We stared at each other for several seconds. ‘I am,’ I said finally.

  ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘I’ve found out a little about the people you owe money to. These are not nice people. When you tell them you cannot pay they are not going to pat you on the head and say, Never mind, dear, let us know when you can.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve led a protected life, married to a cop. Taking that loan from those people, you’ve stepped into a jungle where the normal rules of society don’t apply. Even if you stayed with your husband, he wouldn’t be able to protect you. Believe me, Albazi is a nasty man, but the people he works for make him look like your favourite childhood uncle. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I do,’ I replied.

  ‘So get real.’

  34

  23 July 2007 – Looking back

  I got real.

  Albazi wanted full payback in three days, and that wasn’t going to happen. Which meant, as Nicos so eloquently put it, I had three days to get my shit together and then vanish.

  I was putting my trust in a complete stranger, by his own admission a drug dealer, and yet strangely I did now completely trust him. Or maybe I just really, desperately wanted to trust him?

  Nicos was taking care of everything. I was going to have to change my name, but he was dealing with that. I was going to have to change my appearance. And, just as importantly, he drummed into me repeatedly that, if I went ahead with this, I would have to leave everyone and everything I loved in Brighton behind. There would be no tearful reunion. No, ‘Hi, darling, I’m home. I’ll explain . . .’

  The more I tried to think straight about the enormity of it all, the harder it got. I was schoolgirl-excited one moment, then scared witless the next. There really were only two options, or so it seemed. Either I fessed-up to Roy and we figured out something together. Or I just disappeared. But either way our house was already mortgaged to the hilt and I really didn’t know how much Roy could do, other than arresting Albazi. That would be a short-term solution, for sure. But a long-time nightmare for me, because the longer I left it, the more likely it was that Roy would find out I was pregnant.

  I lay awake for much of that night, my scalp feeling tight, like it was a bathing cap. I was leaving my husband, my friends, my parents and every other part of my life. Three days in which I had to seem totally normal to everyone, while all the time planning not a weekend break, or a fortnight’s holiday in the sun, but my complete disappearance. For ever.

  I would be gone. Properly gone. With a man I barely knew, who had made all the arrangements, which included coming up with some new identities. All I had to go on was just my gut instinct that he was some kind of a guardian angel. I guess I’ve always believed that somehow people like Nicos find us at times in our lives when we need them.

  It was that way handsome Roy Grace, with his Paul Newman eyes, had found me all those years back. And now Nicos just appeared. He told me it was the first time in his life he had been in the Casino d’Azur. He told me he wasn’t sure why he had gone in, but the moment he saw me, he knew the reason.

  Sounds corny, but in my muddled state I guess I was ready to believe anything.

  I was up against two ticking clocks. It felt like those ones you see on top of briefcase bombs in movies, with big red digital countdowns, so you can see time is running out for the hero to defuse them. But I was pregnant and that bomb was not going to be defused – not after all those years of trying for a baby.

  Finally, I had what I wanted most of all in the world.

  I should stop taking the Valium, I knew. I would, I promised myself and my baby, I would stop as soon as the stress was off. I think my baby knew, I felt we already had a bond, an understanding between us. My baby was cool, we were already a team. A very cool team.

  But as those days and hours ticked away my confidence was ebbing, too. I didn’t see Nicos, we just spoke on the ‘job’ phone he’d given me, and that wasn’t helping calm me much either. None of it was feeling real. I walked around and around the house – it wasn’t a big or grand house in any way, it was pretty ordinary. The estate agents had it in their brochure as four-bedroom, but in reality it was three bedrooms plus a large cupboard with a window, but I’d always loved it. Well, until I compared it with Tamzin’s. Built in the 1930s with a few pieces of timber on the front facade to give a mock-Tudor effect, it had a tiled carport out front and a small, fenced garden at the rear, which I’d turned into something very exotic, with stones and flowing water and pathways and greenery. A proper sanctuary. We’d spent so many back-breaking hours creating this I would of course be sad to leave it, and felt sentimental at times during those days.

  There was much about the interior I’d be sad to leave, too. The Little Greene-branded paint in the shade of ‘flint’ throughout the rooms, and mostly black furniture – all part of my minimalist interior plan. But was there anything I wanted to take with me for my new life, wherever that would be? Nicos had talked about Valencia in Spain and Jersey in the Channel Islands. I had no idea what, if anything, might work out with him, but he was my portal into my new life at this moment. Once I was out and with a new identity, I could decide whether there was any future with him, or perhaps with someone, somewhere in the world, who I had not yet met.

  I desperately wanted to talk to Becky. But she was in Australia with a big time difference. Not that that was an issue. I guess the issue was that if I told her what I was planning, for sure at some point soon after I’d gone Roy would call her and then she would have to lie to him – or worse – not lie.

  Nicos had drummed into me repeatedly: Tell no one.

  I told no one.

  35

  26 July 2007

  D-Day.

  I get out of bed this morning feeling like I’ve a stomach full of frogs on crack cocaine. My eyes are raw from lying awake most of the night, churning my decision over and over. This morning I am Sandy Grace. But when I get into bed tonight, I will be Sandra Jones. I should be excited about my new life; I’m not, I’m shit scared.

  I’m still trying to convince myself I’m not nuts, entrusting myself to a man I barely know – and a criminal by his own confession. On the other hand, it is exactly what I need right now, a good criminal mind. And I keep reminding myself that I would have still been in this situation even if I’d not met Nicos. He’s actually making it far simpler for me, and I am grateful I can tell someone and talk about it.

  But still, every few minutes I’m minded just to call it off.

  Then I think of the good reasons I can’t.

  On top of all this, it’s Roy’s thirtieth birthday and I have to go through the charade of normality. Since we first got together, birthdays have always been special. Breakfast in bed for the birthday boy or girl. Then dinner with friends later. And when possible on our birthdays, we’d take the day off and have an outing. But – luckily – he cannot take today off.

  I’ve been watching the green dial of the digital clock all night long, ticking away the minutes agonizingly slowly. I’m watching it now: 5.31 a.m.; 5.47 a.m.; 6.11 a.m. Roy is normally an early riser but today he’s still deep asleep. Good, let’s get this over with. I slip out of bed, pull my dressing gown on, slide my feet into slippers and then creep into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

  I go downstairs and take the tiny cake with the single candle out of the cupboard where I’ve hidden it, and open the miniature bottle of Champagne I’d bought online – I know he’s not supposed to drink on duty but one mouthful won’t matter – and pour him a glass. I’ll drink the rest of it.

  I’ve bought him a very rude birthday card – which I always do – it has HORNY BEAST! printed on the front; I’ve got to keep today as normal as possible, so he doesn’t suspect a thing.

  I carry the Champagne, cake with the candle lit, card and his presents on a tray up to the bedroom and as I enter I start singing, ‘Happy birthday to you . . . Happy birthday to you . . .’

  Believe me, my singing voice is truly terrible, it’s enough to wake the dead. And it does the trick, it wakes Roy.

  ‘Oh my God!’ he says with a big, loving smile.

  The smile that once would melt my heart, but now I can’t find the love. It’s a protection against what I am about to do. If I let myself slip into the guilt, I will not do it. He takes the tiniest sip possible of the Champagne, and I, his wife, bride of many summers, step out of my dressing gown, slip into bed, naked, beside him, and down half the glass – to lighten the mood – while he opens the card, laughs and then kisses me. A big, loving kiss. I try not to think. It’s all getting too much. I am aching. Then I hand him his presents one at a time, looking away when I think my facade will crack. I am barely able to mask my pain.

  I start with the least exciting, the running shorts and then the top that he had been hinting he wanted. Next the aftershave, which delights him – he sprays some on my neck and then on his. Finally he opens the BIG PRESENT full of expectation. And I haven’t disappointed him.

  As he rips open the package containing the Swiss Army watch, Roy simply says, ‘Wow!’

  He grabs me and holds me, planting many kisses all round my neck and on my lips. I am breaking, this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I know I need to stay strong, but this is torture. I don’t hate Roy, he’s not a bad person. But there’s no way I can change my mind now. We hug tight, my head over his neck, facing away, so he can’t see the tears streaming down my face. The enormity of it all just whacked me so hard at this moment. Roy tenderly caresses me and does everything he knows I enjoy. Usually. When I’m not about to walk out the house and never return. We make love and I plant my face into the pillow to mute my sobbing, hoping he won’t notice. As we climax, my emotions and the guilt overwhelm me and I feel like telling him everything, putting the duvet over my head and crashing out here in this bed for ever. But I know I can’t hide here. The bad things will find me. We lie there together for a moment in silence and I wipe a tear from my face, which he sees. Roy asks me, ‘Hey, you OK?’ And I turn my face away and say of course I’m OK, convincingly. I wonder if he will remember this moment when I am gone. We are silent for a while.

  His job phone goes and it snaps us out of this reverie and gives me the strength to even be slightly annoyed, because this always happens. I quickly regain my composure and my mind is straight again. I am doing this. I am leaving.

  The first thing I did after getting up and showering was to phone in to the doctor’s surgery saying I felt a bit unwell but that I would see if I improved. I barely had to act, my voice sounded terrible. This would avoid raising any suspicion if I left later due to sickness.

  Next I took a final walk around the garden trying to not let myself get distracted by the pangs of conscience. I couldn’t help but feel sad. Then around the house, to see if there was anything I should take with me, something sentimental or something I just might need – that would fit in a single holdall along with the essentials I had already packed. I knew I couldn’t take much with me and I couldn’t take things from the house that would be missed, so I had to leave the photographs of Roy and myself. I didn’t want to leave him any clues, not beyond abandoning my car at Gatwick Airport. I had a good amount of Valium that I could take with me until I’d weaned myself off it. That was always the plan, just the right time had not yet occurred for the big weaning-off event. It would. I again promised myself and my baby.

  Nicos was very specific. Anything that could give a tell-tale footprint I had to leave behind. Which meant my credit cards and my personal phone. The plan was to leave a trail at Gatwick for anyone looking for me. But before I set off, I needed two things – we were out of paracetamol, because I’d been taking so much in recent days to try to sleep, and I wasn’t confident I had enough fuel in my Golf to get to Gatwick Airport. I’d been meaning to fill up for days but, whatever, I hadn’t. I’m sure Freud would have had something to say about it – I was being anal or retentive or something because my inner me didn’t really want to leave. But one of the things I had learned from Roy was how often it was the simplest things that got criminals caught – such as a tail-light out or driving erratically. Or maybe running out of petrol on the way to Gatwick Airport . . .

  The first flight I was booked on was the 16.12 BA 2771 to Malaga. To make that in good time I needed to leave here by 1 p.m.

  When I’d plucked up the courage I got in my car to head to Boots in Hove to pick up some bits. But, ridiculously, because I hadn’t said goodbye to Marlon – the dumb goldfish Roy had won at a funfair shortly after we were married – I got out of the car and went back into the house. I can’t explain it, but I would have felt bad leaving without saying goodbye to him. Going back in, even just minutes after I’d left, felt like being a visitor to someone else’s house. Mentally, I’d left. I pressed my face up against the round bowl, blew him a kiss and dropped in a pinch of food. He opened and closed his mouth, looking mournful as ever. Guess that’s about as good as it gets in human bonding with a goldfish.

  I had just one more problem to overcome and that was our incredibly nosy neighbour, Noreen Grinstead, who lived directly opposite us. She was a jumpy woman in her fifties, the local hawk-eye, who knew everyone’s business in the street. Almost every time I went outside, there she was in her rubber gloves, either cleaning their cars or hosing the tiles of their carport, day or night, winter or summer. I think it was her cover for snooping.

  To my relief, as I came back out of the house, she wasn’t there.

  Sometimes there is a god.

  Driving away from my home for the very last time, just after 1 p.m. on 26 July 2007, I had three different passports in my handbag – thanks to Nicos calling in a favour from a Brighton forger, who had once specialized in them. Nicos had paid for them himself and would not hear of my offering to reimburse him. In my desperation to get away from Albazi I never stopped to think through in any detail what motives Nicos might have. I was just grateful for his strength and his help.

  I also had three different-coloured baseball caps, three wigs and three changes of clothes all stuffed into my fake Louis Vuitton holdall – a bag I’d bought on a short holiday we’d had in Dubai a couple of years before.

  The bag also contained the very bare essentials I needed, in terms of toiletries and clothes, as well as a bottle of water and a small photograph of Roy and me. We’d had it taken in one of those booths on the Palace Pier, years ago, when we were first dating. The way Roy looked then, so handsome, so happy, I guess that’s the way I want to remember him, always.

  At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in newspaper and carefully sewn into a false compartment I’d created, with a concealed zip, were two books on pregnancy and bundles of fifty-pound notes left from my inheritance. Enough to tide me over for some while if I decided to move on from Nicos.

  It’s a strange thing, planning to disappear for ever. It kind of freezes your mind – or at least it did mine. I’d had very little time to think of what to put in that one holdall; very little time to think about everything from my life up until then that I wanted to keep.

  I really struggled to think of anything.

  Roy’s the one for that, with all the stuff he likes to collect – old records, old inkwells, everything meticulously organized to the point of being borderline OCD, of course, in his office and at our home.

  I stopped at Boots in Hove, where I bought some toothpaste and the maximum number of paracetamols I was permitted. Then I left and filled up with petrol, right to the brim. When they eventually found my car, with a full tank, they would be confused.

  I checked my phones. There were several messages on phone B. They were all from Roel Albazi, the only number he had for me. To my disappointment, there were no messages from Nicos on this or my ‘job’ phone either and he, of course, had both numbers.

  The first from Albazi was at 1 p.m.

  Hey Sandy, you’re running late!

  The second, still friendly, was just after 1.30 p.m.

  Hey Sandy, what’s going on, I’m waiting for you. Did you get the time wrong? Or the date wrong?

  The third, at 2 p.m., was the turning point, where the texts began to be less and less friendly.

  Sandy, what are you playing at? I warned you not to mess with these people.

  There were more, getting progressively angrier.

  I ignored them all.

  36

  27 July 2007 – Roel Albazi

  Roel Albazi sat at the marble oval table in his apartment above the pizzeria in Shoreham. He had long ago learned never to be knocked down by any adversary and within a week of his home being trashed, while it wasn’t perfect yet, it was habitable again, filled with rental furniture. But despite that, and the whisky inside him, he was feeling nervous as hell. And knocked again. By a new adversary.

  Sandy Grace.

  It was 8 p.m., Friday evening. Skender Sharka, patched up with a few bandages on his face and arms, and Tall Joe sat at the table either side of their boss. All of them had a glass of Chivas Regal, filled by Albazi from the rapidly emptying bottle on the table.

  ‘OK, so this is the update on this woman,’ Albazi said. ‘I don’t know what interest this Greek guy, Nicos Christoforou, has in her. Maybe he wants to fuck her.’

  ‘Or has already?’ Tall Joe suggested.

  Albazi did not react. ‘Nicos Christoforou is a piece of work. He makes out he’s all Mr Nice Guy, telling the world he only deals in cannabis because in his heart and soul . . .’ He paused to place his hand on his chest, in mock solemnity and, mimicking Howard Marks’s Welsh accent, said, ‘I do not believe in hard drugs.’

  Both his colleagues grinned.

  ‘That asshole Nicos tells everyone that he wants cannabis to be legalized because of all its health benefits, so he announces that’s what he’s doing, that he’s on a mission to convert the world to the magical healing wonders of cannabis, of hemp oil, grass, weed, ganga, whatever the hell you want to call it. That may be true – but what he’s saying about himself is complete crap!’