Say You're Sorry by Michael Robotham Read Free Book Online Page B

O’Loughlin—the trembling psychologist—the man who can supposedly “walk through minds.”
    This is not my usual audience. Normally, I’m lecturing university students with baggy clothes and oily skin. Today I’m facing my peers: psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, who think I have some wisdom to impart, some remarkable insight into the human condition, which will give them a better understanding of their patients.
    I begin.
    “Imagine, if you can, feeling absolutely no concern for another human being. No guilt. No remorse. No shame. Never once regretting a single selfish, lazy, cruel, unethical or immoral word or action in your entire life.
    “Nobody matters except you. Nobody deserves respect. Equality. Fairness. They are useless, ignorant, gullible fools, who are taking up space and the air you breathe.
    “Now I want you to add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people exactly what you are, to be able to hide your true nature. Nobody knows what you’re really like… how little you care for other people… what you’re capable of…
    “Imagine what you could achieve. Where others hesitate, you will act. Where others set boundaries, you will cross them, unhampered by any moral restraints or pangs of disquiet, any rules or ethics, with ice water in your veins and a heart of pure stone.
    “What will you do with this power? That will depend upon what your desires are. Not all psychopaths are the same. And despite what the tabloid newspapers say, they’re not all serial killers or mass murderers.
    “Based on the law of averages, at least four people in this theatre match the description I’ve just given. Maybe you’re sitting next to one of them. Maybe you’re one yourself.”
    There are nervous smiles among the audience, but nobody looks sideways. They are listening.
    “We are all different. Some of us are fuelled by ambition or a lust for money or power. Some are lazy. Some are stupid. Some are violent. Some are cowards. Some, as I’ve explained, are psychopaths. Not monsters. Not madmen. They marry, raise families and create business empires, learning to fake sincerity and hide their secret.
    “This concept of the successful psychopath is often forgotten or ignored by the medical profession. We study those on the fringes of society—the dropouts and low achievers, the ones who get caught who have neither the intellect nor the inclination to rule the world. Only in the last few years have we begun to investigate the psychopaths who hide successfully among us.”
    Glancing at my audience, I recognize one or two faces. I worked on a research project with Eric Knox, who is sitting next to Andrew Nelson, a friend from university, who once dated my sister Rebecca and broke her heart. Two rows back, I notice a woman who looks familiar. It takes me a few minutes to put a name to her face: Victoria Naparstek, Augie Shaw’s psychiatrist.
    “I’m going to end with a story,” I tell them. “It’s about an affable, charismatic man who grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood of New York. Reclusive, stand-offish, slightly aloof, he married his childhood sweetheart and had two sons.
    “He started a money management business, handling investments for friends and family. Success followed: a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, shares in two private jets; a yacht moored off the French Riviera. By his seventies he was managing billions of dollars for individuals and foundations, constantly signing up new clients including charities, public institutions and investment firms.
    “He shunned one-on-one meetings with most of his investors, but that only increased his allure. He also avoided the Manhattan cocktail circuit, fostering his reputation as a financial mastermind blessed with the Midas touch—the sage of Wall Street. Does anybody know who I’m talking about?”
    “Bernie Madoff,” says a voice from the darkness.
    “A classic psychopath; a charlatan of epic