Reginald Hill aka Reginald Hill

SYNOPSIS They were from Marlow's DrFaustus whose world of profit and delight had been purchased by selling his soul. Or perhaps the words were too apt. He pushed that thought away and concentrated on working out why he should know the quotation. Oriental Languages had been his subject, not English literature, but now he recalled that he'd once acted in the play at university; or rather not himself, but that incredibly, hazily distant young man whose name was now as vague as all those he had since inscribed on hotel registers in his career as Jay smith. And he hadn't been Faustus either. An ostler, that's what he'd been. A grasping gull made a fool of by magic.