They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

8 Early July 2007 — Looking back

My mother is an observant Lutheran who believes we are saved from sin by God’s grace. My father and I had to pray twice a day. For the first thirteen years of my childhood I lived in fear of losing that grace. Then at school I met Simone Oster, who was totally rebellious.

Tall, with a shock of curly hair, she was wonderfully wicked. First, she got me into smoking cigarettes, then a week before my fifteenth birthday, she got me drunk and... we kissed on the floor of the summerhouse in my parents’ garden.

It felt really weird, my first proper kiss. I had expected it to be with a boy because all my friends were doing that, but at the same time, it made me feel so alive. My biggest, best-kept secret.

It made me feel, Screw you, parents! I’m now a grown-up. I don’t need you. Catch me if you can!

They caught me. Right in the act. No getting out of it. Their shocked faces as I was mid-snog with Simone, my hands cupping her bottom, in their chintzy conservatory at the age of fifteen. Schnerkly, I’d call the decor. Maybe I made that word up? I don’t know, but it fits. If you’d seen their reaction, I may as well have committed some heinous crime. I was grounded in my bedroom, delivered the blandest of food, forbidden to ever touch a girl in that way ever again, and told to read the Bible. I didn’t know what I felt back then about my sexual preference, I was exploring. I know now that I had feelings for both sexes, but my parents, who were stuck in the Dark Ages, blocked out any possibility of me having any sort of sexual relationship again with a girl. And that was that. When I was old enough, I was to find a man who would be the ‘provider’, get married, and my sole purpose in life would be to eventually give them grandchildren. That was the only path acceptable to them. I guess that added to my rebellion then and now. Maybe.

God, it was all just so damned boring and not how I saw my life. I had ambition, determination, resilience, and knew I would not settle for that.

In truth, the next four years were something of a blur. I had a few boyfriends along the way — none very serious — smoked a bit of weed, doing the minimum work at school to scrape through exams, and impervious to the shitty reports of could do better that landed with my parents.

When I was eighteen I met Vince in a nightclub just off Brighton seafront. At the time, he was supercool, tall, long dark hair, totally confident. I liked him at first. Probably because he gave me coke for the first time — we snorted it together in a cubicle in the women’s toilet. I used to see him around and about on various nights out and we flirted but never did anything — well, except coke in the loos. He was thirty, over eleven years older than me.

One night I was out with Becky and a bunch of other friends — we were planning to large it as one of them had just got engaged. It was going to be a BIG NIGHT OUT.

We’d arranged to meet in the Brighton and Hove greyhound stadium on the outskirts of Hove. I’m never naturally punctual but for some reason I arrived early, just before 7.30 p.m., and it was quiet. A few people were hanging out around the bar and just one of several tables was occupied by a bunch of smartly dressed people. Three guys and two women. I didn’t give them a second glance; actually not entirely true, there was one of the guys who looked fit — he could have been Daniel Craig’s kid brother — but he didn’t even see me — or so I thought.

Being alone gave me the chance to get in the mood. I swigged down a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc and was on my second when in swaggered Vince with a couple of mates. For some moments he didn’t spot me, and I held my breath hoping he wouldn’t see me at all — I wanted to move away from that life before it got me hooked. I knew, even then with occasional recreational drug use, how easily influenced I was.

He looked like a combination of Elvis and Al Pacino but without either of their handsome features.

And of course, as luck would have it, he spotted me almost instantly.

And came over. ‘Hey, babe!’ he said, looking around at the empty chairs of the table I had bagged. ‘All alone? Get you a drink? I’ve got some good shit, want to score?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

He looked at my glass, which was now almost empty. Then he stared hard, too hard, at me. ‘Let me guess, Savvy B? A large one?’

‘I’m fine, thank you, Vince.’

He leaned in towards me. I could smell the stink of cigarette smoke on his clothes, hair, breath. ‘You’re not fine at all, are you, babe? You’re missing me, aren’t you?’

His pupils were enlarged and his eyes pinballed around. He was high on something, as ever.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, calmly — and thanks to the two glasses of wine, courageously. ‘I don’t need anything, thank you, Vince.’

He nodded. ‘Oh yes, you do. You want me, don’t you? You just don’t want to admit it.’

‘Actually, Vince, I do not.’

He sat down next to me, nudged up close and put his arm around me. ‘You want to know what it’s like to fuck me, don’t you, babe?’

I told him to leave me alone.

He nuzzled my ear.

‘Leave — me — alone — Vince,’ I said and pulled away.

He followed.

I must have raised my voice louder than I had intended when I said, ‘LEAVE ME ALONE!’

Because suddenly the fit-looking guy in the smart suit — Daniel Craig’s kid brother, who’d been at the table — was standing next to Vince and looking down at me. He had a nice, commanding voice. ‘Is this man bothering you?’

Vince rounded on him. ‘Who the fuck are you, nancy boy?’ His stance was aggressive, his arms pulled back, as if he was about to either punch or headbutt him.

‘Let’s just say I’m someone who knows who the fuck you are. Probably carrying drugs, right?’ He jerked a finger at the table where his companions sat. ‘See them? They’re all cops, like me.’ He pressed his face so close to Vince’s that their noses almost touched and said, ‘You’ve got white stuff around your lips. Been sniffing babies’ bums? Talcum powder, is it?’

Vince suddenly looked uneasy, his stance turning passive. He appeared momentarily lost for words.

‘Tell you what,’ Daniel Craig’s kid brother continued. ‘Because I’m in a charitable mood tonight, I’m giving you a choice. You either disappear out of this bar right now or I’m searching you and nicking you for possession and you’ll be spending the rest of your Friday night in the custody suite at Hollingbury. You have exactly three seconds to decide.’

Vince required just two of those seconds to process this information. Then he legged it.

I looked up at my knight in shining armour. Into gorgeous, intense blue eyes full of warmth and smiles. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘I am now. Thank you, again.’

He continued to smile. ‘Want to join us for a drink?’

‘I’m afraid I’m on a friends’ night out,’ I said, hesitantly. ‘But they haven’t arrived yet, so I could join until they do.’ I didn’t want to sound too keen but at the same time fancied him like hell.

He gave me the biggest smile.

Once seated, I started chatting to the man next to me, thinking how to break the conversation and chat to my rescuer. I leaned across the table and our eyes locked. ‘I’ve been given a tip! Always bet on any dog that does its business before it races!’

‘You mean watch and see if it has a crap?’ he joked.

‘Very sharp, you must be a detective!’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘not yet. But I’d like to be one day.’

I felt such a connection to him. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Becky and a bunch of the others walk in and the moment was gone. I so wanted to stay with him longer.

He asked if I could stick around for one more drink but, reluctantly, I told him I had to go as my friends had arrived.

He handed me a card. ‘Well, if you ever fancy meeting up, give me a bell.’

I glanced at the card before pocketing it. The printed words read: Constable Roy Grace, Brighton Police. Beneath was a contact number.

I put the card into a zippered compartment in my handbag, very carefully.

An hour later, slipping away from the group on the pretext of going to the loo, I called him. We made a date.