‘Can you even cook?’ Malik had asked. Jia didn’t answer. She took the cleavers and nudged the chef aside. She folded back her sleeves and stepped up to the hotplate. She could see it was blackened from years of serving kat-a-kat and parathas and masala fish; she could tell the spices and butter had seeped into it and seasoned it through and through. She poured oil on to the plate and waited for it to smoke. She reached over and took the raw meat, adding it to the plate and watching it sizzle, measuring spices, adding tomatoes and fresh chillies. She used the cleavers to cut through the hearts, lungs, liver and brain, chopping them until they were tiny, and cutting them further until they resembled minced meat. The days of quinoa and oat milk felt a lifetime away.

‘You know how to cook,’ said the men. And they tucked in, the food giving them heart for the discussion at hand.

‘So you want us to fight for you, and to turn on our fathers,’ Razi said. ‘Why should we trust you?’

Jia spoke slowly, her words measured. ‘Trust is not something one can convince another to have; it is earned. The fact that you are here shows that I have earned it already. I will ask you to make hard choices; these are hard times, but then you already know that too.’

Jia had asked Idris to tell the men of the plan to kill Nowak. Their coming to her with questions reassured her that they held her in high esteem, and she knew that once won, their loyalty would be unwavering.

She listened intently. ‘I spent a lot of time inside because of this kind of thing,’ said Razi.

She nodded. ‘The system let you down. I will not.’

Razi picked up one of the deep serving dishes from the centre of the table. It was filled with large chunks of mutton, cooked with potatoes and fat and seasoned with salt and lemon juice. He passed the dum pukht to Jia, who took it graciously. She filled her plate and ate heartily, the taste of mutton reminding her of the dinner parties her mother would throw when she was a child, how they would all sit around a dastarkhan on the floor together, eating nothing but boti and tikka and occasionally rice, and the elders would ask her to bring toothpicks to fetch out the bits of meat that had caught between their teeth.

Razi had been little when Jia had left for university. She used to carry him off to the garden on her hip whenever Sher Khan and his wife visited. She could tell from his face that what he was about to say was difficult. His words came slow and separated.