Page 31 of Stolen Ones
‘You seem to be thinking about something. Something is clearly on your mind. There is—’
‘Next,’ Kim said. She got the picture. Foggarty moved forward through his presentation by a good five slides. Time saved.
‘It’s been said that a guilty person just wants to be understood. It allows him to feel he’s been forgiven. This is what monologue is intended to accomplish, and when doing so you should slow your rate of speech, lower your voice and offer the illusion of sincerity.’
Kim could see that the rest of her team were multitasking. Bryant was managing to tidy his desk. Penn was keeping an eagle eye on Steven Harte, and Stacey was interrogating Google while still appearing to listen. Yes, it was her team, all right.
‘Tailor your monologue to elicit a confession. Rationalise the action you think they’re guilty of. Project the blame onto someone else, minimise the seriousness, reward for honesty. There are three primary forms of resistance to the monologue: convincing statements, emotions and denials. To counteract, use the person’s first name, articulate a control phrase, hold up your hand.’
Kim did just that to indicate he should go faster.
‘Use bait questions like: “Is there any reason we’d find your fingerprints on that door handle?”’
‘Next,’ Kim said.
‘Ask simple straightforward questions.’
‘Next.’
‘Avoid compound leading, negative or confusing questions.’
‘Next,’ Kim said, wondering idly if presentation slides could get whiplash.
‘Be alert for follow-up opportunities.’
‘Next,’ she said again. ‘And please don’t think I’m being rude. I just don’t want to waste your time or ours.’
‘I understand, and I’m trying to keep it relevant.’
Kim nodded for him to continue.
‘Avoid a checklist mentality. Keep note taking to a minimum and don’t rush the pace between questions. Make the subject feel good about disclosing information and use catch-all questions to uncover lies of omission like: “What haven’t I asked you today that you think I should know about?”’
He took a deep breath as though surprised he’d reached the end of the section alive. Kim took a bottle of water from the fridge and placed it next to his projector.
‘Okay, now I want to go through some terms that may or may not be familiar but that you should be aware of.
‘Baselining is where you compare observed behaviour with an established norm. This helps identify when the subject is lying or is uncomfortable because you have a baseline to compare it against.’
Stacey seemed to have stilled beside her. She was reading something with interest. Kim glanced across and saw the name ‘Suzie Keene’.
‘The cliff moment is the point where a person feels he has disclosed everything he can without suffering negative consequences.’
‘Got it,’ Kim said.
‘A cluster is any combination of two or more deceptive indicators.’
‘Okey-dokey,’ Kim said, stealing another glance at Stacey’s screen.
‘Mind virus is the psychological discomfort a person feels when he receives information that has potentially negative consequences, causing his mind to race with hypothetical ramifications of the information.’
‘Yep, got that too,’ she said, moving her chair slightly closer to Stacey’s desk.
‘Okay, now I want to move on to the elicitation approaches: either mild flattery or provocation.’
‘You can skip straight to the second,’ Bryant offered, showing that he was still listening. He knew she was unlikely to use the first.
Derek ignored him. This man was clearly a textbook tutor. Listen and don’t interact.
