“But I was always nice beneath it.”

  “That’s true. For years I hoped you and Zahra would get together again.”

  “I don’t think I would have handled the brilliance of Zahra any better than poor Tom did.”

  “Poor Tom.” She could think fondly of him now that his inadequacy had removed itself from Zahra’s life. Maryam had seen from the start how much of that relationship had been based on a twenty-four-year-old’s near-worship of a forty-year-old man, cultured and successful. In the early days, there was rarely a sentence out of Zahra’s mouth that didn’t start with “Tom says,” but it was always going to be a matter of time before she outgrew him in every way. In truth, the relationship only kept going as long as it did from an excess of the politeness that replaced the early passion; no one wanted to be the one to leave, so they had to wait until Tom was offered a job in New York, which he took so that Zahra could say, “I think it makes sense for me to stay here,” and both parties were then equally responsible.

  “I’m sorry I mentioned the High Table. It didn’t occur to me I might know something about your life that Zahra didn’t.”

  “Stop apologizing,” Maryam said. “It’ll be fine. She and Layla will gang up on me next time we’re together, and I’ll accept all blame, which is the easiest way to end an argument. Yes, you’re right, I’m a morally bankrupt person. What do they say then? They’re the ones who choose to love a morally bankrupt person.”

  At least I’m a grown-up, she wanted to say to Zahra. It was absurd that her best friend should walk out because she didn’t like what Maryam did with her money. And on a day when Hammad had reentered their life. Zahra was the only person she wanted to speak to about how enraging it had felt to have him in her company’s box, strutting in with the same swagger that had half impressed her fourteen-year-old self before she’d seen it for the performance that it was.

  “Tell Zahra you’re coming to mine for dinner,” she said, exiting Lord’s. “Ask her to join us there. You can witness the ganging-up.”

  There was a little gap in the heavy traffic on Wellington Road. “Run!” called Maryam, and they scampered between cars, a pair of hooligans again, waving at the drivers who thumped on horns or yelled something rude out of the windows.

  But when they were on the other side, Zahra had written back to say she was already on her way to Chinatown to meet Rose. Rose, whom she saw five days a week at work. What was the need to meet Rose on a Sunday?

  Babar laughed. “We really haven’t changed since we were eight.”

  When they were eight, best-friendship took up such a vast expanse in their lives. Now all the space Zahra filled in the world, more of it each year, meant there was less and less of her life for old friends. There was a time when Zahra would spend several evenings a week and most of the weekend with Maryam and, later, Maryam and Layla. Now the Sunday walks—which they’d had to skip today—were a ritual they’d put in place so weeks wouldn’t go by without them seeing each other. It was Zahra’s hectic life that created the long gaps. Some conference in Brussels, some keynote speech, some gala, some reception, some dinner party with people who all had very long Wikipedia entries. Those places in her mind that the very young Zahra used to go where Maryam could never follow had become real places populated with real people. It had never seriously bothered Maryam, her own life so full. Best friendship wasn’t a vast expanse of time anymore; it was being there when it mattered.

  But now Hammad had stepped back into their lives and Zahra had walked away and gone to dinner with Rose. How was she to make sense of that?

  Some kinds of aches disappeared over time, others took up residence. The death of George Michael belonged to the second category, as became clearer each time the eighties playlist sent his voice through the bedroom speakers with a clarity that the CD player of Maryam’s adolescence never had. It wasn’t just “Careless Whisper” with its tones of lament but even the frothiness of “Club Tropicana” that could send her into a tailspin of sorrow.

  Maryam sighed, propped up on her pillows. Every other room in the house was teeming with color and artwork, but the bedroom was grays and white, free of adornment. Lit now by the soft glow of two bedside lamps. The inner sanctum.

  “Do the man’s memory a favor and listen to the later music,” Layla said, her voice muffled by the shirt she was pulling off, her torso emerging with its slightly thickening waist. One of the surprises of love had been the way it shaped itself around all the signs of aging; the Maryam of twenty years ago, enraptured by Layla’s physical beauty, would have expected to feel some disappointment about the work of time and gravity. But here Layla was, naked and walking toward the shower, not as breath-stoppingly perfect as she’d once been, but lovelier than ever.

  She opened the message app, held her phone near the speaker, and sent Zahra a few seconds of “Club Tropicana,” even though she thought Zahra should be the one doing the apologizing for her disappearing act. Then she returned to attacking the day’s emails.

  “So,” Layla said, emerging from the bathroom, still naked, bringing a scent of citrus with her. “Zahra found out?”

  Layla never said, I told you so. She just stated facts that would never have come into being if Maryam had listened to her.

  “If I told her, that would be saying it’s a thing. I don’t think it’s a thing.” Connor had put it beautifully. Don’t complicate matters by thinking of them as the government. They’re part of our investment portfolio. We invest in them, we get returns on the investment.

  The returns had been magnificent so far. I’m delighted with how quickly and effectively Imij responded to recent events with an overhaul of their policies toward abuse. This is the spirit of democracy. The users complained, the company changed. There’s no need for government to go wading in like a nursemaid determined to strap life jackets on Olympic swimmers. That video statement had been the Prime Minister’s first post on his Imij account. The girl Tahera and her father had disappeared completely from the news. The paperwork for the buyout had just been approved by both sides’ lawyers.

  She pulled back the bedsheet so Layla could slip beneath it, but Layla remained standing beside the bed, hands on her hips, looking disconcertingly as she did when she knew Zola had done something wrong and was waiting for Zola to realize she knew it.

  “You were scared of telling her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You threw me out of this bedroom for three whole nights when I told you. What could Zahra do that’s any worse?”

  Layla got into bed but lay down near the edge, as much distance between them as was possible on a queen-sized mattress. “You know I’ll throw you out to make myself feel I’m taking a stand and then I’ll let you back in. But you also have to know this isn’t your usual profits-before-ethics run-in with Zahra. This government is everything she’s spent her professional life fighting.” She picked up the vitamin D bottle from her bedside table, shook two tablets onto her palm, and handed one to Maryam. “Things like justice and democracy really do matter to her. It’s odd how you understand everything about her except that.”

  “It’s called a Daddy Complex. See, I understand better than you do.” Maryam lifted up the glass on her bedside to show Layla it was empty and put it down, tablet still in her palm. “But this isn’t about that. She acts as if they personally aimed a shit missile into her office from Number Ten.”

  “Not without reason.”

  “She calls them dictators and gets upset when they mind. Am I supposed to let fourteen billion dollars slip away because Zahra’s decided to take the government personally? One of us is a professional. Are you really not giving me any of your water?”

  “You’re sounding very defensive.” Layla finally handed over her glass. “Keep it. Did Babar also tell her you’re soon going to be representing the government with this ‘Britain’s Open for Business’ thing?”

  “I’m going to be representing the nation.”

  “Also, why Bob?”

  “Who?”

  “Britain’s Open for Business. BOB.”

  Maryam slid closer to Layla, nudged her with her hip. “Funny lady.”

  “You’re going to push me off the bed.”

  “I’ll catch you if you fall. Always.”

  “I know. You think that’s all that matters to the people who love you, but it isn’t.”

  “I can do other things that matter too,” Maryam said, hand on Layla’s shower-warm skin.

  “Don’t push your luck, mate.” Layla turned onto one side and switched off her lamp.

  Maryam moved back to her side of the bed and picked up her phone. Zahra had seen her George Michael message, but she hadn’t responded.

  Soon Layla was asleep, her breath deep and even. Maryam composed a few more emails and checked her messages again. Zahra was online. Still no response.

  “Honestly,” she said out loud before turning off her bedside light and wrapping herself around Layla. Who else was she going to talk to about the awfulness of Hammad? Why was Zahra being so irritating?

  Monday morning, and the pedestal fan in Zahra’s office was at its highest setting. The ruffling of paper edges around makeshift paperweights formed a soundtrack, not quite white noise but entirely unintrusive for someone who had grown up with the whirring of fans. Zahra ran her finger down a pile of greeting cards, counting. The cards had been on her desk since yesterday, waiting for Zahra to append her signature, and in all too many cases a personalized note, to the preprinted words of thanks for those who’d come to CCL’s annual fundraiser. This duty used to fall to the chair of the board, but a couple of years ago he’d said people wanted to hear from Zahra, not from a crusty old QC.

  She slipped the top card off the pile. It was addressed to one of the organization’s most generous donors—a woman with a large amount of inherited wealth who made it clear she expected Zahra’s presence at her summer and Christmas parties every year in exchange for her largesse. Years ago, when she was new to England, Zahra had learned about women like this one from an impossibly sophisticated post-doc from Srinagar: “There’s a certain kind of English person who likes to invite people like you and me to their parties because we can hold a glass of wine and a conversation at the same time and then they can feel enlightened in front of their friends without any risk to the smooth running of the evening.” Zahra hadn’t been a wine drinker, but she took her first sip of Merlot that same day.

  Lovely, as ever, to see you, Zahra wrote. So looking forward to the summer party

  She considered her unhesitating script a moment and then added an exclamation mark, just so she could tell herself she was being ironic rather than insincere.

  That was about as much as she could manage for now. She edged the card into its new position at the bottom of the pile, lifting off the paperweight to aid the process. The paperweight was a framed photograph that had accompanied her from desk to desk all through her working life. It was an old three-by-five, colors faded, showing a Hitachi television set, all bulk, the handwritten lettering on the screen assuring viewers that normal service would soon resume. Her talisman, a counterargument to all brooding over defeat.

  She pulled her keyboard closer and went looking for information about the High Table. There was very little out there. She widened it to all donors’ clubs linked to the ruling party. That produced a wealth of news articles—cash for access, cash for honors, arms dealers, the financial industry, Russian oligarchs, government contracts, tax breaks, secrecy, behind-the-scenes lobbying. “No links can be proved between the donations and any government policy”—naturally, that was the whole point.

  No links can be proved between the migrant’s connection to Zahra Ali and the denial of his residency application. Now that Azam had been detained for working illegally, the most Zahra could do was help get him home to his wife for whatever time remained to them in London. He would almost certainly lose his appeal against the Home Office.

  Zahra searched for “donors clubs venture capitalists.” She knew she was trying to build a case, but her brain refused to glide shark-like through the material in its accustomed way; instead, a buzzing in her head, hornets, all noise and sting. A bruise on her right shoulder where he’d gripped her as she lay beneath him; she could feel it when she leaned back in her chair.

  She was grateful for the distraction when Ray called from reception to say there were two men here to see her, a Mr. Najam Hussain and his friend, they said they knew her from Karachi. She had no idea who that was, but usually when people arrived from Karachi saying they knew her it was someone in need of legal help who had a connection with one of her parents, even if the connection was as tentative as a second cousin who had once worked at her mother’s school. They almost always had an immigration issue that required a lawyer, but once her parents’ names were invoked she had no option but to give them tea and make small talk for a while and send an email or text to the lawyer she was recommending to say Mr. or Ms. (usually Mr.) So-and-So was known to her family. She had initially resented these social obligations in her own days as an immigration lawyer, but the longer you worked with migrants, the more you appreciated informal networks.

  “Send them in and ask them how they take their tea,” she said.

  Later it occurred to her that the knock on her door should have warned her, presumptuous in its volume and duration. In walked Hammad, with his self-satisfied smile, followed by a second man, markedly different in his manner.

  “Hey,” Hammad said, sitting down without waiting to be asked.

  The door was ajar and she saw Rose walk past, glancing in as she went. When they’d had dinner together the previous night, Zahra hadn’t mentioned any of the events of the day. She’d been too embarrassed by her own poor judgment—the thought encompassed both Hammad and Maryam.

  “I have a meeting in five minutes.”

  Hammad held out a hand toward the other man, still standing. “I was having dinner with my friend here last night and he mentioned some legal concerns. I said, I have someone who’ll help you.”

  “I think you may be confusing me with a solicitor,” she said, determined not to rise to the bait of I have someone. “This is the Center for Civil Liberties. I’m the director here.”

  “Hammad, let’s go,” the other man said. “I’m sorry, madam, for the trouble.”

  He was clutching a briefcase to his chest and his arms were held close to his body. He was wearing a jacket that was much too hot for the London weather, and sweat patches showed at his underarms. He was in his early fifties, she guessed, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly clipped mustache set in a slim face. Such a Karachi face. The way he was holding the briefcase told her he had important documents in there, and his whole future depended on their safekeeping.

  She invited him to take a seat, in her most formal Urdu. Tashreef laeeay—not a phrase that had come out of her mouth in a while, but it seemed necessary to speak to him with an elevated tone of respect to make up for the fact that he had brought the scent of sweat into the office and they both knew it.

  “I’m aware it’s very stressful dealing with legal issues,” she said, wanting him to know that she didn’t hold Hammad against him, she could recognize a man in genuine need.

  “Thank you,” the man said. “Yes, it is.”

  Hammad leaned back in his chair, smiling broadly. “Isn’t this a wonderful reunion?”

  Zahra and the man looked at each other, and then at Hammad and then at each other, cartoon-like in their synchronized movements.

  “Jimmy?” she said.

  The man turned to Hammad, one finger pointing at Zahra. “This is that one?” he said. In that moment, his bony finger pointed at her, she saw him. The man who had rested his finger on her cheek, lightly, because he knew that was all he needed to do to make her obey.

  Hammad clapped his hands together, an impresario delighted by what he’d choreographed. “The two of you! Your faces right now.”

  “You brought me here as some kind of joke?” the man—Jimmy, it was Jimmy—said to Hammad.

  Hammad shrugged. “Doesn’t feel so nice when you’re the one with no control of the situation, does it?”

  “You need to leave my office,” Zahra said. Beneath the desk she was gripping her own leg.

  “You were so much more welcoming yesterday.”

  “I’d be happy, delighted, to have Ray at reception throw you out. He used to be a professional boxer.”

  “I have a train to catch anyway,” Hammad said, standing up. “Let’s do this again next time I’m back.”

  He sauntered out without a glance at Jimmy, who continued to sit in his chair, briefcase still clutched to his chest.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “I saw him yesterday for the first time since that night. Should I also . . . ?” He pointed to the door.

  “I’ll get us some tea.” Zahra stood up, against his protestations, and walked out of the office, shutting the door behind her. She had no intention of leaning against the wall, breathing deeply, but there she was, doing it, and it seemed the only thing she could do in that moment.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex, no longer an intern, was walking toward her with three mugs of tea in hand.

  Zahra straightened. Rose was down the hall, Ray at the reception desk, Alex standing here looking at her with an expression that said if there was any problem she’d personally drive a stake through its heart. She took two of the mugs, smiled reassuringly at Alex, and walked back into the office, leaving the door wide open.

  Jimmy was standing up. “I thought maybe you were sending the receptionist in to deal with me,” he said, making his hand into a fist and swinging. “I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

  She set the tea down on the desk and returned to her chair.