"You have to believe me!"

"I don't believe you!" I said.

I looked at the posters. "Who is that, if it's not you?"

But it was, I knew it was.

I looked at the dead Jake Rosso's pictures, and I remembered all the photographs on the walls of my room in Hong Kong. I could never forget that face -- the face of my favourite singer.

I turned round and saw Mr Ross. He was standing in the doorway. He looked… afraid.

The room was full of strange things. Coloured shirts and suits. Three guitars. And there were posters and photographs on the walls.

I went into the room… and I was very surprised.

"No!" said a voice behind me.

"No!" I said. "It's not true!"

I saw the face of Mr Ross.

Jake Rosso's face looked down at me.

"Mr Ross is… Jake Rosso!"

I looked at the posters.

Then, while I looked at his face, something strange happened. I began to see another face in the posters. An older face, and with a moustache, but the same face.

"It's Jake Rosso. He was… my brother."

"That's not true!" I shouted. "I don't believe you. Listen, Jake Rosso was my favourite singer -- I had hundreds of photos of him. I still have all his records. I loved him, do you understand? Thousands of people loved him."

"What's he going to do?" I thought.

"I knew it!"

"Does your other secretary know who you are?" I asked. "Do the other people on the island know?"

He looked angry. "I was wrong to give your mother a job," he said. "I thought it was OK because you came from Hong Kong. And I needed help with my work. I needed a good secretary."

He looked worried and unhappy. "Can you keep a secret? A very important secret?"

"Yes," I answered.

I thought for a minute, then I said, "Yes, I can keep a secret."

Mr Ross didn't answer, but walked across to the window. He was thinking.

"No!" I shouted. "You're Jake Rosso! You look different now, yes. You've got short hair, you've got a moustache now, and you wear glasses. But you're… Jake… Rosso. You were my favourite pop star, so I know."

"He's dead," Mr Ross said quietly.

Then he said, "It was you in the passage last night, wasn't it?"

"He doesn't know what to do," I thought. "He knows I don't believe him, and he's afraid."

Then he turned round. "OK, you're right. I… I am Jake Rosso."

Mr Ross said nothing, and watched my face.

"Yes. My real name is James Duncan, and Mr and Mrs Duncan are my father and mother. Tony is my younger brother, and his wife, Lisa, is my secretary. It's she who's in hospital."

"How?"

He looked surprised. "You have?"

"I can understand that," I told him. "I've taken drugs, too."

"And Stella and Dan Parks?" I asked.

"I'11 tell you," he said. He sat down on a chair and took a guitar in his hands, but he didn't play it. "You were right. I was a famous pop star. I was very rich, and I had a beautiful wife. But things went wrong."

"I took drugs," he said. "I drank a lot of alcohol. I got drunk and crashed cars. I did stupid, terrible things. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't stop doing it. I was… crazy, for a time."

"Yes," I said. "After my father died, I was very unhappy and things went wrong for me too. But go on with your story."

"Your family?" I said.

"My mother's sister and her husband," he said.

"The other people on this island are my family."

Then he told me:

"But what are you doing here on this island? I don't understand."

"But you're still alive."

"My family know I'm alive, but no other people know." He looked at me. "But now you know."

"Yes," he said. "She was fifteen years old. I wanted to die, too. The money didn't matter any more. Nothing mattered any more."

"How did you do it?" I asked.

"I told my family about my plan and I told Greta, my wife. At first they didn't like it. But after a long time, they said OK. Then I faked the car crash."

He went on. "One night, I was driving my car. I was drunk and -- and I hit somebody. A young girl. She… died. I killed her."

"I drove on in the car. I didn't stop, and I didn't tell the police. I had killed someone and I was afraid." He looked afraid now. He put the guitar down and went on with his story. "So I made a plan. Jake Rosso had to die, too. It was the best thing to do. And so… I 'killed' him."

"Faked it?"

"Yes," he said. "I put some of my things in the car. A guitar, and some clothes. Then I pushed my car over a cliff and burned it. The police found the burned car and thought I was dead. Everybody thought I was killed in the car crash."

"Oh, no!"

"What did you do after the accident?" I asked.

"My family hid me away for months. I tried to change into a different person -- with shorter hair, a moustache, quiet suits. All my money went to Greta and she changed her name to Ross. I told her to buy this island. Now I invest her money, the money that was mine. And now I'm James Ross."

"Yes."

"What did you do then?"

"What about Jake Rosso?"I asked.

"But you faked the crash," I said.

"Jake Rosso took drugs," he said. "Jake Rosso got drunk and crashed cars. He killed a young girl, so he had to 'die'. I can never forget the girl. I think about her every day."

"And that's why you always look so sad," I thought.

I looked around the room. "Why do you keep a room like this? Why do you keep the guitars, the posters and photographs?"

James Ross did not speak for a minute. Then he said, "I need to remember my old life, and what Jake Rosso was like. I'm never going to sing again and I'm never going to take drugs But I need this room, to remember."

I looked at the posters and the photographs. And I looked at his sad face. "I'm not going to say anything. I won't tell my mother, I won't tell anybody."

James Ross looked at me. "I think you understand," he said.

He took my hand, and we walked out of the room and closed the door.

"I do," I said. "I've done bad things. I want to forget them, too. I needed to get away, to hide, too. That's why we came to England, to begin a new life Yes, I understand."

My life is better now. I work on a farm in England and my mother works in an office. My mother doesn't worry about me, because I'm happier now.

I never went into the room again, and I didn't tell anybody.

My mother and I left the island at the end of the summer. Soon after, I went to college.

I haven't been back to the island.

But I know there's a "dead man" living there.