I turned my back on her trying to just settle myself down, I was so angry I didn’t know what I might say or do. Eventually when my blood stopped making my face red, I turned back to her.
‘What if you were seen?’
‘I wasn’t,’ she says as she moves past me into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
‘So was he? Okay?’ I say at last, still simmering about how risky she has been but wanting to try calming myself.
‘Yes. He’s fine. They’re moving him next week. Protected wing.’
I look at her then but her face is giving nothing away.
‘Okay, you’ve seen him now. No more of this bullshit please, Ki.’
‘Plus I had to get some more books,’ she says, holding out an Oxfam bag with a dozen paperbacks in it.
Man, sometimes for a clever girl Ki did some stupid things. Actually going into a prison to see Spooks, in a prison full of gangsters, some of who are probably on the lookout for this very girl? Shit. It wasn’t like you would have missed her. She walks into a supermarket and everyone looks at her. Imagine what effect she would have had on a room full of men in a prison. It was like – I can’t even say what it was like. It was like a beautiful girl walking into a male prison.
Then I remember seeing her from the window. How she came round the back. From that place she shouldn’t have been in. I was about to confront her but Ki wasn’t really a girl you’d want to just accuse straight out. I had to play it gentle like.
‘Just tell me one thing though. Which way did you come back?’ I say eventually, not sure if I want to hear her answer.
For a second she has this look like I have caught her out doing some shit she shouldn’t have been doing. Then the composure comes back so I ended up feeling like I had misread it.
‘I got a lift from one of the visitors.’
‘What visitor?’ I say, thrown back by what she just said.
‘Someone at the prison. It’s okay. I know him. He’s a friend of Spooks.’
‘Spooks? You got a lift from a friend of Spooks? Ki, you must be off your meds or something man.’
‘I said I know him. He’s safe. He’s been more of a brother to me than Spooks.’
I don’t know what to say any more. She’s never mentioned no second brother friend of Spooks in all our years together, but I can’t control Kira. But I need her controlled if she is going to be safe. Then I remember the route she took. It didn’t explain that.
‘What way you come back?’ I ask again.
‘What way?’ she says back to me.
‘Yeah. What way?’
‘Oh’ she says and then quickly her face lightens up. ‘Don’t worry. I got them to drop me to the other estate. No one saw me coming here. I cut through the back.’
‘Ah,’ I goes and at that time, that was good enough for me. It’s only later when I am turning it over in my mind that I wonder about the books. If a visitor gave her a lift back, how did she get the books? Did he take her to Oxfam? I suppose he could have. But then did he wait for her and then drive her back? It didn’t make no sense I could follow.
I get the feeling you lot are waiting for the ending. And one of the last things my brief said to me was ‘Don’t let them lose interest’ and I don’t know if you lot are maybe losing interest. But I am getting there, really and truly. Just give me a little more time yeah? So where was I?
That’s right. The Spooks thing. Anyway it was the day after that whole thing that Curt comes knocking on my door.
‘So it looks like the shit is heating up,’ he says. ‘Face’s lot is combing the ends looking for Guilty. This thing’s about to happen.’
‘Good,’ I say, ‘about time.’
The way we figured it, the sooner those two mans knocked each other out, the better. It had been nearly ten days now of being locked up in my flat. The walls felt like they were closing in and all the space in between them felt poisoned. We hadn’t had a clean breath since this whole thing began except for that day at Mum’s. We needed it to be over. All it needed to end was for it to start. The two gangs take each other out and we are home free. We just had to hope that with that kind of war going on Face would be too busy to be wondering about the girl with the light eyes. With luck one of the Glockz might even finish him off you get me?
Things even have begun to feel more positive in my mind. I look over to where Ki is sitting on the sofa and it’s obvious she is much calmer now that she’s seen Spooks. She seems even like nearly her old self. I feel like she is more in focus, less faded. The edges of her are becoming sharper.
I look across at her and say, ‘A few more days, a couple of weeks maybe and this shit’ll be over babe.’
She looks up from her book and hooks into the conversation like she’s been listening all the while.
‘Face and the Olders are way too bad for Glockz from what you say,’ she says calmly.
‘Bad? Face by himself would be bad enough. But with a crew behind him? This shit is going to be dirty. Those boys are medieval,’ I say.
‘Well isn’t that a problem for us?’ she says, putting the book down next to her on the sofa and blinking slowly at me.
