‘That is not my business. I am taking my brother and leaving. Here is what you asked for.’ She handed him the box. He took it and placed it on the bonnet of one of the cars, then pulled a pocket knife from inside his jacket and flicked it open with well-practised ease. He slid the blade along the seal, before passing the box to his associates, who began carefully lifting out the wads of purple notes it held.

‘You understand I need to check the amount?’ he said.

She nodded. Silently, the men counted. Jia waited, watching the money pile up on the bonnet. The air, heavy with the smell of engine oil and metal, made it difficult to breathe, and she felt her head becoming opaque. The men continued to count. From the corner of her eye Jia could see her brother. The blood pounded in her ears and a metallic taste filled her mouth. She just needed to hold on a little longer.

She was grateful when the screeching of tyres on the ramp broke the silence, signalling Michael’s return. But the sound sent Benyamin crumpling to the floor, whimpering, his arms covering his head as he lay there in a heap. It took all the self-control she had not to rush forward and gather him up in her arms. But she knew she could not show Nowak any sign of weakness, and this made the rage in her rise further. She called it forth from deep inside her soul and held on to it, feeding off it, one eye on her brother and the other on the men slowly counting the money.

When the men gave Nowak the nod, Jia went over to Benyamin and pulled his arm around her. With Michael’s help, she led him to their car and lowered him into the back seat, closing the door firmly after him. With her brother safe, she took a deep breath and glanced down at the apple twig in her hand.

‘You’ve got this,’ Maria had told her on the doorstep of Pukhtun House.

‘I know.’

‘Remember that gruesome book of Pukhtun tales we smuggled in from the One World Bookshop?’

Jia had cast her mind back and remembered a yellow hardback book with strange pictures. Maria went on to remind her what they’d read in it, of wartime executions, prisoners pegged out, their jaws forced wide open as wronged women urinated in their mouths repeatedly until death overcame them. And of the women who carried out castrations, beheadings and ‘death by a thousand cuts’. Maria’s words were matter-of-fact, as though relaying an oft-used recipe passed down through generations.