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was sleeping in a strange room in a strange house with a fairly strange man, to meet some strange (if genuine) creature. There was also the fact that I’d nearly drowned. I had a sudden bizarre feeling that I was in someone else’s dream. Right then sleep was a very good idea. I made a decision to use the bathroom then get my head down.
    Thunder clapped again outside the window. The storm hadn’t yet finished with the island. I looked at my watch. Water had found its way beneath the glass, enlarging and warping the numbers. It was a few minutes past nine o’clock. I grabbed the wash bag that had been drying by the fire and left the room.
    I could hear the rainfall resuming with vigour as I walked along to the bathroom. There was a strong smell of disinfectant or bleach that I hadn’t noticed before. The shower curtain that ran around the circumference of the bath on a flimsy rail looked fairly new, almost unused. I washed, relishing the feeling of warm water on my face.
    Minutes later, back in the bedroom and undressed, I pondered a little more on my situation. Aside from Mather’s boat, I knew of no other way off the island. I looked at my bag, now placed at a safe distance from the fire. Picking it up, I fished out my mobile phone and pushed the power button. Nothing happened.
    Unclipping the battery cover, I groaned as water dripped onto my knee. I put the phone on the floor near the grate, where it could dry out slowly. For the time being there was no way of contacting anyone. Not that I thought I would need to call for help at that point. I just felt slightly vulnerable without that vital link to civilization. The Dictaphone, thankfully, was dry, as was the Nikon camera. Its carry case was a little damp, but on opening it I was overjoyed to see that little or no water had found its way inside.
    I placed the Nikon on the floor by the bed and turned to look at the dancing flames. It was rare that I had the opportunity to appreciate an open fire, but I had a feeling that the desire to fall asleep would soon overtake me.
    Before giving in to my exhaustion altogether, I slipped between the soft clean sheets and started reading Her Story .
    Far back in the mystery-shrouded past of old Vietnam [I read], there was once a young, hardworking farmer named Ngoc Tam. He was an honest, generous man, who had taken for his wife a beautiful girl from a neighbouring village. Nhan Diep was a slender girl, full of life and good humour, but being a restless spirit she soon grew tired and disillusioned with farming, and longed for a life of luxury.
    One day, without warning, she fell horribly ill and slipped into a weak, debilitating torpor. Tam found her lying on the ground and carried her back to the house. But despite his best efforts to revive her, Diep died in her distraught husband’s arms. Tam was inconsolable and wept for days. He shunned the help of friends and family and refused to leave the body of his wife or allow her to be buried.
    Tam didn’t know how he could live without his precious Diep. In desperation he sold all his assets and bought a raft and a beautiful casket in which he placed the body of his wife. Taking the raft to the nearby stream, he set sail with an innate hope that somehow he could find a cure for his broken heart. On the twenty-second day of his journey, help found him.
    He woke from a troubled sleep that morning to find that the raft had stopped at the foot of a mountain. Leaving the raft and the casket behind, he soon found himself climbing across a carpet of a thousand rare flowers. He stopped in a small clearing, then, as he continued up the mountain, he noticed an old man on the path before him, leaning on a curious bamboo staff. The man had long white hair that floated gently on the caressing breeze and wrinkled, sun-burned skin. Tam felt as though somehow this stranger already knew him.
    At once it dawned on Tam that the old man was in fact Tien Thai, the genie of medicine. Tam fell to his