Free The Abduction: A Novel by Jonathan Holt Page A

knew that the exercise they were carrying out, apparently so simple, was the result of extensive research. In a 1989 study at Clark University, psychologist James Laird had established that mutual eye gazing for just two minutes could produce rapid increases in sexual empathy, even between strangers. The physical proximity of their hands was based on a similar discovery by Leon Festinger and Robert Zajonc at Stanford.
    “Sabrina, make a gesture,” the voice behind him said.
    Without taking her eyes off Daniele, the young woman moved one of her hands sideways, down towards the table. Immediately, Daniele copied her, so that their hands remained opposite each other. She did the same with her other hand, then turned her head from side to side. Each time he copied her, their eyes still locked together.
    After two minutes of mirroring each other’s movements – again, based on research which demonstrated that it increased feelings of closeness – the voice behind him spoke again.
    “Now truth,” Father Uriel said. “Daniele, you first.”
    He thought. What secret did he want this woman to share with him? Under the rules of the exercise, she had to answer any question honestly, no matter how intimate or revealing.
    “Sabrina, why are you here?” he asked.
    The young woman reflected, picking her words carefully. “Father Uriel is my PhD supervisor. When he asked for volunteers to help with his clinical work, I thought it sounded interesting.”
    “Are you being paid?”
    “We get term credits for participation, in the same way any research assistant would. So, yes, you could say I’m getting paid.”
    “Do you work with his other patients too?”
    She frowned, and he guessed that if she hadn’t been obliged to keep her eyes locked on his, she’d have looked to Father Uriel for reassurance that this wasn’t off limits. “I don’t think I can talk about that.”
    “I need the truth,” he reminded her. Father Uriel remained silent.
    “I have done this with others, yes.”
    “Did it feel like this?”
    She shook her head minutely, her eyes still fixed on his. “Not exactly, no.”
    Father Uriel’s voice said, “Sabrina, your turn.”
    She looked at Daniele in a different way now, assessing him. “Today I felt you were attracted to me. Were you?”
    “Yes,” he said honestly. He waited for her next question.
    “Why are you here?” she said, and he sensed that she really wanted to know; sensed, too, that had the answer to the previous question been different, she wouldn’t have asked this one.
    “You mean: am I a woman-hater, or a paedophile, or one of the other categories of offender Father Uriel usually works with?” he said slowly. “And the answer to that is ‘no’. But for various reasons, I’ve never found it possible to be close to other people.”
    “Are you autistic?”
    “I have been called that, and by some very eminent doctors. But Father Uriel believes my condition is acquired, not inherited.” He wondered if she realised how hard it was for him to talk about this; wondered, even, if the psychiatrist had put her up to it. “I was kidnapped as a child. They kept me locked up for several weeks.”
    “Is that how you lost your ears? And your nose?”
    He tensed involuntarily. “Yes. The kidnappers… They did it to put pressure on my parents.”
    “Why didn’t you have cosmetic surgery? Afterwards, I mean?”
    He took a deep breath. “I was offered it, of course. But I refused. I told my parents I wasn’t ready. But the truth was, my father loved beautiful things – artworks, his palace in Venice. I wanted him to look at me and see what he’d done. To remember that all his wealth had created something ugly.”
    She nodded calmly. He felt the rush of mental connection that came from sharing a secret he had never divulged to anyone else. It both excited and terrified him.
    “What made you seek help now?” she asked.
    “I realised I was never going to form a relationship – to