Deadly fantasist - part 2

guardian.co.uk, Saturday January 13 2001 16.38 GMT

As they set off from her apartment, Corinne asked for her money. Jean-Claude apologised for not having had the time to go to Geneva, but said he would go on Monday morning without fail. She was a little annoyed, but her excitement about the glittering dinner party that awaited them soon returned.

They left the motorway at Fontainebleau, and from then on she gave him directions from a map on which he had marked with a cross, at random, the location of KouchnerÍs house. They were looking for "a little road on the left". After driving around in the forest for an hour, he stopped to look in the boot for a piece of paper on which heÍd written KouchnerÍs phone number, but he didnÍt find it. When Corinne began to worry about their being late, he reassured her: other guests who were also researchers were coming from Geneva and wouldnÍt arrive before 10.30.

Corinne was getting impatient. At around 10.30, he stopped again at a picnic area, determined to tear the boot apart until he found KouchnerÍs number. He returned, sheepishly saying that he hadnÍt found the piece of paper. He had, however, found a necklace heÍd been looking forward to giving her. Corinne shrugged: so what. But he insisted and finally persuaded her to wear it, at least for the evening. She got out of the car so that he could put it on her the way heÍd always done with the jewellery he gave her, making her close her eyes.

First she felt, on her face and neck, the burning foam of the tear gas spray. She half opened her eyes but closed them immediately because they stung even more, and as he continued to spray her she began to struggle.

A hard cylindrical bar held against CorinneÍs stomach was giving her electric shocks: it was a stun wand. Convinced she was going to die, she screamed, "I donÍt want to! DonÍt kill me! Think of L*a and Chlo* [her children]!" and opened her eyes.

Looking into his saved her life. All of a sudden, it was over. He was standing in front of her, speechless, distraught, holding out his hands. "But Corinne," he kept saying softly, "but Corinne... calm down..."

He made her sit in the car, where the two of them collected themselves as though theyÍd both just fought off an attack from someone else. They wiped their faces with paper towels and mineral water. After a moment, she asked if they were still going to KouchnerÍs for dinner; they decided not to. He drove back the way they had come. At the first village, he went to call Kouchner to say they werenÍt coming, and she wasnÍt even surprised that he now had the phone number. She stayed in the car; he had put the ignition key in his pocket. She watched him, beneath the neon lighting in the phone box, talking, or pretending to talk. When he returned, she asked him if heÍd picked up the necklace and he replied no, but it wasnÍt important heÍd kept the receipt. She realised that at no time had she seen this necklace, whereas she had seen, fallen among the dead leaves by the side of the car, a flexible plastic cord that seemed quite appropriate for strangling someone.

During the entire trip back, which took more than two hours because he was driving very slowly, she was afraid that his murderous rage would flare up again. Now it was her turn to distract him. She spoke to him both as a devoted friend and as a professional psychologist. He blamed everything on his illness. This cancer wasnÍt satisfied with killing him, it was driving him mad. He wept. He made her promise not to say a word to anyone, and she made him promise to return her money, all her money, by Monday.

The sun was up when he arrived home. He did not go upstairs at all during the day that followed. He knew what he would see there. He had carefully pulled up the duvets, but he knew what was under them. At nightfall, he understood that the hour of death, so long postponed, had arrived.

Shortly before 4am on Sunday morning, he started fires first in the attic, next in the stairwell, finally in the childrenÍs room and then entered his own bedroom. A surer method would have been to take the barbiturates in advance, but he ended up using a bottle of Nembutal heÍd kept for 10 years in the back of the medicine cabinet.

While street cleaners who had spotted the fire on the roof during their morning round were beginning to pound on the door downstairs, he swallowed 20 capsules. The electricity blew; smoke began to pour into the room. He tried to lie down next to Florence. But he couldnÍt see well, his eyes were stinging, he hadnÍt set their room alight yet, and the firefighters, whose siren he claims not to have heard, were already there. No longer able to breathe, he dragged himself to the window and opened it. They raised their ladder to rescue him. He lost consciousness.

After he came out of his coma, psychiatrists were assigned to examine him. They were struck by the precision of his statements and his constant concern with making a favourable impression. He was surely also having trouble separating himself from the character he had played all those years because, in an effort to win people over, he still used the same techniques that had worked for Dr Romand: composure, a dignified gravity, an almost obsequious attention to the expectations of his interlocutor. During subsequent interviews, although they saw him sob and show emphatic signs of misery, they couldnÍt say whether he was truly suffering or not. They had the uneasy sense of observing a robot deprived of all capacity to feel but programmed to analyse exterior stimuli and adapt its reactions accordingly. Used to functioning with the "Dr Romand" program, he had needed an adjustment period to set up a new program, "Romand the murderer", and learn how to run it.

"He will never, ever, manage to be perceived as authentic," the report concludes, "and he himself fears that he will never know if he is." The last words in a French trial, before the court retires to deliberate, belong to the accused. Romand had obviously prepared his text and he read it without any mistakes, in a voice that sometimes broke with emotion: "ItÍs true that silence must be my lot.

"I understand that my words and even my still being alive make the scandal of my actions worse. I wished to take upon myself both judgment and punishment, and I believe that this is the last time I will be able to speak to those who suffer because of me. I know that my words are pathetically inadequate, but I must speak. I must tell them their anguish is with me day and night. I know they refuse to forgive me, but in memory of Florence I want to ask their forgiveness. It will perhaps come to me only after my death. I want to tell FlorenceÍs mother and brothers that her father died as a result of his fall. I donÍt ask them to believe me, because I have no proof, but I say it before Florence and before God because I know that an unconfessed crime will not be forgiven. I ask them all to forgive me.

"Now it is to you, my Flo, to you, my Caro, my Titou, my Papa, my Mama, that I would like to speak. You are here in my heart and it is this invisible presence that gives me the strength to speak to you. You know everything, and if anyone can forgive me, it is you. I ask your forgiveness. Forgiveness for having destroyed your lives, forgiveness for having never told the truth. And yet, my Flo, I am sure that with your intelligence, your goodness, your mercy, you could have found it in your heart to pardon me. Forgive me for not having been able to bear the thought of causing you pain. I knew that I couldnÍt live without you, but I am still alive today and I promise you I will try to live as long as God wishes me to, unless those who suffer because of me ask me to die to relieve their torment. I know that you will help me to find the path of truth, of life. There was a great, great deal of love between us. I will still love you in truth. I ask forgiveness of those who can forgive. I ask forgiveness as well of those who can never forgive. Thank you, Your Honour."

After five hours of deliberation, Jean-Claude Romand was condemned to life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole for 22 years. If all goes well, he will be released in 2015, when he is 61