‘You have,’ she said. ‘You have. And I say this with respect, it is a new zamana we live in, sahib.’ She was getting old. Gout had taken hold of her foot and her knees were riddled with arthritis, making her gait more of a waddle than a walk. But none of this stopped her working. She was greeted with respect, fed hot samosas, called constantly and pandered to by her people. Girls’ mothers brought her gifts, while boys’ mothers brought her gossip. She was acquainted with every Pukhtun family in England, Scotland and Wales, and was privy to their intimate affairs, and so she knew none would consent to a union with the daughter of Akbar Khan. Families who had worked hard to hide their histories and bury their bloodstained pasts didn’t want to build alliances with a family so freshly connected to crime.

Now in her eighties, she had seen too many good women age and wither away in the hope of a good match, sacrificed at the altar of honour, faith and family name. It was a crime to ask a woman to give up her dreams of being a mother and a wife. It was a sin to expect a woman to safeguard her chastity her entire life because a man of appropriate upbringing or station could not be found within the system. She knew her ideas would disrupt an age-old system and rain a mighty backlash down upon her, but her children were married and her husband was long dead, and so the courage to speak the truth was not hard to muster. Sitting directly opposite Akbar Khan, she put down her cup and rested her hands on the table. ‘Jia is a good girl. She can be trusted to make her own decisions. Let her find her own husband.’

Her words broke the dam, and rage spread across Akbar Khan’s face. She had anticipated this and was ready for him. ‘Now, now,’ she said, taking his hand in hers to restrain more than comfort. ‘Spit out the anger and think again. Izzat, honour, both these fade and are nothing in the eyes of Allah. What lasts is love, and you know this better than most.’

Akbar Khan nodded. Heart heavy and mind muddied, he learnt that day the hardest lesson of fatherhood: even the Khan cannot save his favourite child from the trials God chooses to heap upon her. He knew the world of his heritage well, a world where a woman was considered ‘left on the shelf’ when she turned twenty-five. A world where boys’ mothers visited house upon house, sipping chai and eating sweetmeats and fried savouries as they viewed potential brides as though they were buying cattle. It was a hobby, a time-pass. They forgot that they too had daughters; they gossiped about girls and spread half-truths about families, and the cycle continued from one generation to the next.