The Safe Behind the Marble

Omar did not sleep. He sat on the cold stair between the eighth and ninth floors until the sky over Karachi turned the colour of weak tea, listening to the building breathe. Every few minutes he took out his phone and looked at the one contact that mattered. It had once read Abbu, with a number and a photograph of his father laughing beside the old lift. Now there was no number and no photograph. Only a single letter remained,…