The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

listened, the mention of her brother tightening the knot in her heart. Before Zan had been arrested he had discussed bringing their fathers to justice, showing them the error of their ways, and then using their money and influence to improve the lives of others. They were going to call themselves the Verdict, and they were going to bring down their fathers, whom he described as ‘backward and bent on destroying the fabric of society’.

Sitting here all these years later among the rubble of life, Jia saw his words for what they had been: childish idealism.

‘Before I came here,’ Jia said, ‘I wanted to end this life of our fathers. Now…I’m not so sure.’

Malik appeared behind her. He pulled off his coat and placed it on the back of a chair. He looked exhausted. Jia handed him her juice. He took it gratefully.

‘Are there still injured people coming in?’ said Nadeem.

‘No, we finished up a while ago, but I had another kid come in with stomach pains,’ he said. ‘Like Jimmy Khan’s little girl last year, frightened to death she was… We found a kilo of heroin in her stomach. A kilo! The Brotherhood had her swallow seventy-nine condoms full of heroin before putting her on a flight to Manchester. If even one had burst she would have died.’ He finished the juice. ‘Sorry, did you want that?’

Jia shook her head and ordered another drink.

‘Nothing like that ever happened under the Jirga,’ Malik added. The family had enforced a strict code of honour – no child was to be harmed, the elderly were to be respected and women were allowed to choose their destiny. Decades had passed since anyone had dared cross the line. Nowak’s new wave of criminals was changing all that.

Nadeem shook his head in disgust. ‘Whatever the Jirga did, we knew our children were safe,’ he said. ‘But these new guys, they have no code, no honour. And the police can’t handle them…or won’t. They couldn’t deal with the organised crime of our disorganised fathers, never mind these people. They’re younger, more ruthless and better organised.’

‘The Jirga is getting old,’ said Idris. ‘The last ten years have seen them losing business and getting sentimental about the old ways. They reject change, change that could benefit them and the city. They’ve weakened and that’s what’s allowed Nowak to get his foot in the door.’ He paused, turning to Jia. ‘Your father said he was ready to retire, wanted you to take over. I always said you were too straight, but he disagreed; he said you’d like the new projects.’

‘What projects?’

Idris opened a leather notebook. ‘I wanted to distance the way we do business from the family,’ he said. ‘Modernise it and make it more lucrative. A lot of the younger kids are tech-savvy. There’s a girl called Haines, Chilli Chacha’s granddaughter – she’s brilliant. Tech city would snap her up but her family won’t allow her to leave home until she gets married, and she’s brighter than all the boys they’ve tried to set her up with. She’s got an idea for a website… This is the age of eBay and Shopify, and yet the Jirga is still running things like a cash-and-carry corner shop!’

‘What stopped you implementing any of this?’ asked Jia.

‘You did. I wanted you to be here, to take over. I knew you had it in you, I just didn’t know if you’d follow through,’ he said, watching her face closely, waiting for a reaction, a flicker of resistance. But nothing came. He was right, she had always been her father’s daughter, but it was the cumulative effect of life that had brought her to this place. She could no longer sit back and ignore the equal expectations society put upon people from unequal circumstances. Seeing the blood of her people run in the city had awakened something in her. She was the Khan. She always had been. It had just been a matter of time.

‘Show me,’ said Jia, pointing at Idris’s book. ‘Show me what you think we should do.’

He handed it over and she began leafing through the pages.

‘You’re talking tech but staying old school?’ said Malik, nodding at the pencil and notebook.

‘It’s easier to shred than an iPad,’ Idris answered. ‘And it’s just reminders. Most of it is up here,’ he said, tapping his head. Idris had an eidetic memory; he remembered everything. ‘The old men are tired. It’s time to step up and take charge, Jia. Once we are settled we can convince them to retire and bring our people out of the dark ages.’

Jia listened to Idris, his words genuine, grounded in loyalty and sound judgement. She trusted him more than she trusted anyone else. Her mother, the old man at the funeral and now Idris – they were all asking her for the same thing.

‘Nowak will be planning to take out more members of the Jirga. He won’t stop with Akbar Khan,’ said Idris. ‘He wants to throw the city into chaos before taking over the operations and then tearing them apart.’

Jia watched her cousins. They had grown up here. Their father, and hers, had worked hard to make it their own. The blood of Bazigh Khan’s family had been spilled on the streets. Her brothers had offered up their innocence and their lives at the altar of Pukhtunwali. Now Nowak had decided to play with the lives of the city’s children and women, as if they were worthless. Somewhere along the way, Akbar Khan had become the voice in her head: These are not the ways of honourable men. Make them pay.

The surge of rage she had felt when she’d collected Benyamin began to flow again, bringing images flashing through her mind: Ben’s tyre-marked body, young children with heroin pouches in their intestines and Nowak’s smug face. It didn’t consume her, it didn’t overwhelm, it renewed her. It coursed through her veins, spreading to her extremities, making her feel powerful. She formed a fist with her right hand,