The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

here because of your dad. Out of respect for what he’s done for me and my family. My wife…she took our daugh’er to her homeland to see ’er family. We needed money. An’ the kuttee listened to some shit her cousin said.’ The disbelief was still written large on his face.

His daughter had been admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain. Doctors found half a kilo of cocaine in her stomach. ‘I wanted to fucking kill my wife, but your dad and Idris convinced me to go to the police. Fat lot of good that did – arrested some stooge of Nowak’s on bullshit charges. But then I heard you were representing him and I had to come and see you.’

Andrzej Nowak, the man she’d supposed was at the wheel of the supercar. When Jia had met him that one time with her client, most of his questions had been posed with the assurance of a public schoolboy. At times he had turned to his cousin, appearing to reassure him in their mother tongue. He’d been charming, dapper, young – his silver hair, like his money, was inherited. Jia remembered being struck by how soft his hands were, and how tapered his fingers. He was not used to getting his hands dirty.

‘Jimmy, I wish you’d come to me sooner,’ she’d told him. ‘You know I’d do anything to help you. But you should know that Andrzej Nowak is not my client.’

‘Nah, but his fall guy is.’

Jia hadn’t been able to argue with that: she was representing one of Nowak’s henchmen. She had thought something was off about the case and seeing Jimmy had confirmed it. She’d been a barrister for almost two decades. Some people were obviously guilty, some obviously innocent, and then there were those who fell into the grey, people like her own family. She had initially read law to arm herself, to be better equipped than those who tried to use it against her and those she loved. But once she’d turned her back on her father, she came to believe in the justice system. She’d liked that the lines were clean and clear. If you stepped over them you deserved punishment, but only if it could be proved you’d done so. The law, unlike men, was dependable. It was easy to navigate; you always knew where you stood with it.

Jimmy had begged her to do something. He knew her client was a pawn and that the actual man responsible for what happened to his daughter was paying for his defence. When he’d heard that Akbar Khan’s daughter was representing the guy, he had come to her in the hope of a better, cleaner kind of justice.

But Jia Khan was not ready to deliver.

***

Andrzej Nowak sat in the gallery, watching as the barrister looked through her notes, placing them face down after finishing each argument. He noted her every movement, every flicker of emotion. She was striking, not as tall as they’d said, but steeled, like the exterior of an armoured vehicle. He watched her hands, her lips, her long, olive-skinned neck, and wondered what it would take to break it. He parked the thought. It interested him. Very little did nowadays. Boredom had set in. He leaned forward to listen as she questioned the officer responsible for the operation that had brought in his man.

‘Just a few questions, Officer Swan,’ said Jia.

This was the first time the officer had given evidence since returning from maternity leave. Her baby was teething, and she hadn’t had much sleep. Adjusting to work again was proving harder than she had anticipated. The laddish culture of the drugs division was well known across the force. She didn’t want to give them any excuse to judge her.

Jia smiled gently at the woman. ‘Can I get you some water?’ she asked. The police officer nodded. The sign of solidarity from the only other woman on this side of the court allowed her to exhale.

Jia looked up from her place at the defence desk and ran through some general questions about the investigation, putting the officer at ease. Then she seemed a little straighter, her eyes clearer: ‘Were you sleeping with the defendant’s wife, Officer Swan?’ she said.

The police officer looked confused, as if she’d been reading from a script and lost her place. She’d prepped for procedural questions. She was unprepared for this line of questioning. She stared at Jia Khan, her groggy head wondering what had just happened.

‘How do you know the defendant’s wife, Officer Swan?’ Jia pressed.

The officer stammered over her words, before managing to cobble a sentence together. ‘We met at a mother and baby class,’ she said.

‘And how soon after you met did things become sexual between you?’

‘They didn’t.’

Jia took off her glasses and picked up a sheet of paper: ‘I miss you so much, and can’t wait for us to be together again,’ she read out. ‘David doesn’t understand me the way you do. I love you so much.’ She put the paper down and her glasses back on. ‘I’m afraid the evidence speaks to the contrary,’ she said.

The witness looked from Jia Khan to a woman sitting at the back of the gallery, her eyes lowered.

‘We’re just friends. That’s all,’ said the policewoman, her media training kicking in.

The freelance court reporter scribbled furiously in the press gallery. Salacious copy was lapped up by newsrooms. ‘Married mother-of-two police officer in lesbian love tryst with defendant’s wife,’ he wrote.

Text messages were a dangerous thing, especially between women. The absence of nuance, coupled with emotional vulnerability and the tendency to overshare could be twisted. Jia knew this.

The defendant’s wife had come to Jia with the allegations of impropriety on the part of the officer a few weeks ago. Jia didn’t know if they were true or not; she didn’t know if their meeting at the mother and baby class had been genuine or contrived. All she knew was that it was her job to defend her client to the best