Jamila sat up so fast her elbow caught the table lamp and sent it crashing. She grabbed the lamp and her phone from the floor. 7:30am. Crap, she had missed her alarm. Fallen asleep on the sofa with the television on standby. Muscles tense, she stumbled up the stairs.

Forty-five minutes later she left the house with wet hair, wearing yesterday’s suit and an unwashed shirt, the inside collar smudged with dirt. She wanted to reach the office before the morning crush, but her journey stalled along Great Ancoats Street. Idling before the sad retail park, traffic at a standstill, she revved her engine and scowled.

Her phone rang through the speakers.

‘Jamila, where are you?’

‘As-salamu alaykum, Dad. I’m heading to work, what’s up?’

‘We missed you last night.’

‘I couldn’t make it, I texted,’ she lied.

‘I’ll be late in today. I have an appointment.’

‘Didn’t I tell you before, it’s fine? Enjoy your life, you’re retired.’

‘I just thought I should report to my boss.’

Jamila shook her head, imagining her father – her predecessor, mentor and occasional nemesis – grinning from the other side of her desk. She switched on the radio to distract herself. Itchy fingers flicked between stations. Thrashing guitars raised the hairs on her arms before the music cut out.

‘Mrs Shah, it’s Hassan. Can I come and see you?’

She thumped a button, cut the call. Hassan Khemiri was one of her most troublesome clients; there was always a problem of some sort with him. If he complained about being hung up on – of course he would complain – she would blame her poor signal.

The cars ahead started moving. She rolled forward, picked up speed. Construction workers dangled from scaffolding, hammering at high-rises, the shells dark and empty, like mouths full of rotting teeth. Tired old mills becoming pricey new flats. She drove over the Ashton Canal, a depressed vein in the city’s rumpled topography, past the derelict mills and warehouses that gave the city its face of soot and stone. The sky was predictably murky. Ten minutes late, she parked up behind the office and scooted through the slippery alleyway, rain-sodden leaves buttered into the tarmac.

A line of clients began at her front door: ten, maybe twenty of them, in woollen fleeces and thick jumpers and jackets with knitted scarves and gloves. Hassan Khemiri waved from the middle. ‘Good morning, Mrs Shah.’

‘Hi,’ she replied stiffly, smiling broadly at the others. ‘Hello, Mrs Jackson, Namaskar, Aunty-ji, it’s good to see you again. As-salamu alaykum, Mr Din.’

Commuters in their cars roared past the office towards the city centre. Beyond the dual-carriage way, the 8:57am express train to Euston rumbled south. It blew its horn, as it did every morning, infuriating her. At the end of the block, Mr Bankowsi, the newsagent brought out his pavement sign. She squinted to read the headline, but as with most things in her life, the prescription on her glasses was out of date.

Once at her desk, tea in hand, Jamila stared at her calendar, mentally preparing herself for the day ahead. Friday 2 November 2012. The end of another hectic week. She dipped a bourbon biscuit into her mug, preparing herself for the day ahead. As she brought the biscuit to her mouth, half of it broke away and fell into her lap. She grabbed a tissue and dabbed carelessly. She wasn’t here to be judged on appearances.

Still, as Jamila stood to clean up in the bathroom, Nazish Durrani knocked on her door and marched in. ‘Where you going? You ask for medical report. I have it.’

Nazish was a thirty-seven-year-old asylum seeker from Pakistan, short and heavy, with long, curly hair. She never usually came in this early.

‘Give me a minute, Nazish, I dropped something—’

‘Leave it,’ Nazish said breezily. ‘I’ve seen you looking worse.’

Looking worse? Jamila blushed and sat down. Luckily, the desk hid the stain. She took the papers from Nazish: the top right-hand corner was printed with the trusty NHS logo, the last page signed by the Consultant Psychiatrist. ‘Great, I’ll add it to your file.’

‘No. Read it. Tell me if it’s OK.’ Nazish leaned against the desk.

Jamila laughed. She enjoyed their interactions and Nazish’s direct way of talking very much; Nazish was probably the only client who got away with pushing her around. ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

Nazish suffered from dysthymia, the letter said in stark medical prose: a chronic form of depression aggravated by her precarious immigration status. This had been clear to Jamila from the conversations they had shared while preparing Nazish’s case. But every success began with evidence.

Nazish’s eyes were awaiting Jamila’s diagnosis.

‘We’re well on our way, Nazish. I think this letter will be good for us.’

Nazish was replaced by another client, then another, accompanied by a flurry of telephone calls. Jamila forgot about the stain on her trousers and managed each person as her staff gradually materialised: Rubel appearing out of breath at 9:20am, adjusting his hair and tie; Babar at 9:35, dawdling and texting as he strolled; Sadia at 10:15, looking frosty and taking it out on her handbag, which she lobbed towards the coat stand at the back of the room.

Her father wandered in after eleven. He had made a show of passing the office over to her at the beginning of the year and then continued coming into work. Initially, she assumed he was smoothing over the transition, but here he was, ten months later, watching, testing, intruding, unable to let go. But rather than confront him about it, she had found it far simpler to go along with the status quo.

The clients in reception stood for him and he saluted them, then headed inside. Before lunchtime, he came and sat on the cushioned bench at the back of her office.

Jamila was dealing with a new client from Angola, who wanted to develop a property business in Britain and apply for a visa as an entrepreneur.

‘No,’ she told the client, ‘a property developer can’t apply for a Tier 1 visa. But you could set up a real estate marketing agency. That could do it?’

Her father nodded in approval and, despite herself, Jamila felt her neck grow taller.

The client left to think it over; her father leaned forward. ‘You never came round last night. Me and your mum were waiting,’ he said.

‘Sorry, I got busy.’ She had finally started watching her recording of the summer Olympics, highlights of the women’s gold tennis match.

‘Come over tonight? We’re taking the kids to see the fireworks in the park.’

‘Tonight? Uh . . . ’

The telephone rang and Jamila answered it immediately, grateful for the interruption. On the line was a young woman who had adopted a child in Nigeria and wanted advice on bringing her to Britain. As they talked, snapping, crunching sounds peppered the air: her father peeling and eating pistachios.

Jamila glared at him.

‘Why don’t you go and have your lunch?’ she suggested once she had hung up.

‘No, I can wait,’ he said.

‘The kitchen will get busier.’

‘We can go together. We’ll catch up.’

Just give me some space, she wanted to shout. She didn’t want to catch up with anyone. She gestured to the door. ‘I’ll meet you there. Mera acha bacha neyn ayn?’

‘Main koi bacha van?’ He quivered with laughter. ‘Is that how it is? No time, no respect for your father?’

She leaned into the transgression, smiling, feeling a slight mania emanating from herself. All her life, her father had ushered her out of his office. ‘Aren’t you my good little girl?’ he would say, stroking her hair. Ever since she was three years old, when he first started practising immigration law from home. Their house was tiny then, with just one living room. Whenever a client turned up – and they turned up at all hours – he would send her, Jahida and their mother huffing upstairs. Displaced in their own home, they had no choice but to stay busy until he signalled for their return.

Somebody fumbled with the door. A head poked through the gap.

‘Mrs Shah, why don’t you care about my case?’

She opened her arms. ‘Mr Khemiri, my friend! How could I forget your case? You call me every day about it.’

Hassan, her bad penny, had perfect timing. They had spoken for an hour last night, after dinner, while she proofread letters on the sofa. He had demanded a re-do of his asylum interview from years ago – a pipe dream. But in that moment, she preferred him to her father.

‘I’ll be a minute, Dad. Start without me.’

As a child, her father tried to bribe her with promises of gifts and money, in exchange for being left alone, but his tactics had always failed to work on her. Whenever he was busy with a client, she and Jahida slunk down and darted into the living room, switched on the television and turned it up to full volume before cackling as they ran back up the stairs. And now, as her father crossed his legs and leaned back, her tactics were failing to work on him.

‘I think Mr Khemiri and I need to discuss something privately, isn’t that right?’

Hassan stood with the door shut behind him. He was a wiry, grizzled-looking man from Algeria, with sun-baked, terracotta skin and a leather bomber jacket. She caught a woody, musky scent from him, with an underlying sweetness.

‘Of course, Mrs Shah. Top secret,’ he said. His sunken eyes glittered.

Her father spat out a piece of pistachio skin and got up. The two men crossed paths – her father stalling before he drifted from the room, his shoulders crumpled in defeat.

 ‘So, enlighten me then,’ Jamila said, looking up at Hassan, who hovered close by. ‘What vital development was there between last night and this morning?’

‘I tried telling you before. I want to change my caseworker. I don’t like her, she’s rude.’

Her head fell into her hands. ‘Please, Hassan. Not this again.’

‘Why do you always say that, huh? “Not this again.” It’s important.’

His winged ears twitched.

Jamila’s stomach was growling by the time she left work. She had seen to at least fifty clients and attended almost a hundred calls: a standard work day. But though she wanted nothing more than to go home and eat and relax, her father had coaxed her into accepting his invitation.

Kingsway was jammed, commuters in snarling cars, fleeing the city for the comfort of its suburbs and satellite towns. She joined the line and drove to her parents in Didsbury, where the trees were still heavy with leaves, pink, peach and rust, the streets were wider and the air sweeter, smelling of compost and the cold.

She parked by the grammar school, with its spiked gates and regal main building. The grounds were pitch black, the building tawny under spotlights. Silvery clouds moved beneath an impassive sky. Twice a week she was supposed to visit her parents. It was a deal she had made with her guilt – and them – before moving out fourteen months ago. And she had enjoyed those visits, for the most part, in the beginning. They watched political documentaries and gossiped about family, and her mother made sure to cook something special. On Sundays, Jahida came along too. But Jamila hadn’t been in weeks.

She switched off the car and tried to get out.

She couldn’t face her parents’ enthusiasm for life when she felt decidedly apathetic. She didn’t want to answer their questions about her absence when she had no desire to talk. Not out of duty, not for her niece and nephew – not even for her mother’s food. She started the car again. Instead of watching political documentaries and making plans, all she wanted was to be alone.