Sunday 23rd January, 2022
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| Taking a breather. My first time out in nearly 2 weeks was for a coffee at Manolo Bakes |
Dear all.
I imagine some of you are following our nightmare story; living with the now exposed "KGB operative", Felipe Turover, since I posted the whole story in last week's blog. If last week was a nightmare, this week was slightly less so as we took a conscious decision to slow down the media campaign in the middle of the week. Evidently he has not gone yet and we continue to live with our squatter. We are now not on speaking terms or only in a cursory manner when he asks for us to unlock the front door and gate so as to go out on foot for food or drink or I don't know what.
This week has still been tense though. Now let me tell you about it.
Last weekend, on Saturday, I had 3 conversations with him, the content of which I didn't reveal. Now I can as the cat has been let out of the bag. In a sort of heart to heart first thing in the morning he told me he had tried to commit suicide and would do it again. OMG! I then looked through his rubbish in the garden hut and found the evidence. What we cannot know is how much he took the day he said he tried to kill himself. Did he really or was it a calculated attempt to bring attention and play the victim?
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| Evidence of his possible suicide attempt last week |
I told the family and called our rather useless lawyer, Veronica G. She was stumped as to what to do. She told me to call the police to report it. Meanwhile she and Oli said I needed evidence. That meant I would have to have another conversation but tape it this time. I needed him to say he had tried to quit his life and that he would do it again. He did so.
Shortly afterwards when Oli and I rushed to buy some food, we found him walking back from A&E where he had walked to get more pills. We stopped and I asked him what he was carrying - more pills. That is when he confessed to having taken all the Stillnox from 5 blisters with one bottle of wine but that it hadn't worked. He hadn't died. Since then he has bounced back so I tend to think it was all a game.
Following is the content of our next conversation, the third, I taped. In it he confessed to many things and tried to explain his behaviour. Yes he hadn't paid, he would pay, he wanted to leave, he was totally broke having lost all his money and had had to choose between paying his rent or the fees for his father's care home. He also explained his previous lies; that his Father was not Spanish but really Russian and that he had never married nor had a son He had married but told me it wasn't relevant as he married early and his son hated him; thus he told everyone he was a bachelor. He then went on to confess that the previous week when he had been carted off in an ambulance, he had tried to take his life; something I sort of suspected; with a cocktail of pills (Stillnox mainly) and alcohol - see above - When I asked why he hadn't told me of his financial situation back at the end of September, he said because he was ashamed. I explained that if he had I would have tried to help him. Instead he told us a string of lies. His reply was to say he had behaved badly and that his head was not in the right place. He cried while talking to me and seemed convincing. He said he wasn't a bad man and was no danger to us. I remarked he had had a very difficult life - communism, high politics in Russia - life in danger - he admitted he had worked for Putin when he was the Vice Mayor of St. Petersburg and knew him!! Asked what he would do after all this scandal now that his real persona was showcased he said he had no option but to move abroad. I asked if he could go to Russia; i.e. did he fear for his life there? He wasn't sure but said that if the Russian mafia killed him, they would be doing him a favour. Finally, as bait but with no real intention, I offered to pardon his debt (3.500 euros) and pay him 3000 to go. He did not accept saying he couldn't take my money. I was sort of surprised. It seemed there was still some decency in this man, a broken man at the end of the road. But I was wrong.
What a conversation. My daughter listened to it and told me he was trying to manipulate me emotionally so as to regain trust in him and help him. She did not believe the suicide story. Do I? Not now. He has no family here and I am a sort of mother figure he clings to but dupes at the same time. It is driving me mad. With this evidence I rang the police the next day. They were of no help nor would social services be. The told me that unless he was committing suicide in front of me; i.e. me witnessing it, their hands were tied. I was so frustrated.
Sunday 16th December came, nearly 2 months since we tried to kick him out. It was the day Djokovic was deported from Australia after the visa case. I only wished I could deport my squatter and possible fugitive.
He was in his room until 1 pm when he went out and did not come back until 7pm. When he did he told Lucy he had been out for lunch. So he does have some funds. Remember that each time he leaves or comes back he needs us to open the gate as we think he has lost his keys. Yes, I feel like his jailer and he doesn't complain. Very odd.
Shortly afterwards a TV crew came from Antena 3 for a live report at 8.45 pm just before the news. Minutes earlier Oli sent me a clip of him being interviewed by Telemadrid. So he was talking to the press too. Things were getting nastier.
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| FT now talks to the press. Here, his first interview (live) on Saturday night with Telemadrid |
This is the clip where he lies again. In the interview he said he owes us 2000 - a lie, he owes us 3500. He also said he could not have been a KGB operative as when the Russian secret service was disbanded (1991), he was only 24; another lie - he was 27. You only have to google his name to come up with thousands of references that link him to the KGB. He also said we were a good family and his answer to why he hadn't paid was that he had a "financial lagoon" - a way of saying he was broke! When asked where he will go after leaving us he replied to another country after all the exposure of his life in the media. He denied deliberately hurting himself in the bathroom episode (lies).
Knowing what he had said I was able to counteract his lies and give my honest answer to all his "bulls***" in my own interview. When it was over, the Antena 3 TV reporter knocked on his door but this time he didn't answer.
Amazingly that night I was offered help through a friend who had worked for the British Secret Service. He has a friend in Madrid who was a very high profile top secret service officer (cannot reveal more - this is so cloak and dagger!) and could help me. OMG the plot was thickening. I wondered how the latter could. With this news that night I think I only slept about 3 hours. We also have another important man in this story, a very high profile anti corruption prosecutor who has been looking for Felipe Turover for more than 10 years. Eladio is alarmed and said that night that Putin has to know where the Russian "fugitive" and "KGB operative" is by now; i.e. our house. Shivers went down my spine.
Monday morning was the day he had said he was leaving but of course he wasn't. He keeps saying he has a friend or friends who have a car and are looking for accommodation for him. They never appear.
I had to rush to the health centre to pick up a certificate with a report on my health - how all this was affecting me; the 3 panic attacks etc. This was for our sluggish lawyer to present to the judge in the hope he would be given a precautionary measure of eviction before the trial. I had to be there by 9.15, send it to Oli before 10 and then dash home.
That's when I had another taped conversation with him. He told me he was heartbroken I had revealed that he had tried to commit suicide and that I had promised not to do so. I had done no such thing. As to leaving that day he told me he wanted to accept my generous offer of 3000 euros. My offer was not genuine, it was only to see how he reacted. I retorted I would talk to my husband and lawyer. His final words before leaving the house to go and have breakfast at a cafe were that his lawyer thought he had at least 6 months to live in our house before he was evicted!!! He knows the law and his rights, damn the man.
By then it was time to go to the bank. I needed a certificate to confirm I was the same account holder after our bank had been bought up by another and our account numbers had changed. This is because our account number on the "false" bank receipts FT gave to me to prove he had paid had the old number on them and the list of deposits in our account had the new account number on them. Without a certificate from the bank I could not prove he had not paid us!! Kafkian to say the least. I needed this both for the evidence submitted to court and to report him for falsifying documents; a crime in this country. Everyone knew us in the bank because we have been on the TV so much. I was promised I would be sent the certificate within 48 hours but the bank, La Caixa, is as sluggish as the Spanish legal system. During this time I have lost all faith in Spanish institutions.
There was another rush home then for more TV interviews. Eladio went in to park and I stayed outside as the Telecinco cameras had arrived. At that moment the police appeared too to see if all was ok - quite a nice gesture. Then my surgeon rang about my cancelled knee operation. This was all too much. I was getting stressed. Inside the house I had the Telemadrid TV crew who wanted to interview me as well after FT's first appearance on Saturday.
Later both Telecinco and Telemadrid tried to find him. The former managed an interview with him and asked if I would do one too the next day with him, face to face. I refused of course and the interview with me would be with me alone.
By then it was lunchtime and I was exhausted. The girls' friend Copi who lives in Vitoria joined us but my mind and body were so tired I had to go up to bed and rest. As I find it difficult to sleep I decided on an extra hot bath followed by a tranquiliser. I managed to get some much needed shut eye for 2.5 hours. I have so much to catch up on.
Tuesday came and our media campaign continued. It was breaking him or at least I thought it was. He now looked down and out, in dire straits and dressed like a homeless man. Was this part of his strategy, to play the victim? That morning Carlos from Telecinco's Ana Rosa programme told me part of the contents of the interview with FT the day before, a video they would release later on TV. In it our unwanted guest described living at our house like "Auschwitz except for the gas chamber"! How dare he? That is an insult to Jews - he is half Jewish through his mother by the way. He is living in the best en suite bedroom in the house and can go anytime so he is wrong to describe his lodgings like a concentration camp. But what is clear is that the media campaign has made him "toast". He has no friends, nowhere to go, no car, no access to the kitchen, is using the same towels and sheets since November and he says he is broke. I don't believe the latter though. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? His strategy was is to play the victim. Later that morning he was interviewed again by TeleMadrid, a local channel where he was asked what his state of mind was like. He replied it was dreadful. because of the "impartial" media coverage of him. Then asked where he would go when he eventually does, he said he would go abroad as he can no longer live in Spain. This must be because he has been completely discredited. I wonder if he knows about the international coverage on this case?
He rang me while the Telecinco TV crew were with me and to whom I had displayed all the alcohol and pills for them to film. He needed me, his jailer, to open the gate for him. I escorted him past the cameras and table with the evidence and he remarked to me "this is an error". No it isn't. His behaviour is an error.
Soon afterwards more cameras arrived, this time from TeleMadrid. You can see the video here
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| TV reporter live outside "his" room on Tuesday |
Just as they were arriving so too was a newspaper journalist and his cameraman. Shortly afterwards the top secret service officer arrived too; all this in the middle of the Telemadrid camera crew. What a circus.
We were soon sitting down over coffee in my best china to explain our whole story to the spy. I had a lot of faith in him and really hoped he could help us but when we explained the situation even he agreed our hands were tied. He suggested some very extreme measures we could not even contemplate. During our meeting we all wondered how this man had financed his life in the past few years. The journalist had some inside information about art trafficking and that day too we read about his making a lot of money through a shady deal of selling computers. Just look him up on the WWW and you will see. We also spoke about his poor father, now in a care home. FT had told me he had put him there in September last and couldn't afford to pay the fees of 2.700 euros a month and pay us too. It was then that the journalist rang the home and actually got through to the father. Unfortunately he has Alzheimer's. But talking to the carer we learned that FT's father had been in the home for a year (not a few months) and that it was a state run care home which of course will either be free or much cheaper than a private home. So Felipe had lied to me again.
When leaving, our secret service guy who is very tall hit his head on the garage roof. Thankfully no damage was done. Once in the street, in came Felipe and I introduced one spy to the other. Felipe must be overwhelmed with our reaction to his squatting. That's the idea; corner him and make him leave. I suspect though that he has absolutely nowhere to go and that's why we are in this Catch 22 situation. But we shall sit it out and we shall win this battle.
From then on I was free. I had scheduled a video call interview with The Daily Mail or the Mail online for a follow up story but was relieved to hear it would take place on Wednesday. Thus the afternoon was free. Again I had a very hot bath, took a tranquiliser and slept for 2 hours. I was then on the phone to worried friends to update them on our nightmare of living with our diabolical squatter.
Wednesday came. I was expecting more TV cameras, Telecinco and then Telemadrid. The former did not interview me as there was too much news about a tragic fire at a care home in Valencia to fit our story in. At 13h, Telemadrid's reporter, Laura, was back with her cameraman. She interviewed Eladio this time to use a different face as I have been on TV much more than my husband. During the live report Laura knocked on our squatter's door. I thought he would come out as he is no longer camera shy but he didn't and there were no signs of noise inside.
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| Telemadrid reporting live outside our bedroom and "his" bedroom on Tuesday |
At 3.30 pm Spanish time I had an interview with a young reporter, David A. from The Daily Mail who works on their foreign desk. I told him worriedly that Felipe had not left his room since Tuesday at 2 pm. We had a great 1 hour zoom call where I explained our case. It turns out we have a lot in common. His father is a University lecturer in Russian, his mother a teacher, he studied French and Russian and even more coincidentally went to the same University as I, Nottingham. Later though he told me his editor did not think the story was sensational enough to print! God damn it. Isn't it? They had been keen enough to semi copy The Times story the previous week so what else did they need for a follow up story I wondered? Something far more sensational. What a rag!
I was free after that and spent a lazy afternoon resting. I really needed it. But again there is no rest for the wicked. I began to be worried that our squatter had not left the room since Tuesday 2 pm. I kept watch trying to hear sounds inside the room but there were none. I seriously wondered whether he had committed suicide. This fear kept me worried the rest of the day and the night. I wondered too whether he was playing me. Later I realised he was and finally stopped being worried about him. The guy is very cunning. Everything he does makes me think so.
On Thursday I woke up and my immediate thoughts were about our squatter. Every time I wake up or try to go to sleep I have him on my mind. I wish I didn't. When, oh God, will this nightmare be over? My friends asked whether I cared. I did before. Now I no longer do. But I didn't dare knock on his door and preferred to wait until the next day when he would have been in his room for 48 hours.
We had another guest in the house, a repeat guest, who had arrived the night before. I desperately hoped he would not find out what was going on in our house. Luckily he didn't.
By 7 am I was seriously worried about what was happening in "his" room. The lights were on, that I could see. When the sun rose, they were switched off which meant he was alive inside. Wow, what a relief.
It was about then that I told my family I thought we should cut short our media campaign as it had achieved its purpose. Now we would have to rely on the civil court proceedings and hope that in between time he would leave permanently. At about 10.30 am, he appeared and asked to be escorted out for the first time since 2 pm on Tuesday. Lucy went with him as I just could not face FT. She asked him when he was leaving and he said he had found a house and would be moving out on the 23rd of 24th of this month, something I doubt very much. He was back at 4 pm carrying a bag of food in one hand and a bag of new clothes in the other. He also said he had just had his Covid booster jab. I know he is no fan of Covid vaccinations so that made me think he is probably seriously thinking of leaving the country for which he would need to be fully vaccinated. In my heart to heart with him at the weekend I encouraged him to go and live at his father's house in Orihuela (Alicante). He had told me he was trying to sell the house. However, he was lying again as that day my daughter and her partner found out there is not one property in Orihuela under the name of Turover. What am I to believe from this "compulsive liar"? I wondered too if I was wrong in withdrawing the media pressure.
While he was out and with no media to hound him or interview us, Eladio and I went out on little errands. It was to be my first time out in nearly 2 weeks. There hasn't been time for it and neither has there been time for our walks. I was in desperate need of a breather and I got it on Thursday. After our errands were over we went to have coffee, not at the café we usually go to, Alverán, FT's favourite too, so as not to bump into him. We went to a new place called "
Manolo bakes" which Oli, my daughter, told me was THE place to go to in Boadilla these days because of their wonderful croissants called "manolitos". I have been on a diet since after Christmas but succumbed to the temptation when they were offered free with our coffee and even had two as Eladio is not a fan of pastries of any type. I had broken my diet but needed to indulge myself after all the misery I have been through. I thought I deserved it. Coffee at Manolo Bakes turned out to be the highlight of the week. The photo illustrating this post is of me at that rather sublime moment of normality.
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| Coffee an croissants at Manolo Bakes gave me a breather this week |
For a moment life felt normal but of course it isn't. If only this guy would go and life return to what it was before the nightmare started.
Once home for lunch we thought we would be free for the rest of the day but then another emergency arose to do with the case we have filed with the civil courts to evict FT. Oli rang to say we needed to get a power of attorney from a notary that very day for our lawyer and our "procurador" - a lawyer figure in Spain who liaises between a lawyer and the court - to represent us at court. Why on earth hadn't our lawyer asked for it before? Now we only had one afternoon to get this important piece of paper. Most notaries were closed by then but some open in the afternoons. Miguel, Oli's partner, found a few and I rang one at 5.30. Normally we would have been given an appointment for a week or so later but I pleaded and pleaded with the receptionist who kindly told us to go right away. They were closing at 6.30 pm so we had to rush to their office which is about 15km from where we live to Villanueva de la Cañada. Again people recognised us there and the notary was sympathetic to our cause. About an hour later we walked out with the power of attorney. Once home I had to scan it to send to our lawyer. Only then could we rest.
We had our dinner and then watched the news. These last few weeks I haven't paid much attention to what is going on in the world but that night after my breather, I listened and watched for the first time in about 2 weeks. Russia is on the brink of invading the Ukraine, it was one year since Joe Biden became President of the US, the repercussions of the garden parties at Number 10 during lockdown and Boris Johnson's terrible way of handling "partygate" were the main stories. I would like to see him ousted. Wouldn't you? Of course Covid was news too as it has been since December 2019. Omicrom seems to be peaking here in Spain as we go through the sixth wave. At least fewer people are dying now. It is very contagious and I am very relieved we haven't caught it and we could have with so many people in our house in the last 10 days.
That night I slept a bit better again. I am slowly catching up on all my lost sleep during this nightmare which is not yet over.
I was up at dawn on Friday. Our unwelcome non paying lodger asked Lucy to open the gate which she did. That's when I went into his room, not to rummage in his stuff but to retrieve objects that belong to us and to which he has no right even to touch. That's when I saw he had a new kettle, new clothes and lots of food. Oh, so the man is not down and out, nor is he on the verge of suicide and he is planning to stay here for a while.
We decided to go to the bank for the coveted certificate I needed for court and the police as more than 48 hours had passed. I found my bank employee, Marisa, outside smoking and ignoring us. As soon as she had finished we asked her for the certificate which she said hadn't arrived. As I had anticipated this, I had written a "to whom it may concern letter" for the bank to stamp, only to be told by Marisa that bank policies wouldn't allow her to stamp it! That is when I broke down for the 3rd time since all this has started. She seemed alarmed and funnily enough was able to produce a certificate 10 minutes later. So in order to get one I had to put on a show. I really have lost faith in so many Spanish institutions; banks, lawyers, police and the administration in general. Sluggish and unhelpful doesn't begin to describe them.
After lunch we had a leak in the garden so had to switch off the water mains - how inconvenient for FT I thought. The leak looks like it will be with us for while too. We went to the police to report him for falsifying documents only to be told they were busy and we would have to wait 1.5 hours. Sluggish again you see. We would go back the next day.
That night we decided to dare it and to go out for dinner the two of us; something we haven't done for months and months. It was to be another breather for us both. We left the house with the alarm on and no water and I hoped this would inconvenience FT again. It was on Friday night that we all agreed to up our media campaign, this time to include the written press and even the glossy magazines. He has bounced back since we withdrew it so maybe now is the time to start again.
Saturday dawned and we went back to the police station (Civil Guard) to file a report about FT falsifying documents (the bank receipts), for which I had needed the certificate from the bank. We left the house at 10 am and were not home until 13h. There was only one person in the queue ahead of us so that shows you that the Guardia Civil are sluggish too. To become a civil guard you hardly need an education and that is very palpable when engaging with this police force. I have come to the conclusion that their main task and focus is giving out speeding fines. At least though we had filed the report which will now be included in FT's criminal record in Spain. No doubt he will leave the country before the court case but he will find it hard to return here.
I felt rather depressed for the rest of the day. We virtually spent the weekend alone with no company, not even Oli and the kids. The only thing that took my mind off our nightmare situation was watching a new series from the maker of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, called The English Game. Loving it although I am not too keen on football. It is set in the third half of the 19th century a period of British history I am fascinated with. I suppose that is because it was the era when my grandparents were born.
Today is Sunday and who knows what Felipe, previously referred to here as "he who shall not be named" will get up to. No doubt he will go out for coffee and lunch, luxuries we know now he can pay for.
I have come to the end of this week's tales. Sadly my whole life is now on hold while Felipe Turover continues to sleep in the room next door. I can't wait for the time to come when I can report that he has either gone or been evicted but that won't be any time soon. Meanwhile, we shall battle on.
Thank you for your support,
Cheers Masha
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