They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

57 26 September 2011 — Nicos Christoforou

The Bolt-Hole was Nicos’s private in-joke. Well, not completely private, because it was Sandy who had suggested the name for his boat to him. When the time comes to flee Jersey in a hurry, that’ll be our bolt-hole, right, Nicos?

One of the keys to living on this island and trying to stay under the radar of the police and all other authorities was to not look flash. For that reason he drove a bland, six-year-old Honda SUV, which was fine for the island’s narrow roads, and he flew in and out on British Airways or EasyJet, or sometimes, to vary things, on the little twin-prop Blue Islands flight to Southampton. He mostly only used private jets when he was out of sight of Jersey.

So far as the Jersey Revenue knew he was a Greek guy who owned a number of small-time nail studio businesses, lived in rented accommodation and paid his taxes. Even his sleek thirty-eight-foot powerboat was dressed down to look like many of the other sport-fishing boats in the marinas of St Helier, St Aubin, St Catherine’s and Rozel, with a pair of rod-racks sticking out of the stern.

At 8 p.m. on this fine evening, the sun travelling down the clear blue sky before soon bouncing off the horizon, he parked his SUV opposite the yellow-painted edifice of the Normans hardware building. Dressed in a windcheater, jeans, a peaked cap and boat shoes, he then hefted the large, heavy, red and black Musto waterproof holdall out of the tailgate, along with — just for effect if anyone was watching him — a fishing rod.

Then he walked as jauntily as he could, trying to mask the heavy weight of the bag, trying to appear to all the world like a guy off for an evening’s fishing, hopefully to bag a bluefin tuna or some bass at the very least. He ducked through a gap in the railings and looked down for a moment at the vast array of boats moored to the network of pontoons. RIBs, dinghies, sailing yachts, speedboats, cigarette-shaped racing powerboats, cabin cruisers, fishing smacks and a handful of serious, ocean-going multi-million-pound superyachts.

Seagulls swerved around above him and rigging clattered in the light breeze as he carefully made his way down the stone steps and onto the pontoon where Bolt-Hole was moored, at the far end. The salty tang of the sea and smell of boat paint and varnish and rope, as well as the cawing of the birds above, took him momentarily back to his childhood, to all the times he’d accompanied his uncle, who was a fisherman, out to sea.

Jersey had one of the biggest tides in the world, its land mass increased by over one third at low water. And at low water this harbour basin was mudflats, with everything on it stranded. But he had three full hours before that happened. After his rendezvous, where he would make the switch of cash for the drugs, it wouldn’t be until 4 a.m. tomorrow before there’d be a high enough tide for him to get back into the harbour. But he wasn’t worried about that for now. All part of his cover that he was out night fishing, and he fully intended to try to catch some fish after the rendezvous, to bring back and maybe cook for supper tomorrow.

Sandy wasn’t crazy about the way he cooked fish in their flat, on an open skillet with lashings of olive oil and garlic. She said it stank the place out for days.

Well, she wasn’t going to have to worry about that for too much longer. After this deal was complete and he’d got the full value for the drugs in Jersey, he was planning to do exactly what Sandy had done, and disappear.

And Sandy wasn’t going to be part of that plan.