard fought, the sound of torment even though it was dulled with analgesia. Jamie knew that the drugs could help Polly peacefully into another place, but everything in her screamed for her to stay. She bent over her daughter and kissed her forehead.
“Pol,” she whispered. “I’m here, darling. It’s OK. I love you.” The tears came freely now and Jamie couldn’t hold them in anymore. She took Polly’s hand in her own, squeezing it. Polly opened her eyes slowly and Jamie saw eternity there. In that moment, she knew that this twisted physical body was only a trap, a temporary home for the tremendous spirit that was her beloved child. More than that, Polly would go further than she ever could in transcending this physicality. Wherever she was going next, Jamie couldn’t follow and she knew she would never see her daughter again. Looking down into Polly’s eyes, Jamie saw that she only asked permission to leave.
With a fierce need to save her child from pain, Jamie looked up at Rachel and nodded her consent. The nurse readied a bolus of medication to sedate Polly and let her die pain-free and then injected it into the cannula.
“It’s OK, Pol, you go now my darling.” Jamie wept openly, knowing that Polly didn’t want to hurt her but desperately needing her to find release. Trying to keep her here was only selfish. Jamie kissed her daughter’s face gently. “I love you Polly,” she whispered. “I’ll miss you but I understand. I love you.”
Rachel turned off the ventilator and stood by, a witness to the transition she had seen so many times before. Jamie sobbed, her body wracked with silent heaving, for she didn’t want Polly to go with the sound of pain in her ears. She clutched her daughter’s hand, pressing it to her own cheek. Jamie pleaded with God, with the Universe, anything to have her baby back. But Polly had been her gift for fourteen years, and now her time was over. The girl’s rasping breaths stumbled and skipped, hoarse gasps becoming weaker.
“No,” Jamie whispered. “Please, no.”
She felt Rachel’s hand on her shoulder and then rubbing her back, like a mother comforting a child. Like she used to do with Polly.
“I’ll remove the tubes now,” Rachel said, her voice choked. “Let me make her your baby again and you can hold her as she goes.”
Jamie nodded, still clutching Polly’s hand. It was so warm and soft, relaxing now as the pain dissolved from her face. Rachel removed the tube from Polly’s neck, wiping her face carefully as her breaths became sporadic.
“There you go, hun,” Rachel said quietly. “You can curl up on the bed with her now. I’ll come back in a bit.”
Jamie heard Rachel leave and shut the door quietly behind her. She climbed onto the bed and pulled Polly carefully into her arms, folding her daughter’s head onto her chest and stroking her hair. She rocked Polly back and forth, something she hadn’t been able to do properly since she had become bedridden. She felt the thin body, spine twisted and misshapen and Jamie cried silently, her tears soaking the pillow and Polly’s bedclothes. She wanted Polly’s agony to be over, but she also wanted to crush the girl’s body to her and breathe her own life into her daughter’s lungs.
Time seemed to slow down, held back by each faltering breath as the sunlight dimmed outside and night fell. Jamie listened to the evening routine of the Hospice, lives that continued even though she felt hers was over.
Finally, after a last breath, Polly’s body was still, released from pain. Jamie had a sense that while her body had held Polly captive for so many years, now she was free. Her spirit had gone, and Jamie hoped that she hadn’t looked back. For whatever her daughter became next, at least she wouldn’t have to rely on this mess of a body to carry her there.
Jamie held Polly’s body tightly against her own, knowing that these last moments were for her own precious memory. In the depths of her misery, she knew she was grateful for the years she had Polly in her life, for the joy her daughter had brought. She was grateful that the physical suffering was finished and thankful that she was able to be here to let her daughter go, that she didn’t have to die alone. Although Polly’s body was still warm, Jamie knew that her girl wasn’t inside. She already felt the absence, the emptiness. Her daughter’s pain was over now, and her own, she would bear as penance, although she felt she would never stop crying.
Polly’s tablet lay next to the bed, and Jamie reached for it, wanting to see her words. Turning it on, she saw only one line of text. Dance for me, Mum. The tears welled again and Jamie sobbed as if she would never stop.
***
Much later, Rachel knocked at the door and came in slowly, holding a steaming cup of milky tea. Jamie disentangled herself from Polly’s body and sat up.
“Here you go, hun.” Rachel said as she put the tea down next to the bed. “I know you’re hurting, but it was time.”
Rachel’s eyes were red-rimmed and Jamie could only imagine the tears that the nurse had shed for the children over the years. Jamie blew her nose, adding to the pile of wet tissues on the side table.
“Thanks Rachel.” She took a sip of the tea. It was sweet, just what she needed. Rachel walked around the bed and together they arranged Polly’s body, tucking the sheet around her, so she looked like she was sleeping.
Jamie took a deep breath. It seemed like it had all happened so suddenly even though the moment had been approaching for years. “So what happens next?” she asked, feeling a need to understand the process, to reach a point of completion. She had prepared hypothetically for this but suddenly her mind was blank on the next steps.
“The doctor will sign the death certificate and we’ll get the funeral director to prepare her body.”
Jamie nodded, remembering the difficult discussions with Polly over the choices. Her little girl had been independent minded, even about her own death.
“She wanted to be cremated, taken by fire and smoke into the freedom of the sky.” Jamie’s voice broke, as the tears came again. “She watched a history documentary about the Viking boat pyres … and afterwards she wanted her ashes to become part of the flowers. She loved the first daffodils of spring.”
“Of course. And what about your family? Do you want me to call anyone?”
Jamie thought of Polly’s father, Mark, her own parents and the fights they had engaged in over the years. She couldn’t bear to talk to them and right now, she didn’t even want the funeral to be for anyone else. Polly had been her life, and no one else had the right to be there as she said her final goodbyes.
But then she faltered. Of course Mark had to be there, if only for him to acknowledge their remarkable daughter. He seemed to live in denial of the miracle that they had created together, seeing primarily her disability. But Jamie knew he would mourn in his own way and she had loved him too, once. Polly’s school friends would want to come as well, and a funeral was a chance to honor her memo
ry with those who loved her.
“I can’t face talking to anyone right now,” Jamie said. “I need to leave all that for tomorrow. Let’s just do the essentials. ”
***
Much later, Jamie returned to the flat in darkness. She left the lights off, sitting on the sofa alone, for the brightness would only illuminate what she was missing. This moment had been on its way for nearly ten years but she still wasn’t prepared for how lonely she felt. Polly had been her reason for everything and without her, there was nothing. Jamie’s head pounded, the headache that had been growing all day exploding into her consciousness. She embraced the pain, wanting it to consume her.
The Funeral Director had come quickly to the Hospice and Jamie had wept again to hand Polly’s body into their care. It was so wrong: a daughter should weep for her mother, not the other way around. Jamie rose and went to the bathroom, opening the cupboard where she kept her sleeping pills. For a long moment she looked at them, oblivion in a bottle. She twisted the cap off and tipped out two pills, then four more, then the whole bottle into her hand. Release called to her, a tangible desire to swallow these down and follow Polly’s spirit onwards.
That thought made her stop, for if there was another side and Polly was there now, she would be disappointed at these self-destructive thoughts. Jamie poured the tablets back into the bottle, keeping only the prescribed two. Even in death, she didn’t want to disappoint Polly, for one of the things that she had been most proud of was Jamie’s job, the fact that she brought killers to justice. Jamie tried to put the two deaths into perspective. Polly had died surrounded by love, and was now mourned and missed. Jenna Neville had died violently, her parents rejecting her passionate cause, and her killer was still out there. Jamie knew that right now, across London, across the world, other crimes were being committed, other people injured and killed. If she were to stay alive, her role would be as one of those who stood against the dark tide, part of a dam that held back at least some of the monsters.
