The sheep were at the water, fighting each other for the best positions and the shepherds squatted against a wall watching them. The door of the guard post opened and Husseini emerged and came towards me, the two soldiers at his heels. When they cut me down, I collapsed in a heap on the ground. He said something or other, I couldn’t quite catch what it was, and they picked me up between them and followed him across the square to Tufik’s place.

The fat man lived alone except for some old woman who came in each day to cook and wash for him, and the house he had commandeered doubled as an office. There was a roll-top desk, two wooden chairs and a table. Husseini barked an order and the two soldiers sat me on one of the chairs and bound my arms firmly.

It was then that I noticed his whip, real rhino from the look of it, guaranteed to take the flesh from a man’s spine. He took off his tunic and started to roll up his sleeves very carefully. Tufik looked frightened to death and sweated more than ever. The two soldiers stood against the wall and Husseini picked up the whip.

“Now, Jew,” he said, bending it like a bow in his two hands. “To start with, a dozen. After that we shall see.”

“Major Husseini,” a voice said softly in English.

Husseini turned sharply and I lifted my head. Beyond him in the doorway stood one of the shepherds. His right hand went to his burnous, pulling it away, revealing a tanned, wedge-shaped face and the kind of mouth that looked as if it might twist into a smile at any moment, but seldom did, grey eyes, cold as water over stone.

“Sean?” I croaked. “Sean Burke? Could that be you?”

“As ever was, Stacey.”

His left hand came out of his robe holding a Browning automatic. His first shot took Husseini in the shoulder, twisting him round so that I looked into his face as he died. The second blew away the back of his head, driving him past me and into the wall.