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‘Oh, you’re the one,’ he said, smiling.
Kim appreciated his modesty but she’d checked his reviews on Amazon. The book had been very well received by readers but probably not so much by the psychic community.
‘Thanks for letting me get some peace and quiet. The mid-afternoon karaoke had just begun.’
‘If we could pick your brains a bit before you start, for the benefit of Stacey and Penn? I’ve summarised our chat from earlier so if there’s more you can offer, that would be great,’ she said, taking her mug to the percolator. ‘Oh, and help yourself.’
He took a bottle of water from his bag and held it up to signal that he was good.
‘Maybe if I tell you a bit about the psychics themselves?’
Kim nodded and sipped her coffee.
‘Okay, so even though people who visit psychics are believers, during the warm-up phase of a reading, a psychic will admit that even psychics make mistakes. They prep the client for errors so the client forgives them immediately and moves on.
‘There are seven themes most people want to talk about: love, health, money, career, travel, education and ambitions. The cold reader relies on a simple psychological idea that human beings have the ability to make sense of data, no matter what it is. They bank on the client’s willingness to find more meaning in a situation than there actually is, and to connect the dots to make sense of it for themselves.’
Stacey held up her hand.
Richard laughed. ‘It’s not school. Ask away.’
‘Are you saying that it’s all down to a technique?’
‘It’s all down to a mixture of techniques, body language, shrewd observation, fishing, vagueness and gullibility.’
Stacey looked doubtful.
Richard tipped his head to the left.
‘There’s a heart problem around you. I’m sensing an older male. I’m feeling chest pain. It’s either your father, grandfather or an uncle that—’
‘My uncle died of a—’
‘The month of June is important to you…’
‘I got married in—’
‘Why am I seeing water, a pool, a beach…’
‘We honeymooned in—’
‘There was a problem at the airport when you came back…’
‘We couldn’t get a taxi,’ Stacey said as her eyes widened. ‘But how could you know all that?’
Kim was amazed at how quickly Stacey had become caught up in the process, giving her a good idea of how effective the technique was on someone who believed.
‘What I just did was called shot-gunning, which is offering a series of vague statements. I actually got four hits and no misses. Pretty good result.’
‘But how?’ Stacey insisted.
‘Mainly because of you. Firstly, there are very few families not touched by heart disease – it’s the number-one killer for older men. I named pretty much every older male relation you could have.’
‘How did you know I got married in June?’
‘I didn’t. I said June was important to you. Statistically it’s a very popular month for weddings, events and parties. You then offered the information of the marriage, so it’s not too much of a leap to think you’d gone somewhere warm with water.’
‘The airport?’
