Somewhere deep inside, Elyas had always known the truth about Jia, what she had become, what her business really was and the danger that put her in, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. He didn’t stop running until he reached Morley Street. Pounding the pavement, out of breath, his heart racing, he clawed his way through the crowd towards the blaze, only to be pulled back by a policeman. ‘Sir, you can’t go any further.’

‘But my wife is in that building!’ said Elyas, his voice frantic. He couldn’t lose her, he had come too far. ‘I have to get in there!’ he shouted, his hands shoving the policeman aside. Two other officers stepped in to restrain him but he continued to struggle, knowing that the orange and yellow flames licking the sides of the building were taking Jia further and further away from him. ‘Look, you don’t understand. I have to get in there! Please, let me go, I have to help her!’ On his knees now, head in his hands, he watched helplessly as flames rose upwards, shattering windows and devouring the upper floors of the shop and restaurant.

The policeman he’d struggled to get free from looked at him. ‘If she’s in there, the only one who can help her now is Allah, mate,’ he said.

The police, the shattered glass, the sirens, the concern for Jia, all brought back memories of Zan’s death and Elyas felt nothing but despair. He had let her down again. If only he had been less proud, if only he had told her how he really felt, and if only he had accepted what she offered as enough, then maybe, just maybe, she would still be here. His head hurt and his throat burned from the petrol fumes. He needed to talk to Ahad, to prepare him. He looked back up at the building where his wife was trapped. There was nothing he could do.

The men were destroying their own city – it had given them more than the place they considered their motherland ever had, and whether they knew it or not, they belonged here. Tomorrow they would awake to the damage they had inflicted and wonder what colour of jinn had possessed them to bring down the apocalyptic fire of hashr on this place. And what would follow would be another day of judgement, one that would see them locked up for decades if history was to repeat itself, one brought about by the legal system that his wife had spent her life defending, but never would again.