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The village was on a track branching off from the main desert road to Syria. Francis's father had intended to draw the traditional houses and the nearby Roman ruins, but as they arrived they saw policemen standing around.

Mehmet told them to stay in the carriage and went to find out what was happening. Moments later he returned with a man who introduced himself as the chief of police and told them that there had been a terrible accident: a boy had been attacked by a wild animal - a wild dog probably - and had been tragically killed. He could not be responsible for their safety while the beast was at large. He respectfully advised Mr Weybridge to draw somewhere else.

As Mehmet turned the carriage round, Francis saw the body under a blanket, a bloody hand exposed. He had seen, too, the looks on the faces of the children standing among the houses and wondered what secrets they were hiding. It was clear to him they were hiding something.

In fact, Francis had the distinct impression that even the chief of police was lying to them. He distinctly heard a boy nearby say 'gin'. Maybe the boy was not killed by animals at all but by a drunken father and they were trying to cover it up. But murder or wild animal, it was a lot more interesting to Francis than minarets and Roman temples.

'Father,.' said Francis as they sat that evening in the hotel tea garden. 'Can we go back to that village? The one where the boy was killed.'

'Well, the police chief told us not to,.' said Mr Weybridge. 'You have to be careful with these chaps, Francis. Why?'

'It just seemed interesting,.' said Francis. 'I mean, there was just something about it. I can't say what. It seemed special somehow.'

Mr Weybridge smiled. At last! At last, Francis seemed to have been moved by something. 'I'll see what I can do,.' he said.

The next day Mehmet reluctantly drove them back to the village. He had been talkative and irrepressibly jovial on their previous trip, but today he was sullen and tense. He had only agreed to take them at all because Arthur had paid him three times what he had the last time before they set off.

Mehmet clucked and flicked the reins, bringing the carriage into the shade of an old barn and the Weybridges got out. Francis followed his father about the village until he found the right spot for his drawing and opened up his camping stool and began to unpack his bag, taking out a wooden pencil box, a bottle of Indian ink, a pen and a sketchbook.

Francis had never been interested in his father's work, and now, after these past weeks, he felt something beyond boredom, something trance-like in which he would sit and let his eyes go out of focus and drift away into blankness.

Francis instantly regretted requesting that they return. Without the body, this village was even more dull than Harran. He was so sick of trailing round this godforsaken country. He felt as though he were being punished, and it all went back to 'the incident'. Everything had been different since then.

'The incident', as his father always referred to it, happened at school. A boy called Harris had taken a dislike to Francis and, over the course of a few months, name-calling and baiting had turned to casual blows and sustained beatings.

Instead of receiving the sympathy he had expected from his father, Mr Weybridge told his son that this was all part and parcel of school life and he would never be a man if he did not stand up for himself. He must deal with it. That was life.

So, one Sunday, after chapel, Francis waited for Harris with a cricket stump as he was walking past the tennis courts and attacked him without warning.

Francis had almost not gone through with it, having a terror that Harris would simply take the weapon from him and give him a thrashing with it, but Francis was overjoyed to find that his very first blow seemed to have knocked Harris senseless.

Laughing triumphantly, Francis leaped on the prone figure of Harris, raining down blows on his face and head. On and on he