Vengeance, page 2
She had taken up martial arts when she moved south to London, learning under the same sifu for almost two decades and continuing to train with her online. When she returned home, Jia heard of a club hidden in the basement of a previously derelict mill that was now a shopping centre. The club opened long before the shops, and the car park was always empty when she arrived. She trained solo once a week and sparred with her younger sister Maria on another morning.
It was in the car park that she’d discovered Mo and his breakfast van, and he had become part of her training-morning ritual. On seeing her gloves, he had mentioned a martial arts class that originated with Muslims in Thailand.
‘It’s called silat, from the Sanskrit word shila, meaning “fight to support honesty”,’ he had said, and that had been enough of a sign for her, and she had joined.
These classes kept her head clear, and what she needed right now was clarity.
Her reasons for becoming the head of the Jirga had been complicated.
Mostly she had understood how many families would lose their livelihoods and the financial support her father had secretly been giving them for decades if the Jirga didn’t continue strongly. And a power vacuum would be disastrous for the city.
Nowak, head of rival outfit the Brotherhood, had been vying for domination, and those who ordinarily would have replaced her father were too hot-headed to lead. They would have burned the city to the ground, leaving behind a pile of rubble.
She had killed Nowak to put an end to the turf war and have everyone accept her as leader. Jia’s three cousins – Idris, Malik and Nadeem – had been with her that night, though she hadn’t talked with them about what had happened since.
But a few nights ago, her cousin Nadeem had brought disturbing news of some of the families the Brotherhood had been supporting.
Some days life felt one step forward and three steps back. Now there was a problem.
Jia put her water bottle to her lips and thought of the families who had once worked for Nowak. She’d spent more on an empty bottle than they had to spend on food for a day.
She climbed into her car and turned on the ignition. As her seat warmed, she checked her phone for messages.
One was from her husband Elyas, a picture of their younger son, Lirian, sleeping.
‘Reached out to the people you asked about,’ said a message from Idris. ‘Mary moved back to Cameroon. As for Henry, his people are being difficult. But might be because he’s one of the wealthiest men in the UK.’
Deep in thought, Jia drove through the same streets her father had. He’d come to London in the 1970s and worked in a hotel for a while before moving north.
She passed thriving shops and businesses that had stood empty only the previous year. Jia could see that, because of her investment, advice and foresight, things were changing. Opportunity was all this run-down city in the north of England needed, she was convinced.
The buildings gave way to green swathes of land, and she turned into a private road lined with drystone walls. Before her stood the high gates of Pukhtun House.
A lone guard stood on duty, but Jia knew a state-of-the art security system was watching and recording at all times, because this was the home of the most powerful and feared family in the city.
This was Jia’s home. It was the home of the Khan.
CHAPTER 2
1974
Akbar Khan stepped out of the Pembroke hotel and on to Park Lane, looking dapper. He pulled the maroon lapels of his velvet coat up high to protect him from a biting breeze. His brown hair shone in the sun like ambition, highlighted with threads of copper; both were gifts of ancestry.
He was buoyed by the prospect of new-found work, eager to harvest the mythical gold he’d heard London’s streets were paved with, here to shape his fortune with hard work and a little luck. He’d just landed his first job.
It had been two months since he and his brother left Peshawar. They’d saved and borrowed to get to Britain. And once here, they’d walked the streets searching for work, laughed with old friends and made banter with new. He thought back to how much had happened in the last eight weeks.
The flight had landed at 9.00PM on a Monday evening in June, and he’d been surprised that it was still light outside, not even close to the time for Isha prayers.
His friend Mushtaq had been waiting at Heathrow, surprisingly dressed in a shalwar kameez. Akbar and Bazigh wore suits they’d had made in the market in Peshawar. Mushtaq’s kameez was the colour of the bland Rich Tea biscuits he later offered them to go with their chai. Akbar Khan remembered the orange box of cake rusks he’d brought with him and took them out of his suitcase. They’d removed their shoes and were sitting on the floor of Mushtaq’s room playing taj, just like they used to in their schooldays, the playing cards scattered on the rug in front of them.
The landlady had welcomed them with deep dishes of chicken karahi and roti. She had kind eyes, called them ‘beta’ and told them she was excited to have new people visit from her homeland. She was as eager to share information about her new home as to hear news of Pakistan. Her home was in the heart of Brixton.
‘There are a lot of kalai here, from Jamaica, I think, but they are nice people.’
‘Some are very aggressive.’
‘Mushtaq, the gorai don’t see the few shades that separate us. To them, we are all kalai.’
Embarrassed by the scolding, Mushtaq looked at the floor.
Akbar Khan wondered if his friend would have taken it so well if they had been back home in Pakistan, to be put in his place by a woman.
She was bold. If women could speak this freely in this country, then what could a man achieve?
Akbar placed a chapati on his plate.
‘There is a shop in Tottenham Court Road,’ she said, ‘that sells kebab, and now we have a place where we can buy atta too.’
Bazigh Khan leaned forward to add some chicken to his plate, but Akbar put his hand on his shoulder.
‘Forty-seven! Why are you stopping me? I’m hungry.’
Akbar Khan turned to the landlady. ‘Bibiji, Mushtaq said he hadn’t eaten meat since he arrived because it is not halal.’
‘It’s OK, baita. We don’t mind so much, but for you, your uncle-ji found a farm nearby where we can go on weekends and buy fresh chickens. He slaughters them there and cleans them.’ She picked up Bazigh Khan’s plate and spooned some of the curry on to it. ‘This chicken is halal.’
Akbar Khan relaxed. He placed a morsel of roti in his mouth. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was. The responsibility of looking after his younger brother made him forget everything. ‘Thank you, bibiji.’
‘You know, this is London, and you will need to be less rigid here. It is either that, or the city will break you.’
Akbar Khan raised his eyes and met hers. His pupils widened like the aperture of a camera as the light declined. ‘My Allah comes first.’
‘Allah will understand,’ she replied. ‘As will you when you are my age. Allah always understands, beta. He is gracious and merciful.’
She hobbled out of the room, leaving the young men. She had come here as a bride at the age of sixteen, along with her husband. They had lived in one cramped room and saved every penny they could while she’d cooked and packed lunches for all the other desi men they knew. In time they had enough to buy a large house in a rundown area of London, with every room except their bedroom let to young men who reminded her of her brothers back in Karachi.
Akbar Khan reminded the landlady of her little brother, with the same fire in his belly and fight in his eyes. He was looking for halal chicken and offering his daily prayers, but he would be at the bookies and down the pub in no time.
She knew this because it was how it always was.
‘Why do they call him forty-seven?’ she’d asked her husband that night as they crawled under the quilt her mother had shipped to them from Lahore many years before. It had a deep maroon pattern on top and was plain underneath. It was so heavy, she swore it was filled with her mother, or her mother’s huge love.
‘He is Akbar Khan – AK – and he was born sometime between 1945 and 1947, around the time the Kalashnikov was designed. Like many of us, he doesn’t know his birth date.’ They’d laughed together and fallen asleep in each other’s arms, glad their home now had indoor plumbing and they no longer had to brave the cold London nights for the outside privy.
Life was getting better. But the streets never felt like home.
CHAPTER 3
It was almost sunset when Jia went to meet Nadeem. Soon there would be fireworks in the sky.
The drive along stone-walled roads, with the fields on either side bathed in an orange glow, fed her soul. She had missed this living in London. The car climbed higher and higher, its engine taking the sharp incline with ease. The sky was cloudless. Jia knew it would be a perfect starry night, the kind where the radio seemed to play every track she’d loved when she was young and the moonlight hit every note.
The fields became a council housing estate, and she knew she’d arrived. She parked and looked over the valley. The view was as rich as the estate was impoverished. She pulled the collar of her coat up and heard the sound of the fireworks.
She checked her watch and was just wondering if Nadeem was running late when his car drew up. He took a navy peacoat from the passenger seat and pulled it on before walking over to his cousin, his hands in his pockets.
‘When are you going to trade that thing in?’ she said.
He turned back to his car. ‘It keeps me humble,’ he replied.
She raised her eyebrow and hugged him, knowing her car was conspicuous and not at all humble. They’d been raised together after Nadeem’s mother had died, and so they were more like siblings; she respected his opinions. But Nadeem would be as aware as she was that being incognito didn’t bring respect for a woman. The power that came with her being very obviously the Khan paved the way to the places she wanted to be.
The fireworks began, very bright.
‘You know why those are called Catherine Wheels?’ she asked as they crossed the street.
Nadeem shook his head.
‘In the fourth century, Emperor Maxentius ordered a young woman, Saint Catherine, to be tied to a spiked wheel and tortured. He wanted her to renounce her faith. They say the wheel shattered when she touched it. She was beheaded.’
Nadeem looked at her, his face grim. ‘I don’t know why you women don’t just rise up in your beds one night and kill us all while we sleep.’
‘Which house is it?’ Jia changed the subject.
They were standing in one of the city’s roughest, grimmest estates. Although it was cold and dark, children in thin T-shirts were still playing outside. Jia found the lack of parental concern shocking.
The kids from these streets went to Maria’s school and many of their fathers worked for Jia. She would ask her sister about it. It was time this behaviour stopped.
They walked through an underpass, the stench of urine so overpowering that Jia used her scarf to cover her mouth and nose. She stepped over countless, empty silver gas cannisters strewn across the pavement.
‘Hippy crack,’ said Nadeem with a sigh.
They came to a brown, peeling door of a flat.
Nadeem rapped hard. A shout, then whispers and footsteps followed. The door was answered by a short, round man with thinning hair and a warm smile. He stepped forward to hug Nadeem as if they were long-lost brothers. He saw Jia and stepped aside to allow them in.
There was no carpet or floorboards, just hard grey concrete. The wallpaper was peeling, and there were large brown patches on the wall which Jia knew meant damp. In a corner of the room a German shepherd was chewing on a large bone. Jia thought she saw a mouse run close to the wall. Worst of all was the stench. The house smelt like years of neglect and hardship.
Then a pile of library books caught Jia’s eye, the spines neatly placed to make a perfect tower. They were a mix of science and literature, and among them she recognised a couple from the latest Booker Prize shortlist.
The sound of a baby crying startled Jia. She looked at the man, his expression tired and embarrassed. The thought of her own son Lirian living in conditions like these made Jia nauseous.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the man. ‘My wife is trying to keep him quiet, but I’m not sure what is wrong.’ His accent was thick, but his English clear.
‘Costel came here a few years ago to study,’ said Nadeem. ‘Nowak paid their rent and a stipend in exchange for intelligence.’
‘Nowak liked us,’ Costel said. ‘I don’t know why, but he helped us. I have six brothers and sisters back home in Romania, and I wanted to send them money.’
‘What did he ask you to do for him in exchange?’
‘Nothing really big. We would eat together and talk about politics, religion, what was happening in the city, what I saw.’
‘You were spying for him?’
‘I’m not a stupid man. I know that at some point he would have asked me to do something…criminal, something bad, and I would have had to do it. But people like me have to take the chance so that our brothers and sisters don’t have to.’ Jia recognised herself in him. ‘When Nowak died, we had nothing and we couldn’t pay our rent. I finished my degree but then there were no jobs, and my wife was pregnant. And now we are here, in this place, a living hell.’
‘Nadeem said you wanted to meet me.’
‘I want to work for you. I need money. I cannot let my child grow up here.’
‘I understand, but you worked for Nowak, so how can I trust you?’
‘I knew him because we came from the same part of the world, not because I was like him or because I liked him. I know you value loyalty, and you can see what life is like for people such as me.’
Jia found Costel as impressive as Nadeem had promised.
‘What was your university research into?’ she asked.
‘Blockchains.’
Now she was more interested than she had been. An idea was formulating in her head. ‘As in cryptocurrency?’ she said.
Costel nodded. ‘In a way. I was looking at using blockchain technology to improve medical treatment.’
‘I thought blockchain tech was about money.’
‘It is. But it can be used for a number of things. It is just a virtual ledger that is cryptographically secure.’
Nadeem looked confused.
‘Complex algorithms transform messages into a language that makes them hard to decipher and therefore difficult to steal,’ explained Jia.
Costel added, ‘Our medical history is split across multiple healthcare providers – the GP, the hospital, the dentist. The systems are incompatible and transferring records is slow. I was working on a way to create a permanent blockchain record, owned by a person, that holds all of their information in one place – ailments, allergies, lifestyle factors – to help doctors.’
‘I hope that wasn’t a waste of time,’ said Nadeem a few minutes later as they crossed the road.
Jia remained silent, deep in thought.
Nadeem paused and then said, ‘We did this to him when we took out Nowak. There are a lot of families like his, families that have fallen through the cracks.’
Jia knew this was true.
The decision to kill Nowak had been calculated, borne out of necessity. She had weighed up the pros and cons, and although she did not believe in the black and white of good and evil, she had felt the man who headed up the Brotherhood was on the side of the devil.
Now she wondered if she had possibly been blinded by her love for her people and her family, and the desire to survive.
She hadn’t thought Nowak had a humane side, but perhaps he had, even if only slightly. And while killing Nowak had solved her personal problems, clearly it had created a void in the lives of those the Brotherhood had taken under its wing.
She needed time to think.
Looking over at Nadeem’s face, the pain that filled it now, she could see he wasn’t the man he had been. He was unravelling and had been since that day in Café de Khan when she’d put a bullet through Nowak’s head.
‘Sit with me for a moment,’ she said to him, opening the car door. ‘Let’s talk.’
Nadeem climbed into the passenger side and felt the seat warm up beneath him. ‘Maybe I was wrong about that old banger of mine,’ he said. He was covering his emotion with humour, and Jia knew a little something about that. She knew too that he was kind, and he was brave. He had inherited the best aspects of their family, and his mind was having trouble processing what they had done and what they were becoming.
Jia wondered if she had asked too much of him. But she had only asked what she asked of herself.
He was still now, as if holding his breath.
Jia knew that if she ignored this, he would fragment. But there could be no turning back from what they had done, no way to undo killing a gangland boss, no way to erase it from memory. The feeling sat like a pebble in a glass jar, rattling at every tiny moment. She needed to fill the rest of the jar with sand, to dampen the sound.
‘Nadeem, you need to find a way forward,’ she said.
‘I know.’ A pause. ‘I had some counselling in my early twenties,’ he added, ‘and I talked about losing my mother, about you guys, about my dad.’
Jia listened, letting him speak, knowing how hard it must have been for Nadeem to take that step, coming from a culture where men were expected to ‘man up’.
The Khans loved one another, their loyalty was absolute, but expression of raw emotions to the point of vulnerability was as rare as it was painful.
Jia knew this better than anyone. Bitter experience had shown her vulnerability wasn’t welcomed by her people, and it was often used against those who were open and honest about their truth. Nadeem knew this too.
‘I can’t really do that now, can I?’ he laughed. ‘Imagine telling a therapist about what happened. I don’t know what to do. Is this who we are now? Is this it? I don’t know if we’re the good guys or the bad guys.’
