You Don't Know Me: A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice

by Imran Mahmood

  So far he hadn’t been cornered by Glockz because he was working some proper hideaway places. He was going to them out of the way crack dens that other people didn’t go to. Like he did in the South, he went to schools. He went to colleges. And then just when it was starting to get on top, he’d go back to his ends in South and start trading there again until the heat was off. So it shouldn’t really have surprised me that when I saw him that day, he knew about Kira. That fucker had ears everywhere.

  After I saw him I went home and sat on my bed for time and just mulled this shit over. It was quite serious. The way I thought of it was this. If one day Jamil gets trapped by Glockz and they started threatening him, all he had to do was start chatting about Kira. ‘I know where that Kira bitch is who shamed you innit. I’ll give her up. You let me go rah rah rah’. It would be no time then before they sent a fucking army to kick our doors down. They wouldn’t need no definite reasons even. They probably would have done it just on his say-so, just to make things even after Jamil had pissed on their patch. You come to North, we’ll come to South. All it needed was the smallest push.

  Then, after hours of turning it round and round in my head, I found the beginnings of a plan. And no, in case you’re wondering, my plan was not to shoot him in the head.

  Luncheon adjournment: 13:05

  14

  14:15

  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?’

  ‘Missing you I think. Hard to say. She’s a bit better. Worried. I don’t know,’ I say, not sure what I am trying to say.

  ‘Y-you should all come round to Mum’s. Just pop in for a few minutes.’

  ‘Yeah, I can’t really do that right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks when things are a bit more chill,’ I say. Bless says nothing and I feel like I need to fill in the spaces. ‘So what’s going on with you?’

  ‘Nothing. Got f-fired from work,’ she says eventually in a quiet voice.

  ‘Shit Bless. What the fuck happened?’

  ‘Y-you know Malaika, the one with all them little sisters? I saw her p-putting some lipstick in her bag.’

  ‘And?’ I say intrigued.

  ‘And the manager noticed that there were a few missing when she did a stock take.’

  ‘Yeah, and?’

  ‘And I t-told her I had taken it.’

  ‘What do you do that for, Bless?’ I say shocked.

  ‘Didn’t want her to lose her job.’

  ‘Shit Bless,’ I say. But I ain’t surprised. No really. This is the kind of thing that she does. Once when we were kids, I remember my mum was proper having a go at her because she hadn’t tidied her room. Mum had a high anger in them days. Now, if you look at Mum you would not see it, she has proper chilled with age. But back then she was like an old bomb. She’d go off without warning you get me.

  Anyway, so I was playing in my room and all I remember is hearing Mum’s voice shouting in Bless’s room. I sneak out of my room and look in through the crack of the
door. I’m kind of terrified but I’m like ten so I want to know what’s going on. Bless is like eight years old, so this is way before he did what he did to her. Dad was off on one of his disappearing tricks again so it was just the three of us. So there is Mum shouting like mad at Bless who is just standing there, looking down at her feet, these fat tears rolling down her face. Mum is going ‘What is the point of you, stupid child? I am at work all day long. I still have to make dinner for you ungrateful children and you cannot even have the sense to tidy up your mess. Why are you still standing there child? Go do it. Do it now!’

  As Mum leaves the room I dive back into my room so she don’t see me. Then in like two minutes Bless comes straight into my room, these tears tracks all on her face. I’m thinking to myself she better get on with it before Mum comes back, and I start clearing up my own mess. But the weird thing she does next is that she starts to tidy my room with me. Then before I can say anything, Mum is back up the stairs and straight in my room and she is angry! She starts proper letting go at Bless. ‘You stupid girl. What are you doing that boy’s room for when you haven’t even tidied up your own room eh? Are you a slow child eh? Do you not have the brains that God gave you?’ And then she is pulling her out of my room by her little stick arms back into her own room. Later when it has all calmed down a bit I go and find Bless and she is sitting quietly in a corner of the room playing with some fluff on the carpet. I go over to her and nudge her with my foot. ‘I don’t get you sis, why you do my room when you know it’s just going to make her madder?’ And she looks at me with this face I will never forget and says, ‘She was already mad at me. I didn’t want her to get mad at you too,’ she goes and turns back to picking at the fluff on the carpet.

  ‘Bless. You are too good for your own good, sis. You have to stand up for yourself,’ I say into the phone.

  ‘It’s okay. I d-didn’t really like it there anyway. Don’t worry. Love to Kira,’ she says and I end the call.

  In a way, no matter that it was horrible what had happened with Bless, part of me was glad to be thinking of something else. As I got closer to home my mind drifted back to my own life and the visit with Spooks. That day part of me believed, I mean really believed, that my plan might have done the trick. It was perfect in a ways. Here was this little fool from South causing all kind of problems for crews in the North. Stealing customers. Dealing on next man’s patch. It should have been enough to shut this ting down. With Spooks on the inside feeding vine to his crew on the outside about where his own sister was at, it was open and shut really. Really and truly it should have been five minutes before they shut that boy down. Didn’t even matter that he didn’t know where she was. It would have been enough of a thing that he had been roughing up big man’s patch. Reason enough to put the boy out and I wouldn’t have felt bad about that, no way.

  Jamil being dead isn’t a bad thing, not even now with everything that happened do I ever think that. Trust me, he was bad, he was waste, but that doesn’t mean I was the one who iced him. For real though, back then I did wish that Glockz would shoot him. I can’t lie and say I didn’t wish that because I’m only telling you truths here. But that doesn’t mean I was the one who did it.

  Long adjournment: 15:50

  IN THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT  T2017229

  Before: HIS HONOUR JUDGE SALMON QC

  * * *

  Closing Speeches:

  * * *

  Trial: Day 32

  Friday 7th July 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

  15

  10:05

  So I been thinking about my speech overnight, about what I said to you yesterday.

  It’s funny in a ways, when I think about it. Coz if Glockz killed Jamil, then you could say I was like the whisper that started that shout that ended in him dead. My vine that caught him up and strangled him. I put my hands up to that. I spread the word about Jamil being the one who took Kira. But I had to do that, to keep her safe, you feel me?

  So what I should be saying now to you is that because of the words I said to Spooks it must have been them Glockz boys that wasted Jamil as revenge. Case closed innit. Goodbye and good life and hope I never see you again.

  I won’t lie to you, in the night, I thought to myself, you know what, just stick with the plan, make it easy and simple for everyone. Just go over what I said to you, in my statement, in court when I was giving my evidence. That all I’m guilty of is that I loved Kira so much I had to start a rumour. That I didn’t know for sure, but it probably was them boys that wasted JC.

  But then I thought that if I carry on not telling the truth again now, how do I know for sure you will believe me? Maybe by lying I lose my one and only chance of letting you judge what really happened. Because as dark as the shit is, some part of me hopes that even if you knew the proper whole truth you could still do the right thing. And maybe me going down for the right thing is better than me getting off for the wrong. I still have to live with this don’t I?

  At the beginning of my speech I told you about the other thing, the thing that could get me killed the second I leave this courtroom. I think I always knew that I might have to tell you about this thing. And I tell you it scares me just even thinking about telling you it. So what is stopping me? I don’t have no brief telling me what I need to be saying. He ain’t here to cloud your mind and cloud my mind with his words. There’s just you and me, and the truth. And this ghost of a lie hanging over our heads. But I think maybe finally, I don’t believe in ghosts any more.

  This is a hard decision for me, you get me. Because I’m kind of guessing about what you might be thinking and as far as I know you might have been thinking to believe me if I had just kept my mouth shut about the other stuff.

  On the other hand you might have gone away, thought about everything in like proper detail and then said, ‘What about rah rah rah he didn’t answer that?’ And then gone, ‘Guilty.’ Thing is: can I take the risk? I don’t think I can take the risk. To my mind I’ve got this one chance and it’s my life at the end of the day. This is hard man. Shit. Because believe, if I tell you this next thing, that might make me even guiltier, you get me? Shit.

  Okay … Listen yeah?

  A few weeks after I met up with Spooks I was at my yard with Kira. She was kind of beginning to warm up a little by then. She felt better now that she knew I had met her brother up and that he was still alive. Plus I told her that the heat was off of her and that the Glockz boys weren’t really interested in her any more.

  ‘You’re just a random girl to them innit?’ I said. ‘They got dozens of girls here there and everywhere and they got their own trap-house now anyway so they ain’t really looking for that kind of girl no more. They want girls to be making the drugs up and what have you. They producing now. As long as you’re off their radar I honestly don’t think they give a fuck any more.’

  ‘What about Spooks though? How was he when you saw him?’ she says, all quiet. Then out of nowhere, the door goes bang bang bang. Shit. I started flapping like a caught chicken. My first thought is Glockz! They have come for her. That fucker Jamil has opened his mouth already. Shit. Where can I hide her? Shit nowhere. My yard is like the size of a two-man cell.

  Bang bang bang again. I run into the kitchen and look for the gun that I had stashed there. I find it. It’s still loaded but at least I knew it worked from the time I shot that boy in King’s Cross. The door goes again.

  Bang bang bang.

  The Baikal goes down my waistband. Kira has gone into shock and has started rocking on the bed. I take her by the arm and put her into the toilet and shut the door. I tell her to lock it and she must have snapped out of it long enough to do it because I hear the click of the l
atch. Bang bang bang! Louder now. ‘Don’t open your door whatever happens,’ I say through the toilet door. I don’t know if she hears me or not.

  Bang bang bang! Then, someone is shouting something out but I can’t hear what. I go to the door. My heart is proper racing. I ain’t got one of them little peepholes thing so I don’t even know how many there is of them. If I don’t do something though, that door’s going to come down for sure and we’ll be finished. Shit! I decide that I’ll open the door quickly. If there’s more than one of them I’ll shut it again and get my gun out ready. If there’s only one? If there’s only one, maybe – I don’t know. I’ll decide later.

  I pull open the door quickly just long enough to take a look and then shut it again. Huge man. For a second I think it’s Shilo, Jamil’s hench. Then I hear my name being called.

  Break: 11:00

  16

  11:10

  ‘For fuck’s sake, open the door, man. It’s me, Curt.’

  I open the door. I’m still breathing hard but not as hard as before.