They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

44 March 2008

I spent the next eight months of my confinement, as the Victorians would have called it, at the Scientologists’ HQ, during which time I gave birth to my baby son. I didn’t gamble once in all this time, not even with scratch cards, nothing. I really felt I was over it. Over my addiction and off the Valium, finally. Maybe it was my hormones, all changed now I was in mother mode. Whatever, it felt great, as if I’d managed to prise a monkey off my back.

That day my son was born was truly one of the very best days of my life. I cried with happiness, holding my beautiful baby in my arms. Less than a week later was another of the best days of my life, when I read that Roel Albazi had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

I was well cared for, and for perhaps the only time in my life, I actually felt almost carefree, apart from just one nagging worry.

Strapped into the plush, mushroom-coloured leather seat of the jet, I was feeling oh so safe! I was aware of the wheels bumping along the tarmac beneath us as we taxied. My baby, fast asleep in his carrycot on the seat beside me, did not stir. So far, he was an amazing baby, defying all the stuff I’d read online about what a nightmare these little people could be.

But I knew it was still early doors...

And that nagging worry persisted. Would Roy find me? And what would happen when he did?

Nicos had collected me from the Scientology HQ at 8 a.m., in a chauffeur-driven black Bentley. Hans-Jürgen had escorted me down to the front entrance and it was strange, because there was a lot I’d wanted to say to him during the past months — so much, in fact — about what he had meant about Nicos, about why he himself was really here, why he was leaving the Scientologists and what he planned to do when he returned to Munich, but I was feeling fragile, and scared, and Hans-Jürgen, all in clinical white, walking in silence, hair flopping around his face, looking every inch a man on a mission, hadn’t been doing anything to improve my mood.

But then, as he held the rear door of the car open for me, just before I climbed in, he said, ‘If you are ever in Munich — München, ja? — give me a call, remember what I said.’ He pressed a card into my hand.

Nicos was sitting up front, next to the driver, shouting into his phone in Greek at someone, and acknowledged me with a single waggle of his free hand. For the entire journey through the rush-hour traffic, which took about ninety minutes, Nicos made call after call, never once turning to look at me or my baby. On one call he spoke Spanish, then on another a language I did not recognize, but could have been Russian, then Greek again, then French, I was pretty sure. The common denominator between them all was his angry voice. He was sounding mightily pissed off with everyone he spoke to.

But that was his style, his negotiating voice, his language, in whatever actual language he was speaking. The only language the low-life shitbags he did business with understood.

But now, finally, in the plush interior of the Cessna Citation jet, seated across the aisle from him, I saw a whole new Nicos. Kind, sweet Nicos. The concerned, caring man I had met just months ago in the casino, who had facilitated my escape from my old life, but who I barely knew. I’d only seen him a handful of times since. He reached out and took my free hand and squeezed it gently, as the aircraft began to accelerate. My baby gurgled.

My stomach felt as if it was being pressed into my seat back. The bumping intensified for a few moments then stopped completely. Through my window I saw the ground dropping away. Roads, fields, houses, turning to miniature versions of themselves, turning to Toytown. It felt like we were climbing almost vertically. I saw wisps of cloud, then more cloud, then it all went grey outside the window.

Nicos kept his grip on my hand as we continued climbing. Then as we broke out through the cloud cover into glorious sunshine, he leaned towards me, put an arm gently around my neck and pulled me towards him. Closer, then closer.

Then our lips touched.

He kissed me. Then he kissed me again, with more intensity.

We were still kissing five minutes later.

Finally he broke gently away. ‘How you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Oh, you know, pretty average.’

‘Me too,’ he said.

‘Where are we actually going?’ I asked. Not that I really cared. Right now anywhere, absolutely anywhere at all, was good with me.

‘Jersey,’ Nicos said. ‘In the Channel Islands. You’ll like it there. It’s cool.’

My son gurgled again. It sounded like he approved.