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‘And you’re different?’
‘Oh please. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the difference between steak tartare and a carnival hamburger. You can see for yourself the calibre of clientele that I work for,’ he said, nodding towards his wall of fame.
‘I’m sorry but I don’t know who those people are,’ she said, almost honestly. A couple of faces were vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t have put a name to them if she was being held at gunpoint.
His face showed his displeasure at her lack of deference and awe.
‘Inspector, you may not know it but there are some very important people there; elegant, sophisticated, educated people who want genuine guidance through the obstacles of their lives, not members of the great unwashed who want next week’s lottery numbers. Real psychics don’t do tawdry stage shows. They have no wish to try and entertain. They wish only to offer guidance and reassurance.’
To people who can afford it, she almost tagged on to the end.
‘So you place yourself in a different class to other psychics?’ she asked.
‘Only the fraudulent ones.’
‘But your gift is genuine?’
‘Absolutely, Inspector. I had a terrible fall as a child. I was seven years old, and for a few minutes I actually died. I could see myself on the ground; my parents running towards me. There was panic, screaming, chaos, emotion. I felt nothing. I was serene, floating; more at peace than I’d ever been. It’s a tough one to explain if you’ve never been through it.’
She had but she hadn’t experienced anything like that.
‘Go on,’ Kim urged.
‘The next thing I recalled was regaining consciousness. My first emotion was pure disappointment. Then I became aware of hushed voices talking around my bed. Lots of them. The voices grew louder. The content was no clearer but the volume increased. I opened my eyes and the room was empty. Except I could still hear the voices.’
‘Must have been frightening for a young boy,’ Bryant said.
‘It was, but more frightening was the reaction of my parents and the doctors when I told them. It was eventually concluded that it was a temporary state due to my having died for a while, and the matter was never discussed again.’
‘You never told your parents you could still hear voices?’ she asked. Truthfully, she didn’t believe it, but she felt that he believed it.
‘No. I could tell that the very subject scared my mother to death. So I secretly learned how to tune out the noise, to hear past the crowd and focus on one single voice at a time. I realised that communicating their wishes was what I was born to do.’
‘Okay, but how do you know that Sandra didn’t possess that same gift?’
‘Firstly because she’s dead and she should have seen that coming.’
‘And secondly?’ Kim prompted.
‘Because I tested her,’ he answered.
‘You did what?’
‘I got the idea from an American woman who carries out stings on fraudulent psychics.’
‘How?’
‘I had a friend of mine, let’s call her Jayne, set up a fake profile on social media. She filled it with a false life of two grown-up boys and a husband to whom she’d been married for twenty-seven years. Jayne joined a couple of diabetes groups, liked some poetry appreciation pages and listed academic credentials. Once the profile had been running a few months and Jayne had a few friends, she rang Psychic Sandy and arranged a consultation. The money was taken for the session around ten minutes before it started.’
‘And?’ Kim asked. She had to hand it to him and his skill in setting a scene. She was now invested.
‘Everything Sandy said was aimed at the personality of the fake profile. Her first stab was that she was sensing loneliness. Decoy Jayne’s youngest child had just gone off to university. Real Jayne has no children and has never wanted them. She has more friends than Mark Zuckerberg and is definitely not lonely.
‘She spoke of Jayne’s literary interest. Real Jayne couldn’t form a five-line limerick. Next, Psychic Sandy expressed concern for her health. She even took a stab at something to do with sugar levels that might need checking. She told Jayne that she saw travel in her future and bright lights. Decoy Jayne had shown interest in a resident show in Vegas. Real Jayne holidays on a beach in Turkey. Her insights focussed on a thirst for knowledge and self-improvement. Real Jayne likes to read the trashiest romance novels she can find.’
Kim waited for more, and Bryant’s expression told her that he was equally entranced.
‘Those are the highlights, but suffice to say she picked up not one link to the real Jayne and only drew from the personality that had been fabricated.’
