Conrad leaned against the door of the witness room in the Tier Three clinic, as far away from the offender, Penny Lithgow, as possible. Penny sat in the treatment chair and looked up at Abigail who was adjusting the arm of the magnet, extending it to reach Penny’s skull.
‘What’s she done?’ Conrad pointed a finger vaguely in Penny’s direction but kept his eyes firmly on Grace.
‘She’s been convicted of helping her paedo boyfriend secure minors for high-paying punters,’ said Grace.
Minors. It somehow seemed less painful than saying children. She could see how Penny might seem unthreatening to her victims. She was petite, smaller than Grace, the fringe of her dark bob trailing over her large brown eyes. She looked like a child herself.
‘What about the boyfriend?’ asked Conrad.
‘Nasty bastard. He’s up in Tier Four,’ replied Abigail.
It didn’t seem fair that, once caught, Remy would be put in the same ward, classified with the likes of Penny’s boyfriend.
The sedative had kicked in and Penny gazed around vacantly.
‘She’s already been committed to Tier Four by the Neurocourt in Essex,’ Abigail told him.
‘But we have a small window of opportunity to trial my new therapy,’ Grace added. ‘Once she’s in Tier Four it would be impossible to get her out and do this. You know the legalities.’
Abigail stepped away from the chair and nodded to Grace.
‘Should we be having this conversation in front of her?’ asked Conrad.
‘She’s going to Tier Four anyway after this,’ Abigail said flatly. ‘She’s not going to be talking to anyone.’
‘Just for clarity, Conrad,’ Grace said, ‘this is for preliminary trials and tests. This is not my chosen subject.’ Remy’s face flashed into her mind. ‘I need time to get the correct treatment into place, make sure it’s successful. If I can get this right, it’s the least you owe me.’
She paused, waiting for his response. He nodded reluctantly.
She looked back at Penny, whose face, now slack with drugs and indifference retained a youthful, almost angelic glow. Grace felt deeply anxious having to work with such an offender. It was hard to see past the heartless cruelty and the damage that such a criminal could cause – especially to those who were so weak and vulnerable. But she reminded herself this was a means to an end. She couldn’t think now about the heinous crimes this woman had contributed to, the devastation of lives, and young, innocent lives at that. Grace had to focus on the task in hand. Once Remy was in Tier Four, there would be nothing she could do for him.
She had to make this work.
‘What we have here is a classic psychopath,’ Grace said, ‘which is why we aren’t using emotisonics, as they’d have no effect. Abigail has already injected the nano-scanners, so in a matter of minutes, we should be able to see’ – she looked up at the screen – ‘there we go… exactly what’s going on in Penny’s brain.’ Grace checked the nano-magnets were in place. ‘She scores very highly on the psychopathy scale on her psychometrics, so she’s the perfect test subject to see what we can achieve here.’
‘There’s a lot of people who score highly on the scale,’ Abigail said, ‘but they live productive, lawful lives. Psychopathy doesn’t always have to mean serial killer, you know.’
Grace found herself smiling, feeling a sense of camaraderie with Abigail against Conrad, who now looked at her questioningly.
She nodded. ‘It’s true. Psychopathy has its… upside, if you can call it that. Difficult decisions can be made without being swayed by emotions, useful for bankers and financiers,’ Grace said. ‘A CEO, for example, who can make a rational decision that would save millions of pounds even though it puts people out of jobs. Good for the company, if not good for the employees. You’d want a surgeon with a steady hand in a life-or-death situation, wouldn’t you? Someone who had the total self-belief that they could do the job, regardless of the odds?’
‘You’d think it would be easy to spot them,’ Conrad said.
‘Psychopaths can be charming,’ Abigail told him. ‘You might be one and not know it.’ She smiled at Grace and then turned back to her screen. ‘It’s a spectrum. It’s not just black or white.’
A spectrum. Grace had seen Remy make quick and brutal decisions in the past which she’d thought at the time were based on survival, but had there been more to it than that? She didn’t remember him being heartless or narcissistic. Or had he managed to hide it from her? Manipulation was the psychopath’s superpower.
Grace felt her phone buzz once in her pocket.
‘However, psychopaths are callous and lack remorse,’ said Grace. ‘So if they want something, then they’re just going to go for it. In this case, little Penny here wanted a lot of money and didn’t care if it meant selling kids to her sick boyfriend’s associates.’
On hearing her name, Penny swivelled her eyes slowly to Grace, stared at her disinterestedly for a moment, and then looked back to the blank screen in front of her.
Grace beckoned Conrad over to the workstation, and he moved past Penny at a wider than necessary angle. ‘On this brain scan here you can see the brain at rest. As I told you, fear won’t cure a psychopath. The problem is the psychopathic brain itself.’
Grace turned to Abigail. ‘Are all Tier Three offenders scanned for psychopathy?’
‘Not always. Depends if there are obvious traits.’
‘And if you find high levels of psychopathy?’
‘We send them up to Tier Four,’ Abigail replied. ‘As you said yourself, the treatment that we use presently isn’t going to make a difference. It’s for the best.’
From his safe distance Conrad nodded in agreement.
So that was it, relegated to biostasis.
‘But offenders don’t know that, right?’ Grace looked to Abigail and Conrad. ‘I mean, they know when they get into Tier Three that they can choose eco-labour or Aversion Therapy, but they don’t know before they’re scanned that there’s a possibility they can be sent to Tier Four?’
‘We can’t fix them,’ Conrad said indignantly. ‘Plus a diagnosis of psychopathy is an aggravating factor. They’re highly likely to offend again.’
So he did know something about psychopathy after all, but it was only logistics.
‘And at what point, Conrad, do you tell them that actually Tier Four isn’t a nice, comfortable secure home for the criminally insane, but Siberia?’
He didn’t answer.
Grace felt her phone vibrate once again. She nodded to Abigail, who fired up the reel on the viewing screen. Images of puppies playing appeared, five beautiful golden retrievers with short, cute snouts and big liquid eyes. The sounds of their whining and yapping tugged at Grace’s heart.
‘When the majority of people watch a video like this, you’d expect some activity in these parts of the brain.’ She pointed to the images relayed from the nano-scanners. ‘See here, the nucleus accumbens, or the ventral tegmental area, or even the amygdala, because most people would find it pleasurable watching these adorable puppies playing.’ She turned to him. ‘But as you can see on the scans here, Penny’s brain does not respond in that manner. However’ – she used the remote to move the video on and lowered her voice so Penny couldn’t hear – ‘watch this. For the record, this is CGI, not a real film, but she doesn’t know that.’
Grace looked away from the screen as a larger dog, snarling with saliva-covered jaws, came onto the screen and moved towards the puppies, but the sounds turned her stomach. Synthesised or not, they were distressing to hear. She watched Conrad’s response. He grimaced and directed his gaze to Penny.
‘She doesn’t even blink!’ Conrad sounded amazed.
‘Abigail, can you put headphones on her,’ said Grace before turning to Conrad and saying, ‘Probably fascinated by what she’s seeing, doesn’t want to miss anything.’
Once the horrible noises were only within Penny’s hearing, Grace turned to her screen again. ‘In a healthy subject, we’d expect to see these areas lit up…’ She pointed to the scan: ‘the anterior midcingulate cortex, the somatosensory cortex and the right amygdala – all areas involved in empathy, because most people would find viewing this sort of footage distressing. They feel sorry for the puppies.’
Abigail turned from the screen to look at the scans.
‘However, look at the areas that have just lit up in Penny’s brain,’ Grace said, pointing to a curved shape near the centre of the scan.
‘Which areas are those?’ asked Conrad.
‘Ventral striatum,’ said Grace.
‘The reward centres,’ Abigail said, amazed.
It took Conrad a moment.
‘You mean she’s enjoying this?’ he asked horrified.
Grace nodded solemnly.
‘Reward?’ he repeated as if he could not comprehend.
‘She made money out of seeing children suffer,’ Grace said. ‘It was a win-win for her.’
Penny sat in the chair gazing at the screen, no outward sign that she was any different to the other people in the clinic.
‘Why?’ asked Conrad simply.
‘It’s the way she’s wired,’ Grace replied.
‘Her heart rate has remained consistent throughout the test,’ said Abigail. She moved closer to Penny and put a blood sampling bracelet on her, clearly fascinated.
Grace’s phone went off again but the continuous vibration told her it was a call this time. She slipped it out of her pocket and took a quick look. Dan. His friends were over for dinner tonight. So wrapped up in her work, she’d forgotten. If she didn’t get home in time, things were only going to get worse than they already were. She cut the call.
‘There appears to be abnormal connectivity between the insula and ventromedial cortex,’ Grace said, slipping her phone back in her pocket and pointing at the screen. ‘This area is important for empathetic decision making. It’s another sign of psychopathy.’
She nodded at Abigail, who injected Penny while Grace used the remote to change the video. ‘Okay, Conrad, so Abigail has just administered Timorax. Should kick in pretty quickly.’
‘Now watch this,’ Grace told Conrad as she started the reel.
Penny’s gaze intensified as she regarded the screen – CGI of Penny herself, looking much younger, being abducted by two large men. After a few minutes, Penny became agitated and distressed.
‘Is this working?’ asked Conrad, looking confused. ‘Surely this is upsetting her?’
‘Yes, but the part of the brain which registers empathy is still unaffected.’ She turned away from the scan to face Conrad. ‘Which proves to me that your therapy, Timorax, helps offenders to recognise that they don’t want this to happen to them, but they still don’t care if it happens to others.’
‘Afraid, but not empathetic,’ said Conrad.
‘Exactly,’ said Grace. ‘The treatment isn’t thorough enough. It doesn’t get to the heart of the matter, which could be why it works in the clinic but doesn’t always seem to have long-lasting effects after treatment. This is, I’m assuming, why some people who have had Aversion Therapy are reoffending. To really cure them, we need to see that the empathy areas of the brain are lit up, that they’re registering just how terrible the victim’s experience is, how awful, terrifying, degrading…’
Conrad folded his arms, staring intently at the screen before turning to Grace with an expectant expression.
‘So, what I am proposing,’ said Grace, ‘is that we keep the therapy as it is in the main, but instead of using Timorax, we stimulate other parts of the brain instead, such as…’
‘Can it be done?’ he interrupted.
‘I’m going to give it my best shot.’ Grace hoped he didn’t hear the wobble in her voice. ‘I’m going to use the basic approach of Aversion Therapy – hypnotherapy, relaxant drugs and some kind of stimulus, minus the emotisonics. The important difference is that we need to change the focus from creating fear to creating empathy, targeting a different part of the brain. I’m going to dose her up with an empathogen…’
‘Is it legal? I don’t want the company getting into any trouble,’ he began.
‘It’s only as illegal as anything you’ve already done, Conrad,’ she replied coldly.
‘Aren’t they going to have to take it long-term to maintain—’ Abigail began.
‘We can think about that later,’ Grace interrupted, still looking at Conrad. ‘You’re just going to have to trust me that we can sort this mess out.’ She held her breath and looked him straight in the eye.
He opened his mouth to speak and at that moment his phone rang. Irritated, he looked at the screen. A light sweat shone on his forehead.
‘I’ve got to take this.’ He walked out of the clinic.
‘Probably his pal in the DoJ,’ Abigail sneered.
Grace looked at the time on the screen. She was cutting it fine to get home on time, even if she left right away.
Abigail leaned against a counter, took her phone from her pocket and began tapping. Grace wondered what her life was like outside the clinic. They only ever talked about work. Did Abigail have a partner, a family? What would Abigail make of her now she knew Grace could obtain illegal drugs?
‘How long until the Timorax wears off?’
‘Not sure, another half-hour or so?’ said Abigail.
Grace’s phone buzzed again. She took it out of her pocket and read the message.
Bloody hell! If she didn’t turn up, it might prove to be the straw that broke the camel’s back with Dan.
‘Abigail, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to pop out for a while. I know this is extremely important, but there’s something I must deal with at home.’
Grace teetered on the edge of her decision. She should be here, working on the therapy, saving Remy, not at some bloody dinner party with Dan’s friends. But she needed to maintain the domestic status quo for now, even if just for her own sanity.
Abigail lowered her phone. ‘Hey, no worries. I’ve no plans for tonight. What do I need to do?’
‘We can’t inject the new drug until the Timorax is out of Penny’s system or we won’t get a clear reading on its effects. She should already be in Tier Four, we’re running out of time. Please, it would really be great if you could—’
‘Wait until her system’s clear and then give her a shot of the new stuff?’
Grace felt uncertain for a moment – something so crucial, was she really going to leave it to someone else to deal with? But then she reminded herself: what was important was the results. She’d be back in a couple of hours when the new drug would be taking effect and she could read the brain scans to see if her treatment had worked. That was the important thing.
She stood for a moment, desperate to stay. But she knew that the thread between her and Dan was so fine, at breaking point, that to not go home now would be a decision she wasn’t sure she could return from.
‘Yes, it’s this one in the vial here.’ She lifted one of the silver trays and then put it back on the work surface.
‘No problem.’ Abigail put her phone on the counter and turned to face her. ‘Look, Grace, I’m more than happy to help. But are you sure this is going to work?’
Don’t do this now…
‘I think there’s a good chance that it might,’ Grace said, teeth gritted.
‘It’s just that, well, I know I’m only the technician, but I’ve been doing Aversion Therapy for a few years. I’ve given training on it in Newcastle, Brighton, Manchester. I know this treatment inside and out.’
‘Look, Abigail, if you and Myriam made mistakes, then—’
‘I know you really want to fix this, to do your best for Conrad, to make it right for our offenders, and I really admire that, I do… but surely a drug isn’t enough to make someone feel empathy? Most people know about basic psychology – attachment theory, life experience, personality even, surely those things are what make up an empathetic person, not just some chemicals.’
Grace felt herself bristling.
‘I mean there’s lacking empathy,’ Abigail went on, ‘and then there’s being a psychopath.’
Grace turned towards the workstation screen, her cheeks burning.
‘I knew a kid at school who suffered severe neglect,’ Abigail went on, not taking the hint. ‘I think she lived in a cupboard or something until the authorities put her in one of those homes. How could she “feel” empathy – even artificially – if she’d never had the experience of it from loving relationships? Or from the usual emotional scaffolding that comes with lived experience? Isn’t it a bit like taking antidepressants without working on the wider issues?’
‘Look, what you’re saying makes sense, but the brain’s neural circuitry is malleable – it can be rewired through neuroplasticity. If a person practises imagining oneself in someone else’s shoes there’s a possibility that might reinforce the neural networks that enable us to put others’ feelings first. It’s possible for victims of neglect to go back to an earlier part of their development and work on what was missing, build up their foundations – it’s not impossible.’
But there just wasn’t the time. There was no time to rebuild emotional structures, or nurture someone through that learning process, or give their neuroplasticity a good workout, or rewire a neurodiverse brain. Maybe at some point in the future this was something they could work on, throw in some behavioural genetics once it was up and running – think of all the problems that could be solved.
What if these things had been available to my child? That sort of intervention, plus the love and nurturing I would have given him…
‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ asked Abigail, shaking her head as though the trial was already a failure.
Grace’s phone buzzed in her pocket again.
‘Yes, I want you to do this, Abigail,’ Grace snapped. ‘I’m your line manager and I’m directing you to complete this trial. Your opinion of whether or not it will be successful is irrelevant. All the kit is set out. You’ll have to record the scans for me so I can analyse them as soon as I get back. Make sure they don’t’ get lost.’
She sighed heavily. ‘Look, I’ll explain it all to you tomorrow. I’ve got to go. Can you text me to let me know how things are going?’
Abigail nodded, eyes cast down.
Under pressure and resentful about Dan’s insistence that she return home, Grace fetched her bag and coat from the storeroom. She had to get Conrad to agree to let her treat Remy. And to do that she had to convince him that she could make Penny Lithgow feel something that she lacked, something crucial, something that would make her more human and less of the monster she was.