You Don't Know Me

I needed to go and see Kira’s brother Spooks anyway because I had promised Kira I would see if he was okay. I knew I could get to see him quite quickly because he never had any visitors really. Kira loved him but she would never have gone into a prison just to see her brother and know that he was there for years more. Nah, she loved him maybe too much to see him like that. Why she loved him is anyone’s fucking guess.

Spooks though, it turned out, wasn’t really in no mood to give me a V.O., a visiting order from the jail, but he still had the dregs of a conscience and as he was getting cleaner, it was getting stronger. He knew his sister was out there and he knew that someone had taken her right after he had sold her out. This was causing him untold grief inside, but so far he had managed to persuade anyone who asked that he had no idea where she was. Glockz had no interest in her for any like personal reason. They just couldn’t look like they lost her to anyone else and plus there was always the possibility that she might inform on them so they were desperate to find her.

As the time had gone by though, these boys were getting more and more feisty. They were sure that Kira would have contacted him and they were starting to get proper agitated with him. Then when I wrote to him and told him that I had something to tell him about Kira, he agreed to send me the V.O. He couldn’t get it to me fast enough.

So there I was, days later, opposite him in a jail. All these hard boys everywhere. Some of them were famous, kind of. Not in the sense that you would know them but I would and the people I grew up with would. There was one guy who had burned his own mum. There was a whole family of cousins and what have you who were all inside for a murder each. Then there was Spooks and people like him. Just junkies that people knew but didn’t give a fuck about.

He was already sitting at this table by the time I got through all the searching and stuff. He was wearing like an orange vest thing and was all hunched over. I walked over and nodded at him and he nodded back. I tell you one thing though, given that he was a junkie and given that he was six feet tall and lanky and smelled like an old man, he weirdly looked like Kira. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly. Maybe it was in the eyes or something in the face but whatever it was I wasn’t expecting it and it put me off a bit.

‘I’ll come to the point bruv, it’s about Kira,’ I goes, looking straight at him.

‘What you know about her?’ he says, lifting his head at me.

‘What do you know?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know nuffing man.’ He starts shifting in his seat and is all scratching his arms and shit in a way that makes me itch.

‘Well I do know something,’ I says. He looks at me and is suddenly all awake.

‘What do you know? Blood if you know where she is you better tell me.’

‘I know you sold her to a fucking gang. And I know that next man got hold of her. What I want to know is where I can find this boy.’

And he goes rah rah rah, I didn’t sell my sister man, it weren’t even like that blah blah blah. Then something clicks in his drug-wrecked mind and he realizes what I have said.

‘Wait you said you wanna know how to find “this” boy. You mean you know who’s got her?’ he says all wide-eyed.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know where the dumb fuck is.’

‘Who’s got her, blood? This is important,’ he goes leaning in at me so I can smell his breath.

‘What?’ I go leaning away from him. ‘You mean you don’t know who’s even got her? The fuck am I talking to you for then?’

‘Bruv you got to tell me. I mean it bruv,’ he says and now his eyes are shooting all around the room.

‘Why the fuck should I tell you anything?’ I say and then I make as if to leave. He holds my arm and pins it to the table. He’s got some scared eyes in that head and you can see him now thinking. The wheels are going slowly but they are turning.

‘Listen bruv I admit it yeah, I did a wrong thing innit. But I can get her away, you just got to tell me who has her. Who’s got her?’

‘Fuck man,’ I say and pull my arm free. He is beginning to shake from the tension and all I have to do is to let it build up some more. Finally I slap the table with one hand as if I’m fed up with the whole thing.

‘You probably find this out anyway,’ I say. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know already. Some Somali boy,’ I say. ‘This prick called Jamil.’

‘Jamil? I ain’t never heard of no Jamil. Who the fuck is he?’

I look at him for a long time and make out like I am not about to tell him anything. Then I rub my eyes and say, ‘If you can get her back, Spooks, get her.’

‘I will I will,’ he goes, all desperate, ‘but you got to give me details. Who is this fool?’

‘Just some boy innit who is running his own squad. He’s started dealing over North London. They call him JC. You fucking get him Spooks. Or this is on you bruv,’ I goes. And then I actually go.

On my way home I give Bless a quick call.

‘Hi, sis. Just me. How’s mum?’

‘Y-you know, usual. Crazy. How’s Kira?’