Sheila Reilly

In the novel Murder in Mesopotamia, Sheila Reilly is the outspoken daughter of Dr Reilly. At about 20 years old, she is the only girl her age among many young Englishman in Baghdad and environs.

Sheila has "black hair and blue eyes", a pale face and "the usual lipsticked mouth". She has a "cool, sarcastic way of talking", which Nurse Leatheran finds annoying.

Sheila is the only young woman about the place, and so gets a lot of attention from the young men. Among the expedition staff, Bill Coleman and David Emmott are both interested in her, and Anne Johnson mentions some rivalry between them, regarding who was to be Sheila's partner at an event at the club. She also mentions that Sheila gets a lot of attention from the young men in the Air Force.

Nurse Leatheran is of the opinion that Sheila has been spoilt by her father, and so it is not surprising to her when Sheila is described as having no manners, and having "a temper like the devil".

Sheila does not believe in the convention of not speaking ill of the dead. She believes that speaking ill of a living person might harm them, but the dead are past that. After the death of Louise Leidner, Sheila tells Poirot that if ever a woman deserved to be murdered, it was Louise. She even says that she would not much have objected to killing Louise herself. When Poirot asks if she has an alibi for the time of the murder, Sheila says that she was playing tennis at the club. However, Poirot later finds out that she had ridden up to the dig on the afternoon of the murder, and so would have been quite near the expedition house.

Sheila tells Poirot about the atmosphere of tension among the expedition staff, saying that it was Louise's doing. She says that Louise liked drama, but did not want to be involved in it herself. Instead, she would always be on the outside, pulling strings.

Sheila also tells Poirot that Louise was having an affair with Richard Carey. She says that Richard was in love with her, and she was quite sure that Louise was also in love with him.

During the denouement, Sheila tells Poirot that she did not find any of the members of the expedition staff when she rode up to the dig on the day of the murder. She also says that she saw Bill Coleman walking with his head down, as if he were looking for something. This calls into the question the alibis of Richard Carey and Bill Coleman.

At the end of the novel, Nurse Leatheran says that Sheila married David Emmott.

Portrayals
In the ITV 2001 TV adapatation of the novel, Sheila becomes "Sheila Maitland", the daughter of the local policeman, Superintendent Maitland. Like the Sheila from the original novel, she is also ascerbic, blunt and outspoken, making acute observations that are often at odds with what others say. She tells Poirot, for example, that others might observe that Richard Carey dislikes Louise Leidner but in actual fact he is "head over heels in love with her". She also tells Poirot that, like many others, she dislikes Louise Leidner and "wouldn't mind killing her". Sheila makes frequent horseback daytrips to the dig at Tell Yarimjah, mostly to befriend the various men there--she tells her father, who disapproves of her making excursions from Baghdad on her own, that life is so boring in the city. At the dig she tries to strike up a relationship with Richard Carey but he rebuffs her. At the end, Bill Coleman invites her to a ball and she accepts. Sheila did not have an alibi for the time of Louise Leidner's death. She claimed to be playing tennis at the club but it turned out that she had ridden to the dig. The character of Sheila Maitland is played by Pandora Clifford.