‘No, but I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me about it.’
‘It illustrates how young babies are extremely responsive to emotions and reactions, and the social interactions they get from the world. During the experiment, a mother sits down face to face with her baby, who is about twelve months old. She plays with the baby, who is safely strapped in a high chair, engaging with her, giving positive facial and other physical expressions when the child smiles, points to objects in the room, and also makes signs and sounds to greet her, with the baby giving greetings back. What’s happening is that parent and child are working together to co-ordinate their emotions and intentions. The positive feedback and interaction is what the baby is used to. Dr Tronick gets the mother to turn away from the baby, and when she turns back, she keeps her face perfectly still, showing no emotion. The baby girl quickly picks up on this, then uses all of her abilities to get the mother’s attention back, smiling and pointing, because she’s used to the mother looking where she points to, and reacting positively when she smiles. The baby also makes oral sounds, putting both hands up, but still the mother doesn’t react. The baby then fires herself back in the high chair, scrunching her face, visibly upset, almost asking, “What’s happening?” Very quickly, she lets out the screechy high-pitched sound we’re all familiar with babies making, and keeps on doing it to the point of utter distress. The whole thing happens over a couple of minutes, but even in that time, you can see how the lack of response from the parent causes the baby great anxiety.’
‘It sounds cruel to me.’
‘Maybe, but what happens next is vital. The baby is feeling the stress of the situation, waving her arms about, her head completely turned away from the mother, and at this point, she loses control of her posture. The little girl has essentially turned away from the world as she knows it.’
‘Jesus.’
‘The mother comforts the baby, and soon everything is back to normal.’
‘That’s a pretty shitty experiment.’
‘But it tells us that babies will adapt their behaviour and emotional development according to attachment and their environment. From a child’s emotional development, what you have is the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is positive reinforcement from and interaction with a parent or parental figure, the normal stuff most parents do with their children. The bad is what the baby in the experiment receives, but that infant soon overcomes it when the mother adjusts her behaviour back to the norm. The ugly is when you don’t give the child any chance to get back to the good, and they become permanently stuck in the ugly situation. The damage is done, and the only means of helping an individual move on is prolonged psychological assistance.’
‘And you think, Kate, this is what happened to our killer?’
‘The level of violence, destruction and emotional damage evident in the killing of Rick Shevlin and Pierre Laurent is acute. Behaviour like that is always gradual. It is the end result of many years of dysfunctional, negative and damaging elements, primarily childhood-trauma-based. If our killer was in her mid-twenties when she met Pierre Laurent, she would have become, in neurobiology terms, a developed adult – damaged, but developed. We have potential indicators as to how she has moved on since. What we don’t have is the before, the baby to child, and the child to adult. Therein are the answers to the why.’
‘In the meantime, we have a killer capable of killing again.’
‘Yes, and despite her suffering in early development, including probably sexual abuse, and possibly physical and mental abuse, she is utterly dangerous. She is capable of carrying out extreme acts of violence, up to and including death, especially if someone doesn’t behave as she wants them to, or attempts to stand in her way.’
I
TODAY THE SHADOW is different. Today the shadow belongs to me. It had felt like an age since I took a self-portrait. They are part of my identity now. Concrete proof that I exist, that I’m real. There are times I doubt it, which is partly why I grab life with such force, no time for trivia or small-minded people.