They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

58 26 September 2011 — Nicos Christoforou

Less than thirty minutes after Nicos fired up the four Mercedes diesel engines, Bolt-Hole was making great headway, the twin propellors throwing up an arcing mare’s tail wake, the tall white pinnacle of La Corbière lighthouse already a tiny speck astern in the rapidly fading daylight. And Sandy and Bruno were even tinier specks.

He double-checked that the transponder, which would reveal his position and course to the coastguard’s radar, and also to anyone with a marine tracking app on their phone, was switched off. On a private vessel of this size, there was no legal requirement to have it on — it was purely for safety, so that other vessels could see him.

Exactly what he did not want.

He’d also made sure the port, starboard and masthead lights were off. In this falling darkness, he should now be pretty much invisible. And he would maintain complete radio silence. Not that it was likely the coastguards would be listening, he had learned. Their role was mostly around marine safety. Drugs they left to the Customs.

They would have been clocked on the Noirmont Point radar — during the war a German underground command bunker — and again on the Corbière radar at the western extremity of Jersey, but no one would have taken any notice of him. Just one of hundreds of small boats sailing around the Channel Island waters, and just another dickhead who’d forgotten to switch on his transponder — and nav lights. Or maybe a bolshy Jersey or French fisherman — of which there were dozens — ignoring the regulations.

The boat’s expensive speaker system was pumping out music. Feel-good songs that Nicos shouted along with. He loved driving this beast of a machine, which could top 50 knots in a calm sea and outrun anything the coastguard could throw at him — if it ever came to it. He loved all the electronic displays, especially the ones that showed him, on the instrument panel, an X-ray view of the engines working, the pistons and cams rising and falling. But best of all was the digital navigation system.

The waters around the Channel Islands were notoriously tricky. They were booby-trapped with submerged rocks and treacherous currents, such as the Alderney Race, where the current could run as fast as 12 knots, propelling some hapless yachts backwards. Even with all his years of experience with boats, he treated these waters with respect.

But tonight, now well clear of land and heading out into deep water, following the satellite navigation set to the agreed rendezvous point in Hurd’s Deep, just shy of fifty nautical miles from Jersey, he had no worries. Secure in his padded seat, he made constant small adjustments to the wheel, maintaining his course, leaving the island of Guernsey just twinkling lights now, well to his stern, on the north-west course he had set. The increasing Atlantic swell was throwing the boat around and he reduced the speed to 20 knots below her maximum.

He was in more of a hurry than he had wanted to be after the Cheerios incident, but he was still happy he’d left plenty of time for the rendezvous. The echo sounder was showing the depth of ocean beneath him, steadily increasing over the next two hours from 20 metres to 50 then 60. Suddenly, as if they had gone over an under-sea cliff, the depth increased to 175 metres. They had hit the channel known as Hurd’s Deep.

‘Woah,’ he said aloud and to no one. ‘That is deep, man!’

Deep meant safe, but uncharacteristically he began to feel nervous. Saul Brignell’s minions were never the friendliest people to do business with. Although they always delivered quality. But... the thought occurred to him that he was heading out into the Atlantic Ocean to rendezvous with a bunch of England’s most ruthless gangsters, with £1.2 million in cash in his Musto bag. That was a lot of money, even in the world of high-end drug dealing. And that meant a lot of temptation. What was to stop them from double-crossing him, simply taking the cash and dumping him overboard into the pitch-black sea? With 180 metres of water beneath them. There was just him. No witnesses.

There was nothing, he knew. Nothing but the strange honour that existed between villains — most of the time. Reputation, that was all. Screw a major player in the criminal fraternity and word would get around fast.

Hurd’s Deep was on the main shipping lane north from Cherbourg, on the French coast, to the English Channel. It also connected with the lane from Liverpool — from where Saul Brignell’s boat was likely to have started its journey, probably around this time yesterday, Nicos estimated.

The choice of rendezvous location, by the Brignell team, was a smart one. The chosen point in the Hurd’s Deep channel was well away from all likely detection. Out of radar range from both the Channel Islands and the French coasts, too far south for the British navy to be patrolling, and too far out for the Channel Islands Customs cutters. Because of its distance from the nearest land and also because it was a known dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste, there weren’t likely to be many fishing boats around.

He took a long swig of Liberation IPA beer, followed by another; comforted both by the thought and by the alcohol, he took a third swig and stuck the bottle back in the holder on the dash. Then he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. As he blew the sweet smoke out through his mouth and nostrils he was looking steadfastly ahead, keeping a watchful eye for small fishing boats that might be out at this hour and for any fisherman’s marker buoys that could foul his propellors. But it was unlikely there would be any fishing buoys out in this channel.

The prow of the boat rose and fell and pitched and yawed in the increasingly big sea and he felt the first wave of nausea.

Shit, don’t let me be seasick! Come on! He was rarely seasick, but just sometimes it came on. He felt a stab of panic. Last time it happened, he was flat out on a bunk down below for four hours, wanting to die.

To distract himself, he once more checked the compass coordinates for the RV on the satnav screen: 49°39′00.0"N 3°05′00.0"W.

The RV point was twenty nautical miles away — safely outside the twelve-mile radius that constituted the Channel Islands territorial waters. It was now 10.15 p.m. and he wasn’t due to rendezvous with the Brignell boat until 11.30. He slowed right down, but the boat began rolling and pitching even more. He increased the speed, faster, faster still, pushing the throttle handles forward, opening up the four engines to their max, feeling the thrill of acceleration as the boat surged forward, the front rising up onto the plane. It thumped, crashed, rocked, but flew. It was a wild ride. ‘Yee-ha!’ he yelled out aloud. It was curing his nausea!

The fuel gauge readout showed he was burning a gallon of diesel every two minutes. But he didn’t care, the adrenaline coursing through him had kicked his hint of seasickness into touch. He was feeling great now, really great!

Some moments later, after another swig of beer and a drag on his cigarette, his thoughts returned to Sandy as the boat leaped on like a wild, bucking animal, into the darkness. He surfed a wave, then corrected harshly with the wheel as it yawed left, then right. How was he going to rid himself of her?

When he’d first met Sandy in that casino, four years ago, she’d reminded him so much of Eleni. But Eleni had been so easy to manipulate and never put up a fight. Sandy had turned out very different. He reflected that it had been partly his doing, with getting her into recreational drugs then this spiralling into addiction of a much more serious nature with the heroin. But he felt she deserved it. She was too much of a live wire if left to her own devices. That woman needed to be controlled. And as for that kid, he needed a bloody good slap.

Nicos sensed there was a vulnerable person beneath that carapace, but in the time they’d been together, he’d not been able to reach it. She talked repeatedly about the husband, the big detective guy she had abandoned, and he got the sense, constantly, that she regretted what she had done. But when he’d told her if that was how she felt, she should go back to him, it always turned into a row.

What he could not figure out was that she wouldn’t contact the husband she had loved, yet had recently talked about making contact with her parents, who, she had told him, she didn’t even like. She just craved their attention like some pathetic child.

But at least from a business perspective, his relationship with Sandy had worked out fine. He’d succeeded in getting her completely drug-dependent, so that she would do anything he asked of her.

Getting back to the task, he took a final drag before stubbing out the cigarette, and a final swig of the bottle, then set the navigation onto autopilot and jumped down from his seat.

And immediately, after just a few paces across the deck, downhill one instant, uphill the next, he started getting the roundabouts. Staggering back towards the wheel, the boat rolled sharply over to port and he fell, just grabbing the backrest in time.

Then it heeled to starboard.

He made it back into his seat and reduced speed. The nausea began to overwhelm him again. One cure for seasickness that worked in daylight, usually, was to stare at the horizon. But there was no horizon. Just darkness through the windscreen now, as black as a coal cellar. The weather front that had been forecast was arriving early, heralded by clouds that were shrouding light from the half-moon and stars. He pushed the throttle levers forward again to flat out, and as the boat surged, his seasickness receded once more.

Maybe it would be smart to stop trying to check the cash in the suitcase inside the Musto waterproof bag. Sandy had collected it from the storage unit and he had no reason to suspect it wasn’t as he had deposited it there, over a year ago. She wouldn’t have dared touch it. He’d long instilled in her head that if she ever tried to double-cross him, he would make both her and the kid pay.

Bob Marley — and the Wailers — belted out, ‘Don’t worry about a thing... ’cause every little thing gonna be alright...’

He liked this song. And Bob Marley was right. It was, it was all going to be all right!

Hell yes!

Hell it was dark out here.

The only sign of life was the increasingly faint flashes of the Les Hanois Lighthouse at St Peter Port, a long way to his stern. Ahead was the vast blackness of the Atlantic Ocean. And way, way, beyond the fuel range of his boat, the Azores, and then the east coast of America.

But long before then, in approximately one hour and seven minutes, according to the satnav, he would rendezvous with a boat sent by Liverpool drugs magnate, Saul Brignell, with £1.2 million worth of drugs, that he would be able to sell to his contacts in Jersey for around £15–20 million. He’d move it in bulk, quickly, and leave the bigger risks to the dealers, cutting it down to fifty-pound bags and selling it on the street. It would be reckless to do it himself, even if the rewards would be so much greater, double the value or even higher. Not worth the risk, he felt. After all, he wasn’t a greedy man.

So sweet. The best deal of his life.

Then bail out of this area. Quit while he was ahead.

Leaving flaky Sandy behind. He would vanish. He knew where he was headed. But she would never find him because, just like Sandy Jones, Nicos Christoforou was not his real name. Of course, Sandy still did not know this.