You Don't Know Me

I didn’t really like the idea of Curt going back to Glockz. As far as we knew they might have just been waiting for him to come home before icing him. But at the end of it all, we knew he was right. He had to go back and show his face. At least that way he had a chance. If he kept avoiding them they might start to get sus and that was the last thing we needed.

The night of the call from his General, Curt stayed with us. He was feeling a bit wired and wasn’t in the mood to go and find some place to sleep. And anyway he still had his luggage at my flat so it was just as easy for him to crash here.

The next morning as he left Ki hugged him hard and told him to be safe. I looked him in the eye and asked him if he was sure he wanted to go.

‘Ain’t got no choice. If I don’t go back now, they going to merk me for sure. Anyway I got some friends there, proper safe mans, and if there was a real danger I think they’d have told me.’

‘Okay, bruv, if you’re sure.’

‘I’ll be in touch if and when I get some more vine innit,’ he says and then swings his travel bag over his shoulder and walks out.

In a way I wished I didn’t have to send him back there. But it was the only thing that made sense. He had to go back there or they’d start to get suspicious that maybe he was in hiding because he had done the shooting. Then there was the inside line.

We needed Curt to be tight with Glockz so he could give us the heads-up if things started to heat up for us. Well for Ki especially. If they were planning to come looking for us, we needed Curt to tip us off and also maybe to send them off down blind alleys, you get me. But that’s not to say we weren’t worried for his life. We were.

The next twenty-four hours or so, Ki and me waited for news from him like we was waiting for results from the clinic. Curt had ditched his sim which meant that there was no way we could get hold of him. We just had to wait for him to find us. At the end of that day having heard nothing from him I was sure he was dead. The next morning though, he called.

‘Yo bruv,’ he says, ‘got to make this quick.’

‘Shoot,’ I say, ‘well, you know, not shoot. But. Sorry man. Go.’

‘Well, good news, bad news.’

‘What’s the bad?’ I say with my heart so deep in my mouth I can hardly get the words out.

‘Jamil’s got me lined up for the shooting. He ain’t remembering much but he does remember me.’

‘Shit. What’s the good?’

‘Well two goods actually. First thing is that Guilty ain’t buying it. Second is that nobody has mentioned any girls being involved.’

‘That is good,’ I say proper relieved, ‘so why isn’t Guilty going for it? Why he don’t got you lined up for it?’

‘Dunno. He thinks JC trying to play him against his own crew. Listen, I will swing by laters and catch you up. Right now though I got to bounce,’ he says and I am left looking at the dead phone in my hand, my mind all buzzing.

I called out to Ki to tell her the news but saw that she was on her phone. Finally she hung up.

‘Your mum,’ she says, ‘she is insisting on dinner.’

‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.’

I don’t want to be leaving this place if I can help it and I certainly don’t want to be painting signs for the people who might be looking for us where Mum and Bless are living.

‘You won’t have to because I told her we’ll be there. Tomorrow,’ she says with a half-smile. ‘Bring the hoss,’ she adds in a Nigerian accent.

That’s all we needed.

Actually maybe it was what I needed, some normal back in my life. I couldn’t do this much longer. These walls were suffocating me.

Luncheon adjournment: 13:00

25

14:00

Anyway this is how eight days after the shooting, me, Kira, Curt and Bless end up sitting around my mum’s table eating dinner like we are just any family.

Except we ain’t like just any family and this ain’t just any dinner. I was paranoid about going out of the flat. We could be seen at any minute once we were out and about, and if we were then we were toast. So far nobody had come knocking but believe, as soon as they had even a slight thing about where I was, they would. Then there was Mum and Bless. I didn’t know whether anyone knew where my mum lived but so far they hadn’t been tapped so I could only hope that they didn’t. So that being the case, the very last thing I wanted was to be seen, let alone at my mum’s door.

I wanted no part of it. Mum was cool with it. I told her we couldn’t do dinner. I told her it was dangerous for Ki but that was all I said. She didn’t ask too many questions. She knew Ki had been missing that time and deep down she would have known that whatever I was doing, I was doing to keep her safe. Mum, as I said to you, loved Ki and the last thing she would have done was put any risk on her. But it was Ki herself. She wanted it.