They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

35 26 July 2007

D-Day.

I get out of bed this morning feeling like I’ve a stomach full of frogs on crack cocaine. My eyes are raw from lying awake most of the night, churning my decision over and over. This morning I am Sandy Grace. But when I get into bed tonight, I will be Sandra Jones. I should be excited about my new life; I’m not, I’m shit scared.

I’m still trying to convince myself I’m not nuts, entrusting myself to a man I barely know — and a criminal by his own confession. On the other hand, it is exactly what I need right now, a good criminal mind. And I keep reminding myself that I would have still been in this situation even if I’d not met Nicos. He’s actually making it far simpler for me, and I am grateful I can tell someone and talk about it.

But still, every few minutes I’m minded just to call it off.

Then I think of the good reasons I can’t.

On top of all this, it’s Roy’s thirtieth birthday and I have to go through the charade of normality. Since we first got together, birthdays have always been special. Breakfast in bed for the birthday boy or girl. Then dinner with friends later. And when possible on our birthdays, we’d take the day off and have an outing. But — luckily — he cannot take today off.

I’ve been watching the green dial of the digital clock all night long, ticking away the minutes agonizingly slowly. I’m watching it now: 5.31 a.m.; 5.47 a.m.; 6.11 a.m. Roy is normally an early riser but today he’s still deep asleep. Good, let’s get this over with. I slip out of bed, pull my dressing gown on, slide my feet into slippers and then creep into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

I go downstairs and take the tiny cake with the single candle out of the cupboard where I’ve hidden it, and open the miniature bottle of Champagne I’d bought online — I know he’s not supposed to drink on duty but one mouthful won’t matter — and pour him a glass. I’ll drink the rest of it.

I’ve bought him a very rude birthday card — which I always do — it has HORNY BEAST! printed on the front; I’ve got to keep today as normal as possible, so he doesn’t suspect a thing.

I carry the Champagne, cake with the candle lit, card and his presents on a tray up to the bedroom and as I enter I start singing, ‘Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you...’

Believe me, my singing voice is truly terrible, it’s enough to wake the dead. And it does the trick, it wakes Roy.

‘Oh my God!’ he says with a big, loving smile.

The smile that once would melt my heart, but now I can’t find the love. It’s a protection against what I am about to do. If I let myself slip into the guilt, I will not do it. He takes the tiniest sip possible of the Champagne, and I, his wife, bride of many summers, step out of my dressing gown, slip into bed, naked, beside him, and down half the glass — to lighten the mood — while he opens the card, laughs and then kisses me. A big, loving kiss. I try not to think. It’s all getting too much. I am aching. Then I hand him his presents one at a time, looking away when I think my facade will crack. I am barely able to mask my pain.

I start with the least exciting, the running shorts and then the top that he had been hinting he wanted. Next the aftershave, which delights him — he sprays some on my neck and then on his. Finally he opens the BIG PRESENT full of expectation. And I haven’t disappointed him.

As he rips open the package containing the Swiss Army watch, Roy simply says, ‘Wow!’

He grabs me and holds me, planting many kisses all round my neck and on my lips. I am breaking, this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I know I need to stay strong, but this is torture. I don’t hate Roy, he’s not a bad person. But there’s no way I can change my mind now. We hug tight, my head over his neck, facing away, so he can’t see the tears streaming down my face. The enormity of it all just whacked me so hard at this moment. Roy tenderly caresses me and does everything he knows I enjoy. Usually. When I’m not about to walk out the house and never return. We make love and I plant my face into the pillow to mute my sobbing, hoping he won’t notice. As we climax, my emotions and the guilt overwhelm me and I feel like telling him everything, putting the duvet over my head and crashing out here in this bed for ever. But I know I can’t hide here. The bad things will find me. We lie there together for a moment in silence and I wipe a tear from my face, which he sees. Roy asks me, ‘Hey, you OK?’ And I turn my face away and say of course I’m OK, convincingly. I wonder if he will remember this moment when I am gone. We are silent for a while.

His job phone goes and it snaps us out of this reverie and gives me the strength to even be slightly annoyed, because this always happens. I quickly regain my composure and my mind is straight again. I am doing this. I am leaving.

The first thing I did after getting up and showering was to phone in to the doctor’s surgery saying I felt a bit unwell but that I would see if I improved. I barely had to act, my voice sounded terrible. This would avoid raising any suspicion if I left later due to sickness.

Next I took a final walk around the garden trying to not let myself get distracted by the pangs of conscience. I couldn’t help but feel sad. Then around the house, to see if there was anything I should take with me, something sentimental or something I just might need — that would fit in a single holdall along with the essentials I had already packed. I knew I couldn’t take much with me and I couldn’t take things from the house that would be missed, so I had to leave the photographs of Roy and myself. I didn’t want to leave him any clues, not beyond abandoning my car at Gatwick Airport. I had a good amount of Valium that I could take with me until I’d weaned myself off it. That was always the plan, just the right time had not yet occurred for the big weaning-off event. It would. I again promised myself and my baby.

Nicos was very specific. Anything that could give a tell-tale footprint I had to leave behind. Which meant my credit cards and my personal phone. The plan was to leave a trail at Gatwick for anyone looking for me. But before I set off, I needed two things — we were out of paracetamol, because I’d been taking so much in recent days to try to sleep, and I wasn’t confident I had enough fuel in my Golf to get to Gatwick Airport. I’d been meaning to fill up for days but, whatever, I hadn’t. I’m sure Freud would have had something to say about it — I was being anal or retentive or something because my inner me didn’t really want to leave. But one of the things I had learned from Roy was how often it was the simplest things that got criminals caught — such as a tail-light out or driving erratically. Or maybe running out of petrol on the way to Gatwick Airport...

The first flight I was booked on was the 16.12 BA 2771 to Malaga. To make that in good time I needed to leave here by 1 p.m.

When I’d plucked up the courage I got in my car to head to Boots in Hove to pick up some bits. But, ridiculously, because I hadn’t said goodbye to Marlon — the dumb goldfish Roy had won at a funfair shortly after we were married — I got out of the car and went back into the house. I can’t explain it, but I would have felt bad leaving without saying goodbye to him. Going back in, even just minutes after I’d left, felt like being a visitor to someone else’s house. Mentally, I’d left. I pressed my face up against the round bowl, blew him a kiss and dropped in a pinch of food. He opened and closed his mouth, looking mournful as ever. Guess that’s about as good as it gets in human bonding with a goldfish.

I had just one more problem to overcome and that was our incredibly nosy neighbour, Noreen Grinstead, who lived directly opposite us. She was a jumpy woman in her fifties, the local hawk-eye, who knew everyone’s business in the street. Almost every time I went outside, there she was in her rubber gloves, either cleaning their cars or hosing the tiles of their carport, day or night, winter or summer. I think it was her cover for snooping.

To my relief, as I came back out of the house, she wasn’t there.

Sometimes there is a god.

Driving away from my home for the very last time, just after 1 p.m. on 26 July 2007, I had three different passports in my handbag — thanks to Nicos calling in a favour from a Brighton forger, who had once specialized in them. Nicos had paid for them himself and would not hear of my offering to reimburse him. In my desperation to get away from Albazi I never stopped to think through in any detail what motives Nicos might have. I was just grateful for his strength and his help.

I also had three different-coloured baseball caps, three wigs and three changes of clothes all stuffed into my fake Louis Vuitton holdall — a bag I’d bought on a short holiday we’d had in Dubai a couple of years before.

The bag also contained the very bare essentials I needed, in terms of toiletries and clothes, as well as a bottle of water and a small photograph of Roy and me. We’d had it taken in one of those booths on the Palace Pier, years ago, when we were first dating. The way Roy looked then, so handsome, so happy, I guess that’s the way I want to remember him, always.

At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in newspaper and carefully sewn into a false compartment I’d created, with a concealed zip, were two books on pregnancy and bundles of fifty-pound notes left from my inheritance. Enough to tide me over for some while if I decided to move on from Nicos.

It’s a strange thing, planning to disappear for ever. It kind of freezes your mind — or at least it did mine. I’d had very little time to think of what to put in that one holdall; very little time to think about everything from my life up until then that I wanted to keep.

I really struggled to think of anything.

Roy’s the one for that, with all the stuff he likes to collect — old records, old inkwells, everything meticulously organized to the point of being borderline OCD, of course, in his office and at our home.

I stopped at Boots in Hove, where I bought some toothpaste and the maximum number of paracetamols I was permitted. Then I left and filled up with petrol, right to the brim. When they eventually found my car, with a full tank, they would be confused.

I checked my phones. There were several messages on phone B. They were all from Roel Albazi, the only number he had for me. To my disappointment, there were no messages from Nicos on this or my ‘job’ phone either and he, of course, had both numbers.

The first from Albazi was at 1 p.m.

The second, still friendly, was just after 1.30 p.m.

The third, at 2 p.m., was the turning point, where the texts began to be less and less friendly.

There were more, getting progressively angrier.

I ignored them all.