It was decided: the company would fold. It was a blow that Elyas would accept willingly. His life was built on knowing when to duck and when to take the hit. He would start over. His reputation was intact, and that was all he needed. He tucked ten pairs of identical black socks into his suitcase before closing the zip. Single fatherhood had made a practical man out of him. That eternal problem of the disappearing sock was not one he had time to deal with.

He was about to spend six months at the paper where he had started out as a trainee. It was a world away from documentaries, but the memories of his first proper job in news were so strong that he was unable to turn down the offer to guest edit the paper. Returning as the boss was something his younger self could never have imagined. In a city where white media dominated, a brown editor was an interesting proposition, even if the paper was failing.

It was more than twenty years on from his first day, but he remembered well the smell of freshly inked news-sheets, the hard-won camaraderie of old school hacks. The sound of news editors pouring curse words over grammar and the whine of highly strung sub-editors still filled his dreams.

It had been a tough place to be but a great place to be. In a city of brown ghettos, it was a white enclave, but that made the victories, when they came, even sweeter. He’d not found anything to match those highs or those lows, except Ahad’s mother.

Losing her had driven him to the edges of war-torn Afghanistan and the fringes of Pakistan. He’d fought hard to make sense of his loss and understand the ways of her family. His Urdu, Punjabi and Pashto had come in handy and he had found himself spoken of with respect among locals and journalists alike.

The awards had come and so had the women, but they meant little to a man who was hiding from life. Elyas Ahmad had the kind of face that betrayed him, a face that held no secrets. Some said it was because his heart was pure, and he liked that idea, but others saw it as a weakness: a man unable to control his feelings was a liability. His eyes invited admiring glances and whispered wants, his olive skin kept time at bay. But success and admiration did little to fill the loneliness left by his wife’s departure.

The guest editorship at the paper in West Yorkshire was a well-timed excuse to spend time with his son. Taking Ahad out of London would give them an opportunity to reconnect, away from the place they had come to call home, away from his friends and from the trouble that seemed to seek him out there.