The detective’s logic settled in the room. The two men watched each other for some time, their breathing deep and steady. After a while, Ahmed smiled. It was a smile that cut his face into segments; Manolis quite liked it.

‘I never think like that. But jail is no change from here. This already jail. In fact, jail may be better. At least jail is jail. Here is nothing.’ His tone was resigned, his arms hanging by his sides like those of a puppet with cut strings.

Manolis lowered his gaze, his eyes settling on a spiny black insect inching its way across the floor; it did not look friendly. He scratched the back of his neck. He was struggling to find an angle. This suspect was like no other. If anything, murder made the most sense – it guaranteed him life in a law-abiding land.

‘Do you know about stonings?’

Ahmed’s query struck Manolis like a blow. It was wholly unexpected. He looked up to see a face that was calm but held intense sorrow.

‘I do,’ Ahmed added. ‘I see them, many times, in the hills near my village.’ The detainee sat back down and began. Stonings, he said, never took place in cities where victims were usually publicly hanged. They were more common in the countryside and mountains, away from prying eyes.

‘Revenge by blood, is what people say.’

Pits are dug using shovels and pickaxes. Ahmed made digging motions with his big brown hands. The condemned individual is lowered in, their arms tied with rope, their body wrapped in three pieces of white shroud in accordance with Muslim burial practices. The head is sometimes concealed. A mullah oversees the ritual. A crowd gathers, fists clenched, implements ready. Stones have to be the right size.

‘Too big and they kill too fast,’ Ahmed said. ‘But too small, like pebble, and they do nothing.’

Manolis pictured the desk down the hall, the murder weapon strewn across it. In terms of size, its many separate pieces sounded comparable, if not optimal.

‘They don’t have to be stones,’ Ahmed added. ‘People throw bricks, tiles, broken concrete. All things heavy, Allah does not care.’

Crowds whistle as items hit their mark. Shouts of joy ring out with every strike, every spray of blood. Dogs bark, hungry for flesh. A medical doctor periodically stops proceedings to check if the victim is dead. Most stonings take place at dawn.

‘How long do they last?’ Manolis’s voice was weak.

Ahmed shrugged. ‘Depends. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes two hours. And you can tell the people who are guilty.’

‘How?’

Ahmed said the innocent look straight ahead, lift their heads, hold them high. ‘Only the guilty look away.’