The news moved away from the press conference and a mugshot of a man flashed up on the television screen. ‘Dad, wasn’t he sitting next to us at that concert we went to with Jia?’ said Ahad.

‘Yes, he was,’ said Elyas, remembering how he’d seen Jia talking to him in the interval, before they’d had that argument. He turned the television volume up.

‘Police announced today that they have arrested a man in relation to the killing of local businessman Akbar Khan. Waleed Karzai is due in the magistrates’ court tomorrow charged with his murder,’ the news presenter said. ‘Karzai denies the charges.’

‘Why would he kill Akbar Khan?’ said Elyas.

‘He wouldn’t kill anyone,’ said Idris, ‘unless someone paid him to. He’s a finisher.’

‘A what?’ said Elyas.

‘He’s the man you call when you need to close the books on someone important. My father told me once that this guy was the best. Said that if anyone wanted to end the Jirga, he’s the man they would have to call. That’s probably why they got him on Akbar Khan’s security detail – he’d have had to have sworn an oath of allegiance to the Khans. Makes you wonder what could have persuaded him to renege on his oath.’

‘Money? Like you said?’ said Ahad.

‘Yes, but Pukhtuns don’t act out of greed alone. Karzai’s bloodline is sworn to protect ours – his allegiance is not to the individual but to the bloodline and its succession. He would need to be persuaded that breaking that oath was in the service of the bloodline and for its own preservation. But even then he would be honour bound to inform his Khan – which means, if Karzai had been asked to make an attempt on your grandfather’s life, Akbar Khan would have known about it, he would have told us, and we’d have stopped it. So I’m not sure what’s happened here, unless Karzai went rogue. Or the police have simply got the wrong man.’

‘What if the person who wanted him dead was someone he cared about? Then the choice would be between saving his own skin or theirs,’ said Ahad.

Idris’s face was dark, his eyes cold. ‘Just like your mother,’ he said. ‘Always looking for a loophole.’