I’m suddenly aware that my own gun is heavy in my waistband. As soon as I get it out, everything happens at once. The Glockz boy’s eyes go big and he takes a step back. Kira struggles free from the guy’s grip and freezes. Then a second later she starts to shout ‘Oh my days oh my days oh my days’ over and over. I point the gun at the Glockz and tell him to fuck off. But there is something in my voice that cracks just as I’m saying it that makes me sound like a kid. His face changes. He smiles like an evil smile and takes a step towards me, gun leading the way. ‘I’m going to shove this up your hole innit,’ he says and takes another step towards me. My mind is all syrupy as he comes closer. I want it to start working again. It feels like there’s a dead battery in there and I just need something, some spark to get it going. Then out of nowhere Kira screams and my head comes alive. The motor starts working again. Smooth like a straight-six engine.
I shoot. It hits him somewhere in the shoulder and he spins round and hits the deck screaming out. There’s splatters of blood in my eyes. I can barely see what’s going on till I wipe them clean with my sleeve. I look down to where he was but he has gone. Just disappeared. There is like a small puddle of blood on the ground but no person there. I look around wildly but can’t see him. I panic, expecting any moment that he’s going to jump me from behind. Round and round I go searching. Then finally I catch sight of him and see him staggering off to where he came from behind the bridge.
I take Kira’s arm and push her into my car. I start it up. My hands are shaking. My heart is slamming so hard against my ribs I believe that it’s going to burst into pieces. It is so loud now it is frightening me. Somehow though I manage to get past it, put the car into gear and drive off.
I’m all over the road. The blood is pumping through me. Banging in my ears. I look over at Ki and see that her mouth is opening and shutting but I can’t hear a thing with all this noise in my head. It must be the gunshot. I’m still deaf from it. But I keep driving. Revving hard from what I can see of the rev counter, but still hearing nothing.
I keep going, swerving at first, but after a minute or two the driving gets more level. I turn the corner but I’m in a dead end. I spin the car around one eighty and drive back past the puddle of blood. Where the hell did I come from? I drive a bit further but I can’t seem to find a way out of this maze. Suddenly every turn leads me to a road that has been blocked off with iron bollards or has been pedestrianized. Fuck. Eventually I make a turn and find the road that brought me here and before I know it I am heading home, with my girl in the car.
Just saying it now brings it back. My heart is going right now here in this court. Fuck! I know, language, but serious, that was some scary shit. You don’t know until you in one of them situations how you going to react. You might be okay but you might choke you get me? That could have been me on that day. I could have choked and if I had maybe that would have been the end of days. But life hadn’t finished with me. There was still chapters to go. More story to tell. That’s how I look at it anyway.
I’ll let you guys into a little something. My QC, before I sacked him, told me under no circumstances to tell that story. ‘Why?’ I goes. ‘Why not?’ He says it’s just going to prove you are guilty. It proves, one, you have a gun. It proves two, you are willing to carry it. It proves three, that you are willing to shoot someone with it. It proves four, that you are clever enough to get away with it.
I take his point and that but bottom line is I think that’s rubbish. It don’t prove nothing. You lot already know I had a gun in my flat. And everyone knows that people don’t have guns unless there are circumstances under which they will use it, otherwise no point in having one in the first place. But this was self-defence. That boy was going to kill me for sure. I saw it in his eyes. I was there, you weren’t. He had a gun in my face. I can still see it. This was a real thing. He would have killed me and there would have been no one to tell you about it. Do or die. I did what I had to do. But I didn’t kill him though. At least no one has come forward and said I killed him. If I killed him, charge me with that. I will fight that one too. And I tell you now, I can bust that case. Self-defence all day long. But don’t be charging me with no bullshit next shooting of some kid I didn’t shoot. Fuck that shit.
Anyway you got it all now. Sorry my QC wherever you are. I had to tell it though. That was the only way to explain how the police found that firearm discharge residue in my car. It was from that shooting, members of the jury. It was from shooting that Glockz prick not from shooting Jamil. That explains most of evidence number five.
