Page 48 of Killing Mind

‘Her stuff. I was away, at a meeting in Glasgow. She turned up with two guys and a van. She told her mother she was here to take all her things. Kate called me in tears not knowing what to do. I told her to let them. It was her stuff after all. And take it they did. Her furniture, clothes, jewellery, everything that wasn’t nailed to the wall. But that wasn’t the worst thing. When I got back hours later, Kate was still crying hysterically. Sammy had been cool and distant, as though they were strangers. She barely spoke until she handed back her door key and told her mother that one day she’d realise just how much of a zombie she was.’

‘Zombie?’ Stacey asked.

He nodded took a sip of his drink and pushed it away.

‘It’s their term for the unenlightened. We’re not alive, you see, we’re just existing.’

‘Carry on,’ she urged. So far, this was only half of the story.

‘Obviously I tried to call her, but her phone was off. As far as I know it was never switched back on again. We called the police but…’

‘She was an adult who could make her own decisions.’

He nodded. ‘So, I began researching the whole thing; learned everything I could about cults and sects. Reading books, articles, websites, joining chat rooms. I was beside myself. I felt powerless. I tried to visit and couldn’t get in the place. I was at my wit’s end when I suddenly received a call from a man named Kane Devlin.’

‘Big man, dresses in black?’ Kim asked, hazarding a guess. The man had not been a bailiff after all.

Myles nodded as Kim frowned.

‘He made contact with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he know you needed help?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I think he might lurk in some of these chat rooms to see who needs help and approaches them. He’s very secretive about what he does. He doesn’t get his business via a website.’

‘And what exactly is his business?’ Kim asked, wishing for Myles to spell it out.

‘He helped us perform the intervention. His team watched the compound for weeks, got to know Sammy’s movements and took her back.’

‘By force?’

He looked shocked. ‘Of course, it was the only way.’

Kim thought about his actions in forcing the girl into the shower. He clearly felt the ends justified the means.

‘We knew that if we could just get her away from the group we’d be able to change her mind back. Get her to see what they were. Kane and his team run a programme. The first week was hell while she was being unfrozen. We weren’t allowed to see…’

‘Sorry?’ Kim asked. ‘Unfreezing?’

He sighed as though realising just how clueless she was.

‘There are three steps to gaining control of the mind: unfreezing, changing, refreezing. It’s the same for getting someone in to and out of a cult. The first stage is to strip away the current belief system. It involves sleep deprivation, disorientation, privacy deprivation and being told that your values and relationships are all wrong.

‘Next comes the changing. Given new beliefs, new ideals, repetitively, encouraged to accept without question and then refreezing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Being built back up, paired with older members of the group to enforce new ideals. Kane explained it was like taking a shower. You get undressed, wash yourself clean and then dress in different clothes.’

Kim appreciated the simplistic analogy but this was not about getting clean. This was the human mind.

‘So, you’re saying this Kane guy kind of deprogrammed her?’

‘He started the process and we continued it once we got her home.’

‘And, how was she?’