Read Online God's Spy by Juan Gómez-Jurado - Free Book Online Page B

There, and with a bit of luck, they were directed towards civilian life but, shamefully, many returned to the ministry when they should have been behind bars. Tell me, Dottoressa Dicanti, what chances are there for the rehabilitation of
a serial killer?’
‘Absolutely none at all. Once he crosses the line, there’s no way
to bring him back.’
‘It’s the same for a compulsive paedophile. Sadly, the certainty
you possess does not exist in our field. You know that you are dealing with a monster, someone who must be caught and caged. But it
is much more difficult for the therapist working with a paedophile
to know whether he has crossed the line for good. I know of only
one case when I never had the slightest doubt. And that was a case
where, beneath the paedophilia, there was something else.’ ‘Let me guess: Victor Karosky. Our killer.’
‘The same.’
Troi cleared his throat before interrupting. It was an irritating
habit that he repeated every so often. ‘Father Fowler, would you
kindly explain to us why you are so sure that this is the man who
has torn Robayra and Portini to pieces?’
‘Certainly. Karosky turned up at the institute in August 99. He
had been moved around various parishes, his superior shunting the
problem from one place to another. In every single one there were
complaints, some more serious than others, though none of an extremely violent nature. According to the testimony we collected, we
believe he abused eighty-nine children in all, although the number
could be higher.’
‘Fuck.’
‘You said it, Pontiero. But the root of Karosky’s problems is
located in his childhood. He was born in Katowice, Poland, in 96.
There—’
‘Hold on, padre. He’s forty-four years old now?’
‘That’s correct. He stands five foot eight and a half inches tall
and weighs one hundred and eighty-seven pounds. He has a strong
build, and testing revealed an IQ somewhere between 0 and ,
depending on when he took the test. He took seven in all at the
institute. He found them entertaining.’
‘That’s pretty high.’
‘You are a psychiatrist, while I studied psychology and wasn’t
an especially brilliant student. The most extreme psychopaths I
encountered were revealed to me too late to read up on the subject.
So tell me: is it true that serial killers are very intelligent?’ Paola smiled, half ironically, and glanced at Pontiero, who looked
at her with the same expression.
‘I think that the detective here can give you a good response to
that one.’
‘“Hannibal Lector doesn’t exist and Jodie Foster should stick to
costume dramas.” Dicanti says it all the time.’
Everyone laughed, not because the joke was particularly funny
but simply to release some of the tension in the air.
‘Thanks, Pontiero. Padre, the popular figure of the superpsychopath is a myth fashioned from novels and films. In real life,
people like that don’t exist. There have been serial killers with high
IQs and others with low IQs. The big difference between the two
is that the ones with the high IQs tend to carry out their crimes
over a longer period of time because they are more cautious. What
the academics all do agree on is the serial killer’s great talent for
killing.’
‘And those who aren’t academics?’
‘Outside academia, I’ve noticed that some of these bastards are
more clever than Satan himself. Not intelligent, but clever. And
there are some, a minority, who have a high IQ, an innate aptitude
for their despicable task and for dissimulation. And in one case and
one case only until now, these three characteristics have coincided
in a criminal who also was very cultured. I’m talking about Ted
Bundy.’
‘A well-known case in my country. He strangled and then sodomised something like thirty women with a tyre iron.’
‘Thirty-six – that we know about,’ Paola corrected him. She remembered the Bundy case in great detail, in as much as it had been
required reading in Quantico.
Fowler nodded sadly. ‘As I