Sitting here all these years later among the rubble of life, Jia saw his words for what they had been: childish idealism.

‘Before I came here,’ Jia said, ‘I wanted to end this life of our fathers. Now…I’m not so sure.’

Malik appeared behind her. He pulled off his coat and placed it on the back of a chair. He looked exhausted. Jia handed him her juice. He took it gratefully.

‘Are there still injured people coming in?’ said Nadeem.

‘No, we finished up a while ago, but I had another kid come in with stomach pains,’ he said. ‘Like Jimmy Khan’s little girl last year, frightened to death she was… We found a kilo of heroin in her stomach. A kilo! The Brotherhood had her swallow seventy-nine condoms full of heroin before putting her on a flight to Manchester. If even one had burst she would have died.’ He finished the juice. ‘Sorry, did you want that?’

Jia shook her head and ordered another drink.

‘Nothing like that ever happened under the Jirga,’ Malik added. The family had enforced a strict code of honour – no child was to be harmed, the elderly were to be respected and women were allowed to choose their destiny. Decades had passed since anyone had dared cross the line. Nowak’s new wave of criminals was changing all that.

Nadeem shook his head in disgust. ‘Whatever the Jirga did, we knew our children were safe,’ he said. ‘But these new guys, they have no code, no honour. And the police can’t handle them…or won’t. They couldn’t deal with the organised crime of our disorganised fathers, never mind these people. They’re younger, more ruthless and better organised.’

‘The Jirga is getting old,’ said Idris. ‘The last ten years have seen them losing business and getting sentimental about the old ways. They reject change, change that could benefit them and the city. They’ve weakened and that’s what’s allowed Nowak to get his foot in the door.’ He paused, turning to Jia. ‘Your father said he was ready to retire, wanted you to take over. I always said you were too straight, but he disagreed; he said you’d like the new projects.’

‘What projects?’

Idris opened a leather notebook. ‘I wanted to distance the way we do business from the family,’ he said. ‘Modernise it and make it more lucrative. A lot of the younger kids are tech-savvy. There’s a girl called Haines, Chilli Chacha’s granddaughter – she’s brilliant. Tech city would snap her up but her family won’t allow her to leave home until she gets married, and she’s brighter than all the boys they’ve tried to set her up with. She’s got an idea for a website… This is the age of eBay and Shopify, and yet the Jirga is still running things like a cash-and-carry corner shop!’

‘What stopped you implementing any of this?’ asked Jia.