Elyas sat down slowly; the fog in his head began to clear. Something was waiting for him in the corners of his mind. He thought about Jia, her words, how she had talked with Karzai in the concert hall that night. Something had bothered him about it – perhaps it was simply her caginess. Whatever it was, he’d put it to the back of his mind in the chaos of the shooting afterwards. He closed his eyes and replayed the memory, and recalled how Jia had taken something from Karzai and put it in her handbag. Had it been an exchange? Was the brown packet he’d seen Karzai putting away one that she had passed him? Money? But it made no sense. Why would she pay him? Unless she had found her loophole? ‘It was only recently that I realised how much my father really loved me… Sometimes the one you’d take a bullet for is the one holding the gun.’ Her words came back to him. Had she always planned to take over her father’s empire?

Elyas suddenly remembered something else from that night at the concert. He made his way quickly to the bedroom and opened the walk-in wardrobe that was now his. He hadn’t unpacked properly yet. He unzipped his suitcase and began searching frantically. He found the jacket he’d been wearing that night and emptied the contents of its pockets. Nothing. Then he remembered the internal pocket. He reached in and his fingers touched the edges of an envelope. He’d forgotten to give it to Jia when he was handing back the things that had spilled from her handbag during the shooting.

He opened it, taking out a piece of folded paper. He recognised Jia’s handwriting.

Baba,

You were my hero. I had no way of knowing what life had in store for us, but I knew that as long as you were with me, everything would turn out well.

I was naive.

When Zan died I broke. You watched over me for months as I grieved. Then the baby came and went and I broke again. The grief was bubbling up inside me, leaving me bitter. So I left. Life was hard without you. But it would have been harder with you.

And then you called and told me about my son. That he was alive. You’d kept him from me. Because you had thought it best.

I had been in a haze after Zan’s death. I had been unwell. I had trusted you to protect me, but you failed. Instead you took advantage of the situation.

Your actions took from me the people I loved, the people I could have loved the most.