Wallender stepped into the light beyond the passageway and gazed at the sun, stretching. “We’re being met here by the UN security officer for Gaza,” he said. “A fellow named James Cree. I’m told he’s Scottish.”

Omar Yussef came up beside him. “A security officer?”

“Apparently Gaza is a bit dangerous, you see.” Wallender laughed.

Taxi drivers lazed in the shade cast by a one-room police post. A few of them approached, calling vaguely predatory welcomes and pointing to their shaky, yellow vehicles. From the shadow beyond the police station stepped a bald, thin man, peering at his mobile phone. He was nearly six and a half feet tall, and his face and scalp were red from the sun.

“I’d say that’s our Mister Cree, don’t you think?” Wallender said. “He looks even more foreign than I do. Which is a rare feat.”

James Cree put his mobile phone in the breast pocket of his short-sleeved shirt. His sunburned face was soft and seemed wavily rounded, like a poached egg on a plate. His eyes were a delicate, faded blue, and he wore a ginger mustache no wider than a pinkie finger from top to bottom. His limbs were long and narrow and suggested the sinewy strength of an endurance athlete.

Wallender shook Cree’s hand. “This is our colleague Omar Yussef, principal of the Girls’ School in Dehaisha refugee camp,” he said. “I’m lucky enough to have obtained permission from the Israelis for him to pass through the checkpoint to work with me on this inspection.”

The Scot bent to shake Omar Yussef’s hand. Omar Yussef felt small, slow and paunchy before the tall, lean man. “Mister Wallender takes you to all the best places,” Cree said dourly, barely moving his lips.

Wallender reached up to slap Cree’s shoulder and went laughing to the white Chevrolet Suburban with black UN markings that rolled out of the parking lot for them.

They settled into the vehicle’s air-conditioned cool. From the front seat, Cree looked at Wallender over his shoulder as the driver pulled into the road. “We’ve got an emerging situation here, Magnus. The office called me as I was waiting for you, and they’ve been messaging me more details on my cellphone. One of our teachers was arrested early this morning.”