‘OK. Tell him, this Fat Bob, what we need and tell him to sort it tonight. We need two cars, and we need them to be clean,’ she said.

Bazigh Khan listened, watching the young woman carefully lay out her plans, and he thought of his brother. Akbar Khan had known his daughter would take his place, and it had come to pass just as he had predicted, the demise of the Khan and the rise of his daughter. ‘Your father kept a car especially for a job like this,’ he said. ‘It’s in the garage, untraceable.’ Headstrong and proud, he could see that Jia was smarter than her father had been. But she also knew when to ask for advice, and he was pleased with the respect she accorded him. Jia thanked her uncle for the information and arrangements were made for the car to be brought out of storage.

‘How is buying their shipment going to help us any? Whether we buy it or someone else gets it, they still get what they want,’ asked Nadeem.

Jia didn’t answer but turned to Bazigh Khan. ‘I would like you to convey to the Jirga that we are handling the situation,’ she told him. ‘Thank you for coming over this late. You must be tired. Why don’t you rest a little while we finish?’

Bazigh Khan nodded. He understood the request was a respectful way of asking him to retire, and he had been prepared for this. She was slowly disentangling him from the knotty business and allowing him to hand over his responsibilities to his sons. The loss of power would have made a lesser man angry, but Bazigh Khan knew the ways of his family; he knew they would still call upon him for counsel, just without the pressure of practical matters, and he was also glad this meant he’d be able to spend time with his grand-daughter. He left the room.

‘I understand your desire to bring the family business out of the dark ages,’ said Nadeem. ‘And I’m with you on that, but I don’t understand how buying Nowak’s stash constitutes badal or solves our problem. They’re still going to be here, they’re still going to be demanding protection money from our people. They’ll just have our money and be stronger because of it.’

‘What are we missing, Jia?’ Malik said. ‘There’s obviously more to the plan than this. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here. So what is it?’

‘We do the switch,’ she said. ‘We give Nowak the cash. We send the shipment out, as I’ve explained to our own dealers.’ Her eyes were stone cold, her voice steady. ‘Then,’ she said, looking at her brother and pausing, ‘we kill them.’