‘We want to help,’ Razi said, ‘but we want to make sure everything is done respectfully, you understand?’

‘I understand your concerns. It is time to take responsibility, but we will do it without offending your fathers. Some of us tried to leave this life behind, but the outside world wasn’t as simple as we hoped. Our elders paved a path for us, we can take it further. Maybe one day one among us will be the parent of a government minister or even the prime minister. But until that day comes we are Pukhtuns, we live by our own law and we should die by it. It is time we brought the family business into the new era. But I need your help to do it.’

‘All we ask is this one job to clean up the place,’ said Idris. ‘Then, if you want, we’ll train you, we’ll give you jobs, we’ll pay your tax and your national insurance contributions, everything. The tech centre will give you a step up and a place in society. You have already seen what we are doing. Your children won’t have to lie about what you do. You will live like honourable men but without the boot of white privilege on your necks.’

Razi turned to Jia. ‘White society did not give us justice. If we do this with you, you will give us justice?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know about justice, but I will give you back your dignity,’ she said. ‘If you want it. The only thing that separates us from the rest of the country is opportunity. The politicians, the wealthy, the people with power – they are not going to give us what we want. We will have to seize it for ourselves.’

She could feel the energy in the room, the dead dreams of men coming alive as she spoke. Sitting so low in the well, surrounded by the skeletons of those who had tried to escape, the men had no idea how to climb out. But she had thrown them a rope and they were going to hold on to it with both hands.

CHAPTER 45

‘I won’t let you do this!’ the woman screamed at the boy, grabbing him by his hood. His feet dragged across the asphalt as she pulled him into the white van that was waiting close by. The door slid shut hard behind her, and she slapped her son for the first time in her life. ‘Beta! They want to kill you! They want to kill you, my flesh and blood! I carried you for nine months inside me, I nursed you for two whole years. Why? Because I love you, and no one will weep for you except me! Do you understand, you little shit?’

The boy pushed his mother aside, trying to clamber over her and out of the van. ‘Mum! Let me out, you crazy woman! What the fuck!’