Collapsing into a heap next to Zan was Akbar Khan. He ran his fingers through his son’s hair, wiping the blood from his forehead – ‘Ya Allah! Ya Allah! YA ALLAH!’ – on his knees, drenched in rain, his supplications getting louder and louder, as though exorcising the devil. The old man’s calls to his Lord were the last thing Elyas heard before the ambulance sirens closed in and drowned out everything else. They arrived from all sides, white against the darkness.

Events unfolded in front of Elyas like a grainy, silent film. Around Jia everything seemed to be in slow motion: a paramedic cajoling her to let go of her broken brother, his words lost in the cold, damp air, her eyes dim. Jia was in another place, another world, one where she could rock Zan back and forth, back and forth, to this place. Streams of whispered words came from her mouth as tears dripped from her face to his. Only Akbar Khan was close enough to hear what she was saying, and it was her madness that forced him to resume control. He raised his head and straightened his back.

His eldest son was gone, a boy who had come to life through him and become a man under his watch, become so much more than he could ever have hoped. Akbar Khan had started to believe in Zan’s plans for the family business. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself to dream, but handing over his empire had begun to seem like a reality. He should have known better; he had developed ideas above his station, and he had forgotten he was not the master of final judgement, although he had dealt it out enough times over the course of his life. He had brought destruction to those he believed deserving, and to others who had simply become collateral damage in the battleground of business. Today that destruction had been visited upon him.

He leaned in and whispered something to his daughter and she immediately loosened her grip. The paramedics moved in swiftly, lifting Zan’s broken body on to the cold stretcher and into the ambulance. In the distance, Elyas watched his wife. Behind her swarmed paramedics, policemen, and other faces, some but not all familiar. But she saw none of it. Her head down and her palms upwards, she looked as if she was praying. She wasn’t, though; she was staring at the blood.