You Don't Know Me

39

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.

But like you probably are, I did wonder if Ki was maybe playing me. If there was something to call her out on, trust me I would have. But I know that girl. I mean I know her know her. Not just the grey eyes and the smiling Kira or the books and the plans Kira. I know this Kira. The dark hidden places Kira. And whether I wanted to believe it or not I knew it was true.

So for the next twenty minutes she broke it down for me. It started with the time she had been to the prison to see Spooks. That was when they got hold of her for the first time. Spooks had been getting more and more heat from inside and was now proper panicking about what might happen to him. Lately a few close shave things had happened to him and the boy was sweating. He tried to get some people to cool out the Glockz boys but they weren’t listening no more. If anything they just turned up the heat.

Eventually, when he ran out of choices, he went to the Feds to try his luck with them. He said he’d do anything if they could get him out of his mess. Anything at all, he said, just move me somewhere safe. The police weren’t that interested but when he started mentioning the names he knew, suddenly they got interested. When anyone said ‘Face’, someone somewhere was interested.

Feds had their eyes and ears on Face for some time and they wanted his crew for all kinds of shit from murders and guns to armed robberies and drugs.

They weren’t the only ones though who had their eyes on Face. Some of the high-up people had been watching too, so Ki says to me. Once they heard that Spooks knew about Glockz’ beef with Face, the MI5 boys got wide-open eyes. They had picked up some shit on their vine that tied Face in to some big drugs shipment. Ki didn’t really say what, but from what she did tell me, it was something to do with maybe ten tons of class A being smuggled into the UK in ships. That’s what they told her anyway but it sounded like bullshit to me.

They had been planning some kind of operation for long apparently, but they just couldn’t get close enough to Face. The man was like a ghost. As soon as they thought they had him, he made a move. Made it so quick they could never catch him actually at it. That weren’t surprising really because Face was the kind of guy who was always one step ahead. And you got to remember that they were using shit like phone taps to pick up his chatter or intercepting emails and stuff like that. But Face ditched his sim every other day and he didn’t have no email. He would blip up on their radar like one time if they were lucky and then he would go dark for weeks until they were lucky enough to link him to another number. That is why he was a ghost. And also why they needed a ghost of their own. Someone who could drift in without attracting notice.

Then one day they got lucky. Somehow they got a hard-line into his crew. An informer. This grass they had told them about the shit that was going down with Guilty. Then from there they made the short walk to Spooks.

What they needed though was someone to give them vine and someone to make the hit. They didn’t have time to do what Ki tells me they call ‘planting a seed’ and waiting for it to grow into a tree or some shit probably. They needed someone ready-made. They didn’t have time to embed someone because they were sure it was only a matter of time before their contact was dried out.

So in no time, Spooks had his own Secret Service handler. This weren’t like no police handler where you tell them some shit and the police writes some of the shit down and maybe looks at some of it later. Nah these MI boys did their work and did it quick.

Once Ki had got her visiting order from Spooks, he went straight to his new handler and told him. ‘My sister – she knows Glockz. Can you use her?’ he had said. ‘She’s clever, man. You can use her. Trust me.’ Fucker hadn’t even told her about it. Just sold her out like he sold her out before. These guys just nodded and in a day they knew shit about her that she probably didn’t even know herself.

Once the MI boys met her, they knew she was perfect. She was smart. She knew who the players were. And she could follow a plan. It made sense to them and best of all she could move quickly.

I know from your faces that you be thinking I’ve gone. Ping, like that, my mind’s gone. Or you probably think that I’m making this shit up. But I swear down this is the truth. This was the thing that I couldn’t say and my QC didn’t want me saying. Coz how can I blame MI5? That’s just proper mad, crazy. And no one can believe crazy. But just stop for a minute. Think about it.

It explains some shit.

All this vine she was getting on Face. The whole mosque thing always seemed pretty fucking sketchy to me. Anyway that day they dropped her off round the back of the estate was the day they broke it down for her. ‘You help us and we’ll get your brother out. Witness protection protocol.’

‘If I don’t?’ she had said.

‘Then we can’t guarantee what’s going to happen to him.’

They weren’t really expecting her to do it herself. In fact they couldn’t allow her to do it herself. That wasn’t in like their pay grade. It was me that was supposed to pull the trigger, which hurts like a bitch. That she was setting me up to save her waste man brother, Spooks. She just had to get me there. They supplied the plan. They took care of the door staff. They got the two-way radios. All she had to do was make sure I pulled the trigger. Or Curt. Didn’t even fucking matter to them who it was. When it was all done they were going to take care of her. And Spooks. Both of them together. Gone.

And JC? That idiot wasn’t even supposed to be there. I still don’t really know why she shot him. He saw us I guess and that kind of fucked everything up for Ki. She couldn’t have no loose end going to the Feds and lining us up for the murders in the club. Putting us at the scene. Maybe she thought it was karma. Maybe she panicked. Maybe she didn’t panic but saw it all laid out. Saw how it had to play out. Truth be told, if JC had been some other place, I wouldn’t even be here. The club murders would disappear. Spooks would be hidden and me and Ki? Well we would have the chance just to be us again.

I don’t know why she’s come to see me now, after all this time. Probably got a guilty conscience.

Shit. I get it now, standing here talking to you, telling you everything. She came because I’d done my evidence bit. You see what I’m saying? She came only after I got in that witness box and said my piece. Can’t stop the trial now, is it? It’s too late. She knew that. It’s too late to touch her. Thing I don’t get though is why she came at all then. Clean her conscience or something? Maybe that’s it. Maybe she felt guilty. She should. She is.

I been here in front of you all these days taking her murder on my own head for what? For what? For love? You think so? I thought so. But I also know that if I knew then what I know now that she could sell me out for her brother, for herself, I ain’t sure I would have kept her name out of it. I would have told you straight. She lined me up for it to get herself out of it. Simple as.

But – she did come at least. And it weren’t no easy thing either. She was in protection apparently. She weren’t even supposed to exist any more. It was only because she threatened to fuck the whole thing up in the open that they allowed her to see me at all. She wasn’t even Kira any more. She was some other person altogether.

But still. She came. You get me. And here we are now.

‘So you can make this thing disappear? Get them to say “Not Guilty” and tell the truth?’ I’d said to her when it was nearly twenty minutes up and the guard was knocking on the door.

‘I can’t,’ she said.

‘So what now?’ I said looking at those eyes again. They were brimming wet but still crazy beautiful.

She stopped and looked at me for a moment and then said softly, ‘Why didn’t you go away? I thought you would have gone.’

‘Gone? I was waiting for you. Not even a telephone call Ki.’

‘I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me.’

‘Oh.’

She paused and now I see the eyes are spilling out water for real. ‘Why didn’t you go? You could have gone.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘I left you the money. And the Baikal. I thought –’

‘That I’d leave you?’ I go.

‘No. That you’d save yourself.’

‘It’s not that black and white though is it? Someone has to stay behind and pay the bill,’ I say.

And then she was gone.