Page 95 of Psychopath

David tapped on the door. “Time’s up, gentleman.”

Zane smiled. Then he winked. “Thank you for cheering me up on my birthday, Doctor Quinn.”

Quinn looked at Zane for a long moment, then squeezed past David to exit the cell.

16

Ihad a feeling it was coming to an end, but all good things do.

The words followed Quinn around. They bothered him. He could hear how Zane had delivered them in his head, on a sigh as if it were beneath him.

Like it was meaningless fun.

Quinn’s heart hurt.

He told Mars because sometimes honesty came from his bad-tempered companion, and the slow blink, swinging tail and the judging look were exactly what Quinn needed.

He was upset that Zane had dismissed them so easily when he should’ve been cursing himself out for what happened in the cell. He should never have gone down there, and he promised himself he wouldn’t again. No matter how much temptation pulled at him, he would resist being alone and in a confined space with Zane.

The study had reached its final leg. There was one more interview, and then Quinn would know who was suitable for the MRI scanner and who wasn’t.

He had saved the most difficult session for last, discussing the crimes that got them locked up in Greenwood.

Quinn knew it was going to be a hard week, but he hadn’t prepared himself for how emotionally taxing it would be to hear the crimes from the mouths of the six prisoners he’d got to know over the last six months.

He’d desensitised himself, skipped over the violence that defined each man in front of him, but the crimes, and the participants’ reactions to it, were vital when looking for the psychopath amongst the regular killers.

Harris went first.

He had killed four prostitutes and showed a distinct lack of remorse.

All the victims were young women, attractive, and he’d chosen them based on how much they charged him. He didn’t kill the more expensive girls, but the cheaper ones, telling Quinn if they hadn’t valued their bodies so little, he would’ve let them live.

He recounted the killings as if speaking of the vague plot of a movie he’d grown weary of. There were no surprises, and Quinn blamed that for lulling him into a false sense of security. Tony and Richard, equally, didn’t unnerve Quinn in the way they perhaps should have, but then came Noah.

The young man with the jet-black hair obscuring his eyes, with the eyeliner and painted nails. He’d bragged about his poisoned punch ‘flooring people’ in one of their early sessions but hadn’t strayed near the topic again since then. Quinn had assumed he’d been dying for the moment to tell him all about it like Tony and Richard, but getting Noah into the room in the first place came as an unexpected challenge.

Noah stood in the doorway on his side of the room for a long time. Quinn smiled at him warmly, but it didn’t encourage him closer. Cleo was there too, squeezing Noah’s shoulder.

“We’re going to talk about what happened that night, aren’t we?” he asked.

Quinn only just heard him and leaned into his mic. “Yes, but only if that’s okay with you.”

Noah brushed Cleo’s hand off and stepped inside. He approached, tugging at the sleeves of his sweatshirt. When he sat down, he hid his hands beneath the table, but Quinn could tell he continued to pull his sleeves from the twitch of cotton over his arms.

Noah’s eyes were red, and he sniffed like he’d recently been crying.

“We don’t have to,” Quinn said, sliding his folder away.

“I want to,” Noah mumbled. “Where…where should I start?”

“You saw your school bullies, Darren, Tom, Josh, and Andrew, a few days before…”

Noah nodded. “I was on the bus, sat at the back, and they got on. At first, they didn’t recognise me—they were standing at the front—but then one of them did, and he pointed me out to the others. They all started laughing and moved down the bus, and I was…”

“You were?”

“Scared. I’d been having a good day.” He hung his head. “I’d finished work, and I’d bought myself a few bits. A new eyeliner and some nail polish. I wasn’t expecting them to suddenly be there. I’d not seen them for years—not like that—but there they were, the four of them, and they surrounded me.”

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