You Don't Know Me

I thought back to the conversation I had with Kira after I got back from having followed her there that day, the day before the shooting. Judge this is relevant now. I remember the shock in her eyes when I told her I followed her. Then how her expression changed when I told her I knew she weren’t going to no mosque. And how it changed again when I mentioned the blond man.

That night. After the club. She was going to tell me then but then it all went sideways and now she had bailed. Looking back now, I should have been able to work it out for myself. I had all the clues. But I ain’t got that type of mind you get me? I just couldn’t put them Legos together. I think it was the fact that she was gone that was clouding my thinking. Where the fuck had she gone, man? Why wasn’t she calling? I couldn’t do anything without knowing where she was. It was as if I had to know before the rest of me would allow myself to go on. Till then I was just waiting.

Curt went off to Spain a few days after the whole club thing. He left the money behind and when I called him to ask him what I should do with it, he just said, ‘Keep it, man. It weren’t ever about the money.’

‘But you need it. What about Guilty?’ I say.

‘He let me go. I told him I’d dealt with Face and he let me out. Even gave me a present.’

I leave the words hanging, thinking of something to say. Finally I remember there is something I want to ask him.

‘How you even get tied up in that crew anyway, blood?’ I say.

‘I don’t know, man. It’s long.’

‘It’s okay. I got nothing but time right now,’ I say.

‘Glockz had Mum on the hook for some brown and when she couldn’t pay one day, they told me I had to pay in some other way. So that’s what it was. They made me collect a debt. Then over time, when the shit got heavy, they gave Mum more drugs and then they called me to collect. You know I weren’t ever really a gang type of guy. And I still ain’t. It’s just they always got a way to get you on the hook.’

‘Shit. Sorry bruv. I didn’t know.’

‘Nah. It’s okay. Then last year shit got heavy one day and some dude pulled a knife at me. So I turned it back on him. Then Guilty didn’t need to find ways of getting me on the hook no more. I was fucked. Glockz or Feds. That was my choices.’

I then remembered what he told me at the club about how he’d killed someone. And I wondered then how many people my best friend had ghosted.

‘Maybe I come out there and see you,’ I go.

‘If you do, make sure you bring your sister. I got some explaining to do to her but I ain’t got it in me right now.’

‘Bless?’ I say. ‘Explain what?’

‘Nah, fam. It’s nothing. Just you know, say I said hi. And to your mum.’

Like with you now, I tried to tell him about Ki and what had happened in the toilets, but he didn’t want to know. He was done with it all. He was tired. I think at the end of the day, his patience had just emptied out.

‘You need to leave too bro,’ he said to me finally.

‘I can’t man. Not without Ki.’

‘That girl’s playing you. Just bounce, man. It’s time,’ he says quietly.

I had booked myself a new ticket to Spain that day but even as I did it I knew that I weren’t going to ever use it. Not without Ki.

‘I can’t.’

I waited for Ki. I believed she wouldn’t leave just like that, after everything. So I just laid back and waited. It would maybe be a day or two more and she would come in through that door. The main heat was over now. For some reason the shootings in the club didn’t even make the news. Two men killed and nothing. But the other one did. This one, I mean. JC’s. But even that was over in a couple of days or so. The whole Brexit thing was bigger news now. So I knew she would come back. She had to. She had nowhere else to go. She was lying low. I couldn’t find her but that was just because she was clever. She’s lying so low that a person like me ain’t ever going to find her. She was definitely coming back though, I knew that. That was for sure. I just had to wait. But I tell you, it was like losing her that first time. All over again.

So when the police came a week later and broke down the door, everything was still where it was. The Baikal, the hoodie, the money, my e-ticket to Spain, the passport, the phones. Me. After that, well you know about after that, innit. Curt was right. I should have bailed but I didn’t understand what was up or down at that time.

Break: 15:35

38

15:45

Even after I was arrested for JC’s murder and remanded I kept thinking, she will come back. Even if not in a straight line kind of thing, I thought at least maybe the police might pick her up. I didn’t care at that point. I just needed to see her and even if I couldn’t see her like face to face, if I knew she was alive, that would have been enough for me.

But she didn’t come. It was just me. And that was maybe the hardest thing of the last year. It wasn’t the being in prison. It wasn’t even really facing a murder charge. It was Ki. Just not knowing.