The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (читаем книги онлайн TXT) 📗

"Much to do? What else did you have to do, sir?"

"I wasn't ready for it to end."

"What do you mean by end? For sex to end? For what to end?"

For her life to end, I think.

"For making love to end," he replies.

I hate this. I can't stomach listening to his fantasies, especially when I consider that he might know I am listening to them, that he is subjecting me to them just as he is subjecting Berger to them, and that Talley is listening, sitting right there, watching. Talley isn't so different from Chandonne. Both of them secretly hate women, no matter how much they lust for them. I didn't realize the truth about Talley until it was too late, until he was in my bed in my hotel room in Paris. I imagine him close to Berger in the small interview room at the hospital. I can almost see what is in his mind as Chandonne gives us an account of an erotic night he has probably never lived even once in his entire existence.

"She had a very lovely body and I wanted to enjoy it for a while, but she was most insistent. She couldn't wait." Chan-donne relishes each Word. "So we went back to the bedroom. We got on her bed and took our clothes off and made love."

"Did she take her own clothes off or did you do all of it?

Beyond helping with the snaps?" she asks with a hint of her underlying and overwhelming disbelief of his veracity.

"I took all her clothes off. And she took mine off," he says.

"Did she make any comment about your body?" Berger asks. "Had you shaved your entire body?"

"Yes."

"And she didn't notice?"

"I was very smooth. She didn't notice. You must understand, a lot has happened to me since then, because of them?

"What has happened?"

"I have been pursued and persecuted and beaten. I was jumped by some men months after the night with Susan. They beat my face very badly. Split my lip, crushed bones in my face here." He touches his glasses, indicating his orbits. "I had many dental problems as a child because of my condition and had much work done as a result. Crowns on my front teeth so they would look more normal."

"This couple you say you stayed with paid for cosmetic dental work?"

"My family helped them with money."

"Did you shave before you went to the dentist?"

"I would shave those areas that would show. Such as my face. Always, if I was going out during the day. When I was beaten, my front teeth were broken, my crowns were broken, and eventually, well, you can see what my teeth look like now."

"Where did this beating occur?"

"I was still in New York."

"Did you receive medical treatment or report this assault to the police?" Berger asks him.

"Oh, that would have been impossible. The top law enforcement people are all in this together, of course. They are the ones who did it to me. I could report nothing. I received no medical treatment. I became a nomad, always hiding. Ruined."

"What about the name of your dentist?"

"Oh, that was very long ago. I doubt he's still alive. His

name was Corps. Maurice Corps. His office was on rue Caba-nis, I believe."

"Corps as in corpse?" I comment to Berger. "And is Caba-nis a play on cannabis, or marijuana?" I am shaking my head in disgust and amazement.

"So you and Susan had sex in her bedroom." Berger gets back to that on the tape. "Please continue. How long were the two of you in bed?"

"I would say until three o'clock in the morning. Then she told me I had to leave because she needed to get ready for work. So I got dressed and we made arrangements to see each other that night again. We said we would meet at seven at L'Absinthe, a nice French bistro in the neighborhood."

"You say you got dressed. What about her? Was she dressed when you left her?"

"She had a pair of black satin pajamas. She put those on and kissed me at the door."

"So you went downstairs? Did you see anyone?"

"Juan, the doorman. I went out and walked for a while. I found a cafe and had breakfast. I was very hungry." He pauses. "Neil's. That's the name. It is right across the street from Lumi."

"Do you remember what you ate?"

"Espresso."

"You were very hungry but all you had was espresso?" Berger lets him know she picks up on the word "hunger" and realizes he is mocking her, jerking her around, fucking with her. Chandonne's hunger wasn't for breakfast. He was enjoying the afterglow of violence, of destroying flesh and blood because he had just left behind a woman he had beaten to death and bitten. No matter what he says, that is what he did. The bastard. The goddamn lying bastard.

"Sir, when did you first learn that Susan was murdered?" Berger asks him.

"She didn't show up for dinner that night."

"Well, I guess not."

"Then the next day…"

"Would this be December fifth or the sixth?" Berger asks, and she is stepping up the tempo, indicating to him that she's had it with his games.

"The sixth," he says. "I read about her in the paper the morning after she was supposed to meet me at L'Absinthe." He now puts on the act of feeling sad about it. "I was shocked." He sniffs.

"Obviously, she didn't show up at L'Absinthe the night before. But you're saying you did?"

"I had a glass of wine in the bar and waited. Finally, I left."

"Did you mention to anyone in the restaurant that you were waiting for her?"

"Yes. I asked the maftre d' if she had been by and perhaps left a message for me. They knew who she was because of her being on TV."

Berger questions him closely about the maitre d', asking his name, what Chandonne was wearing that night, how much he had paid for the wine and was it in cash, and when he inquired after Susan, did he give his name. Of course not. She spends five minutes on all this. She mentions to me that the police had been contacted by the bistro and were told that a man had come in and said he was waiting for Susan Pless. All of it was painstakingly checked out back then. It is true. The description of the way the man was dressed is identical to Chandonne's description of how he was dressed that night. This man did order a glass of red wine at the bar and ask if Susan had been by or had left a message, and he did not give his name. This man also fit the description of the man who had been in Lumi with Susan the night before.

"And did you tell anyone you had been with her the night of her murder?" Berger says on tape.

"No. Once I knew what happened, I could say nothing."

"And what was it that you knew had happened?"

"They did it. They did that to her. To set me up again."

"Again?"

"I had women in Paris before all this. They did it to them, too."

"These women were before Susan's death?"

"Maybe one or two before. Then some afterwards, as well.

The same thing happened to all of them because I was followed. This is why I went more and more into hiding, and the stress and hardships made my condition so much worse. It has been a nightmare and I've said nothing. Who would believe me?"

"Good question," Berger says sharply. "Because you know what? I, for one, don't believe you, sir. You murdered Susan, didn't you, sir?"

"No."

"You raped her, didn't you, sir?"

"No."

"You beat her and bit her, didn't you, sir?"

"No. This is why I've told nothing to anybody. Who would believe me? Who would believe people are trying to destroy me all because they think my father is a criminal, a godfather?"

"You never told the police or anyone that you may have been the last person to see Susan alive because you murdered her, didn't you, sir?"

"I told no one. If I had, I would have been blamed for her death, just as you are blaming me. I returned to Paris. I wandered. I hoped they would forget me, but they haven't. You can see they haven't."

"Sir, are you aware that Susan was covered with bite marks and that your saliva was found on those bite marks and the DNA testing on them and on the seminal fluid found in her vagina matches your DNA?"