Page 127 of Psychopath

“I see.”

“The results of my study mean I have to reject my hypothesis and accept the null hypothesis. There is no link between violent psychopaths and reduced functioning in the Amygdala, Prefrontal cortex, Paralimbic structures and the Ventral striatum.”

“Wait,” Zane said, frowning. “Your hypothesis…”

“It was wrong.”

“Based on my results?”

“Yes.”

Zane widened his eyes. “But what about the others?”

“The results as a whole are not conclusive, and I have to reject my hypothesis.”

“What if you take mine out?”

“I can’t pick and choose which results I want included. I had four participants who had passed my psychopath test. Two of them had limited activity in at least one of the areas of the brain I stated. One participant, according to the neurologist, had overactivity in those areas, and one participant had perfectly healthy brain function.”

“What happens now?” Zane’s eyes darted away. “With your study? What happens?”

“Nothing, it’s…it’s meaningless.” He shrugged. “It happens, Zane. Maybe if all four participants had results which supported my hypothesis, more research might have been done with a bigger sample, but as it stands…there’s nothing groundbreaking here. There’s no link, which means, according to my study at least, there’s no potential indicator.”

Quinn slipped his papers back into his folder.

“Thank you for taking part in this study.”

He stopped the recorder.

“What are you going to do now?” Zane asked.

“Well…” Quinn sighed. “I’ll have to find myself a job to keep my house, but first I’m going to visit my mum, spend some time with her. I think you were right when you said I’d spent too much time with killers, and it was affecting me.” He took a deep breath. “What about you, Zane? What are you going to do now?”

Zane lowered his gaze. “I guess I’ll go back to my cell…”

Quinn got to his feet. “If that’s what you choose, I wish you luck.”

“Quinn…” Zane lifted his head. His eyes were red. “What if…”

He bit his lip, stopping himself from saying more.

“What if?” Quinn pressed.

“I want to choose something else…”

“Then I wish you luck with that too, but don’t take too long deciding or that choice might get taken away from you…”

Without looking back, Quinn left the room. He kept going, passing through gates and doors until he was outside in the sunshine. He paused by his car, hand to the roof as he breathed, then glanced back at Greenwood Prison.

“Goodbye, Zane Black.”

22

Quinn spent the next few days writing up the rest of his study to send to his university seniors to mull over. He hadn’t found out what he’d wanted to, but he had discovered pitfalls in the ‘Psychopath checklist’. He’d done his best to be thorough, researching studies, theories and criteria related to psychopathy, but there just wasn’t enough out there to use, and Zane Black had proved the tests were easy to manipulate to get the desired result.

Why anyone would want to be labelled a psychopath, Quinn didn’t know, but it had implications in the courtroom. People could deliberately score high on the psychopath test and put in a plea of diminished responsibility if it ever became a recognised mental health condition.

Quinn shook his head and pressed Send on six months of his life.

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