Jia had instructed Idris and her team to take the old mills that stood off Canal Road and redevelop them. Situated across from the shopping precinct and the hotel known for its hourly knocking-shop rates, it wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect a successful tech company to build its headquarters. But it worked and it thrived. She put Benyamin in charge of the day-to-day running of the organisation’s buildings. It meant he had a significant role but very little to do with the illegal operations. She needed him to stay safe and out of harm’s way. At least for now.

After decades of being reminded that they belonged to an underachieving and unemployed community, the people of this city had stopped trying to climb out of the black hole in which they found themselves. Those who did were pulled back in by the weight of others wanting to hide from their misery. But when ‘The Company’ (as those who worked for the Opium Den referred to it) told them they deserved better and gave them better, they grafted. Jia made sure her employees got everything they needed. The Khan’s philosophy of trust and loyalty became the cornerstones of the Opium Den.

There were two sides to the business, legitimate and illegal. The illegal arm disrupted the country’s drugs market. There were few rules other than: ‘Get it done, do it right and don’t tell anyone.’ The young developers devoured the work. They were hungry for opportunity and starved of validation. The Company gave them a place to belong and a sense of achievement. Their cultural background was an asset, not a problem to be managed or a box to be ticked. Their time spent late-night web-surfing for pot and porn was paying off; they had developed an extensive knowledge of the darknet. It allowed them to build a modern drugs marketplace that gave buyers anonymised access to any illegal substance they wanted. It was an eBay-like set-up, and payment was taken using Bitcoin and other virtual currencies through a system similar to Paypal.

Drugs and consensual sex was what they sold. Akbar Khan’s death had turned Jia’s monochrome life various shades of grey. She cast aside her belief in the rule of law, leaving the balance of sin and virtue to God. He could sift and sort and allot after she died. But while she lived she knew that the good she did outweighed the bad. Children were fed, women slept soundly and men had self-esteem, and that was all that life came down to in the end. If heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana helped rich men sleep and poor men exist through another day, then who was she to stop it? Then there was the simple question of economics. Someone was going to supply, so why not them?