Free The Blasphemer by John Ling Page B

feeling the tension ebb. ‘Please.’
    ‘Okay. I’ve just concluded the interview with Abraham Khan.’
    ‘What’s your assessment?’
    ‘Well, he’s more... complex than our dossier would suggest.’
    Deirdre moved around her desk and eased into her chair. ‘Go on.’
    ‘He’s opened up about his birthplace, his childhood, his upbringing, pivotal events that we weren’t aware of before. I’ve emailed you my notes to bring you up to speed.’
    ‘Sure. Give me a moment.’
    Deirdre slipped on her reading glasses and leaned over her tablet computer. She ran her hand across the touch screen. Opened Maya’s email and skimmed through, picking up the key points. The Hindu-Kush village. The mullah father. The British couple. The confrontation. The stand-off. The resolution.
    Impressive.
    Deirdre couldn’t help but feel a tinge of pride. Maya was just like Nathan in his prime. Empathetic. Perceptive. Able to connect with any principal. Able to draw out the most intimate of information.  That reassured Deirdre. Soothed her doubts. Perhaps bringing Maya back into the fold wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
    Deirdre allowed herself a small smile. ‘This is good work, Maya. Now we understand why he’s so obsessive. He admires his father. Wants to emulate his example. Maybe even exceed it.’
    ‘There’s more.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Everything he’s told us fits with his psych profile. All of it. But at the same time, I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s holding something back.’
    ‘And what would that be?’
    ‘I can’t say for sure. But his body language was all over the place. He fidgeted with his nose, rubbed his neck, blinked. At one point, he went from being incredibly tense to being incredibly relaxed. Almost as if he was gravitating between two emotional extremes. Debating within himself about how much to share with us and how much to leave out. And, if that wasn’t enough, I noticed his eyes tracking to the left when he came to the end of his story.’
    Deirdre removed her glasses, lowering them. She knew exactly what Maya was getting at. A person shifting his eyes to the right would be accessing the memory centre of his brain. That indicated a truthful recollection. But if he shifted his eyes to the left, he would be accessing his creative centre. That indicated deception. 
    But Deirdre found two holes with the theory.
    Number one, people seldom relied exclusively on one centre of the brain. Memory was such a flimsy thing, often dulled and distorted by the passage of years. Most people had no choice but to fall back on creativity to supplement the gaps in their past. So a person glancing to the left could actually be relying on fragments of memories stitched together by imagination. Did this amount to a lie? No, not exactly.
    Number two, emotional trauma was known to disrupt and jumble up the memory and creative centres of the brain. Through no fault of his own, a survivor of a soul-shattering experience could confuse fiction with fact. And why not? The mind had a way of crafting protective layers to preserve its own sanity.
    ‘Mama, you there?’ Maya asked.
    Deirdre fingered the frame on her glasses. ‘I’m still here. Just thinking.’ She shook her head. ‘Listen, you know as well as I do that neuro-linguistics isn’t an exact science. We can’t read too much into it.’
    ‘Even so, Khan’s body language does point towards something.’
    ‘Yes, something . But not necessarily deception. It may well be that he’s just not ready to share everything. At least not yet.’
    ‘You know, it unsettles me that we have so little documentation of his life before he entered university. And all we have to go on is what he tells us.’
    ‘Operationally, does this compromise you in any way?’
    ‘No, but...’
    ‘So we’ll work with what we have for now. It should be enough. We have more or less mapped out his personality.’
    ‘I shouldn’t probe him further?’
    ‘If you have to, do it