A friend of mine recently told me about a plastic surgeon who was struck off the register for deliberately disfiguring his patients. An acquaintance of hers had gone to see the surgeon with her son, who had a suspicious mole that needed to be removed. Despite the fact that they had been referred to the surgeon by a specialist skin cancer doctor, the surgeon insisted that the boy’s mole was not dangerous. However, according to him, the slight freckle on the mother’s face was certainly malignant and would need to be removed as a matter of urgency. It would leave a ‘slight scar’.

‘Evil exists,’ she said, ‘and it walks amongst us.’

     The mother decided to seek a second opinion and just as well. To her horror she was to later discover that the surgeon had been deliberately leaving patients with horrendous scars and deformities for years. His victims, who had gone to see him in the trust that he would help them overcome something that made them self-conscious, now found themselves in a much worse position.

     My friend shivered as she related the story. ‘Evil exists,’ she said, ‘and it walks amongst us.’

     Having encountered malignant narcissists myself, I know well that terrifying moment when the mask slips and you catch a glimpse of the monster that lives inside the person you thought you knew so well. It sends you into a state of shock that psychologists term ‘Cognitive Dissonance’: Where your brain cannot reconcile what you thought was real and what is now startlingly obvious. It is at this point that the narcissist becomes most dangerous; their very existence hinges on keeping their evil deeds secret. They will do anything to smear and discredit you. They may even kill you.

     Trust is an integral part of a healthy society. Writer and psychologist, Maria Konnikova, states that an ability to trust is a sign of intelligence and societies that function on trust and ethics are more prosperous and successful than those that don’t. In fact, trust is so necessary to our survival that we are born with a bias towards it. Distrust, according to Konnikova, is learned behaviour.

     But the very quality that makes us intelligent, creative and spiritually connected is also the thing that sociopaths use against us. They are so good at mimicking qualities that we all admire – generosity, kindness, wit, warmth – that their malevolence can go undetected for years.

It is this kind of sociopath that most scares me. For me, they represent the dark side of normal.

     Christopher Watts was seen by all who knew him as a ‘great guy’: a doting husband and father; a helpful co-worker; a friendly neighbour; a good-looking, fit man. His vivacious wife of six years, Shanann, constantly documented their perfect life with their two young daughters on social media. She was pregnant with their unborn son when he strangled her. I cannot imagine the terror his two young daughters felt when they witnessed that before he turned his murderous intentions on them. This is the man who was supposed to be their protector. Instead, he heartlessly killed one sister then the other, before stuffing their bodies in oil containers, reportedly because his family proved ‘inconvenient’ to an affair he was having.

Although he has never been formally diagnosed, Christopher Watts is considered by some to be what is termed a ‘communal narcissist’. This type of sociopath is harder to detect that than the flamboyant and obviously egocentric classic narcissist because they seem so altruistic, so low key, so damn likeable -  at first. This is the trusted priest who turns out to be a sexual deviant, the family dentist who deliberately drills holes in his patients’ teeth, the smiling old lady who is slowly poisoning her neighbours with lamingtons laced with arsenic. It is this kind of sociopath that most scares me. For me, they represent the dark side of normal.

     For authors, writing is nearly always a process of catharsis. Our stories are often the venue we use to battle our own demons. I have for many years harboured a fear of people not being what they seem. It’s come from unfortunate experiences. This preoccupation has been building for some time – from Dmitri’s cowardly betrayal of Anya in White Gardenia, to the false friendship of Camille in Wild Lavender, to the duplicity of Conchita in Golden Earrings. But in my latest offering, The Mystery Woman, this terror reaches its greatest heights. What will happen to Rebecca Wood when she uncovers the dark secrets that lie behind Shipwreck Bay’s respectable net curtains?

     I hope you enjoy finding out!

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