They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

40 27 July 2007

I read and re-read that text. XXX

Previously there had just been an X. Now it was XXX.

But actually, sitting in my lonely room that evening, after being upset by our brief and cold conversation, I felt good about that sign-off. XXX.

Good, because despite his periods of coldness, it felt, seeing this, that there was affection in that sign-off.

Was that how he viewed me? Was that why he had done all this for me, because he fancied me? I could live with that, right now, I really could. I’d liked him the moment I first saw him and much though I was now angry with him — in part — I knew I was beholden to him and I had the sense that our immediate futures were at least linked, if not entwined. And tomorrow we were out of here. That felt good.

It probably sounds crazy, but despite Hans-Jürgen’s strange warning I really did want to trust implicitly this person I barely knew. There was something about him that gave me confidence. Perhaps a combination of his background, his moral stance over drugs, which I totally got, and the way he was with me. If he had once put his arms around me and pulled me to him and kissed me, I would have kissed him back. But he hadn’t.

He told me the best way to disappear would be to hide in plain sight, playing the long game, while over the next few days my Roy and other police officers did their thing of looking for me. Alerts at all ports. That kind of stuff, and all the time I was just twenty miles from home. Hiding out in a room overlooking fields and a beautiful lake, having long but infrequent chats with Hans-Jürgen Waldinger about pretty much every topic except Scientology.

I had a lot of time to think during this past twenty-four hours of my incarceration in that room. On Hans-Jürgen’s advice, to avoid my getting caught up in any awkward conversations with other people there, or being recognized, because my face was now on television, I only left it to go down to meals with him. I could have read more, but the only books on my shelves were about Scientology and I wasn’t into religion of any kind.

Growing up with parents who were devout Lutherans — more my mother, but my dad went along with it — had made me stay away from religion as much as possible. And I cringed watching my father comply; he was so bloody weak he would bend if a fly farted on him.

Maybe my hosts, the Scientologists, had answers but I wasn’t in any mental state to study anything or to concentrate on anything. Most of my time I just sat, nervous whenever I heard footsteps come along the corridor. Scared it would somehow be Albazi.

This morning, Hans-Jürgen brought me a copy of today’s Argus newspaper. I couldn’t believe it, but there was a photograph of Old Me on the front page. Beneath a bold headline: FEARS GROW FOR DETECTIVE’S MISSING WIFE.

I read the story beneath. It really was about me, about Old Me, about someone who used to be called Sandy Grace. About when I was last seen, my last purchases of paracetamol, toothpaste and petrol. My car found abandoned in the short-term car park at Gatwick South.

‘Sandy had not boarded any flight,’ Roy was quoted as saying at a press conference. My plan had worked.

He then went on to say, ‘When I last saw my wife, at 7.30 a.m. yesterday, she was in a happy mood and looking forward to going out to celebrate my birthday that evening. I’m not able to speculate what might have happened to her, but I have grave concerns she may have been abducted and is in great danger.’ He looked so visibly upset and that was hard for me to see.

A text pinged in. It was from Nicos.

Three XXXs again. That didn’t escape me.

But I was confused by what he meant. What Biggin Hill diversion?