The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

tyres and felt her chest being crushed as a strong arm hit her full on, pushing her to the ground. She landed heavily, her handbag spilling its contents across the road, and there followed what sounded like a volley of fireworks, so loud that her eardrums felt as if they would burst. Time seemed to slow down and then speed up as people ran towards her and then past her to help someone else. Jia looked across to see a man on the ground, his body heavy and lifeless. Something was seeping into her clothes and on to her hands. She brought her fingers up to her face to see what it was, and was hit by the unmistakeable smell of iron. It was blood. Where was Elyas? She looked around frantically, her head cloudy, her eyes trying to focus on the body. From the angle at which he lay, she couldn’t tell who it was. Then she heard Elyas’s voice, followed by Ahad’s, and relief flooded over her.

The ringing in her ears had subsided by the time Elyas reluctantly left her on the doorstep of Pukhtun House. Everything that had happened since the shooting – the rush to get to safety, dropping Ahad off, the journey home – had gone by in a blur. As soon as Elyas had handed back the things he’d picked up off the road, she thanked him and said goodnight, stuffing them back into her handbag. She didn’t want him to stay. When she got in the house, she rummaged for her phone. Everything was covered in fine powder – her compact must have smashed when it fell to the ground. She brushed off the phone and dialled.

‘What happened? Was it Nowak?’ she said when Idris picked up.

‘No, not as far as we know. We can’t be sure yet who the target was, or if there even was one. The streets are turning rogue without a Khan. They’re trying to fill the void he left, fighting among themselves.’

‘And the man? The one who was shot?’

‘He’s dead. Shot by one of the men on the motorbike. He was just some guy who had stopped to buy milk on his way home from work. Wife, kids, steady job.’

Jia ended the call with the feeling that Idris blamed her, that on some level this was her fault. That the entire city was on the verge of self-destruction because she hadn’t acted sooner to stop it. And she knew he was right. She’d shunned the old ways of doing business in her pursuit of a shake-up, but if she wanted to keep control, she was going to have to do some of the things she hated her father for.

CHAPTER 40

He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck and blew into his hands to warm them. The holding cell was cold. He didn’t know how long he’d been there and he didn’t know long it would take for his father to realise he was missing. The police had picked him up at the Cuedos snooker club in Burlington. He’d gone there after the shooting to blow off some steam. After dropping him at home and saying goodnight, his dad had driven off with Jia. Ahad knew he would be more concerned about her than him tonight.

He’d been in a place he shouldn’t be in, doing things he knew he shouldn’t do. The officers had been heavy-handed and he’d mouthed off, tried to resist arrest, and had ended up paying the price. He traced his finger over his eyelid, afraid, hoping he would be able to see once the swelling went down. He wondered how he was going to explain this to his father. His bravado was gone; waiting alone in a police cell took him to dark places. He had never been caught before. He thought of Jia and wondered what he would have felt if she had actually died today. He thought of his dad, and the disappointed look that would flash across his face. When were the police going to call him?

Ahad had always been a clever child, even labelled ‘gifted’ by the child psychologist who had seen him at the age of six on the school’s recommendation. That was when things had changed. He’d begun being disruptive in class, throwing ink on his school bible and using indelible pens to write complicated equations on walls when his teacher’s back was turned. The teachers had been more excited by the possibility of his ability than worried. They’d worked hard with him and he realised ‘gifted’ didn’t mean anything without work. He lacked focus; he didn’t really know what he wanted other than to learn the things that interested him. He didn’t need therapy to know that his ‘no fucks given’ hardwiring for everything other than his father was his mother’s fault. It was all her fault.

His father was the best among bad men. After spending years trying to reach up to the pedestal on which he’d placed Elyas, Ahad had come to the conclusion that it was pointless. Besides, his father did have his flaws, he’d discovered, chief among them his inability to resolve conflict. And so, sitting in that freezing cold cell in a police station, waiting for what was to come, he blamed his mother and his father too.

He heard the cold sound of metal turning in the lock and the heavy door swung slowly open, screeching along the stone floor. A policeman stood on the other side, his smile wide, like a clown in a uniform. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘it’s time for you to leave our premises.’

Ahad stood up as the officer stepped forward, expecting something terrible.

‘Would you like a Hobnob?’ the policeman asked, offering him the packet he held in his hand. Ahad looked visibly confused, unsure of what he was being asked. ‘You know, in case you’re peckish?’ the policeman said.

Ahad looked at the biscuits and the years dropped from his shoulders. ‘I’m OK, but thank you,’