The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

He spotted Jimmy Khan; the men had been neighbours for years, exchanging pleasantries on the way to work and at Friday prayers. He was standing by the bag, a bottle in one hand, his phone in the other. Bilal watched as Jimmy looked at his phone and then flung the bottle into the window of the travel agency across the road. The glass shattered and as mob mentality kicked in, a volley of other bottles were hurled into the building, creating explosion after explosion. The shop was alight, flames licking up the front to the roof, as though trying to escape into the night sky.

Jia stood motionless, looking down at Nowak, her phone in her hand. She was jolted back by the sound of smashing glass coming from the next room. Nadeem helped Idris to his feet. The bullet had only grazed his arm. The temperature began to rise quickly. It was time to move.

‘Take the money,’ said Jia.

Her cousins grabbed the bags of cash, throwing in the last few wads lying on the floor, and began making their way back to the basement from which they’d come.

Jia stood by the trapdoor and waited until her men were safely underground, flames rising rapidly all around her. From the back of the room, she watched the travel agency burn, the fire devouring everything in its path. She turned off her phone and threw it on the flames before she left. It exploded behind her.

Back in the restaurant, Jia’s cousins pulled off their masks and threw them into the trunk with their gloves and guns. Once Jia had emerged from the basement, Nadeem and Malik closed the trapdoor and pushed the box back into place. They looked at each other, sweat pouring from their faces. The heat was intense, even here. ‘Well –’ said Idris. His words were cut short by the sound of an explosion nearby.

‘What was that?’ said Nadeem. ‘It sounded close. I think we should get out of here.’

But when they entered the dining area they were greeted by thick black smoke coming from the direction of the kitchen. They headed down the corridor towards it, but when they tried to enter they were beaten back by flames. The fire from next door had spread at an alarming speed.

‘Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to get out the back way,’ said Nadeem.

‘Or the front,’ Idris added, staring hopelessly at a wall of flame blazing across the shopfront.

Malik looked at the others. ‘I don’t think we thought this through properly,’ he said.

Back in the newsroom, Elyas and his reporters watched the drama unfold online. The news helicopter showed plumes of smoke pouring out of the travel agency, the surrounding streets swarming with rioters, like locusts, beyond control and demolishing everything in sight as the police looked on, helpless. All they could do was wait for the violence to subside.

A local TV reporter was interviewing self-styled community leaders, local MPs, councillors and one university expert, who grabbed the microphone: ‘I have a question,’ he said. ‘How long do people endure you riding roughshod over their lives before they no longer have any respect for yours? Violence has an interesting way of changing definition. When it’s used against us, you call it justice. When we utilise it, you call us criminals. There is no such thing as reverse racism. There is only a response to racism. This is not racist violence, this is violence born from rage of oppression, and it will happen again and again until you stop seeing us as the problem and you as the solution.’

‘Elyas,’ said John, looking up from his screen. ‘Jia… Apparently she’s trapped next door to the travel agency.’

‘What? How? Surely the restaurant was evacuated after the police warning?’

‘I don’t know, mate. I’m really sorry. It’s all over the net,’ said John. ‘She’s developed quite a following over the last few days, become a bit of a local hero. The online chatter is using the hashtag #TheVerdict to describe her and her cousins. Sounds like people on the ground there have been waiting for her to come out, but there’s been no sign.’

Elyas was already on the phone, dialling her number, but the call failed. He tried again as he started pulling on his coat.

‘Where are you going?’ John asked.

‘I have to get out there, I can’t stay here,’ said Elyas.

‘Elyas, mate, you don’t want to get mixed up in this. She runs her father’s operations, you must have known that?’ But the door had slammed before he had finished speaking.

Somewhere deep inside, Elyas had always known the truth about Jia, what she had become, what her business really was and the danger that put her in, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. He didn’t stop running until he reached Morley Street. Pounding the pavement, out of breath, his heart racing, he clawed his way through the crowd towards the blaze, only to be pulled back by a policeman. ‘Sir, you can’t go any further.’

‘But my wife is in that building!’ said Elyas, his voice frantic. He couldn’t lose her, he had come too far. ‘I have to get in there!’ he shouted, his hands shoving the policeman aside. Two other officers stepped in to restrain him but he continued to struggle, knowing that the orange and yellow flames licking the sides of the building were taking Jia further and further away from him. ‘Look, you don’t understand. I have to get in there! Please, let me go, I have to help her!’ On his knees now, head in his hands, he watched helplessly as flames rose upwards, shattering windows and devouring the upper floors of the shop and restaurant.

The policeman he’d struggled to get free from looked at him. ‘If she’s in there, the only one who can help her now is Allah, mate,’ he said.

The police, the shattered glass, the sirens, the concern for Jia, all brought back memories of Zan’s death and Elyas felt nothing