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

by Imran Mahmood

  I just need to look at my notes for a second.

  Back to that day.

  Nobody was in the mood to do that long drive to the airport so we decide just to get the tube. We leave the flat and next thing I know we were sitting on the tube looking at each other’s faces, waiting for it to leave Elephant and Castle station. Then we were off. The train was racing down the tracks and hitting all the stops quickly because hardly no one was getting on at that time in the morning. Ki and Curt had their bags on their laps and were quiet, just staring ahead, their eyes doing that flicking thing as the stops rushed by. Every now and then a couple of people got on. They were either workmen on their way to a building site mainly, or every now and then a late night raver just getting home, eyes still like glass from the E’s.

  We get to Piccadilly Circus then we change lines to the dark blue line to take us to Heathrow. The platforms are filling up a bit as we get off so we have to bundle our ways past the crowds which are like the London crowds everyone knows. Some drunk people. Some homeless people. Some students. Some working people. Small pieces of the whole world right there underground. We cross to the right platform then wait a minute before the tube comes into view and finally screeches to a stop. We still ain’t said a word and as we get on and find seats next to each other we still don’t do more than just look at each other until the train pulls away again.

  We watch the stations flit by one by one. Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, Knightsbridge, South Kensington. All these names which don’t mean nothing to people like us except richness. A kind of richness that even money won’t ever get us closer to. We know the names and we know the places, but we ain’t invited.

  Then as we pull up to Earl’s Court in the corner of my eye I see a boy waiting to get on with a girl. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Just another couple. Then as the doors were waiting to open, I notice Curt start to stiffen. ‘Fuck,’ he goes, ‘I know that boy.’

  The doors open and the boy gets on with his girl behind him. Curt buries his head in his giant paws but anyone who met Curt even once knows that he is impossible to miss. It was like an elephant trying to hide himself with his trunk. The boy saunters in and then sits opposite us with his legs wide open. He has on an Avirex flying jacket which makes him look bulked up on top, but you could tell by his stick legs that there weren’t nothing underneath that leather. The girl he’s with is all heels and short dress. It’s obvious that they’ve just been out clubbing somewhere. They have that dazed half-drunk, half-whacked-out-on-E’s look about them. Suddenly the boy notices Curt.

  ‘Yo,’ he says and leans over with his arm out and touches Curt on the knee.

  Curt pretends like he’s noticed him for the first time and says ‘hi’ by nodding at him. The boy takes this as a sign and gets up and sits next to him.

  ‘Dread you know mans scoping you on the street. Bare people looking for you.’

  Curt shrugs as if to signal he ain’t interested but the boy can’t be stopped. ‘Even your General’s putting words out. Where you been at?’

  Curt folds his arms and gives out this look that could knock a person down.

  ‘Hey that ain’t even my crew no more man. I ain’t no one’s soldier you get me?’

  The boy physically backs down and puts his hands up. ‘It’s cool man. So you want me to keep it on the low bruv?’

  Curt nods and then says, ‘What’s even the beef though? You know anything about it?’

  ‘Yeah some Pagans giving Glockz a bit of heat innit,’ the boy says smiling again.

  ‘Yeah? What about?’

  ‘Some Somali boy got shot up and these big mans – Olders – on the war path you get me. They reckon it’s Glockz who shot their boy up and Glockz reckon you might know something. Boy says he was in some yard doing a deal and got shot when it went mash up.’

  Curt nods, trying to look all ‘whatever man’ when he suddenly twigs.

  ‘Boy said? What boy said?’ he says.

  ‘The Somali boy. The one who was shot up. JC, I think he’s called.’

  ‘No man. Back up. The shot boy said it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Curt looks at me baffled. Then he turns back to Avirex. ‘The way I heard it is that the boy was merked.’

  ‘Nah, man. He was shot up but the bullet went straight through. Survived. Shit this is my girl’s stop bruv, I’ll see you about. Don’t worry though I’ll keep it low,’ he adds, winking, and then pulls his girl off the tube waving us goodbye as he does it.

  Ki and me look at Curt. No wonder we couldn’t find nothing about the murder in the news. Fucker was still alive. Curt thinks for a moment then stands up and swings his bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Let me look at them tickets,’ he says to Ki who fishes the printouts out of her purse and gives them to him. Curt gives them a once over and then rips them up.

  ‘What you doing bro?’ I say raising an eyebrow at him.

  ‘We don’t need these no more. Five-O ain’t going to be on us now is it? Come on. Back to your yard. Some shit’s going to kick off soon though.’

  ‘What? We aren’t going to Spain now at all?’ says Kira following us off the tube, confused.

  ‘If this shit is true, we don’t need to run from no police if no police are looking for us,’ says Curt as he walks across the platform to catch the train going back where we came from.

  ‘How do you know the Feds ain’t looking for us?’ I say following him.

  ‘Because no way would he have said anything to police about a drug deal gone wrong. And anyways, he’s scum but he ain’t a grass innit,’ he says and gives Ki a look which tells us that he is talking about Spooks.

  ‘And what about the gangs? What about Glockz? What about the Olders?’ she says still worried.

  ‘Olders ain’t after us though are they? They after Glockz. JC would have told Olders it’s them. Glockz might come looking for us but I reckon they got more bigger problems than us,’ he says and just then the tube falls into view and we all get on. It is still early in the morning but by now commuters are just starting their days and the train is fuller than before.

  ‘Anyway,’ Curt says in a low voice just as the train doors shut, ‘if there’s no Feds on this then Bless and your mum and my mum and your brother are all in shit.’

  Ki and I look at each other. We know he’s right.

  Break: 10:45

  24

  11:00

  We basically couldn’t believe it but we got confirmation of it the next day through some vine. Jamil was alive. Well I say through some vine but in this case the vine was Blessing.

  Bless knew we were all planning to jet. Ki and Curt to go first as I said and then me following in a few days. We decided that linking up with Bless though was just too dangerous. At the moment we had deniability for her. Nobody really saw her. She didn’t shoot no one, she had her mask on throughout and was out of the flat double quick. And on top of all that she weren’t really a candidate for trouble. She was just a girl who lived with her mum. She didn’t even go out really. I’m not sure anybody even knew her to be able to line her up. So the last thing we wanted to do was to uproot her from Mum and go on the run with her. There was just no need, you get me.

  But once we realized that there was no police on this thing, it was a different thing completely. With no police sniffing around to frighten them off, the gangs would start doing what gangs like to do. Glockz would come looking for Curt. Olders would come looking for all of us. Jamil would have lined us up for that. The added problem for me though was Bless and Mum. If we were in Spain when Olders came looking for me, when they didn’t find me, the next place they would knock on is Mum’s house. Just for the shit of it.

  So there it was, catch-22 again.

  If there was police on our backs, no need for gangs to start chasing down our families. When Trident or whatever police unit they are gets involved then the gangs back away. They don’t want no Five-O looking into their business you know what I mean? But if t
here’s no police and no life sentence, the downside is that there is a good chance that gangs would want to kill us. And our families. This is why we had to come back. I wasn’t sure which was worse. It was one of them things. Might have almost been better to call the police and be done with it. Then again I ain’t a person who can do a life sentence you get me. Or Ki of course. She ain’t one of them people at all. Trust me.

  Anyway once we got back from that tube journey I got on the phone to Bless to tell her that we weren’t going away after all.

  ‘Good’ she had said, ‘I’m g-glad.’ Then she hung up as if there was nothing more to be said about it.

  We arrived at the flat and Curt and Ki dumped their bags. There was nothing to do now but wait. You see the thing of it was that we didn’t know what the next move was till we got a bit more vine. Were Glockz actually looking for Curt? Had Jamil told the Olders about me and Ki yet? Was he even alive? Was that shit the boy told us on the tube even for real? If he was alive, exactly how alive was he? Could he even talk?

  The three of us spend the rest of the day trying to work out a plan B or even a plan E or F you get me? The first thing we needed to know was if Jamil was definitely alive and if he was, what had he told the Olders?

  ‘Maybe even he didn’t tell them anything,’ I say to the others while we are eating our pizza-from-the-freezer dinner.

  ‘How you figure that out?’ says Curt who trails long ribbons of cheese from pizza to mouth like it’s elastic.

  ‘Well he’s just been taxed and his mandems been shot up. He’s lost money and more importantly rep. Maybe he wants to keep that shit on the low.’

  Curt decides that eating pizza the normal human way is too difficult and puts two slices of pizza together to make a sandwich and puts the whole thing in his mouth.

  ‘Mm maybe,’ he says, ‘maybe.’

  ‘Or maybe not,’ says Ki who gets up from the table and slides her dinner into the bin.

  We end the night with nothing really decided except that we need more info. And just this other thing. That if he has told the Olders about us already, we need to find a place to be. Quickly.

  By the time Curt starts to snore on the sofa, we know it’s time to turn in. I nod my head at Ki and we quietly go to the bedroom. That night while I am trying to think of a place maybe we could stay, Ki turns in the bed so that she is resting on one elbow and faces her head towards mine.

  ‘Can’t we just go to Spain?’ she says softly.

  ‘No man. We can’t. Or I can’t. Mum and Bless. They’re in a risk situation,’ then it occurs to me for real. ‘But you can. You can go. Why don’t you go? You settle yourself wherever and we link you up laters,’ I say sitting up suddenly.

  ‘Shut up,’ she says with a sigh, ‘you know I’m not going without you.’

  I lie back down and stare at the ceiling for a while. It’s not long before I hear Ki’s breathing telling me she is asleep. It ain’t long after that that I fall asleep, Ki’s head on my chest.

  My dreams are all messed up that night. Ki was some kind of bird with all these colourful feathers and she was trying to fly away. But she couldn’t because I had a string around her neck and every time she pulled away the string got tighter. It was like she was choking herself or maybe I was. I woke up before I killed her though. That was something at least.

  The next morning there is a knock on the door so gentle that I almost don’t hear it. I had woken up to find a space where Ki should have been and for a second I remembered her as that bird. I shake that vision from my head like it’s old cobwebs and I go into the kitchen to find Ki making breakfast. Then there was that quiet knocking. Nearly like a tapping. In fact it’s only because Ki looks up from buttering the toast to say, ‘Is that pipes? Or is it someone at the door?’ that I hear it at all.

  I look over at Curt for confirmation but nothing about his face tells me he is even awake. He’s chewing handfuls of toast by the table but his eyes aren’t really alive yet.

  Tap tap again. Why didn’t I get one of those peep-hole things on the door? I remember thinking I have to get that sorted out even though I was in a panic. I wave at the other two to hide somewhere and I creep to the door in my socks, trying not to make any sound. Then there it is again. Tap tap tap. My heart though, is going boom boom boom. I wait. I put my ear to the door. Just then a voice comes whispering through.

  ‘It’s me. Bless.’

  I open the door and there she is, tiny, but wrapped in a cloud of puffa jacket.

  ‘Quick come in,’ I say and pull her by her wrists which are poking out through the sleeves like smooth twigs.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I say.

  ‘It’s about that b-boy Jamil,’ she says, eyes wide.

  Just then Curt comes wading out of the bathroom where he has been hiding. Ki follows. Both have the same expression on their faces. Puzzled. That’s what you could call it.

  ‘Hi guys,’ she says at them and receives a hug from Ki who in turn strokes her face as if she is a child.

  ‘Bless. It’s not safe, why you here babe?’ says Ki who then looks at me for answers. I don’t have any to give.

  ‘Don’t I get a hug?’ says Curt suddenly and lopes towards her. Bless’s cheeks flush red as he comes close but I don’t know why. Maybe she is nervous. Curt has a habit of making people nervous.

  We look at her and wait until she speaks.

  ‘It’s J-Jamil. I heard a rumour.’

  ‘What rumour?’ I go.

  ‘He’s alive, and c-coming out of hospital tomorrow.’

  ‘Shit. How do you know that?’ I say.

  ‘Just a rumour. Just kids talking. Th-that’s all they’re saying. He’s been seen and he’s c-coming out of hospital tomorrow.’

  ‘That boy on the tube wasn’t chatting shit,’ I say to Curt who nods slowly to himself, still chewing toast.

  ‘Look you have to go now. It’s dangerous,’ I say holding her by the shoulders.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m g-going. I didn’t want to phone,’ she says and turns to go. ‘Oh. Mum said come for dinner. Bring the horse too,’ she says looking at Curt and going red once again.

  I look at Curt who beams this wide smile at the thought of Mum’s food.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, ‘we’ll see.’

  Jamil was alive. Not only that but after Curt made a few calls we found out he was up and about already. Word was, exactly like the boy on the tube had said, the bullet went straight through and out the other end. Apparently he would have bled out if it hadn’t been for all that tape we had wrapped him in. Anyway, turned out that the morning after we left him some bin men found some heavy bin bags in that estate. Just rubbish they thought. Anyway, they were just about to dump them in the crusher when it looks like one of the bags starts moving. Poor fuckers got proper shook and dropped him and the boy nearly died a second time. There was proper commotion all round that estate. Feds everywhere. And then next thing you know he was in ICU. Then a normal ward for a few days. And then, just like that, he was out. The Feds were just sniffing round as they do but they weren’t in on it properly yet because Jamil hadn’t blamed anyone for it as far as anyone could tell. They must have tried getting a statement off him but the man was a drug dealer at the end of the day and he wasn’t going to grass anyone up if he wanted to keep his rep up on the streets. Curt was right about that. The question was what was going to happen next.

  Ki and I kept ourselves holed up in my flat for the next day or two. When we needed to get anything in I got up early and went out. Gang-bangers like a lie-in and on no street in London will you ever find a soldier on the streets before lunch. So as long as I was up early I knew I was pretty safe.

  Curt wanted to keep moving around rather than stay at his own crib because he knew that he could be a target and they might be watching it. But he didn’t have many options so he ended up staying at mine more than he wanted. He still had some allies in Glockz who were able to give him messages and pass on intel, and although a
t the moment Curt wasn’t really being lined up for the shooting, his name was being passed around.

  Then one day about a week after the shooting when we were all at my yard doing the usual, PS3 and pizza ting, trying just to get through the day, Curt gets a call in from Guilty, his General. He freezes when he sees the number. His hand floating over the phone, unsure about pressing answer. But then after about a dozen rings he gulps, answers the call and looks at me eyebrows high. He’s been avoiding this call for days but knows that he has to take it this time.

  Curt puts the phone to his ear and nods. A few seconds go by and he nods again as if the person he’s talking to is right there in the room. Finally he speaks.

  ‘Nah blood, nothing to do with me – mans just lining me up for it innit because I jacked him time ago – I ain’t hiding out bruv. I’m in Wales innit – cousin’s funeral – nah, for real blood – yeah okay. Check you when I’m back innit.’

  He put the phone down and breathed again. He looked like he’d just dodged about a hundred bullets. Once he was the right colour again Ki asked him whether he was in the frame for it as far as Glockz were concerned but Curt didn’t think so.

  ‘Nah, I ain’t hot yet. Guilty’s pissed off for sure but it ain’t coz of this. It’s coz he thinks I’ve come out of the life. He thinks I’ve left Glockz.’

  Me and Ki breathe a joint sigh of relief.

  ‘But I got to come out of the dark soon if I want to stay cold,’ he says. ‘And sooner rather than later.’

  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.