The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

the hope of a familial union, but while the open secret could have caused bad blood between other families, Jia and Idris were different to most people. He held her in high regard and she recognised in him sound judgement. She knew that the death of Akbar Khan would leave a gaping wound in the Pukhtun brotherhood; it required the kind of ‘handling’ that only a Pukhtun man with a steady hand and a steel mind could do. She was glad he was here. ‘You should speak to the Jirga, Idris. This is not my world, but you understand it,’ she said.

Trusted, respected and obsessed with detail, her cousin was an important linchpin in the Khan empire. But he knew he was no leader. ‘No,’ Idris said. ‘It’s not my place. I have laid the groundwork and I’ll do whatever you need, but the succession must continue with you.’

He had spoken briefly to key members of the Jirga on his way over to the house, to break the news and to reassure them. ‘The families are setting up a meeting for later today. They are demanding justice,’ he said. ‘Akbar Khan worked hard to unite them through marriage and business alliances, but I’m afraid the ties of kinship may not be enough. If you do not assert your right today and in front of the collective Jirga, they will see it as weakness and there will be war.’

The death of Akbar Khan would have far-reaching consequences if not handled correctly. It was Jia’s actions that would now determine the future of the city and those who lived there. Idris prayed to God that she understood the gravity of what she was about to undertake.

CHAPTER 19

‘Good or bad, he’s closer than your jugular vein,’ said John, raising his eyebrows at his old friend.

Elyas laughed. ‘Since when does an atheist quote the Quran?’ he said.

‘Round these parts it’s what they’d say about your father-in-law,’ said John. He was one of the few people Elyas trusted. He told the truth and he told it cold. It came with the territory. John and Elyas had known each other for over two decades and despite distance their friendship had remained strong.

When the Recorder’s editor had announced he was taking a sabbatical for six months, Elyas jumped at the chance to work beside his old friend. Taking over the chief’s office was not just another job for him. It meant more than warm news-sheet and black ink. This was the Khan’s local paper. If anyone knew what was really going on with Jia’s family, it was the reporters who worked here. And Elyas needed familiarity.

‘It won’t happen,’ the school careers adviser had said when he’d mentioned his plans to become a journalist. ‘Media is not for people like you.’ For a while Elyas believed him. But, thankfully, university changed that, giving him back the confidence to follow his dreams. After graduating, he’d gone to work at his local paper. The first day on the job, he’d understood his careers adviser’s warning: Elyas’s was the only brown face in the newsroom.

The distance from the cub reporter’s desk to the chief’s corner office, inch by inch, was a measure of how far he had come. He looked out at the team of weekend staff through the glass wall that separated them, as they sifted through the details of the day’s breaking story – the death of Akbar Khan. He’d been left reeling when Jia had phoned him with the news. So when John got in touch to see how he was, he offered to come into the office to help piece the story together, even though he wasn’t officially supposed to start until Monday. It would take his mind off the personal fallout from this news. Ahad’s grandfather was dead before they’d even been introduced.

The newsroom hadn’t changed much in the years since Elyas had left. Newspapers were still strewn across the floor, desks and printers, some of them yellowing, their edges beginning to curl. Subs still shouted at fresh-faced journalists, and endless cups still filled the kitchen sink. The smell of the fridge left Elyas wondering if anyone had cleaned it since he’d left. Reporters still hunched over desks, stared at their screens, bashed keyboards and snapped pens, as news editors with papers to fill remained as antsy as ever, if not more so. The arrival of the internet age had made life for print journalists precarious.

John, who’d never left, was now their crime reporter. His reasons for staying were mainly family-related. His wife was the social affairs correspondent and their three children were settled in local schools. He’d thought of moving, especially with the industry dying, but had never quite found the right post. John was an old-fashioned hack: TV and radio were not for him, and the jump to internet… Well, that was too risky with a family. ‘I’ve got a comfortable seat on a sinking ship,’ he’d told Elyas. ‘Let’s see if a lifeboat turns up, eh?’ And so he’d stayed. Easy to get along with, he looked like a newspaperman out of one of the 1920s detective novels he read and wrote for a hobby.

First day back on the job and Elyas found himself knee-deep in photographs and clippings as he and John looked through the background on Akbar Khan. Not all content had been digitised. Elyas knew most of Akbar Khan’s history by heart and the cuttings did little more than refresh his memory. Heartbreak and Google were stalking companions, and while there wasn’t much about Jia online, there was plenty about her father.

The men stopped as one of the reporters came in carrying newspapers fresh off the press. The reporter piled them on Elyas’s desk and left. ‘Why are we going through these old stories and not getting someone else to do it?’ John asked.

‘This is personal to me.’

John nodded. He knew exactly how personal it was. Tentatively, he broached the subject. ‘Did Jia say anything else?’ he asked.

Elyas shook