They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

21 July 2007 — Looking back

‘You are not serious? Tell me you’re not?’ I blurted at the solicitor — now my solicitor — who had just given me the details of my inheritance.

I saw the top of a bus glide past the window behind her, the pane blurred by pelting rain, hunched figures with gloomy faces on the top deck, just visible between the slats in the horizontal Venetian blinds of her office. And I thought about another bus I’d seen go by yesterday, in the sunshine, and just how good I had been feeling sitting here in this same ghost chair.

How excited I had been for my future. How I had been thinking... Goodbye, buses, it’ll be taxis, limos and helicopters from now on — and no more flying cattle class! I’ll be turning left on planes in future, or maybe, if the amount of my inheritance is large enough, it will only ever be private jets, living the life, living the dream! Living like Tamzin — and I’d had a sudden memory about that amazing drunken night with her. About making love and kissing her, and falling asleep in her arms. My mind drifted and I was enjoying it.

I’d even thought that maybe I’d set up my own charitable foundation one day — to help causes I believed in, and to make people see the good in me. Isn’t that what really drives every big donor to charity? Altruism and ego make good bedfellows, don’t they?

That was yesterday. When my world was a sunny place and I was foolishly getting carried away spending vast sums of money that I didn’t then know I didn’t have. Now my solicitor had just rained on my parade, in keeping with the shitty day outside. And my anxiety was the worst ever.

Carolyn Smith, dressed in a crimson top, with a lace ruff neck, over black trousers, looked more formal than yesterday. And she had totally misread my reaction.

‘It’s a nice sum, isn’t it, and out of the blue!’ she replied, all breezy.

‘A nice sum? Seriously?’ I was staring back at her in utter disbelief — and maybe denial, too. Disbelief at the amount she had just read out to me, and disbelief she could think that was a nice sum.

‘Thirty thousand pounds, that’s a pretty nice amount of money, don’t you think?’ she said, like she was congratulating a small child on a sandcastle or a painting of a dog. ‘And because your aunt is a foreign national, due to a magnanimous gesture by the UK government some time ago, you won’t have to pay any inheritance tax on it.’

For a moment I was lost for words. I could sense my disappointment turning to anger. I tried to remain calm. I needed to keep Carolyn Smith onside, despite how much she was irritating me. I kept telling myself not to shoot the messenger. But it was hard with all my dreams crashing and burning around me. Only thirty sodding thousand pounds. Shit. Shit. Shit.

‘Mrs Smith — Carolyn — what you don’t know is that Antje Frieburg was married to one of the richest men in Germany,’ I said, my voice rising. I was struggling to keep down my rage. ‘For Chrissake! That’s just shaking her bloody petty cash tin at me. It’s like she’s saying, Hello, distant Englisher relative, have a few crumbs!’

Carolyn Smith was now looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read, then she shrugged a take-it-or-leave-it and that really pissed me off. And set me off.

‘You don’t understand, do you?’ I said to her, more loudly than I intended, and jumped angrily to my feet. I took some breaths to calm myself, staring at her but not knowing really what to say.

She eyed me back silently for a few moments. ‘Please sit down, Mrs Grace.’

‘My mother was right when she called her a bloody bitch!’ I said, sitting back down. ‘It’s just not as much as I’d hoped.’

‘Hoped for what?’ she probed.

‘It’s not your problem,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry. I... I let my imagination run away — it does that sometimes. I ought to cut its sodding legs off, hobble it.’ I shrugged. ‘You see, a bigger amount would have solved all my problems.’

She looked at me sympathetically. ‘Mrs Grace — can I call you Sandra or Sandy?’

‘Sandy,’ I said bleakly.

‘OK, Sandy, let me tell you something.’ Her tone was gentle, coaxing. ‘As a probate lawyer, I see people every day who are disappointed with the amount of their inheritances. They were expecting so much more and only got a little. Everyone who sits where you are sitting, and is disappointed, thinks life isn’t fair. And they are right, life isn’t fair. Not many people are ever satisfied with what they’ve been left, and yet almost everyone is better off than they were before that relative died.’ She smiled and shrugged, then massaged her neck for some moments. ‘I’m afraid Gandhi was right in something he once said — and don’t take this the wrong way: The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’

‘Greed?’ I echoed, my anger rising again. ‘Is that what you think it is? It’s not greed, I’m desperate.’

Giving me a quizzical look, she interlocked her fingers. ‘Well, as I’m now your solicitor, or about to be, would you like to elaborate? You can tell me — under client confidentiality.’

I so much wanted to tell her. I badly needed to confide in someone, just to unburden myself. But, as I stared across the desk at her, I suddenly felt so scared and inferior. There she was in her expensive clothes, her name on the company letterhead, living her dream — so I presumed. And here was I, a total mess, hooked on diazepam, deeply in debt to a very dangerous man, and about to leave my husband. I shrugged my shoulders and said, simply, ‘I guess I was just hoping — like you say most of your clients are — for more.’

‘It’s like they say,’ she responded, looking at me curiously, ‘many of the things you can count, don’t count. And many of the things you can’t count, really count.’

I said nothing, just sat there thinking hard.

‘Now let’s get the paperwork sorted,’ she continued, matter-of-factly.

I took a deep sigh, then tried to snap out of it, searching for any thread of positivity to hang on to. Thirty thousand pounds. If I got lucky — and my luck was long overdue for a turn for the better — I could turn it into a lot more. At least the £150,000 I desperately needed to pay slimeball Albazi.

My whole body shuddered each time I thought about him and thought about what he would do when he found out I didn’t have all the money I’d promised him.

‘How long will it take to receive this money?’ I asked her.

‘International banking transfers can be done pretty much instantly,’ she replied.

‘You mean you could have this in your client account before the end of today?’

‘If that is your instruction, yes.’

‘And once you have received the funds, could you pay them in cash to me?’

Carolyn Smith paused. ‘I could, yes, but under money-laundering regulations I would have to ask you what you planned to do with the cash.’

‘And if I said stick it on a horse or a roulette wheel, what would happen?’

‘The answer is nothing. It’s your money, you would be free to do what you want with it.’ She frowned. I could see from her puzzled expression that she had no idea what I was saying or planning. Or how badly I needed to multiply that amount by five.

That I was already thinking of the various points on the roulette table where I would place my chips. And trying to ignore that irritating voice inside my head that was telling me to be sensible and to at least not risk the lot.

Carolyn Smith told me it would take her a couple of days from receipt of the funds from Germany to get me the cash. A couple of days was good, I told her. A couple of days would give me time to think clearly. But even as I left her office, an anguished plan was taking shape in my mind.