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as Tel-el-Hasan, however, was questionable.
    It was also questionable how far the right could be made to stick. Only two years before, not far from here, a policeman had been shot while conducting his investigations.
    Owen stirred, as if ready to get to his feet. The men looked at each other.
    A woman came through the door which led to the inner room.
    ‘Let them talk to me,’ she said.
    ‘Khadija?’
    She nodded.
    ‘I will do the talking,’ said the eldest brother.
    The woman stood with arms folded. She was not exactly veiled, but had pulled her headdress across her face so that they could not see it.
    ‘Did you know Ibrahim?’ asked Mahmoud, putting his question, however, not to her but to her brother, as was the convention.
    ‘How could she?’ said the brother.
    ‘I am asking her.’
    ‘I knew my sister’s husband,’ she said quietly.
    ‘She knew him as a sister-in-law should.’
    ‘I have no doubt about that. But was it the same with him? Would he have known her, that is, would he have liked to have known her, in a different way?’
    ‘You’ll have to ask him,’ said one of the other brothers, and laughed.
    ‘That is a disrespectful question,’ said the oldest brother.
    ‘It has to be asked. For others are asking it too.’
    ‘They are?’
    The oldest brother’s cheeks tautened.
    ‘That village makes a jest of us, brother,’ said one of the others angrily.
    Mahmoud held up his hand.
    ‘Not a jest. And they show no disrespect. For all they say is that he behaved disrespectfully to you.’
    ‘In disrespecting us,’ said the woman angrily, ‘he disrespected my sister.’
    ‘It was, however, by eye alone?’
    ‘He would have liked it otherwise.’
    ‘But it was by eye alone?’
    ‘With me, it was. But not with my sister. With her it was by deed.’
    ‘He shamed her publicly,’ growled one of the brothers.
    ‘By going to Jalila?’
    ‘Every night. He made no secret of it. And nor did she. “I can give you sons,” she said, “even if your wife can’t.” ’
    ‘Who was she to talk?’ said the woman fiercely. ‘How many sons had she? At least Leila had had daughters. And sons would have come. They always do in our family. Look at them!’
    She pointed to her brothers.
    ‘I am puzzled,’ said Owen. ‘First, he left your sister for Jalila. And then he would have left Jalila for you?’
    ‘If he had had the chance!’ said Khadija.
    ‘He wouldn’t have got the chance,’ said one of the brothers angrily. ‘What do you think we are: men who make their sisters into whores?’
    ‘Whores!’ shouted a familiar voice in the street.
    Owen and Mahmoud looked at each other.
    ‘Oh God!’ said Owen. ‘It’s Sheikh Isa!’
     
    Out in the street was Sheikh Isa, together with another religious sheikh, as old, venerable and, probably, as irascible as himself, supported by an interested crowd of onlookers.
    ‘This is untimely!’ said Owen.
    ‘God’s work does not wait on man’s convenience,’ said Sheikh Isa unyieldingly.
    ‘God’s work? You call it God’s work to come to a house and denounce a woman who may well be guiltless?’
    ‘Innocence is for God to judge, not man!’ bellowed the sheikh. ‘Man looks only at incidentals but God sees into the very heart!’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with my heart!’ said Khadija stoutly.
    ‘There’ll be something wrong with yours in a minute!’ said one of the brothers, diving back into the house.
    Mahmoud caught him as he re-emerged carrying a rifle.
    ‘Enough!’ shouted Owen.
    He forced the gun out of the man’s hands and covered the other two.
    ‘Stay where you are!’
    ‘To the
caracol
with them!’ shouted Sheikh Isa, enraged.
    Mahmoud looked at Owen.
    ‘That might not be such a bad idea.’
    Owen nodded.
    ‘Fetch me rope!’ he commanded.
    Some men ran into a nearby house and returned with a coil.
    ‘I’m arresting you,’ said Mahmoud to the brother he was holding. He tied the man’s hands.
    ‘And you! And you!’ he