You Don't Know Me

‘You ain’t thinking this,’ she says her head still facing the fridge.

‘Thinking what?’ I go, trying to keep the volume out of my voice.

‘I can’t tell you. But you have to trust me,’ she says turning to me at last. Her face is calm. Not like I expect it to be at all. There’s no nervousness. She ain’t acting caught out. She seems, I don’t know, kind of relieved.

‘How?’ I shouted. ‘How the fuck am I supposed to trust you after this Kira? Especially when you won’t tell me what’s going on?’

‘Just – I promise. I will tell you everything. After. Tomorrow.’

And at the end of the day what choice did I have? She was going to tell me and right then that had to be good enough. But I was an idiot. I should have made her say. I should have maybe worked it out. It was all there. All the pieces were there, I just didn’t know how to make them fit inside each other.

So, now I can tell from the Judge’s face it is time to get to the main point. And what you need to know about that most of all is the plan, innit. So Friday night came, the night that Face was going to be in the club, and Curt swung by early so we could go over the details of the plan again. We were all a little bit wired and the conversation was quite minimalist. He had managed to get his hands on a nine mil that wasn’t too dirty. It had been used in some robberies here and there but as far as he knew there weren’t any murders on it. He had brought it over in a McDonald’s bag and set it down on our round kitchen table.

I opened the bag to take a look when Curt’s giant hand came out of nowhere and swatted me away.

‘Use the gloves man,’ he says and fishes out a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket.

I put them on and open the bag. The gun is in there, lying fat in the bottom like a big black lump. I pick it up and feel its weight in my gloved hand.

‘Loaded?’

‘Five rounds. It’s all I could get.’

‘Guys, you ready? If anything’s not clear, now’s the time,’ says Ki stepping into the room from the bedroom. She is in sky-high heels and a black-and-white dress. Her hair is up and the make-up is only just there. She is beautiful.

‘Yeah man,’ says Curt who hardly notices her, ‘let’s jet.’

‘You got your two-ways?’

We nod.

‘Remember, keep it on that channel. There’s no phone reception in the club,’ says Ki and holds out a sports bag.

‘Doesn’t really go with the dress,’ I say but she isn’t in the mood.

I take the sports bag from her and slip the gun inside. I peel my latex gloves off and shove them in my jeans. Then we leave.

As we walk down the steps I hang back and let Curt head out in front. I pull Ki back a little by holding her wrist. She turns and looks at me. I want to say something, anything, just to connect with her, but I can’t think of any right words to say. In the end I say nothing. She holds my eyes for a few seconds.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says and then stops and kisses me on the cheek.

Once we are on the street we stream off in two different directions. Ki goes one way to look for a black cab. Curt and I head for the bus stop and wait for the bus. We both have on almost identical white hoodies and white trainers. We know about the cameras on the bus. We want them to get us. It’s all part of the plan that Ki has gone over and over. After a few minutes, the right bus comes and we jump on and head to the top deck and sit at the back so no one can hear us. In the end it doesn’t matter that much because for the whole journey neither Curt nor me can think of anything to say.

The next fifteen minutes are slower than they should be. They stretch out until some part of me feels like we have been on this bus for an hour. Every now and then I catch myself panicking and then have to slow breathe until I am okay again. My brain is on a loop I can’t get it out of. This idea of doing a murder. Not someone else pulling the trigger and taking a life. And not like in a film or on Call of Duty but in real life. With blood. With a person’s face in front of mine and his smell in my nose. That kind of murder. I am going to do this thing that once it is done will stick to me for ever and be a part of me. When I get up in the morning there will be half a second where I know I will forget it ever happened. A half a second where I might think it was a dream or just even something we talked about but never did. And then that half-second will pass. And I will drag myself through the day until it ends. And then, the next day, it will happen all over again. Like a prison sentence but worse because there’s no end time. All there is is a hope. A hope that one day it will stop feeling real and become a dream. I don’t know for sure. All I got to go on is the feeling I had when Ki had been taken. That’s what it felt like to me. And that is what brings me round again. Kira. I can’t lose her. I can do this for her. I can do this for her even though it will mean that I am doing it every day for the rest of my life. Because without her, there isn’t anything.