Minutes from Session #47
The following transcript was recovered from a digital recording device found in the office of Dr. Eleanor Marsh, PhD. The quality is degraded in parts. Speaker identification has been attempted but cannot be guaranteed.
DR. MARSH: Let's begin our session. As always, what's said in this room stays in this room. I see everyone is present today—
VOICE 1 [identified as likely THOMAS]: Except Rebecca.
DR. MARSH: Rebecca is here, Thomas. She's sitting right next to you.
VOICE 2 [identified as likely REBECCA]: I've been here for twenty minutes. I even brought the biscuits everyone's eating.
THOMAS: [unintelligible] ...wasn't talking about that Rebecca.
DR. MARSH: Let's focus. We've been meeting for almost a year now, and I think we've made progress. Today I'd like to try something different. Instead of discussing your week, I want each of you to tell the group about the first time you remember consciously lying. Not a white lie, but a significant fabrication. Who would like to begin?
[Silence for 12 seconds]
VOICE 3 [identified as likely MICHAEL]: I'll start. I've never lied before coming to this group.
[Multiple voices laughing]
VOICE 4 [identified as likely DIANA]: That's rich coming from the man who told us he was a retired astronaut last month.
MICHAEL: I am a retired astronaut. NASA just erased all records of my missions after what I saw on the dark side of the moon.
VOICE 5 [identified as likely AISHA]: The moon doesn't have a "dark side," it has a far side. They're not the same thing.
MICHAEL: That's what they want you to believe.
DR. MARSH: Let's stay on topic. Diana, would you like to share?
DIANA: My first lie? I was four. I told my mother I had a twin sister who died at birth. I maintained this fiction for three years, setting a place for her at dinner, blaming broken items on her, having conversations with her that others could overhear. My parents took me to seven different child psychologists.
THOMAS: And was any of that true?
DIANA: [laughs] Which part?
DR. MARSH: The purpose of this exercise isn't to guess what's true or false, but to explore our relationship with deception. Aisha?
AISHA: I've actually never been a compulsive liar. I'm here because my husband thinks I am. He's the liar. He's convinced I'm having an affair with his brother, which I'm not. Or his best friend, which I'm not. Or our neighbor, which I'm not. I only come to these sessions so I can tell him I'm getting help, which keeps the peace at home.
REBECCA: But last week you told us you don't have a husband.
AISHA: Did I? How interesting.
DR. MARSH: Thomas, would you like to share?
THOMAS: My first lie was telling the police I didn't know what happened to my business partner. That was seventeen years ago yesterday, actually.
[Silence for 7 seconds]
THOMAS: That was a joke.
DIANA: Was it, though?
THOMAS: [sighs] My first significant lie was telling my parents I was at football practice every Tuesday and Thursday for three years. In reality, I was taking ballet lessons. I became quite good, actually. Could have danced professionally.
MICHAEL: You have the build for it. Long limbs.
THOMAS: Thank you. I've always thought so.
DR. MARSH: Rebecca? Would you like to share?
REBECCA: I've been lying to all of you since we started these sessions. My name isn't Rebecca. I don't have kleptomania or mythomania or any of the other conditions I've claimed. I'm a crime novelist researching characters. Everything I've told you has been an experiment to see what you would believe.
DR. MARSH: That's a serious breach of group trust, Rebecca—
REBECCA: See how easily you accepted that? I just lied again. Or did I? That's the problem with people like us, isn't it? Once you're known as a liar, even the truth sounds like deception.
DIANA: I knew you were a fraud from day one. Your stories have plot holes.
REBECCA: Like your twin sister?
DIANA: Exactly like my twin sister.
DR. MARSH: I think we should—
[Sound of door opening]
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Sorry I'm late.
DR. MARSH: Who are you? This is a private session.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I'm Dr. Eleanor Marsh. And you're sitting in my chair.
[Recording ends abruptly]
Addendum: Dr. Eleanor Marsh was reported missing by her secretary on March 15, 2025, when she failed to appear for her morning appointments. Her office was found in perfect order except for a single chair pulled into the center of the room. Police investigation is ongoing. No group matching the description in this recording was scheduled in Dr. Marsh's appointment book, and no patient files matching the names mentioned have been located. The five individuals described in the transcript have not been identified.
If you have information regarding this case, please contact Detective Inspector Harlow at the Metropolitan Police, case #25-7731.