Who They Was

by Gabriel Krauze

  WHO THEY WAS

  Gabriel Krauze

  Copyright

  4th Estate

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.4thEstate.co.uk

  This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2020

  Copyright © Gabriel Krauze, 2020

  Cover design by Julian Humphries

  Gabriel Krauze asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This novel is a work of fiction

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

  Source ISBN: 9780008374990

  Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008375010

  Version: 2020-07-28

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Don’t Watch Face

  South Kilburn

  The Mask

  Blake Court

  Ants

  Nina

  At Tameeka’s Yard

  First Years

  The Wedding

  On Tag

  Meeting Gotti

  Diary of an Eater

  The Seekers after Smooth Things

  Outlaw Tattoos

  Rites of Passage

  Weeping Blood

  Catching Cats in Ghana

  Linking Mystery

  The Prince

  Easter Eggs

  Sleeping with Spirits

  Werewolves

  Signs

  Chicken and Chips

  Red Giant

  Behind the Door

  On the Morality of Murder in Hamlet

  After Christmas

  The World’s Most

  Who They Was

  Regeneration

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  DON’T WATCH FACE

  AND JUMP OUT the whip and I’m hitting the pavement and it’s this moment – when you jump out of the car and it’s too late to go back – when you know that you’re definitely gonna do it, even though the way the adrenaline bursts through your body makes you wish for a second that you weren’t here. And now we’re creeping up the street, she’s too far ahead of us, we got the timing wrong but we can’t run to catch up because that will alert her and she’ll turn around, so we’re creeping fast. The bally is hugging my face tight and I’ve also pulled my hood over it and I feel the adrenaline explode in the pit of my chest like a dying star and it’s like my entire body has turned into the pumping of my heart.

  And I’m creeping up fast to get behind her and Gotti is right there beside me and she hasn’t heard us, not the way we’re moving, low to the ground, black cotton Nike tracksuits on so there’s no sound of clothes rustling, Nike trainers silent on the pavement. And for a few heartbeats I notice how everything on the street seems like someone’s idea of a peaceful life, sun floating overhead, bulging in the sky’s belly, washing the street below in a brightness that breaks over everything; neat rows of perfect houses, polished green bushes lining the pavement, the cool metal smell of morning, and now the woman pushes a gate open and turns off the street and she’s walking up a small path to her front door.

  And we’ve fucked up the timing but we can still get her on her doorstep so we start running, still tryna be stealthy but now we really have to be quick before we lose her and we turn through the little gate – she’s almost at the door, digging into her handbag for the house key – and we run up the path and then we’re right there behind her, I can reach out and touch her hair, I can smell shampoo and softness and then expensive perfume which almost makes me feel sick, and in this moment everything I’ve ever known falls away, memory, past, future, and then the street, the morning and everything else around us disappears as if I’m forgetting the world and there is only Now, crystal sharp, on the doorstep. And before I can get my arms locked around her neck to put her to sleep, she turns around.

  And she screams. She sees me – or just my eyes and a bit of mouth through three holes in the black bally I’m wearing – as if realising a nightmare she didn’t know she was in and we know it’s all scatty now, fuck it, no chance of this being silent and unnoticed so I grab her anyway, my arm pushing into her throat as I turn her around and hold her tight against my chest and Gotti is trying to pop the Cartier off her wrist but he can’t for some reason, he’s proper straining and the metal is biting into her wrist and she’s screaming just take it just take it and now the pounding in my heart and belly is fully gone because we’re actually doing it, nothing else exists in this moment, everything is still and calm inside me and I say stop fucking struggling in her ear but Gotti can’t rip the watch off even though it’s like she’s giving him her wrist and I can see he’s like whatdafuck because it’s never happened before that he couldn’t pop someone’s watch off – and this one has diamonds going all round the bezel so we really want it, like it’s easily worth ten fifteen bags.

  And I think fuck it because she’s already screaming, no point tryna put her to sleep now, might as well help Gotti. The front door – solid white with a brass knocker – opens and there’s a boy standing there, about seventeen eighteen years old and he just stares at us like frozen and says Mum and I look at him, our eyes meet and in his eyes and also over his shoulder behind him I can see a different life to my own, something better maybe, something without so many sharp edges and broken things. And we’re still tryna tear the watch off and suddenly Gotti turns round and bangs the woman’s son in the face onetime and the boy drops and Gotti slams the door shut and we’re alone with her again. And I clock she’s got a big diamond ring on her wedding finger and I try to pull it off but it’s not moving, the skin all bunches up and it hurts her and I can’t twist it off because she has a wedding band on the same finger in front of the diamond ring, basically blocking it. So I snap her finger back, it folds straight over so the tip touches her wrist in one go and it’s strange because I always thought that if you break someone’s finger you’ll actually feel the bones break, hear it even, but I don’t feel anything at all, it’s like folding paper, as if the finger was naturally supposed to bend back like that and she’s screaming to me take it just take it but I can’t, in fact within seconds I can see the break begin to swell up the base of her finger and now I know I’m definitely not getting the ring off. And the door opens again and there’s a man standing there in a red sweater and we know it’s all fucked now, we have to get away but we’re still hoping we can at least cut out with something to show for our efforts and the man grabs his wife around her waist and pulls her towards him, drags her into the doorway while Gotti’s like Snoopz come, fuck this, we need to cut blood and he’s turning away from the door ready to duss back to the whip which is waiting in the middle of the road and in my head I’m like fuck dat I’m not leaving with nothing. And the man drags his wife into the house and as he does this he’s pulling the door shut and I can see their entrance hall is carpeted beige all thick and soft like the kind of carpet that holds the heat of a resting sunbeam so you actually wanna lie down and fall asleep on it and mad quick I reach through the door as it’s closing and manage to grab the woman b
y her wrist and I pull her arm out just as the door is slamming shut and the man slams the front door hard on his wife’s arm and I hear her scream. Gotti turns and runs down the path to the gate and I see through the slightly open door that the woman’s dropped her handbag so I bend down and grab it quicktime and the door opens fully again and the man has a cricket bat which he swings at me but I’m already ducking down so it misses my head even though I feel the rush of air against my bally as it swipes past. I turn and run with the handbag, down the path, out the gate, but the getaway whip isn’t there, it’s already moving slow down the road, one of the back doors is wide open and Gotti is shouting for me to get in and the man is running after me waving the cricket bat above his head roaring mad rage – no words just pure noise – and I’m running after the whip, inhaling the morning, glass needles of sunlight piercing through the sky and falling all around me and I’m not sure I’m gonna make it, like I can’t get level with the open passenger door, like nah this is so peak, it can’t end like this, it can’t— But then I do and I dive in head first onto the backseat and Gotti grabs onto me and – with my legs still sticking out – the car bursts forward down the road, Gotti pulls me in, reaches over me, slams the door shut and now Tyrell is driving us away.

  We turn out of the street onto the main road and we’re talking to Tyrell like whatdafuck, man couldn’t get the belly fam, that was a mad ting, and I pull off my balaclava and Gotti pulls off his bally and it’s like coming up for air after diving into some deep ocean and staying down there for so long that you hadn’t realised you were drowning and Gotti says blood I don’t know whatdafuck happened but I couldn’t rip her watch off, I just couldn’t, I kept trying but it wouldn’t pop, and Tyrell says swear down fam? but he says it all flat and distant coz he’s focusing mad hard on getting us out of the area quicktime, tension creasing his face and turning it ashy yellow, but on a real he’s moving smart; not driving overly fast like it’s some bate getaway, just driving like he’s got somewhere he needs to be that morning. Plus the car looks right; nothing flashy, but at the same time not too battered or fucked up looking like it’s obviously some second-hand ting that’s gonna get burned out later.

  As he drives back down the high road, past shops and the type of normal morning life that could be anywhere, a fed car comes screaming up the road on the other side, blue lights spinning off onto buildings and windows in pale slices that disintegrate in the morning brightness and me and Gotti slide off the backseat and lie down in the footwell because we know that police car was called for us. We lie there cramped up on the floor of the car, our legs pressing against each other, making sure it looks like there’s no one on the backseat, heads down next to dirt and dust and I can see the detail of the rubber foot mat, which suddenly becomes something significant, its shape, texture, colour, its—

  And the fed car flies past us in the opposite direction on its way to the street we left just a minute ago and I’m surprised as well, because you always hear how police response times aren’t good enough and all that shit, but this was fast, I mean like the whole move itself couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes really, I guess the son or the husband called the feds straight away while we were still clamping up the woman tryna rip her shit off, and true it’s about ten in the morning, there’s no traffic round here and what we’ve done is kinda fucking – well, no wonder they came for us so fast. But they never even notice Tyrell, never even look in the direction of our car and we’re well down the high road now. We sit back up. We’re on our way back to the spot, we can be easy now, we’ve gotten away with it, they won’t get us now.

  And now Gotti is saying you’re sick fam you’re sick, proper bigging me up to Tyrell – Snoopz is sick you know, he just wouldn’t leave he says and his eyes are wide and he smiles white white white. And I’m like fuck dat fam I wasn’t gonna cut without nuttin and Tyrell says what did you get fam? And I show him the handbag – it’s Prada, probably worth a bag on its own – and Tyrell says is there any p’s in there? So I start going through it.

  It’s just the trinkets of a rich woman; perfume and expensive hand cream and some business cards and next random shit that I don’t register because it’s not like we can sell any of it. And then I get her wallet and Gotti’s talking to Tyrell saying man’s gotta phone the others coz we don’t know where they are blood, and I’m going through her wallet making sure Tyrell doesn’t clock it and I’ve just seen £700 all in £50 notes in there, so I quickly pull it out and slip it deep into my pocket because I know Tyrell and the others will want a cut but I’m thinking fuck dat, it’s mine and Gotti’s, no one risked their freedom and did any next-level madness the way me and Gotti just did – even if it did go wrong – and since it’s such a petty amount for what we’re tryna get I’m taking it and no one’s gonna know any better. Usually it’s Big D, Gotti and me who get the biggest cut like 30 per cent each of the lick. Big D for scoping the ting and putting us onto it, me and Gotti for doing the eat and taking the biggest risk, and the rest goes to Tyrell since all he really has to do is drive us to wherever the move is gonna pop off and then get us out of there. And now Tyrell says what’s in the wallet fam, any p’s? and I’m like nah g, just bare cards and I pull out a black American Express card and we’re all like shiiit, that’s how you know the watch and ring woulda been some mad p’s still, those were definitely some next-level rich people says Gotti. I mean we already knew she was mad rich from the way she dressed, the jewellery, the fact it’s a normal weekday and she was just having some casual morning not really doing anything – probably coming back from a coffee shop or maybe she’d just had her hair done because her hair really did smell good – and the yard she walked up to with the big white door, the kinda house that none of us will ever be able to afford, although we’d like to think we might get there someday. But the black American Express card is something else, it indicates another level of wealth; I’d only heard about it in certain lyrics, rappers like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, Kanye as well, stunting about how they’re balling coz they’ve got black cards – the ultimate symbol of wealth, of being part of a true social elite, of being above the majority.

  I put the card in my pocket, a souvenir of today, something I’m probably never gonna have with my own name embossed on it anyway, might as well have somebody else’s, not that I’ll be able to use it, it’s probably cancelled already says Tyrell, and everything is feeling normal again; the sun is irrelevant, weather is just weather, people in the street are just people doing whatever people do on a Monday morning, there are shops and cars and noise. Whatever.

  We pass through Golders Green; children are at school by now, people are having breakfast in caffs, shops are open, buses are picking up and dropping off people, all following the different and unconnected threads of their lives. Gotti is on the phone to D telling him how the move fucked up so now we’re going back to the spot in Willesden where we linked up in the morning and at a certain point I see the other whip ahead of us – I’m not even sure when they joined us, somewhere after Golders Green – and now I’m just chatting to Gotti and we’re still mad surprised about how he couldn’t pop the watch coz I’ve seen him do it on like four other occasions, always on his first go, no problem, but for some reason this time it fucked up. And we’re going through it all, what happened on the doorstep and the sound of the door slamming on her arm and laughing, like myman blatantly slammed the door on his own wife’s arm coz I managed to reach in and pull her arm out I say. And this is the thing, there’s no remorse, I don’t feel any remorse, Gotti doesn’t feel any remorse, and it’s not because we’re evil or any basic moral bullshit like that. The thing is I don’t actually feel anything about it at all. She defo doesn’t spend a second thinking about individuals like me, about what it’s like to be me. She doesn’t care about me and I don’t care about her. And it’s not that she doesn’t care about me because of what I just did. She already didn’t care about me before she encountered me and it’s all because we’re lock
ed away in our own little worlds. So fuck remorse. No point wasting time trying to feel anything if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Anyway, so—

  So we pull up in the car park in front of the little block in Willesden where we all met up earlier this morning. I stuff my bally into the pocket with the money just so there’s a reason for that pocket to look a bit full. We get out of the whip and Tyrell and Gotti are lighting up cigarettes as the other whip pulls in, the gunmetal grey Porsche, which is what Big D always rolls in with his nephew Ghost driving so he can spot the people worth eating. It’s an ideal car because it’s too balling – too expensive – to be associated with a scatty eat, so D can proper clock people from inside it and calculate who we should jump out on. Plus, when we drive in convoy – usually them ahead of us since they’re scoping and we’re the ones who actually do the madness – it looks as if there’s no way we could be together since their car looks cris and I mean come on, them man in a Porsche, us in some deadout second-hand ting. No one’s drawing any chicks in our whip, you get me.

  It’s a good spot here, away from the ends but at the same time not too far from the blocks, none of us live anywhere on this road or have connections to it, and the car-park area is surrounded by a fence and tall bushes so no one can see us from the road. Big D gets out the whip with his forehead all knotted up. Ghost gets out as well, asking questions, but he gets ignored as me and Gotti start chatting to Big D, going through it all over again, showing him the handbag and dash dat man, fuck dat he says, maybe we’ll come back for it later coz dem kinda bags go for p’s still, and I go and stash the bag under one of the tall bushes next to the fence and cover it in dead leaves. Gotti and Big D are talking away from everyone else, voices low, D is the big man who’s putting us onto this shit but he knows wagwan, especially with Gotti. Tyrell and Ghost are just sideman really, they’re only drivers, they’re not the ones who make shit pop off, them man ain’t got the heart for it like me and Gotti do. It’s funny how they both proper care about their appearances even when they go on a move. Ghost is always rocking his white gold tooth with the big diamond in it and Tyrell’s rocking some fresh white Moschino trousers like he’s going raving. It’s not like man’s gonna chirpse some peng tings and get their digits on the way to doing a move. But forreal it makes sense not to look greazy when you’re the driver since you don’t wanna draw attention or look like you can’t afford the whip you’re driving.