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‘Of course,’ he said, pulling them out and taking a seat himself.
‘We’re here because of your book about fraudulent psychics.’
‘I wasn’t expecting that. May I ask why?’
‘Not right now but we need to pick your brains about the whole thing.’
‘Okay, fair enough. I’m happy to share. I’m a psychologist by trade.’
‘We won’t hold that against you,’ Kim said, deadpan.
He smiled and sat back in his chair. ‘It’s a subject I started studying around ten years ago, after I treated a client who had become so caught up in his psychic’s predictions that he wouldn’t make any decision about his life without her counsel. And she was doing quite nicely out of it, thank you. I wanted to study how a person had become so entranced with the notion of divination they had lost their ability to function fully of their own cognition.’
‘So you don’t believe in psychics?’ she asked.
‘If they exist, I’ve never met one,’ he said. ‘What I do believe is that there are many tricks used for frauds to appear to be genuine psychics.’
‘Go on,’ Kim said.
‘The psychic’s first gift is the subject themselves.’
‘How so?’ Bryant asked.
‘When life is good people go out and party. When it’s not they seek advice, guidance and reassurance from other people. A psychic’s subject is already in the market for what the psychic is peddling.’
‘But they must be doing something right,’ Bryant said. ‘There’s a massive market for it.’
Kim watched as Richard sat back and took a good look at her colleague.
‘We’ve never met before, have we?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Bryant answered.
‘Okay, I’m gonna say that travel is in your future, somewhere hot, probably November. You’re a solid dependable guy with a good portion of tolerance. You welcome all nationalities and have no bias. You’ve been married twenty to twenty-five years, and you love your wife as much now as you did when you married her.’ He tipped his head to the side. ‘I’m gonna say you tried to master a musical instrument in your youth.’
‘All true,’ Bryant said with wide eyes. ‘But how could you know all that?’
‘It’s called cold reading and it’s achieved using an array of techniques. You have a decent job and work hard but you’re not rolling in it. You’d like a week or two in a hotter climate to relax but you go out of season because it’s cheaper. You have little or no bias because a female is your superior and you are perfectly at ease with that. You have the most perfect creases in your trousers, unlikely to have been put there by you, so you clearly have a wife who loves you very much. Safe to assume you feel the same way.’
‘But how could you know about the guitar?’
‘I didn’t specify which instrument. Statistics say that seventy per cent of males tried to master a musical instrument in their teens.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Bryant said.
‘See the effect. You actually wanted to believe that I could know all that about you.’
‘So that’s cold reading?’ Kim asked. ‘Observations and process of elimination?’
‘Oh no. It’s much more than that. The fraudulent psychic is incredibly clever and skilled. Cold reading dates from the late 1940s and is used to convey paranormal insight into the client’s personality, current life situation or future. The techniques can be used with crystal balls, palmistry, cards, tea leaves, all of which are merely props.
‘A satisfactory reading must touch on the subject of interest to the particular individual. The first and very important requisite is an accurate, detailed observation of the person’s physical appearance from head to toe including jewellery and accessories, and their mental attitude. From this we can get a determination about personality and situation. Are they serious, worried, sceptical? What type of work do they do? What is their financial situation? The approach is based on the fact all of us have four major interests in life: ourself, someone else, our possessions and our ambitions. A few leading questions determine which interests the subject the most.’
‘Hang on though,’ Bryant said, butting in. ‘I’ve seen a guy read someone thoroughly accurately while blindfolded.’
There was challenge in Bryant’s voice but Richard looked unruffled.
‘Give me the circumstances.’
