Cover

Praise for I Know What I Saw

Praise for I Know What I Saw

‘Gripping and utterly immersive. Mahmood is a master storyteller’ Will Dean

‘Mahmood gets deep into the psychology of a damaged man in this unusual novel, and the ending is like a blow to the gut’ Sunday Times

‘I didn’t think Mahmood could top You Don’t Know Me but he most certainly has. A searing take-down of privilege, our unequal society and indeed of traditional crime whodunnits’ Gillian McAllister

‘Clever, mercilessly addictive and deeply thought-provoking, I Know What I Saw blends a dynamite plot with heartfelt characterisation. Wonderful’ Chris Whitaker

‘What an astonishing voice Imran has created for Xander, at once intelligent, resourceful and yet also deeply flawed’ James Oswald

‘Intelligent, imaginative and meticulously plotted, this is an author at the top of his game’ M. W. Craven

‘Heart-wrenching and jaw-dropping, I held my breath until the final word’ Holly Seddon

‘Mahmood, following his innovative, breakout hit, You Don’t Know Me, once again delivers a twisting narrative full of surprises and blind alleys’ Vaseem Khan

‘Smart, atmospheric, poignant, and will keep you hooked’ Saima Mir

‘The violent narrative inexorably grips the attention … it’s the examination of the mental state of his intelligent protagonist caught in a downward spiral that affirms his talent.’ Financial Times

‘Elegantly constructed, educational, involving and moving, this is a terrific novel’ Literary Review

‘A tense literary thriller about the lies we persist in telling ourselves and our inability to escape our damaged pasts – packed with moments of pathos and unexpected humour’ Sarah Vaughan

‘Mahmood has a rare gift for combining hypnotic prose with a page-turning pace. A gripping and beautiful read’ Ayisha Malik

‘I Know What I Saw consolidates [Mahmood’s] position as an unpredictable crime writer able to tell a complex fast-paced story and keep readers hooked’ Eastern Eye

‘You won’t put it down until you know the truth’ Tony Kent

IMRAN MAHMOOD is a practising barrister with thirty years’ experience fighting cases in courtrooms across the country. He hails from Liverpool but now lives in London with his wife and daughters. His debut novel You Don’t Know Me was chosen by Simon Mayo as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice for 2017 and longlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year and for the CWA Gold Dagger, and was made into a hugely successful BBC1 adaptation association with Netflix. He has been commissioned to write three screenplays and is working on his next novel. When not in court or writing novels or screenplays he can sometimes be found on the Red Hot Chilli Writers’ podcast as one of the regular contributors. I Know What I Saw is his second novel.

@imranmahmood777

By the Same Author

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

You Don’t Know Me

Dedication Page

To Dad (Poppy)

Without you, the world still turns but it turns more slowly and in much less light.

I miss you

To Shahida who gave me life

To Sadia who changed my life

To Zoha who made my life

To Shifa who completed my life

‘We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full’

Marcel Proust

1

Tuesday

The sky is a bruised sea. It threatens to burst and split the night. There is a children’s play park nearby. The gates are shut but unlocked and they push open easily with a gentle squeak. Of course, at this time of night it’s deserted, and I know that I can sleep here until light. Time as it ticks on a watch is not as useful to me as how the light looks when it waxes or wanes. For me the time is hidden in shadows and in the lengths they cast on the ground. I think about earlier today, about Amit and the fruit now warm in my pockets. That at seventeen years old he thinks about me at all is a surprise. I’ve known him a summer, an autumn and now most of a winter. And he brings me oranges when most people bring nothing but chaos and dirt.

The ground here is covered in woodchips, making a decent mattress under the slide where it is dry, shaded from the elements by the wide tin slope. Before, when I knew too much about numbers and nothing about living, I tried to sleep in the tunnel, to use its seclusion, but the curve is death to sleep. Now I crouch under the slide and tear out sheets of newspaper, rolling them into apple-sized balls. I can’t read the financial pages any more so the pink ones are the first to go. Each one is forced into the gaps in my coat sleeves, the wool inflating until I am like the Hulk. And then I do the same to the legs of my jeans. In no time air is trapped in pockets and my body warms – the paper clings on to the heat. The remaining balls I arrange into the carrier bag from Amit’s oranges, and convert into a pillow. I lay the oranges by my head because the scent of them comforts me.

From here all I can see in the blue moonlight is the dulled metal underside of the slide. The position of it, sloping towards me upside down, gives me a sensation of vertigo. Vertigo. Mum wrote a paper about Vertigo, the film, and Proust, and how much the one had borrowed from the other. Madeleine Elster was Hitchcock’s heroine’s name. The connection was obvious, Mum said. Proust’s madeleines and his painter, Elstir, combined into one. And then, wasn’t Vertigo just a yearning for lost time? Wasn’t it the yawning abyss that caused the vertigo?

Mum was an academic above everything else, the kind of person who could only escape the gravity of life by manipulating herself with art. Rothko was her thing. I hadn’t really ever got on with the abstractness of him. It didn’t make sense to me, having a painting of just four colours. ‘But isn’t that just the incredible thing about him, Xander? That a person using four colours and no representational effort can paint oblivion? Don’t you find that amazing?’

She was the kind of person who looked up to rarefied heights, but down was where I wanted to be, with my nose in the dirt and the physics.

‘And you’re sure that you want to read the sciences?’ she’d said once. ‘You’re not exactly your father, you know.’

‘I know.’ Then I wondered how she couldn’t see that that wasn’t what I wanted at all. I didn’t want to be him. Not in a million years. Even so, I slid into Cambridge with four As to read Mathematics. Not science exactly, nor a degree to capture the imagination, but at least it meant something to other people, even if it meant nothing to me.

‘Fuck out of my patch.’

I sit up so quickly that I bang my forehead on the underside of the slide and then there’s this sickening thud in my ears as a wet boot strikes my temple. I cry out and try to focus but all there is is searing pain. It pounds and beats, freezing me even though I need to get myself ready to fight. I claw through the pain, waiting for my firing synapses to create space for me. My eyes shut until the ache recedes a little, just enough for me to move.

I look at him through screwed eyes and see that he’s smaller than me. He in turn rolls his eyes up and down me until he realises the same thing. I have always been big. I’ve taken up a seat and a half since I was fifteen. Never fat, or even muscular. Just big. Bones like old iron.

People avoid me on the streets. There are pockets of men here or there, malignant in places, benign in others, but they react the same. Usually they circle around me, never getting too close, in case they fall all the way in and down into the drain. And I don’t mind the wary distance. I don’t want them near me anyway. I don’t need the company that they all seem to crave in one another. So they leave me alone and I leave them to their hot clusters – of drugs, alcohol and hacking laughter. And if I miss the chance for conversation, I remind myself that I wouldn’t seek it amongst them anyway.

‘My fucking spot,’ the man says. His voice is so deep that I can feel it vibrate in my chest. It curls at the edges in drink. He is perhaps forty but it is hard to tell – street years carve deeper into the skin. In any case he is shades younger than me for sure. I look through the gloom into his eyes for some sentience but I can tell that he’s half-soaked.

‘Not tonight,’ I say, looking him dead in the eyes. My head pounds but I hold his gaze, because I know I have to.

‘Yeah?’ he says, his voice lifting now. ‘I know you. You’re the weirdo.’

He steps towards me and I see something winking in his hand.

My brother once said that statistically speaking the difference between winners and losers is that, over the longer term, losers give up.

‘Put the knife down,’ I say.

His eyes are rimmed in watery fury. There are tears streaming down his cheeks in rivers. No, not tears, rain. It has started to rain. That kick to the head must have been hard. Adrenaline is in play, I can tell, because my focus is too tight. I need to see the wider picture, but the periphery is stepping back into shadow, further and further.

‘That’s my fucking spot,’ he says again and then lunges at me.

My heart starts to race as the chemicals brim. Everything around me slows down. The surge gives me a kick of energy, of life, so that my eyes pop open and I feel myself stepping into the warmth of a chemical power. He comes towards me but I step to the side, dodging the blade easily.

He stumbles so I take the advantage and use his weight to push him to the ground, and then I kick him. These boots are made for kicking. Steel toes behind thick leather. He grunts. I kick him again in the ribs and then, before he has a chance to catch his breath, I drop to my knees and rip the knife out of his hand. It is just a small lock knife, fancy, but the blade’s sharp. I hold it under his chin and poke just hard enough to let out some blood.

He freezes.

‘You had enough?’ I say, my heart loud in my head.

‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding.

I get to my feet, the knife still gripped in my hand.

‘I’m keeping this,’ I say, and fold the knife and put it in my pocket. My heart is still racing. I make an effort to breathe slowly so that the one, the breath, can regulate the other, the heart.

‘It’s my fucking spot,’ he says again but he is crying now, real tears not just rain. ‘You took my spot.’ He rubs under his chin at the spot the knife pricked and for a moment I wonder whether I should just leave and give him his place back.

But winners never give up.

I watch him roll on the woodchip and push himself to his feet. He holds the edge of the slide for support as he sways from booze or pain. Then he roots through his clothes and tugs out the familiar shape of a quarter bottle of whisky. He empties what little there is into his mouth as his eyes drench me in hate.

‘Cunt,’ he says. I turn away but then catch a glimpse of something spinning in the air. Instinctively I shield my eyes but then I feel the thick heel of the bottle crack into my skull. I yelp and drop to my knees, still clutching my head. The pain is dull and sickening and I try to breathe through it, but then out of the blackness, a knee crashes into my temple. I drop to the soft ground, the tang of wet earth filling my nose. And then his limbs are over me, searching for the knife.

‘I’m going to fucking kill you,’ he says.

‘I’m stronger than you, Rory!’ I scream. It escapes from me, that name. He’s always there, finding a way in, in these unguarded moments. Or, I wonder, is it the blow to my head that has derailed me?

‘Rory?’ He looks at me, confused. ‘Psycho bastard,’ he adds, backing away.

‘Rory!’ I shout and then I stagger away, unable to control my steps as I zigzag into the slicing rain.

2

Tuesday

The sound of sirens splits the night. I stop for a second. Triangulating, calculating. That Doppler effect – is it getting nearer or further? Who are those sirens for? Me? Are they coming to rescue me, or catch me? My logical brain takes over and calculates the variables. I have to get out of the park. Maybe you’d think he won, scared me off his pitch, saw me off. But in this world strength means more. I won. I have the physical strength and he knows I can return. These guys, they hunt in packs sometimes, and there could be another one not far behind.

In my mind’s eye is the zonal map of London I carry in my head. Red Zones are the areas I stay away from now: Camden, King’s Cross, Dalston, Bow, Mile End, Peckham, Old Kent Road. There are air holes there which are safe but those aren’t places I can be in for long. Those streets have been colonised by gangs that will stab a person to earn ranking points. I could head for the neutral Blue Zone: Vauxhall, Camberwell, Elephant, Oval. I can be in those spaces and stay unmolested for a time. The Green Zone, where I am now, is supposed to be fine: Dulwich, Chelsea, Fulham, Westminster, City, Holborn. But I was attacked right in the middle of it. Nowhere is completely safe. It’s a question of playing the odds. For example, I stay away from the Purple Zone, the truly unpredictable spaces: Paddington, Edgware, Caledonian Road, Seven Sisters, Tottenham. Safe, if you know what you are doing, but take a wrong turn or even the right one on the wrong day, and there’s no telling what will come for you. I breathe and push through the metal gates. The sirens are following.

The rain is coming down in sheets. I need shelter. I need to get somewhere dry, to give myself a chance to heal and recover. I consult the map in my head. Walworth Road leads to the Elephant and Castle. The Elephant to St Georges Circus. St Georges to Waterloo. Waterloo to the Strand. I am grateful for my head when it works. That this map is here, always ready to use, dry and crisp, the Zones pulsing. I look around and slowly through the throbbing in my head I come to a realisation – I don’t know where I am.

I try to recalibrate. Where was I? I had been in Hyde Park. It feels like a certainty until suddenly, it no longer does. Have I been running or hobbling in this rain, in this dark, wet cloak of a night, for this last chunk of time? I can’t tell. This pounding in my brain is relentless, a dull, thick fog that I cannot reach through. That boot to the head has really done some damage.

I feel myself panicking now. The sirens are still chasing me. The rain is throwing itself down and all I can feel is the slick soak of my clothes. I have to get dry. I have to find some shelter. This has happened to me before and I nearly died from the pneumonia. You could recover from it, this cold and this rain, but for me it would take days for these clothes to dry out. I couldn’t survive it in my state. I’d drop into a wet death like that.

Where am I? There’s a couple there just ahead, leaning into one another for cover under a blue and yellow golf umbrella, I mouth words at them as they walk by but they hustle past, heads down. There was a definite look from the man. He wrinkled his face away from me and I think even this rain can’t rinse the stench from my body.

I need a sign.

I trudge through puddles that I don’t see at first and curse, because these boots sponge up water. Reaching into my coat sleeves I pull out the balls of paper that are now sodden and pulpy and slop them on to the ground. I can stop racing now, I think. Whatever was pursuing me isn’t any longer. He won’t have come all the way here. Over my shoulder I see that the road is clear. The sirens have died away to a whisper, catching or saving someone else. The first street I see is South Street. The sign says W1 Westminster – I’m in Mayfair. Green Zone. That’s right, I remember now. I had been in Hyde Park. I think.

The road is quiet. I know these roads from before. In a previous life, these roads were soft to the touch. I know that if I walk along here the road will adopt another identity and become something else. South Street and its high-faced mansions recede behind me. And yes, now here is Farm Street emerging under my feet. I think there’s a church here, or at least there is in my memory. Perhaps a library – something established and permanent.

As I lumber on through the rain, I see with a sinking feeling a flash of light, blazing blue in the pavement. Then, seconds later, a deep roar of thunder before the heavy rain turns, just like that, into a deluge.

I duck under the great stone steps of one of the houses and wait in the shelter of the cavity. Despite the cold there’s nothing for it but to take my coat off and wring it out. Rainwater runs through my fists as I squeeze first the sleeves, now the flanks. When I put it back on, it’s a pound or two lighter and my hands are raw.

I reach into the lining then and find my dry pocket. I shut my eyes as my fingers fumble for my cigarettes. I pull them out and open the box. Thank God, they are dry. Fighting frozen fingers, I tap the box against my palm until a cigarette magically rises. I mouth it, light it and take in a lungful of smoke. A spike of pain comes driving into my brain, causing me to clutch my head.

I freeze until the pain subsides and then when it does, through the smoke I see a door. It is black, painted in high gloss, as the others are in this road. But it’s smaller than the main one at the top of the stairs. Maybe it had once been a tradesman’s entrance, or an annexe or a flat? I try to wipe the rain from my eyes, but it clings, blurring my vision. Something doesn’t feel right. And then I see it.

The door is ajar. Just.

3

Tuesday

There’s no light coming from the gap in the door. In that infinite bordered space, there is nothing and everything. I rub my left eye to clear the smears but the mist lingers.

My head is still thumping, and between the waves of sickness, I tug at the memory of what happened. Rory attacked me. No, not Rory. A man. Just a drunk in the park. I dig the tips of my fingers hard into my temples. For a moment the pain subsides, but then returns and with it comes other pain that I had relegated to the edges. My ribs ache. My legs are trembling. I take a final drag of my cigarette before flicking it into a storm drain. I look up.

The darkness in the gap behind the door pulls at me. I could go in, I think. I could. It would be dry. Just for a few minutes. I push the door slowly, keeping my ears pricked for anything beyond, any voices, or even a television, but there’s nothing. Then I pause. I can’t go into someone’s house. It’s illegal. But still, I keep pushing. I could shelter in the hallway, just until the rain stops? The door gives way smoothly under my touch and I step into the space behind it. There’s a smell that I recognise. A kind of ‘closed-up’ odour that develops in empty houses. It’s as if the absence of a person from a house, even for a day, begins a kind of decay. As if the separation from its heart makes the house die a little. Inside, I shut the door behind me, softly. The darkness begins to recede as I blink furiously. It’s not warm in here, but not cold either and not wet. I want to sink to the floor and rest just a little, in this covered nook that’s resolving before me into a narrow, tiled corridor. Clearer with each passing second.

‘Hello?’

I throw my voice deep into the hallway. If it catches a person, if there’s someone there, I can explain I found the door open and was just passing. That I’m just warning them against criminals, warning them against myself in different circumstances. There’s no answer so I call out again, but only the silence comes ringing back.

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