by Saima Mir
Nowak picked up another can of petrol and doused the shopkeeper’s son in fuel. One of his henchmen held the door open and pushed him towards it. Desperate not to leave his father, he grabbed hold of the doorway to try and stay.
‘Get me my money,’ said Nowak. ‘And tell Jia Khan what you have seen. Tell her this is her fault. That if she does not give me the city, more of this will happen. Go!’
The young man fell out of the shop, scrambling for the nearest cashpoint, searching his pockets for his keys and his cards. They were empty. He had nothing but his phone. He dialled Idris. ‘They’ve got my dad! They’re going to kill him! I need money! Now!’
But by the time Idris arrived, the building was ablaze, the young man on his knees outside, his head in his hands. Idris dragged him back to a safe distance.
He was delirious, his eyes red, his body soaked through with sweat and petrol. ‘They set the place alight as soon as I called you,’ he said. ‘They covered me in petrol so I couldn’t help him! They were never going to wait! They have no mercy! He was an old man! Just a frail old man.’ He cried out in agony, his spirit broken, his mind on the verge. ‘There was no one to help us!’ he said. ‘No one.’
News of the incident spread quickly across the region. Rumours mixed with facts, turning the story into a myth that would be spoken of for years to come. By the time the fire was put out and the building safe enough for the old man’s body to be brought out, there was nothing left. Dental records confirmed who he was.
The streets were filled with silence that night, as the city mourned the death of an innocent shopkeeper, a victim in a turf war that had little to do with him. His only crime: standing up to Nowak. The air was crisp, the orange glow from the street lights bathed the lanes, and the smell of coal and shisha wafted over the cobbles. Despite the great evil that had been done, the landscape remained unchanged. But something unseen had changed. A tipping point had been reached, a critical mass, and things would never be the same again.
CHAPTER 38
‘They are upping their game,’ Jia told her men. ‘They are trying to take apart the grassroots of our operation and this cannot be tolerated.’
The attack on the shop had come hot on the heels of a blaze at a Khan storehouse. It was the third time the Brotherhood had done this. They had been building inroads slowly, taking advantage of the fact that Jia and her men were putting all their energies into restructuring the business.
The Company was bringing in more money than ever before and empty bellies were being filled. There was work for those who wanted it and education for the rest. From cleaners to coders, designers to project managers, sales associates to call-centre personnel, The Company offered jobs from entry level to professional. And if you didn’t have the skills but showed the promise, the business would take you under its wing and train you up while paying your wage and rent. They hired in their own image. Instead of seeking outside investment, they pumped money into the area and kept it circulating.
The city was starting to flourish in ways it hadn’t done in years. The future looked hopeful, with one serious exception.
Jia had let the Nowak problem fester for too long. The Brotherhood was trying to push the streets towards chaos again. While The Company had brought money and opportunities to people, the world outside it hadn’t changed. The white structures that maintained control still existed. The city was still an enclave, and Nowak and his men knew how to take advantage of the tensions this caused. They had slowly been pouring oil on the fire that was lit the night of the drive-by club shooting. Nowak understood animal rage, how to draw it out, how to feed it. The most primal of all human urges, he planned to use it to tear the city apart.
Over the past six months, Jia had received several calls from community leaders asking for her help. The police were losing control of the city and had no way to bring things back into line. Maybe if they had brought Akbar Khan’s killer to justice, things would have been different, but they had failed to find anything to link Nowak to the murder. Jia had listened to Mark Briscoe, still cautious about his intentions and undecided about her desire to work with him.
But when Idris had brought news of shopkeepers being targeted by Brotherhood gang members and being ‘invited’ to pay protection money, she knew the time for caution was over. The line had been crossed. The realisation of where that line was, had surprised her. She’d leaned back in her father’s chair as Idris paced up and down, turning the thought over in her head, wondering if circumstances had changed her, or simply revealed what she had always been. ‘Protection racketeering is what got my mother killed,’ her cousin said. He was angrier than Jia had ever seen him. His eyes were stone cold, his voice resolute. ‘We have to stop him. Nowak is salting our wounds. My father may be silent but we will never recover from what happened to our family. We will never flourish.’
Jia knew that Idris wasn’t alone in his anger. Tensions were rising among her people. The wives of the men who had been hurt in the latest attacks were calling Pukhtun House to speak to her. Having a woman at the helm of the Khan family gave them the courage to make direct requests. The sisterhood was growing.
So Jia had gathered her most trusted men together. As well as her cousins, Bazigh Khan was there, the only one of her father’s colleagues to be invited, being trusted by both Jia and the Jirga. And despite his not being family, Michael’s presence had also been requested. Benyamin watched quietly from a corner of the room. Since his injuries had healed, he’d been pushing for more operational involvement and he had earned his place. They stood in Akbar Khan’s study awaiting her direction.
‘We must make a final decision today about how we want to resolve this,’ she told them, ‘and follow it through. Now is the time to exact badal.’
The Jirga had displayed uncharacteristic patience in their wait for badal. The returns from The Company had filled their gaping mouths and satisfied their greed; but it also meant they had allowed their old patch to fall to the side in favour of the bigger money. While they had been eating at the table, the dogs had taken their tossed-aside bones and turned them into a feast. Revenge had been placed in the cooler long enough; it was time to serve it up. The attacks on their territory reignited their demand and they had sent a message telling Jia that her time was running out. She must act.
Jia had spent much time contemplating her options before calling this meeting. Men had been sent to gather information about Nowak’s plans. Foot soldiers had brought back intelligence that pointed to a massive haul by the gang, one so lucrative that it would allow the Brotherhood to solidify their hold on the city. Nowak was planning on selling his stash and was counting on Jia Khan’s ignorance to get away with it.
‘We know when Nowak and his men are meeting the buyers,’ Idris said. ‘We’ve fixed it so that the buyer is one of our men. He’s from the Newcastle zai. We know the guys will be driving a black Beamer and we know where they intend to make the drop. The money and goods will be exchanged at the same time, at a service station thirty miles from here. We have arranged for police to be thin on the ground.’
‘Michael, who is in charge of our cars?’ Jia said. The medical student had become one of the most trusted members of the group.
‘That would be Fat Bob,’ said Michael. Jia raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s his name,’ he added. ‘I can’t do anything about it!’
‘OK. Tell him, this Fat Bob, what we need and tell him to sort it tonight. We need two cars, and we need them to be clean,’ she said.
Bazigh Khan listened, watching the young woman carefully lay out her plans, and he thought of his brother. Akbar Khan had known his daughter would take his place, and it had come to pass just as he had predicted, the demise of the Khan and the rise of his daughter. ‘Your father kept a car especially for a job like this,’ he said. ‘It’s in the garage, untraceable.’ Headstrong and proud, he could see that Jia was smarter than her father had been. But she also knew when to ask for advice, and he was pleased with the respe
ct she accorded him. Jia thanked her uncle for the information and arrangements were made for the car to be brought out of storage.
‘How is buying their shipment going to help us any? Whether we buy it or someone else gets it, they still get what they want,’ asked Nadeem.
Jia didn’t answer but turned to Bazigh Khan. ‘I would like you to convey to the Jirga that we are handling the situation,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for coming over this late. You must be tired. Why don’t you rest a little while we finish?’
Bazigh Khan nodded. He understood the request was a respectful way of asking him to retire, and he had been prepared for this. She was slowly disentangling him from the knotty business and allowing him to hand over his responsibilities to his sons. The loss of power would have made a lesser man angry, but Bazigh Khan knew the ways of his family; he knew they would still call upon him for counsel, just without the pressure of practical matters, and he was also glad this meant he’d be able to spend time with his grand-daughter. He left the room.
‘I understand your desire to bring the family business out of the dark ages,’ said Nadeem. ‘And I’m with you on that, but I don’t understand how buying Nowak’s stash constitutes badal or solves our problem. They’re still going to be here, they’re still going to be demanding protection money from our people. They’ll just have our money and be stronger because of it.’
‘What are we missing, Jia?’ Malik said. ‘There’s obviously more to the plan than this. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. So what is it?’
‘We do the switch,’ she said. ‘We give Nowak the cash. We send the shipment out, as I’ve explained to our own dealers.’ Her eyes were stone cold, her voice steady. ‘Then,’ she said, looking at her brother and pausing, ‘we kill them.’
There was a silence. Nadeem looked uncomfortable. ‘I know Idris is with you but I need time,’ he said. ‘You’re talking about us physically killing someone. Don’t get me wrong, Nowak needs to die. But taking a gun and pulling the trigger at point blank range? I don’t know if I could do that. The drugs, the rest of it, that’s easy, but this…the practicalities of it… I need time to get my head around it.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Think it over. Make sure you can live with your actions. Because once we do this there’s no going back.’
CHAPTER 39
The last time Jia Khan slipped into his house in the dead of night, Elyas had told her it was over. ‘I can’t do this any more,’ he’d said.
‘Well then, stop taking my calls,’ she’d replied, a little too quickly. And he knew that would never happen. She would call, and his heart would race and his greed for her rise up, and he would have no choice but to answer and unlock the door and take her into his bed. His desire for her was gnawing at his senses, inhibiting pathways of reason and logic. She was calamitous but he was in love with her. When she said ‘stop taking my calls’, the thought that she might no longer come to him threatened to become real, and he knew that the need was as much his as hers.
But he had Ahad to consider. Watching her every move as he spoke, making sure she wasn’t spooked, he’d told her that, in that case, they must spend time out of the cover of darkness, doing the things that normal families do. She agreed, and so it was that Elyas and Ahad arrived at the domed turrets and Corinthian pillars of the Alhambra, where Jia had arranged for them to go to a concert.
The lobby was a sea of sherwanis and tuxedos, and over-processed brown women teetering on heels with backcombed bleached-blonde hair. Elyas noted that his son looked out of place in his faded T-shirt, ripped jeans and blazer, but Ahad didn’t seem bothered by it. Elyas gave him one of the tickets. ‘Thanks for doing this,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not been easy.’ His phone buzzed. He looked at it. ‘It’s Jia, she’s running late. Come on, let’s find our seats,’ he said, and led Ahad through the bustle to their places.
The auditorium was slowly starting to fill up. Elyas and Ahad squeezed past a couple in their row and dropped into their seats.
‘Dad, you need to tell her how you feel. You can’t keep pretending you’re OK.’
‘Who says I’m pretending?’
‘If she’s going to stay over, she needs to start staying over properly and not leaving before dawn like some teenager. This has been going on for a stupid amount of time. Did you really think I hadn’t noticed?’
Elyas laughed, nervousness covering his embarrassment. ‘OK, you’re right and I’m sorry. We’ve talked about it. We’re working through it. She’s just…you know. Your mother, she’s been through a lot. She’s just scared.’
‘Dad, you must be the only person on the planet who would describe that woman as scared.’ The hum of musicians filtering on to the stage and tuning their instruments interrupted their conversation. The sound of sitar and tabla mingled with the hum of the audience speaking to each other in Mirpuri, Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, Hinko and English. They quietened down as an old Punjabi folk singer seated himself centre stage, his waistcoat matching the velvet bolsters he reclined on. To his right stood a beautiful young woman. Her jeans clung to her curves, oversized headphones covering her thick black hair. She moved slowly to the melody of the songs, adding her voice to them, softening their sharpness with modern tones. They were nearly an hour into the show when Jia arrived. The couple in the neighbouring seats stood up to let her pass, and she whispered an apology to them in Pashto, which the man acknowledged with a nod.
‘Where were you?’ whispered Elyas. ‘You’ve missed most of it.’
‘Meeting the police,’ said Jia, her eyes on the stage. He wanted to ask what the police wanted with her, but he knew she wouldn’t tell him, and even if she did she’d swear him to secrecy, and that would be excruciating for the journalist in him.
As soon as the interval arrived, Elyas made his way to the men’s room to give Ahad and Jia some space. He was washing his hands when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round to find an old friend from school grinning at him.
‘Elyas!’ he said. ‘How long has it been? I keep seeing you on those documentaries, man! You have done well!’
‘Thanks! How are you? Still playing footie?’
‘Only on Sunday mornings now, I’m afraid. I’m in the police force. Keeps me busy. What brings you to this neck of the woods?’
‘I’m taking some time out of TV to work at the local paper. You must hear some things in your line of work?’
‘I used to. I’m working as a community liaison officer these days, visiting mosques, speaking with the imams.’
‘How’s that? I guessed with things getting better on the job front, tensions might have eased.’
‘They did for a while. But sometimes it feels like one step forward, ten steps back in this city. Remember the guys who shot the bouncer? I can’t remember the date, but it was over a year ago now. The ones who went on the run and were finally caught? Well, their case is due in court next week, and it’s stoked up old feelings. There’s talk going around that the men were mistreated, bullied into confessions – that it may not even have been them pulling the trigger.’
‘Really? The evidence is overwhelming, though. Right down to eyewitnesses.’
‘I know that. But the kids would rather believe in conspiracy theories than what the police are saying, because the police haven’t historically been their friends. I mean, even you and I will have experienced that.’
They walked slowly back to the lobby, Elyas listening attentively, his concern growing.
‘With Akbar Khan gone, there’s been a power vacuum,’ his friend went on. ‘Some of the younger members of the community, they’re vying for positions. It’s complicated. The city has become a powder keg. It feels as if nothing can stop it from blowing.’
Before they parted, Elyas suggested they exchange numbers. ‘Give me a call if you want to talk on the record?’ His friend nodded, and they said their goodbyes. Then Elyas headed to the bar, where he found Ahad ordering drinks. ‘Where’s Jia?’ he asked.
&n
bsp; ‘She’s back in the auditorium, being the ice queen,’ Ahad replied.
‘It’s not that bad, is it?’
‘Let’s not do this again,’ said Ahad. ‘Don’t make her spend time with me. She hates me.’
‘She doesn’t hate you.’
‘She won’t even look at me half the time and the rest of the time she speaks to me as if I’m on work experience.’ Elyas could see the hurt in his son’s face. He reached out but the boy turned away. ‘I have to go pee. I’ll see you in there,’ he said, heading towards the toilets.
Elyas made his way back to the auditorium with the drinks, his head spinning. He was worried about Ahad. He was ready to confront Jia. But she wasn’t in her seat when he got there. He looked around and saw her standing near one of the fire exits, deep in conversation with a man Elyas recognised as the one who’d been sitting next to her. His complexion was pale, his eyes deep blue, making him stand out in the sea of brown faces. Elyas watched them for a moment; the man looked as though he was leaving – he was putting the package he was carrying into his pocket and pulling his coat on – so Elyas decided to head over.
‘He read it?’ he heard Jia ask as he approached. She took something from the man and placed it in her bag. Elyas was surprised they were speaking in Pashto not English, but he reminded himself there were Caucasian-looking Pathans.
‘He did,’ came the man’s reply.
‘Thank you. For taking it to him,’ said Jia.
His gaze lowered, the man placed his right hand across his chest and bowed his head before leaving.
Jia turned around to find Elyas behind her.
‘Who was that?’ he said.
‘Someone who knew my father,’ Jia said. ‘He wanted to introduce himself.’
‘Wasn’t he sitting next to us? The man you apologised to in Pashto when you arrived?’
‘Yes, I think so.’