‘Hassan the elder?’
‘He is dead now, may God keep him, but his son helps keep me in business.’
‘Can you tell me where I can find the family?’ The old man looked wary, Luke thought, perhaps wondering if he had given away too much already.
‘As I said, Hassan is dead, and his wife ran off with another man, back to England, many years ago, when the boys were both small. I heard she died. Iqbal is gone, killed by the Americans, and young Hassan is rarely here. He travels a lot to the mainland, looking after the family’s business.’
‘I only want to talk to someone to get the other side of the story. If Iqbal was innocent, then the world deserves to hear that.’ It was one of the oldest lines in the reporter’s book of half-truths. Iqbal the Innocent had tried to kill him with an AK-47.
The ant
