Serpentine
Page 67
—Marie-Andrée Leclerc was found not guilty in the Solomon murder. But she did not savor a moment of freedom. After a brief interlude of rejoicing in Judge Nath’s courtroom, she was led once again to the black prison bus and returned to Tihar. She faced charges in the YMCA case and in other crimes. Inspector Tuli, annoyed at her acquittal, talked of handing her over to Thailand authorities to answer for the five murders committed there. And after that, to Nepal. Whatever, it was not believed that she would ever sit beside the St. Lawrence River again.
Charles Sobhraj was found guilty of three lesser counts in the death of Jean-Luc Solomon: (1) culpable homicide not amounting to murder, (2) drugging and administering stupefying drugs for the purpose of robbery, (3) voluntarily causing hurt to commit robbery.
His attorney, Ghattate, pleaded for leniency. “My client has suffered enough because of barbaric and inhuman treatment in jail,” said the lawyer. “Mr. Sobhraj is away from his family and in a foreign country and atmosphere. The two years he has suffered in Tihar are equal to life imprisonment. Therefore, my lord, he should receive minimum punishment. Your lordship could order his deportation and a fine; these would meet the ends of justice.” From his stretcher, Charles croaked a warning, “I will not break my fast … I am not afraid to die.”
Judge Nath considered all of this and he announced his decision:
“No evidence was advanced before me to show that the accused met inhuman treatment at the hands of jail authorities during the trial. The sentence of a fine as suggested would not be enough. The sentence has to be commensurate with the nefarious acts of the accused. Due to the callous and preplanned act of drugging, an innocent foreign national lost his life. This act was visited with robbery. Sobhraj’s coming to India, far away from home and family members, was for the commission of a criminal act, of his own choosing. This can hardly be reason for any consideration of a sentence which has to be adequate under the circumstances of the crime.”
But after rolling these drums of doom, Judge Nath sentenced Charles Sobhraj to seven years at hard labor. Seven lousy years—a penalty so trivial that both Inspector Tuli and the P.P. stared at the bench in shocked disbelief.
Charles, of course, moaned over the injustice of it all, but he returned from the embrace of death quicker than Lazarus. No more than a day or two passed before the old currents began to flow. He broke his fast. He rose from his stretcher. He wrote a new petition of complaint against prison guards. He sent word to Marie-Andrée in the woman’s section to lose neither heart nor her trust in him. He seemed eminently capable of vaulting a fence. “This man knows exactly how far to push his body,” said Tuli, who had never believed in Charles’ attempted hanging or hunger strike. “What a perverse character!”
And although Tuli was moderately happy to slam the prison doors on Charles for seven years, he wondered just how long he could keep him. It would have been hard to find a man in Delhi to bet on the full term.
Certainly not Charles. Amid his busy schedule in Tihar, he found time to consider a new place on the map for the next installment in his life. Several criteria had to be met. He required a country in which he was neither known nor wanted by police, one in which riches abounded, one whose borders were easy to traverse illegally, one whose residents were generous with attention—and applause.
At last report, the serpentine roads of destiny—he believed—would lead him to the United States.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas Thompson (1933–1982) was a bestselling author and one of the finest investigative journalists of his era. Born in Forth Worth, Texas, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and began his career at the Houston Press. He joined Life as an editor and staff writer in 1961 and covered many major news stories for the magazine, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As Paris bureau chief, Thompson reported on the Six-Day War and was held captive by the Egyptian government along with other Western journalists. His first two books—Hearts (1971), about the rivalry between two famous Houston cardiovascular surgeons, and Richie (1973), the account of a Long Island father who killed his drug-addicted son—established Thompson’s reputation as an originator, along with Truman Capote, of the “nonfiction novel.” In 1976, Thompson published Blood and Money, an investigation into the deaths of Texas socialite Joan Robinson Hill and her husband, John Hill. It sold four million copies in fourteen languages and won the Edgar Award and the Texas Institute of Letters prize for best nonfiction book. To research Serpentine (1979), an account of convicted international serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Thompson flew around the world three times and spent two years in Asia. His other books include Lost! (1975), a true story of shipwreck and survival, and the novel Celebrity (1982), a six-month national bestseller. Among numerous other honors, Thompson received the National Headliner Award for investigative reporting and the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for distinguished magazine writing.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © by Thomas Thompson
Cover design by Kat JK Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4327-4
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
THOMAS THOMPSON
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Find a full list of our authors and
titles at www.openroadmedia.com
FOLLOW US
@OpenRoadMedia