There was a silence. Nadeem looked uncomfortable. ‘I know Idris is with you but I need time,’ he said. ‘You’re talking about us physically killing someone. Don’t get me wrong, Nowak needs to die. But taking a gun and pulling the trigger at point blank range? I don’t know if I could do that. The drugs, the rest of it, that’s easy, but this…the practicalities of it… I need time to get my head around it.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Think it over. Make sure you can live with your actions. Because once we do this there’s no going back.’

CHAPTER 39

The last time Jia Khan slipped into his house in the dead of night, Elyas had told her it was over. ‘I can’t do this any more,’ he’d said.

‘Well then, stop taking my calls,’ she’d replied, a little too quickly. And he knew that would never happen. She would call, and his heart would race and his greed for her rise up, and he would have no choice but to answer and unlock the door and take her into his bed. His desire for her was gnawing at his senses, inhibiting pathways of reason and logic. She was calamitous but he was in love with her. When she said ‘stop taking my calls’, the thought that she might no longer come to him threatened to become real, and he knew that the need was as much his as hers.

But he had Ahad to consider. Watching her every move as he spoke, making sure she wasn’t spooked, he’d told her that, in that case, they must spend time out of the cover of darkness, doing the things that normal families do. She agreed, and so it was that Elyas and Ahad arrived at the domed turrets and Corinthian pillars of the Alhambra, where Jia had arranged for them to go to a concert.

The lobby was a sea of sherwanis and tuxedos, and over-processed brown women teetering on heels with backcombed bleached-blonde hair. Elyas noted that his son looked out of place in his faded T-shirt, ripped jeans and blazer, but Ahad didn’t seem bothered by it. Elyas gave him one of the tickets. ‘Thanks for doing this,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not been easy.’ His phone buzzed. He looked at it. ‘It’s Jia, she’s running late. Come on, let’s find our seats,’ he said, and led Ahad through the bustle to their places.

The auditorium was slowly starting to fill up. Elyas and Ahad squeezed past a couple in their row and dropped into their seats.

‘Dad, you need to tell her how you feel. You can’t keep pretending you’re OK.’

‘Who says I’m pretending?’