Page 48 of Psychopath

Although Noah had killed the most people out of all the participants, he’d had distance from the killings. Virgil had been up close and personal with his victims. He’d targeted them over the course of a few months, drugged them and took them away to his ‘killing room’.

Only the victims’ heads had been recovered. Three buried in his garden, and one, which turned out to be Virgil’s downfall, he’d stashed in the back of his car.

A bloody smear Virgil had overlooked on the driver’s door was noticed by an off-duty police officer. He called in a unit to investigate. Upon opening the boot of the car, they found Gethin Fox’s head wrapped in clingfilm. He’d been missing for two weeks.

“Doctor Quinn,” Virgil said, glancing at the prison officer, Simon, who stood at attention. “I keep telling you, I have no interest in killing you.”

“And I keep telling you, it’s the governor’s orders.”

Simon shook his head. “You can’t honestly want to be alone with him?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Why not? What do you think I’ll do?”

“You know what I think you’ll do…the same thing you did to those four men.”

“Which was?”

Simon pressed his lips together, refusing to say.

Virgil snorted. “I chose my victims because—”

“We’re not going to get into that today,” Quinn interrupted.

It was true that Virgil’s victims had to fit certain criteria that had a lot to do with Virgil’s now ex-boyfriend, but Quinn was saving that session for last. He wanted to get to know his participants before their crimes.

Virgil bowed his head.

He was a big man with calloused hands from his job as a construction worker. He’d been successful, ran his own company and had been involved in many housing projects in the local area. They had all been vigorously searched in the hope of finding what Virgil called his killing room, but no one had discovered its location. His brown hair was long, curling at the tips, and his scraggly beard hid his mouth. He had grey eyes that he rarely blinked, and throughout the session, he slid his gaze from Quinn to whichever officer was with them.

Quinn passed a sheet of paper with yes and no questions to Simon, who then handed it to Virgil.

Virgil wordlessly began filling it out, but his gaze flicked up, finding Simon.

“And it’s five men, not four…”

Simon frowned. “You were charged with four counts of murder.”

“There’s five dead bodies in there.” Virgil shrugged.

The problem with having an officer in the room with Virgil was they acted as a distraction. Virgil enjoyed toying with them and had told every officer he’d killed five and not the believed four victims.

There was no proof, and he didn’t offer any, only grinned and carried on with whatever task Quinn had set him.

“Who?” Simon asked.

Virgil hummed. “Who what?”

“Is the fifth?”

“Fifth what?”

Simon audibly gritted his teeth. Virgil handed the sheet back to him, and then he gave it to Quinn.

“You ticked yes to being prone to boredom?” Quinn asked.

Because that was what Virgil was doing, demonstrating his tendencies. Boredom and a pressing need for stimulation were common traits of psychopaths.

Virgil nodded. “It didn’t used to be such a problem until I was here. Some days it drives me crazy.” He turned his head and swept a hand through his hair, lifting it so Quinn could see the side of his head. There were deep scratches and bloody scabs in his hair.

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