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Conducting Tough Interviews 271

If you use this approach you must wait for the subject to respond and under no circum-
stances should you break the silence. It is unheard of for a suspect to walk out at this point:
the reason being that it requires a very high level of commitment to do so.

Silence created by the subject

Silence by the suspect in response to a relevant question usually means the following (Table
7.35).

Table 7.35 The sound of silence

Meaning of the silence Your reaction, depending on the context and the
phase of the interview

He is deciding whether to fight or flee You should present him with the most detailed
evidence you have and require him to commit
himself to responses

He is playing for time to prepare an answer (and Assume the silence is an admission. Interject with
fighting the two monkeys on his back) a phrase such as: ‘This is too much, Joe, isn’t it?’

He is confronting himself with the critical
decision whether or not to tell the truth: the
pivotal point

An important fact to remember is that when the subject has created a silence to give him
time to plan his next response, you must interject (see page [xref]).

WRITING IT ALL DOWN

As Spot kindly mentioned in the foreword to this book, it was one thing Mr Staples saying
something nice about the elderly ex-guru and quite another committing it to writing. This is
true in both trivial and serious cases of deception. If you cannot understand an explanation
or don’t believe it, consider asking the subject to write down the important facts on a single
sheet of paper. Liars don’t like doing this because it commits them to barefaced lies.

THE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS week’. The MD said, ‘Well we have a few
days, so put your case down on a single sheet
An accountant, working for a small company, of paper and tell me all you know about X
asked the managing director to approve a Limited.’
purchase order (of £10,000 addressed to
X Limited) for fire extinguishers, which he A few days later, the MD bumped into
said were urgently needed to conform with the accountant and asked him what was
new fire regulations. The MD believed his happening. ‘Oh,’ said the accountant,
company already complied fully with all ‘I checked and found we were OK, after
regulations, but his questions were answered all.’ What he did not admit, as the MD
with a load of technical waffle and evasion, subsequently found out, was that his son-in-
which concluded with ‘Believe me, we will law owned X Limited.
be in trouble if we don’t buy this stuff this

When in doubt, get it in writing