For too long, Jia had hidden herself away in her ivory tower. She had closed her eyes to the silent injustices of society, to the ease with which her white counterparts, from their own towers, passed judgement on enclaves and ghettos, a symptom of their arrogance and luck. For too long she had lived apart in a society of indifference. Now Nowak was dragging her out.

‘Is Ben joining us?’ asked Nadeem.

‘I think he’s at home,’ Jia said.

‘I hear he’s got a new lady friend,’ said Nadeem. The TV volume ramped up out of the blue and they turned to find someone had flicked to a music channel. Nadeem’s words were lost in the mix.

‘Any news of Malik?’ said Jia.

‘He’s at the hospital. Says he’ll join us when he can,’ said Idris.

It felt good to be with the strong foundations of family. Pasha’s chalky walls were built on community, and recalled those found in the generational and palatial homes of Lahore’s old quarters. The smoking ban had brought Prohibition-style speakeasies to the city, where the poison on sale was not booze but tobacco. Remixed Arab-English tunes, bubbling hookahs and chatter filled the place. Pretty hijabistas sucked on hubbly-bubbly tubes as plumes of smoke rose up and permeated the air with a variety of shisha fragrances.

The cousins fell into conversation in the way that only those who live closely and share blood can, picking up strands of the past and intricately weaving them with the here and now. Jia began to remember what it felt like to be surrounded by people she’d grown up with, people who shared her values and understood her ways without explanation. The conversation was simple, easy, comfortable. The waiter handed her a glass of juice and she took a long, slow drink. She leaned in to the sugar hit and the warmth of her family, and spoke about the issues confronting them, about Nowak, the Jirga’s request and the police.

As the family lawyer, Idris had known the day would come when they would need to discuss the family business openly; he had just had to bide his time. ‘We’ve lived long enough to know that British law does not offer people who look like us justice. As members of the judiciary, we choose to live by it and implement it, but no one is going to give us our rights. Like Zan said, we have to take them.’

Jia listened, the mention of her brother tightening the knot in her heart. Before Zan had been arrested he had discussed bringing their fathers to justice, showing them the error of their ways, and then using their money and influence to improve the lives of others. They were going to call themselves the Verdict, and they were going to bring down their fathers, whom he described as ‘backward and bent on destroying the fabric of society’.