So, it was a novel. Stephen was a novelist, therefore this was a novel. She read its first sentence.

‘And he came to a land where the water flows uphill.’

Stephen’s script was small, hesitant, but tolerably legible. He had used a ball-point pen. She could have read on, but did not. She looked again at the finger. Was that Stephen’s finger lying there?

She pushed the papers back into their envelope, noting that it had once been sealed with string and sealing wax. She approached another, smaller envelope. It too contained bits of script in Stephen’s hand, some of it laid out in what looked like stage instructions and dialogue. Was it part of a play?

She remembered that Stephen had vanished to the East to write a play about Pol Pot. Or so he had said. Two years ago? Three or four years ago? Something like that.

There were cuttings, paperclipped together, indented with rust. News stories, photographs.

She realized she should treat these messages with the care of an archivist. Their order and disposition, once destroyed, would vanish for ever. Already she had forgotten precisely how, within the package, the finger had been placed. Posthumously, as an afterthought? But she had to look further. Now. Curiosity compelled her. She had to see whether there was a message there for her, for Liz Headleand, for herself alone.

She found picture postcards, unscripted. Of a shrine, of a pagoda, of a boat on a wide river, of a lake with reflected drooping trees, of Buddhist monks robed in saffron, of a smiling carved face in a jungle, of dancing girls, of a marble mausoleum. Some were glossy, some were old and faded, some were new but poorly tinted. She found a long document with official stamps in an unknown language. She found a laundry bill from a hotel in Bangkok, and a currency exchange form, and a receipt from a hotel safe. She found two more little notebooks full of jottings and sketches. She found a quotation from John Stuart Mill, and a poem by Rimbaud. She found a scrap of orange ribbon and a flake of brittle pearly shell, and a tiny photograph of an ethnic child sitting on a buffalo. But her own name she did not find.

Was it there, somewhere, hidden, coded? Why had Stephen selected her? What obligation had he laid upon her?

She felt important, chosen, as she sat there at her desk. At the same time she felt neglected. Why had he not enclosed a note saying ‘Good wishes, Stephen’? He had sent her postcards from foreign parts before, with brief messages. She had received a couple from this long absence, this long silence. From Singapore or Penang or Bangkok. Or somewhere like that. Why was he now so sparing with his signature?

Here was his story. Perhaps he was telling her that she would have to read it all.