Elyas wondered if her detachment was due to countless retellings of the story, so that the events had lost their power over her, or whether the pain was still so fresh that she could not allow herself to feel it. Either way, as she spoke, Elyas was reminded of the boy soldiers he’d met in Afghanistan, the ones who knew no other life than death and despair.

‘Are you saying he killed all those people?’ he asked slowly.

‘I’m simply stating the facts. And the facts are that, for the three days the fires raged, Bazigh Khan was at my father’s house mourning the loss of his family, as is prescribed under Islamic law. The police suspected him, they even arrested him, but eleven men stepped forward to say he had not left the house in days.’

‘And his children? What happened to them?’ Elyas asked.

Jia pointed at Idris and Nadeem. Elyas looked from the brothers to their father. Bazigh Khan was across the garden, greeting some guests. He thought of his own son and what he would do to anyone who dared to hurt him. He thought of what Jia’s leaving had done to him. And he wondered what damage lay within Bazigh Khan and his sons. He couldn’t even begin to fathom.

In the distance, Bazigh Khan was shaking hands with the men of the Jirga. No one knew exactly how many police officers had tried and failed to bring them to justice, how many lives they had taken to achieve their ends or what it was that drove them. They embraced and laughed raucously, like any other group of greying old uncles at a wedding, making merry and over-indulging.

CHAPTER 13

Jia watched Benyamin from afar. Even from a distance she could tell he was flirting with the young girl in the emerald green. She wondered what Zan would have made of their little brother. Things had been so very different when she and Zan were young.