We have the right to remain silent if arrested, and exercising that right is usually easier with a solicitor present. But I'd told them I didn’t want one when they asked, and now two detectives were asking me questions I wasn't answering. Not wanting legal advice wasn't an attempt at appearing innocent. I wasn’t innocent. I just had to do this alone.
I didn’t try to avoid it, and I could have as I knew it was about to happen. I’d been expecting it for some time, I just had no idea when it would occur. To be honest, I felt relieved at no longer having to wonder anymore.
Sitting with the detectives, I was co-operative, respectful, just silent. Silence gave me something essential; it allowed me to be there in a state of detachment, without having to think about what could happen, and without having to give away how vulnerable I felt.
Why I was there I’ll get to in a moment; a white-collar crime that gave me an experience a sense of righteous creativity had inspired. But I really liked the way it felt to do it. It gave me a sense of excitement that outweighed anything work ever did, and I felt I was only playing really; discovering what it was like not to have to follow the rules, giving me a feeling of confidence I’d not had before. It was only when the possibility of getting involved in other criminal activities outside, coming out of a growing reputation from my partner and those he hung out with, that it became clear it was time to stop.
While the money was a way of gauging if I was any good or not, there seemed little point in acquiring more just for the sake of it. While it was exciting to see my ideas turn into cash, the feeling didn't last long as the real buzz came from imagining those ideas and watching them put into practice.
From the moment I decided to do this, ideas appeared quickly. I didn't have to think about them; they just seemed to be there. But acting on them changed me in a way I did not anticipate, and I did not like who I was becoming. I wanted to stop before things went further, and when I found a way to do it, it seemed so perfect that I was instantly lighter just knowing I would.
I spent a year practicing meditation daily. I found I was able to revisit every significant event of my life and imagine how it could have been different. Doing this seemed to alter what had actually taken place, as if I'd actually done it this way all along. I was able to look at my beliefs, and free myself from what I could now see wasn't real or relevant, making it so that when the time came to walk away, everything could go; all of it, all of them, easily.
Leaving for Israel with a one-way ticket the day before the start of the first Gulf war was like shifting into a parallel reality where the old me no longer existed; my previous life seemed more like a dream that had never been real. I stepped into a new world, released from everything that had been there before. It was the most liberating experience of my life.