"Hello Mr Jane, I'm Dr Herring."
Jane scowled at the doctor who stood before him, he felt the urge to flip him off but fought it. He was the one in control here and the doctor would know that.
"That was quite the nasty cut you did to yourself." the doctor began, as he knelt down beside Jane.
"But I can understand why you would do it." Herring continued simply. Oh this man was so strange Jane thought, he was so friendly but the tone of his voice held something. Jane shook his head in contempt.
"Not much of a talker, are you now?" Herring smiled, "That's strange isn't it? After you were such a smooth talker psychic before." Jane's eyes went red with anger and Herring saw it.
"Oh that's it! Rage. Give me rage, not sadness." Herring stood up suddenly, "Scream at me! Tell me off! Think of me as your very own personal verbal punching bag!" the doctor yelled.
Jane jumped to his feet, "Fuck you!" slipped from Jane's mouth.
"Oh that's better. Now it only I could get that smoothness back..."
After the first words slipped from Jane's mouth the rest came so easily. Jane was no longer silent and Herring had been the one to do it. Herring was indeed quite strange, he was tall with a mop of jet black hair and bright domineering emerald green eyes. He was about the same age as Jane and was thin but toned, his jaw square and his cheekbones high. He wore casual clothes with a white doctor's coat, a little laminate with his name written upon it hanging from his left breast pocket. He carried himself with purpose and zeal, all this Jane noticed but could not get a read off the doctor; to Jane he was an enigma.
However all this didn't stop the two from talking. At first the doctor pushed the subject of Jane's wife and child but when he resisted the doctor receded and began to chat with him about other things. They chatted about sports like men often do but soon the conversation drifted to Jane's profession.
"How do you do it?" Herring asked as he sat in a fold out chair across from Jane who was sitting on the edge of his bed. They always met there and it never had occurred to Jane how strange that was, always meeting your shrink in your hospital bedroom.
"Do what?" Jane asked, knowing full well what the doctor meant but trying to avoid the question, as he ran his hand through his blond hair.
Herring shook his head, "Trick people? Fool them." he started to fiddle with his badge as he looked Jane in the eye, "I could never do that, people always know fully who I am." the doctor confessed.
Jane smiled, "Oh people know who I am when I con them." he began, "But they choose to believe in the lies. Truth doesn't make people happy, not really, people seek lies not truth."
"Hmm." Herring mulled this over for a moment before continuing, "So does that mean you are looking for a lie Mr Jane?"
Jane suddenly looked up and turned his head slightly to his right in thought. Truthfully the idea had never occurred to him which seemed silly. Jane had been raised in a family of con-artists and since he was young he'd always been the trickster never the mark. A thought struck the man as he replied, "No. I'm not looking for a lie. I am seeking the truth; because I don't care about happiness, I want the truth even if that truth causes me great pain."
Herring smiled and stood. "I think that, Mr Jane, is a grand revelation; one I hope will lead to many more. Yet now our time is up; until next time Patrick." Herring walked out of the room and left Jane to himself. That revelation rattled around inside Jane's head; he was seeking truth. Fair enough, but what truth was he really seeking? The answer was swiftly apparent as he sat in his room inside Heritage Oaks Mental Hospital; the real truth he wanted to get his hands on was the identity of a certain serial killer because Jane had realised that he deeply wanted to kill the man known as Red John. Jane wanted to kill that man with a passion stronger than anything he'd ever felt in his entire life and he promised that if he ever got out of this place that he would.