All he’d had from her was a text from an unknown number. Help – they’ve taken me refuge. Help. Mamina. By the time he’d tried to call back a recording said the number was disconnected.

A cop got out and lifted the police tape for him to go through. ‘Try the Krypt. They’ve put some of them up in there.’

Sam frowned.

‘The church hall, as was.’

‘Oh, okay. Thanks for your help.’

Again, the cops looked at each other. Probably the first thanks they’d had in quite a few days, he thought, as he plodded up the empty street towards his old home.

It was six weeks since he had spoken to his mother, a year since he’d seen her, and that was only when she’d got herself admitted to hospital after his brother had taken off. I think it’s her heart – it’s broken, explained a weary houseman, a fellow Muslim, who said he had tried his best to find a medical explanation for her condition. ‘Best treatment? Get your brother back. He’s all she talks about.’

All his life, it seemed, he had been at the mercy of her pleas: help Karza with his homework, fetch him back from friends, help him find a job, get him from the police station. And all the while Sam had got top marks, never got drunk or mixed with the wrong people, and had got into a good university, with no acknowledgement from her. Always it was Karza. What does she still see in him – after all I’ve done? The unfairness was infuriating.

He had been in Oxford when the riots kicked off, giving a lecture on gang culture: how was that for timing? When the community is undermined by the exodus of wealth and skills caused by lack of opportunity, setting off a downward spiral, and the traditional authorities – family, male role models – retreat from their stabilizing role or are absent, gangs fill the vacuum. The young seek protection; ancient concepts of revenge and the preservation of honour become paramount again.

He had been applying for a lecturing post. He’d thought it was his for the taking. He had already made a name for himself with appearances on TV. His lines about self-help and responsibility made good soundbites, and he had just the right tone to appeal to every kind of audience.