The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

the poor their own blood and soul? All of us having to make sacrifices, over and over again. And sometimes the one you’d take a bullet for is the one holding the gun.’

Her eyes flashed. She let go of his hand and stood up.

‘I’m sick of patronising eyes and pursed lips,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘Our blood is the same colour as the pale but that doesn’t matter because our skin is brown and our Prophet is a man not a god. Nowak could acquire that last mantle of privilege and respectability that you and I will never have, that our son can never have, because he was a white Christian man. That is why I killed him. Not because of business – fuck business. Business does not keep you warm at night; business does not bring back the dead. It does not bring you a respect that goes beyond cold, hard cash. No, this was not business, this was personal. He came here thinking he could take what was ours. His privilege brought him here; his arrogance got him killed.

‘I’ve seen who I am and it’s something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. But I don’t see why anyone else should.’

She looked away now, waiting for his response, thinking he would be shocked, that he would stand in judgement. But he didn’t. Instead, he got up and kissed her. And she knew that he hadn’t heard a word she had said.

CHAPTER 47

‘We have identified the three other men as members of a crime family from Eastern Europe, known as the Brotherhood,’ the chief of police said. ‘We understand they hired men from outside the city to create tensions and bring disorder to this great city so that they might take advantage of the disruption to conduct illegal drug activities.’

He was speaking at a press conference outside the steps of City Hall. He looked tired as he spoke. The last seven days had been difficult and he was looking forward to going home to his wife tonight. Tomorrow they would take the dogs and head to the moors, without having to worry about what was to come. Jia had made sure of that, and he was relieved. The clean-up operation would begin on Monday. Right now, the press must be dealt with. He wasn’t sure how they would react, but was hoping the questions would be few. He spoke clearly and firmly as he had been trained to do.

‘It is proving to be a difficult investigation,’ he said, ‘since most of the evidence was destroyed in the fire. But we believe the owner of the travel agency was their money launderer and the shooting was the result of an altercation between him and the Brotherhood.’

A week had passed since the day of the riots and Ahad and Elyas no longer felt like guests at Pukhtun House. Jia had also been asked to give a press statement outside the gates of the family home. Father and son watched the events on television from inside. Idris was with them.

The news moved away from the press conference and a mugshot of a man flashed up on the television screen. ‘Dad, wasn’t he sitting next to us at that concert we went to with Jia?’ said Ahad.

‘Yes, he was,’ said Elyas, remembering how he’d seen Jia talking to him in the interval, before they’d had that argument. He turned the television volume up.

‘Police announced today that they have arrested a man in relation to the killing of local businessman Akbar Khan. Waleed Karzai is due in the magistrates’ court tomorrow charged with his murder,’ the news presenter said. ‘Karzai denies the charges.’

‘Why would he kill Akbar Khan?’ said Elyas.

‘He wouldn’t kill anyone,’ said Idris, ‘unless someone paid him to. He’s a finisher.’

‘A what?’ said Elyas.

‘He’s the man you call when you need to close the books on someone important. My father told me once that this guy was the best. Said that if anyone wanted to end the Jirga, he’s the man they would have to call. That’s probably why they got him on Akbar Khan’s security detail – he’d have had to have sworn an oath of allegiance to the Khans. Makes you wonder what could have persuaded him to renege on his oath.’

‘Money? Like you said?’ said Ahad.

‘Yes, but Pukhtuns don’t act out of greed alone. Karzai’s bloodline is sworn to protect ours – his allegiance is not to the individual but to the bloodline and its succession. He would need to be persuaded that breaking that oath was in the service of the bloodline and for its own preservation. But even then he would be honour bound to inform his Khan – which means, if Karzai had been asked to make an attempt on your grandfather’s life, Akbar Khan would have known about it, he would have told us, and we’d have stopped it. So I’m not sure what’s happened here, unless Karzai went rogue. Or the police have simply got the wrong man.’

‘What if the person who wanted him dead was someone he cared about? Then the choice would be between saving his own skin or theirs,’ said Ahad.

Idris’s face was dark, his eyes cold. ‘Just like your mother,’ he said. ‘Always looking for a loophole.’

Elyas sat down slowly; the fog in his head began to clear. Something was waiting for him in the corners of his mind. He thought about Jia, her words, how she had talked with Karzai in the concert hall that night. Something had bothered him about it – perhaps it was simply her caginess. Whatever it was, he’d put it to the back of his mind in the chaos of the shooting afterwards. He closed his eyes and replayed the memory, and recalled how Jia had taken something from Karzai and put it in her handbag. Had it been an exchange? Was the brown packet he’d seen Karzai putting away one that she had passed