They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

14 June 2007 — Looking back

Roel Albazi was a total slimeball, but I had one thing in my favour — from the moment I first met him, in his fancy clothes, in his ritzy office with its white carpet, hung with erotic art, and smelling of a no-doubt expensive cologne, I could tell he was trying it on with me. Yuck. His was the kind of flirting that’s both overt and subtle at the same time, the kind you get from men who consider themselves God’s gift to women.

But I figured if I played along, he might cut me some slack. And he did. He cut me slack all the way to £100,000 of debt. On my unspoken promise.

Well, not exactly a promise. I played the flirty card so well each time we met, while more and more cash advances kept coming. He knew my husband was a cop and that, by association, I was trustworthy, good for the money. What he did not know, and I did, was that he was on my husband’s radar. But that didn’t bother me, I needed his money, and I was certain that with his continued extended credit I would eventually hit a winning streak. It was a mathematical certainty. I just had to keep going, continue raising my stakes after each loss until it all came good again. The classic gambler’s folly, I’ve since realized — chasing your losses.

Out of the first tranche of cash he advanced me, I covered off the missing £1K from our joint account, so no awkward questions from Roy. But that was small beer compared to the catastrophic losses at the table that followed.

Without my fully realizing it, my life was turning, day by day, into a perfect storm. I had started to take Valium to help with the anxiety I was feeling constantly and, if I was honest with myself, it was becoming as habitual as the gambling. I had made the mistake of having an on-off affair with Cassian Pewe, the man who Roy despised more than anyone on the planet — and I was starting to intensely dislike Cassian, too. I had missed my period and I was getting panicky. I now owed almost £150,000 to a man who both repulsed and frightened me. Roel Albazi repeatedly told me over the phone his boss was concerned that I wasn’t paying anything back, and hinted none too subtly that sleeping with him might buy me some time. Yuck.

I was thinking more and more often that the way out of this extremely serious situation was to run away from it all. Run away from the shame I’d cause myself and Roy and start over somewhere. I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted a different life and to escape this never-ending anxiety.

I couldn’t turn to my parents.

I’d started drinking a bit more than usual. On top of the Valium this was not a good mix. I knew I needed to come off the tranquillizer but it felt like a quick way to relieve some of my problems, so I just took it secretly instead. Taking the easy option.

My dream of a lifestyle like Tamzin’s had crashed and was now burning. Tamzin was expecting another child and I’d heard nothing from her. It was impossible for me to envy her life any more than I did. She would now have the perfect new baby to go with the perfect everything else. And she clearly didn’t give me a second thought. I wasn’t anyone of significance to her, just someone she met passing through. Who she just happened to have had a drunken fling with. End of. But I couldn’t get her out of my mind. And, just to add to everything, my best friend, Becky, told me she and her husband, Elliot, had made the decision to emigrate to Australia — he’d had a job offer and they would be leaving at the end of the month. The only person I felt I could rely on, about to leave my life.

I felt totally adrift. I was a boat that had broken its mooring and was in a storm-tossed sea heading onto rocks. And there wasn’t anyone I could turn to. How could I tell my husband I’d run up a gambling debt of nearly £150,000 to a murderous loan shark?

I did try to talk to Becky, but suddenly I felt I didn’t know her any more. Her head was now in Australia. All she was interested in was showing me the website of the house, eight minutes’ walk from Bondi beach, that Elliot and she had rented for a year with an option to buy. And showing me magazine pictures of their dreamy ideas for the kitchen, the lounge and the master bedroom — and of course the deck and the barbecue area. And the baby room, too — she was three months pregnant. She offered me the chance to help her with the interior design, saying how much she valued my creative input, but I just couldn’t muster up the energy to do it. I felt like I had already become one of the ghosts of her past life.

Of course you and Roy will come and stay, won’t you? You must!!!

Our Pilates instructor had gone off to Thailand at the start of that summer for a two-month-long wellness convention, or something or other, so the girls’ group didn’t meet twice a week as it had before.

I felt so lonely, suddenly. And scared. And utterly lost. I had to find a huge amount of money. Sure, we had some equity in the house, but no way near enough. Besides, I could hardly say to Roy that I owed all this to a gangster he was gathering evidence on. My only hope was that he busted Albazi. But when — quietly fishing for information — I mentioned his name at home, it didn’t sound like the police were anywhere close, yet.

There was a time in my life when I slept like the proverbial log. Now I lay awake, dozing intermittently throughout each long night, and in the mornings opened my eyes, exhausted, with the sense that the whole world was out to get me.

The calls and texts from Albazi were getting more frequent and less and less friendly. Then, one morning, I saw a car parked in our street, just across the road from our house. We lived in a quiet residential area of neat semi-detached and small detached houses. We lived among decent people in a nice neighbourhood.

This was not the street for a black car with blacked-out windows to be parked.

I’d never thought about suicide before. Amongst his skill sets, Roy was, back then, a suicide negotiator for the police. He could be called out at any time of the day or night. It might be to talk someone down from a high-rise window ledge or a cliff-top, or on one occasion a teenage girl who had doused herself in petrol and was threatening to set fire to herself with a cigarette lighter. That one hadn’t ended well.

I knew how much the attempts upset him, even the ones he foiled. He maintained that however desperate someone might be, there was always a way through, always some light at the end of the tunnel if only they could be shown it.

In the same way, he believed there was decency in almost everyone, however rotten they might seem at first. He used to say that everyone’s journey to a custody cell began in the family home in the first years of their life.

But that June afternoon, as the little ball nestled between the frets of the only green slot on the wheel, the croupier, using what looked like a posh version of a windscreen scraper, swept up the last of my chips and my last hope.

I was done.

Feeling utterly desperate. My credit card was all but maxed out and I was trapped. If there was any light at the end of the tunnel, it was the train coming towards me. I really seriously began considering killing myself. Perhaps I should end it all?

Could anything be worse than where I actually was right now? Frightened. Possibly pregnant with a baby I longed for but couldn’t fully explain; a husband who loved me so much but was never good enough for me. A twisted web of acquaintances who knew me a bit but didn’t really. Doubted by my never proud parents. All my savings blown. Abandoned by my friends. No idea where my life was going. Alcoholic... maybe? Probably not. Addicted to Valium? Probably. And gambling. Maybe? Who knows. Am I there yet? Does anyone know? When do you know?

And a debt that was going to turn very ugly very soon, and that was frightening me the most. I was getting increasingly frequent phone calls from Roel Albazi, which I started to ignore. Then he sent his flunkey. A bald-headed guy of around forty, who was taller than the front-door frame of the doctors’ surgery. He was scrupulously polite, had a big smile and spoke calmly, as he accosted me on my way out of the office. He asked me if it was all right to have a word with me.

As we were on a busy street in the centre of Hove, which made me feel pretty safe, I told him that was fine. He then leaned down and, face to face with me, very gently and very kindly, said, ‘My boss, Mr Albazi, doesn’t want you to come to any harm. But he needs a repayment plan. He’s worried for your safety, he likes you, he doesn’t want to see you end up dead. But it is not in his gift to protect you.’ Then he winked at me, and before turning and walking off, he added, ‘I think it would be nice if you called him. Mr Albazi would appreciate that. Make an appointment, perhaps? But make it soon. While you can. While you are still alive. You are much too young to die.’