You Don't Know Me

‘Sorry,’ she says and sits down opposite me and unfolds her hands. It’s been a year since I saw that face and the reality of it sitting in front of me with them eyes staring at me feels unreal.

‘I hope you got better than sorry. Where the fuck you been Ki?’

‘Away.’

‘Away?’ I go. ‘I know away! But where away? And how the fuck you get in here anyway? What’s going on?’

For a moment I’m not sure whether she is going to get up and leave and it sends a panic to my heart. She picks up her handbag and then puts it back down again. I’m surprised they even let her have it in here.

‘They arranged it,’ she says looking down at her hands.

‘They?’ I go. My heart is beating blood to my temples and I can feel my face throbbing. I don’t know if I can control myself.

‘Well, James,’ she says looking at the ceiling. ‘James organized it.’

‘Who the fuck is James?’ I say.

‘The guy. You know at the place with the black door,’ she says looking down.

‘James? You have to be fucking with me Ki, James?’ I say and laugh but it’s one of them laughs.

‘That’s his name,’ she says and folds her arms tight across her chest.

‘I don’t give a shit about his name. Who the fuck is he?’

‘He’s the one who arranged it,’ she says now looking at me. ‘He watched you when you followed me to the place, in Elephant and Castle.’

‘Watching me? Why?’ I shout out. I am vexed at the thought of this James guy watching me following her. Badly. Like I’m some kind of child.

‘Listen I am so sorry –’

‘Fuck sorry, yeah. We can chat about sorry laters. For now though, what the hell is going on? Was this the shit you was going to tell me after the shooting?’ I say getting up. The table is cemented into the floor and so cannot move when I go to stand and so I sit back down again and stare at her in anger.

She doesn’t say anything. She looks at me and then looks down at her hands again like there’s nowhere else for her eyes to go. It looks like she is wiping away a tear but right then it’s the last thing that I am concerned about.

‘Why did you shoot them Ki?’

‘What?’

‘Why did you shoot Face and that other one in the club?’ I say to her looking around to make sure no one is hearing this.

‘I had to,’ she says. ‘You weren’t going to were you?’

‘What you think I was there for fun? With a gun in my hand?’ I say.

‘You were out of it. Your eyes had glazed over. I thought you were going to pass out,’ she says and then she sighs out the next words in a half-breath. ‘I had to do it.’

‘But I still might have,’ I say but I know by then that it’s a lie. She was right. I had choked. I look down at the table. There are still questions I need to ask. I don’t know how to ask the next one because I don’t know what the answer is going to be. I just know whatever it is it’s going to change everything. But then, everything had already changed hadn’t it?

‘What about Jamil? Why him? You didn’t need to do it. Face was out of the picture. Jamil was just a boy. He weren’t no danger to nobody.’

Ki sweeps her hand across her face as if she can make it new again. Take away the pain in it or maybe the lies in it.

‘James wanted him, too.’

I almost laugh out. ‘What?! What has James got to do with all this shit?’

‘He’s an agent.’

‘An agent? What you chatting about Ki?’

‘MI5.’

‘MI5?’ And I laughed then, so hard water came out of my eyes. I knew that reading all them books was going to fuck with Ki’s head one day. But M, I, fucking 5?

‘You know what you even sound like?’ I say, but even as I am saying the words, it hits me. It comes at me like a fist into my face. It was true.

‘He wanted Face. But he said he’d take as many as we could give him.’

‘Wanted them what, dead?’

‘James uses a different word. Disconnected.’

Long adjournment 16:20

IN THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT  T2017229

Before: HIS HONOUR JUDGE SALMON QC

Closing Speeches:

Trial: Day 38

Monday 17^thJuly 2017

APPEARANCES

For the Prosecution:     Mr C. Salfred QC

For the Defendant:          In person

Transcribed from a digital audio recording by

T. J. Nazarene Limited

Official Court Reporters and Tape Transcribers

39

10:05

So you lot have had a weekend to think about what I said on Friday. And to tell you the truth, I been thinking about it too and I been thinking about you too. Trying to work out what you are thinking.

But I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m making this all up. Or, if you even believe me, maybe you think she was making this all up. Believe. I have been turning this around in my head ever since she came to see me. It’s been distracting me when I should be concentrating on you. But now that you know maybe you can see why some of what I was saying weren’t exactly right. And why I had to do this speech on my own.