Desecration Read online

  Going back out to the hallway, she opened the plain wooden door into Jenna’s room, immediately noting the stark poverty of the place, despite the girl’s wealthy background. Jenna evidently hadn’t brought much with her, and clearly hadn’t purchased much since moving in. There was a double futon with a plain white duvet and pillow, neatly made, and a white lampshade on the floor next to the bed. The dominant piece of furniture was an old wooden desk, but not the type of elegant antique you’d expect to find in the bedroom of an heiress. It looked like it had been discarded from a school and left, unwanted, at the back of a charity shop. On it, Jenna’s diary and some papers were scattered haphazardly, in contrast to the neatness of the room.

  Jamie put on her sterile gloves and opened the diary. It was a slender Filofax, nothing flash, something you could buy in any high street store. She flicked through the pages, but nothing immediately stood out. In fact, it contained very little for a woman who Jamie would have expected to be far more socially active. Perhaps she kept another diary at work or details were on her smart phone, which Missinghall would be processing along with the other evidence. Jamie checked the time and her stomach rumbled on cue. He should be getting back to her with something shortly.

  She continued checking the papers, taking some pictures with her smart phone of the pages directly before and after the date of death. The only thing that looked strangely out of place was the word ‘Lyceum’ occurring this Saturday, in just a few days’ time, at 11pm. Jamie wrote it down for follow-up, for there were several Lyceum theaters in London, and the word meant school in Latin, but 11pm was late for either of those possibilities.

  Moving the diary, Jamie looked at the papers underneath, finding a sheaf of large artistic photos, beautiful but highly disturbing. A woman’s naked torso was displayed in alabaster white, her breasts perfectly shaped, but under the right breast the body had been dissected away to show the internal organs. It was unclear whether the body was an artwork or in fact a real dissection. Jamie shuffled through the pictures and it became clear that Jenna was the model for the work. There was a photo of her lying naked on the futon here in this room, her arms provocatively held above her head. She was beautiful, her body perfectly formed and her smile was that of a lover, her eyes inviting. The digital date in the corner of the shot was only a few months ago, so perhaps the photo had been taken by her boyfriend, Rowan Day-Conti. Jamie snapped a photo of the image and wondered how Jenna had felt about artwork that had been modeled on her body, then turned into a partially anatomized torso instead of the live, warm flesh of a beloved. Was this the source of the couple’s recent argument?

  Turning back to the room, Jamie went over to the freestanding clothes rack which served as a wardrobe, covered with an opaque plastic sheet to keep the dust off. She unzipped the front and pulled it back to reveal a small selection of clothes. Here was evidence of the heiress who couldn’t quite leave it all behind, for there were several designer dresses and jackets in gorgeous fabrics. Jamie felt a tiny pang of longing for dresses like these, that she could dance in like a goddess, but she could never afford them on a police salary.

  There was a shopping bag at the bottom of the makeshift wardrobe. Jamie opened it and pulled out a shimmering blue satin sheath dress. It was gorgeous, barely there and yet would hang like a gossamer dream on a body like Jenna’s. The price tag was still on it. £2400. Clearly Jenna was still taking an allowance from her parents, Jamie thought, while at the same time becoming an activist against their company. For where else would this kind of money come from?

  Next to the bed was a shoebox, simple, plain white. Jamie knelt down to open it. Inside were folic acid supplements, most often taken by women planning on being pregnant or in the early stages of pregnancy. The lab results were still outstanding but this might explain why Jenna’s uterus had been removed, Jamie thought. So who was the father? Day-Conti, or someone else? Jamie looked around the room again. Why was the place so empty? Did Jenna really reject everything in favor of this simple life, or was there somewhere else where she kept her personal items? This didn’t look like the room of a girl who had lived here for eighteen months, a professional lawyer, an activist, the heiress to a substantial fortune.

  Jamie left the room, stopping on the stairs to look down into the living area. Elsa was curled up in a big chair, staring out of the window, her eyes fixed on something outside, her face a picture of Pre-Raphaelite beauty. She looked up as Jamie came down, and there was a hint of flirtation in her eyes, a suggestion of an invitation.

  “Did you know Jenna was pregnant?” Jamie asked Elsa, watching for surprise. There was none.

  “I wondered, to be honest, because she’d stopped drinking last month. Said she was over the drunken nights, but then she had actually been physically sick as well. Morning sickness, I guess. But she wouldn’t talk about it. I did ask her, Detective, but we lived quite separate lives most of the time.”

  Jamie nodded slowly. “Was she seeing anyone else apart from Day-Conti?”

  Elsa looked up, her eyes piercing, showing a level of hurt that was unexpected in a mere flatmate.

  “Since we’re being honest here, I think she was banging her boss at work, you know, that law firm. Perhaps you should ask him about it.”

  Jamie came down the stairs completely and knelt by Elsa’s chair, intimately close, wanting to elicit her more personal thoughts.

  “You loved Jenna, and that hurt you. Am I right?”

  Tears welled up in Elsa’s eyes, spilling over to run down her cheeks. She nodded.

  “When she first moved in here, there was chemistry between us. I know she was bisexual, I’ve watched her with women at the clubs, and yes, I guess I was dazzled by her perfection. But she was also principled - about the things that matter.” She indicated the PETA poster behind her. “We campaigned together, we worked on the farm together, and then she chose Rowan and I would have to listen to them fucking, when it should have been me with her.” Her eyes narrowed. “She deserved more than that bastard. All he was interested in was her body, corrupting that perfection into some kind of perverted art. That’s all he cares about.” She looked down into Jamie’s eyes. “You’re going to him next, aren’t you? Because he was always violent. It turns him on.”

  Jamie saw the shadows in her eyes. “Did you have a relationship with Day-Conti too?”

  Elsa paused, then shrugged.

  “Sure, at Uni, years ago but it was a web of intrigue back then and we all fucked each other. It didn’t mean much, but he was darker psychologically than the others, he took everything to an extreme. That’s when we all started playing with body mod and I got this tattoo.” Her hand drifted to the back of her neck. “But Rowan took it much further because he has such a high tolerance for pain and expects others to enjoy it too. You’ll know what I mean when you meet him.”

  Jamie stood, and handed Elsa her card.

  “Thank you for your time, and please will you let me know if you think of anything else? That’s my mobile number. Call me anytime, really, I want to find who did this to Jenna.”

  Elsa took the card and brushed Jamie’s fingers gently.

  “And you know where to find me, Detective, anytime.”

  Chapter 5

  As Jamie pulled up on her bike, Missinghall stepped out of the unmarked car to greet her. With the information she now had from Jenna’s flat, Jamie wanted the two of them to approach her boyfriend. He would always have been under suspicion in a case like this but more so given what Elsa had told her. The press would be onto the story soon, given how high profile the case was, but Day-Conti hadn’t been informed of Jenna’s death yet and Jamie wanted to observe his raw reaction to the news.

  Missinghall was munching on a foot-long Subway, wiping the side of his mouth carefully to keep the crumbs off his suit. Jamie’s stomach rumbled but she pushed the slight nausea aside. She felt a need to punish her own body for clinging to life while Polly lay immobile in her bed.

  “We got the
results back from the autopsy. It was rushed through because of the Nevilles’ high profile,” Missinghall said, pausing to take another bite as Jamie waited with barely restrained impatience. He offered her a piece of the sub and she shook her head, wondering even as she did so why she continued to resist even the slightest offer of help. “Jenna was definitely pregnant, around eight or nine weeks. Cause of death was asphyxia secondary to cervical injury and she was dead when her uterus was excised. There was some bruising on her hands, consistent with defensive wounds, so it’s likely that she was deliberately pushed down the stairs.”

  Jamie nodded. “Anything interesting on her smart phone?” In so many cases now, phones provided intimate clues and almost exact time of death since people were so active on social networks or texting all the time.

  Missinghall finished his last bite of the sub. “Work emails, the usual social networking with friends but nothing on her research into the Nevilles. Some angry text exchanges with Day-Conti, though.”

  He handed her a piece of paper with the printed texts, some highlighted. Jamie glanced through them, noting that it seemed the arguments were about Day-Conti’s work but they didn’t suggest a sudden escalation in violence and there were no actual threats. She frowned, sensing that pieces of the puzzle were still missing. But this was what she loved about her work, the moment where moving parts were beginning to be revealed and she needed to work out exactly how they fitted together. Her mind shuffled them around, but the edges didn’t yet fit. It was a welcome distraction from the realities of the hospice, but Jamie’s fist clenched as she thought of Polly lying there without her. There was a fine line between her desire to be at her daughter’s side all the time, and her attempt to keep a hold on her job and her sanity.

  Jamie and Missinghall walked together towards the Hoxton studio where Day-Conti lived and worked. The building was a huge brick warehouse, seemingly abandoned, but in this area of London artists were reclaiming the area and remodeling it into a trendy, creative haven. There was a large warehouse door marked Entrance that had a proper apartment door fitted into it. Jamie eyed the graffiti on the wall close by, unsure as to whether it was vandalism or art. Around here, it could be both.

  She pressed the buzzer. There was no response after a minute so she pressed again, holding the buzzer down until the intercom crackled.

  “Yes,” a voice said, indolent, as if he had been woken from sleep.

  “Rowan Day-Conti?”

  “Speaking.”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Jamie Brooke from the Metropolitan Police. I need to speak to you about Jenna Neville.”

  “Jenna?” the voice said, suddenly concerned and alert. “Is she alright?”

  “Can you let us in please, sir, so we can discuss the matter.”

  The buzzer sounded and the door clicked open, revealing a large warehouse space. Jamie walked into the vast building, her first impression of a high ceiling, making the space light and airy. Her second was the smell, a heavy chemical preservative over the pungent stink of decay. Jamie noticed Missinghall’s nose wrinkle, and she knew that he also recognized it. There was something dead in here. The huge space was bisected by great metal walls, creating a myriad of smaller rooms in the large warehouse, so it was hard to see where the smell might be coming from, but Jamie felt herself tense at the possibility of what they might find.

  There was a clattering of feet down the metal stairs at the side of the warehouse and they turned to watch a man approaching.

  “Is Jenna OK?” the figure called as he hurried over. Tall and gangly, he was dressed in shades of faded black that seemed to merge into his skin. As he came closer, Jamie realized that this was because he was covered in tattoos and in addition, he had small horns protruding from the front of his closely shaven head. Even his eyeballs looked different, as if they had ink on them too.

  “Rowan Day-Conti?” Jamie asked, looking doubtfully from him to the picture in her hand, which showed a preppy, clean cut young man with blonde hair and a muscular body. It was a long way from this clearly modified version.

  “Yes,” Rowan looked down at the picture. “That’s the one on file, right. It’s the way my family wanted me to look, the way they try to remember me, but I haven’t been that boy for a long time.”

  As he spoke, Jamie saw that his tongue was forked, split into two, strangely grotesque but mesmerizing to watch. Rowan’s eyebrows had been replaced by the intricately drawn wings of a dragon and there was a thick spike through his nose. Missinghall was staring and Jamie was trying not to, but Rowan was clearly used to it.

  “Now, tell me about Jenna,” he said, “because she’s not answering my texts.”

  As Rowan turned slightly, Jamie realized that his left ear had been carved into an asymmetrical shape surrounded by rune lines making the ear more of a spiritual offering than a facility for listening. She had seen body modification in magazines and on TV but never so close up. Those who pursued it considered the body as an art form in itself, a tool to be shaped into something new, a canvas for self-expression and a way to differentiate from the pack.

  “I’m sorry, Rowan,” Jamie said, “but her body was found early this morning. It looks as if she was murdered.”

  Rowan froze, his face falling and he sank to the floor, kneeling on the concrete in his ripped jeans. He hugged his thin arms around himself and took deep breaths, exhaling loudly to calm himself.

  “No, not Jenna,” he whispered, panic in his eyes. “What happened? How did she die? Oh my God. When did it happen?”

  Jamie crouched next to him, trying and failing to keep her eyes off his inked skin. From this angle, she could see that around the lower half of his cheek the tattoo revealed teeth inside a skeleton’s jaw, a sweep of bone towards the eye socket as if the skin had been carved away,

  “We’re investigating exactly what happened,” she said, “but we do need to ask you some questions.”

  “Of course.” His eyes were haunted, uncaring of their judgment. “Anything to help the investigation.”

  Jamie stood up and looked around the warehouse, pointing to the metal walls.

  “What do you do here, Rowan?” she asked.

  Rowan’s eyes changed, flickering to mistrust as if he suddenly realized that he could be under suspicion.

  “I’m an artist. This is my studio, my livelihood.”

  “Can you show me some of your art?” Jamie asked, keen to investigate the source of the smell. It was death overlaid with sterility and it certainly wasn’t innocent.

  Rowan stood up, crossing his arms, his posture defensive.

  “Don’t you need some kind of warrant?”

  Missinghall moved closer to Jamie, his bulk an effective backup.

  “Not if you want to show us around as visitors,” he said, his voice calm. “We’re just here for a preliminary chat, after all.”

  Rowan paused, then shook his head in resignation. “I’ve got nothing to hide, so look all you like. This is all legal, although you might find it a bit disturbing.”

  Jamie raised an eyebrow, thinking of what they had already seen today. “I’ve been in the Met a long time so you’ll have to try really hard to disturb me.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Rowan said, leading them around one of the huge metal walls. A human cadaver sat at a desk, flesh ripped open to reveal its inner organs, as if it had been exploded from the inside out. “This is one of my works in progress.”

  Jamie didn’t react and she was impressed that Missinghall didn’t either. They just stood there in front of the body looking inside the preserved corpse, a compelling obscenity.

  “This is your art?” she said.

  Rowan walked to the cadaver and stood by it, forcing them to look at him. Jamie found it odd to see this modified living specimen next to a body that had been mutilated after death. One art form presumably chosen as a statement to the world, the other displayed intimately without choice.

  “Have you heard of the Von Hagens
Bodies exhibition?” Rowan asked. Jamie shook her head. Missinghall looked grim-faced, and remained silent. “It was made famous by the controversy over the provenance of the bodies, because some believed they were procured from Chinese prisons and used without consent. Whatever the truth, his technique of plastination has revolutionized anatomy preservation, and has also spilled over into art for private collections, as you see here.” He pointed to the cadaver. “Plastination removes water and fat from the body and replaces it with certain plastics that can be touched, that don’t smell or decay. It effectively preserves the properties of the original sample but in a state that will last over time. There are several Bodies exhibitions, including one in New York, that display the cadavers in modern poses so you can understand how the bodies work.”

  “Why?” Missinghall asked, finally breaking his silence. “What’s the point?”

  Rowan looked at him with disdain, as if explaining such meaning was beneath him.

  “It’s the intersection of art and science, confronting mortality head on. It’s like seeing your future, looking inside yourself and realizing the truth. You are just flesh and you will die. The truth can set you free, Detective.”

  “You like playing God, Rowan?” Jamie asked, watching his eyes narrow as she spoke. There was a spark there, a defiance.

  “I enjoy the confrontation of challenging established, so-called truth, yes. Most people remain in their safe little worlds, but I like to live in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Take the way I look, for example. People judge me, expect me to behave in a certain way because I believe in the right of each person to modify their own body. But most people are incapable of seeing behind the facade of skin to the true self.”

  “But is it your right to modify the bodies of others, even after death?” Jamie asked, pointing at the cadaver.

  Rowan shook his head. “Of course, you don’t get it. I didn’t expect you to. Cops are on the side of the comfortable masses.” Jamie felt herself bridling against that, but she forced herself to listen. “But you have to check me out before you take any action. I have all the permits and my flesh provider guarantees that these bodies are donated specifically for artistic purpose.” He looked down at the body, running his fingers gently over the defined muscles in the neck. “I don’t see a dead person here. I see beauty and a tool for learning, for the illustration of truth. You see, I customize my body while I am alive but life is too short, so I modify the bodies of the dead so that they might live forever. Of course we are not our bodies, Detectives, we are more than that. But I also want to demonstrate that our bodies can live on in this fashion.”