The Ghost (15 page)

She was looking at me with her mouth slightly open.

“That,” she said slowly, “is
all
you know.
Jesus
.” She started feeling around on the sofa, patting the leather with her hands, then turned her attention to the table, searching under the photographs. “Jesus. Shit.” She flicked her fingers at me. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?” I asked, handing it over.

“Isn’t it obvious? I need to call Adam.” She held it outstretched in her palm, inspected it, and quickly started entering his number with her thumb. She got about halfway through, then stopped.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.” She was looking beyond me, over my shoulder, chewing the inside of her lip. Her thumb was poised over the keypad, and for a long moment it stayed there, until at last she put the phone back down on the table.

“You’re not going to call him?”

“Maybe. In a while.” She stood. “I’m going for a walk first.”

“But it’s nine o’clock at night,” I protested. “It’s pouring rain.”

“It’ll clear my head.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. Thanks, but I need to think things through on my own. You stay here and have another drink. You look as though you need one. Don’t wait up.”

IT WAS POOR BARRY
I felt sorry for. No doubt he’d been downstairs, with his feet up in front of the television, looking forward to a quiet night in. And suddenly here was Lady Macbeth again, off on yet another of her ceaseless walks, this time in the middle of an Atlantic storm. I stood at the window and watched them cross the lawn, toward the silently raging vegetation. She was in the lead, as usual, her head bowed, as if she’d lost something precious and was retracing her steps, searching the ground, trying to find it. The floodlights spread her shadow four ways. The Special Branch man was still pulling on his coat.

I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. My legs were stiff from cycling. I felt shivery with an incipient cold. Even Rhinehart’s whiskey had lost its allure. She had said not to wait up, and I decided I wouldn’t. I put the photographs and photocopies away in the envelope and went downstairs to my room. When I took off my clothes and switched off the light, sleep seemed to swallow me instantly, to suck me down through the mattress and into its dark waters, as if it were a strong current and I an exhausted swimmer.

I surfaced at some point to find myself alongside McAra, his large, clumsy body turning in the water like a dolphin’s. He was fully clothed, in a thick black raincoat and heavy, rubber-soled shoes.
I’m not going to make it,
he said to me,
you go on without me.

I sat up in alarm. I’d no idea how long I’d been asleep. The room was in darkness, apart from a vertical strip of light to my left.

“Are you awake?” said Ruth softly, knocking on the door. She had opened it a few inches and was standing in the corridor.

“I am now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. Hold on.”

I went into the bathroom and put on the white terry-cloth robe that was hanging on the back of the door, and when I returned to the bedroom and let her in I saw that she was wearing an identical robe to mine. It was too big for her. She looked unexpectedly small and vulnerable. Her hair was soaking wet. Her bare feet had left a trail of damp prints from her room to mine.

“What time is it?” I said.

“I don’t know. I just spoke to Adam.” She seemed stunned, trembling. Her eyes were open very wide.

“And?”

She glanced along the corridor. “Can I come in?”

Still groggy from my dream, I turned on the bedside light. I stood aside to let her pass and closed the door after her.

“The day before Mike died, he and Adam had a terrible row,” she said, without preliminaries. “I haven’t told anyone this before, not even the police.”

I massaged my temples and tried to concentrate.

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know, but it was furious—terminal—and they never spoke again. When I asked Adam about it, he refused to discuss it. It’s been the same every time I’ve broached it since. In light of what you’ve found out today, I felt I had to have it out with him once and for all.”

“What did he say?”

“He was having dinner with the vice president. At first, that bloody woman wouldn’t even go in and give him the phone.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed incongruous to remain standing, towering over her, so I sat down next to her. She was shaking from head to toe: it could have been fear, or anger, or maybe it was just the cold.

“He said to begin with he couldn’t talk,” she went on, “but I said he bloody well had to talk. So he took the phone into the men’s room. When I told him Mike had been in touch with Rycart just before he died, he didn’t even pretend to be surprised.” She turned to me. She looked stricken. “He
knew
.”

“He said that?”

“He didn’t need to. I could tell by his voice. He said we shouldn’t say any more over the telephone. We should talk when he gets back. Dear God, help us—what has he got himself mixed up in?”

Something seemed to give way in her and she sagged toward me, her arms outstretched. Her head came to rest against my chest and I thought for a moment she might have fainted, but then I realized she was clinging to me, holding on so fiercely I could feel her bitten fingertips through the thick material of the robe. My hands hovered an inch or two above her, moving back and forth uncertainly, as if she was giving off some kind of magnetic field. Finally, I stroked her hair and tried to murmur words of reassurance I didn’t really believe.

“I’m afraid,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’ve never been frightened in my life before. But I am now.”

“Your hair’s wet,” I said gently. “You’re drenched. Let me get you a towel.”

I extricated myself and went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I felt like a skier at the top of an unfamiliar black run. When I returned to the bedroom, she’d taken off her robe and had got into bed, pulling up the sheet to cover her breasts.

“Do you mind?” she said.

“Of course not,” I said.

I turned off the light and climbed in beside her, and lay on the cold side of the bed. She rolled over and put her hand on my chest and pressed her lips very hard against mine, as if she were trying to give me the kiss of life.

WHEN I WOKE THE
next morning, I expected to find her gone. That’s the usual protocol in these situations, isn’t it? The business of the night transacted, the visiting party retreats to his or her own quarters, as keen as a vampire to avoid the unforgiving rays of dawn. Not so Ruth Lang. In the dimness I could see her bare shoulder and her crop of black hair, and I could tell by her irregular, almost inaudible breathing, that she was as awake as I was and lying there listening to me.

I reclined on my back, my hands folded across my stomach, as motionless as the stone effigy of a crusader knight on his tomb, shutting my eyes periodically as some fresh aspect of the mess occurred to me. On the Richter scale of bad ideas, this surely had registered a ten. It was a meteor strike of folly. After a while, I let one hand travel crabwise to the bedside table and feel for my watch. I brought it up close to my face. It was seven-fifteen.

Cautiously, still pretending I didn’t know that she was pretending, I slipped out of the bed and crept toward the bathroom.

“You’re awake,” she said, without moving.

“I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” I said. “I thought I’d take a shower.”

I locked the door behind me, turned the water up as hot and strong as I could bear, and let it pummel me—back, stomach, legs, scalp. The little room quickly filled with steam. Afterward, when I shaved, I had to keep rubbing at my reflection in the mirror to stop myself from disappearing.

By the time I returned to the bedroom, she had put on her robe and was sitting at the desk, leafing through the manuscript. The curtains were still closed.

“You’ve taken out his family history,” she said. “He won’t like that. He’s very proud of the Langs. And why have you underlined my name every time?”

“I wanted to check how often you were mentioned. I was surprised there wasn’t more about you.”

“That will be a hangover from the focus groups.”

“I’m sorry?”

“When we were in Downing Street, Mike used to say that every time I opened my mouth I cost Adam ten thousand votes.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Of course it is. People are always looking for someone to resent. I often think my main usefulness, as far as he was concerned, was to serve as a lightning rod. They could take their anger out on me instead of him.”

“Even so,” I said, “you ought not to be written out of history.”

“Why not? Most women usually are. Even the Amelia Blys of this world are written out eventually.”

“Well, then, I shall reinstate you.” I slid open the door of the closet so hard in my haste it banged. I had to get out of that house. I had to put some distance between myself and their destructive ménage à trois before I ended up as crazed as they were. “I’d like to sit down with you, when you have the time, and do a really long interview. Put in all the important occasions that he’s forgotten.”

“How very kind of you,” she said bitterly. “Like the boss’s secretary whose job is to remember his wife’s birthdays for him?”

“Something like that. But then, as you say, I can’t claim to be a proper writer.”

I was conscious of her watching me carefully. I put on a pair of boxer shorts, pulling them up under my robe.

“Ah,” she said dryly, “the modesty of the morning after.”

“A bit late for that,” I said.

I took off the dressing gown and reached for a shirt, and as the hanger rang its hollow chime, I thought that this was exactly the sort of miserable scene that the discreet nocturnal departure was invented to avoid. How typical of her not to sense what the occasion required. Now our former intimacy lay between us like a shadow. The silence lengthened, and hardened, until I could feel her resentment as an almost solid barrier. I could no more have gone across and kissed her now than I could on the day we met.

“What are you going to do?” she said.

“Leave.”

“That’s not necessary as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m afraid it is, as far as I am.”

I pulled on my trousers.

“Are you going to tell Adam about this?” she said.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” I cried. “What do you think?”

I laid my suitcase on the bed and unzipped it.

“Where will you go?” She looked as if she might be about to cry again. I hoped not; I couldn’t take it.

“Back to the hotel. I can work much better there.” I started throwing in my clothes, not bothering to fold them, such was my eagerness to get away. “I’m sorry. I should never have stayed in a client’s house. It always ends—” I hesitated.

“With you fucking the client’s wife?”

“No, of course not. It just makes it hard to keep a professional distance. Anyway, it wasn’t
entirely
my idea, if you recall.”

“That’s not very gentlemanly of you.”

I didn’t answer. I carried on packing. Her gaze followed my every move.

“And the things I told you last night?” she said. “What do you propose to do about them?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t simply ignore them.”

“Ruth,” I said, stopping at last, “I’m his ghostwriter, not an investigative reporter. If he wants to tell the truth about what’s been going on, I’m here to help him. If he doesn’t, fine. I’m morally neutral.”

“It isn’t morally neutral to conceal the facts if you know something illegal has happened—that’s criminal.”

“But I don’t know that anything illegal
has
happened. All I have is a phone number on the back of a photograph and gossip from some old man who may well be senile. If anyone has any evidence, it’s you. That’s the real question, actually: what are
you
going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll write my own memoirs. ‘Ex–Prime Minister’s Wife Tells All.’”

I resumed packing.

“Well, if ever you do decide to do that, give me a call.”

She emitted one of her trademark full-throated laughs.

“Do you really think I need someone like
you
to enable me to produce a book?”

She stood up then and undid her belt, and for an instant I thought she was about to undress, but she was only loosening it in order to wrap the robe more closely around herself. She drew the belt very tight and knotted it, and the finality of the gesture somehow restored her superiority over me. My rights of access were hereby revoked. Her resolve was so firm I felt almost wistful, and if she had held out her arms it would have been my turn to fall against her, but instead, she turned and, in the practiced manner of a prime minister’s wife, pulled the nylon cord to open the curtains.

“I declare this day officially open,” she said. “God bless it, and all who have to get through it.”

“Well,” I said, looking out at the scene, “that really is the morning after the night before.”

The rain had turned to sleet and the lawn was covered with debris from the storm—small branches, twigs, a white cane chair thrown on its side. Here and there, around the edges of the door, where it was sheltered the sleet had stuck together and frozen into strips, like bits of polystyrene packaging. The only brightness in the murk was the reflection of our bedroom light. It resembled a flying saucer hovering above the dunes. I could see Ruth’s face quite clearly in the glass: watchful, brooding.

“I’m not going to give you an interview,” she said. “I don’t want to be in his bloody book, being patronized and thanked by him, using your words.” She turned and brushed past me. At the bedroom door she paused. “He’s on his own now. I’ll get a divorce. And then she can do the prison visits.”

I listened to the sound of her own door opening and closing, and shortly afterward the barely audible sound of a toilet flushing. I had almost finished packing. I folded the clothes she had lent me the previous evening and laid them on the chair, put my laptop into my shoulder bag, and then the only thing left was the manuscript. It sat in a thick pile on the table where she had left it, three sullen inches of it—my millstone, my albatross, my meal ticket. I couldn’t make any progress without it, yet I wasn’t supposed to take it from the house. It occurred to me that perhaps I could argue the war crimes investigation had changed the circumstances of Lang’s life so completely that the old rules no longer applied. At any rate, I could use that as an excuse. I certainly couldn’t face the embarrassment of staying here and running into Ruth every few hours. I put the manuscript into my suitcase, along with the package from the archive, zipped them up, and went out into the corridor.

Barry was sitting with his Harry Potter novel in the chair by the front door. He raised his great slab of a face from the pages and gave me a look of weary disapproval, tinged with a sneer of amused contempt.

“Morning, sir,” he said. “Finished for the night, have we?”

I thought, he knows. And then I thought, of course he knows, you bloody fool; it’s his job to know. In a flash I saw his sniggering conversations with his colleagues, the log of his official observations passed to London, a discreet entry in a file somewhere, and I felt a thrust of fury and resentment. Perhaps I should have responded with a wink or a colluding quip—“Well, officer, you know what they say: there’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle,” or something of the sort—but instead I said, coldly, “Why don’t you just fuck off?”

It wasn’t exactly Oscar Wilde, but it got me out of the house. I walked through the door and set off toward the track, only belatedly registering that, unfortunately, high moral dudgeon offers no protection against stinging squalls of sleet. I trudged on with an effort at dignity for a few more yards, then ducked for cover into the lee of the house. Rainwater was overflowing from the gutter and drilling into the sandy soil. I took off my jacket and held it over my head, and considered how I was going to reach Edgartown. That was when the idea of borrowing the tan-colored Ford Escape SUV popped helpfully into my mind.

How different—how very different—the course of my life would have been if I hadn’t immediately gone running toward that garage, dodging the puddles, the tent of my jacket raised over me with one hand, the other dragging my little suitcase. I see myself now as if in a movie, or perhaps, more aptly, in one of those filmed reconstructions on a TV crime show: the victim skipping unknowingly toward his fate, as ominous chords underscore the portentousness of the scene. The door was still unlocked from the previous day and the keys of the Ford were in the ignition—after all, who worries about robbers when you live at the end of a two-mile track protected by six armed bodyguards? I heaved my case into the front passenger seat, put my jacket back on, and slid behind the steering wheel.

It was as cold as a morgue, that Ford, and as dusty as an old attic. I ran my hands over the unfamiliar controls and my fingertips came away gray. I don’t own a car—I’ve never found much need, living alone in London—and on the rare occasions I hire one, it always seems that another layer of gadgets has been added, so that the instrument panel of the average family sedan now looks to me like the cockpit of a jumbo. There was a mystifying screen to the right of the wheel, which came alive when I switched on the engine. Pulsing green arcs were shown radiating upward from Earth to an orbiting space station. As I watched, the pulse switched direction and the arcs beamed down from the heavens. An instant later, the screen showed a large red arrow, a yellow path, and a great patch of blue.

An American woman’s voice, soft but commanding, said, from somewhere behind me:
Join the road as soon as possible.

I would have turned her off, but I couldn’t see how, and I was conscious that the noise of the engine might soon bring Barry lumbering out of the house to investigate. The thought of his lubricious gaze was enough to get me moving. I quickly put the Ford into reverse and backed out of the garage. Then I adjusted the mirrors, switched on the headlights and the windscreen wipers, engaged drive, and headed for the gate. As I passed the guard post, the scene on the little satellite navigation monitor swung pleasingly, as if I were playing on an arcade game, and then the red arrow settled over the center of the yellow path. I was away.

There was something oddly soothing about driving along and seeing all the little paths and streams, neatly labeled, appear at the top of the screen and then scroll down before disappearing off the bottom. It made me feel as if the world were a safe and tamed place, its every feature tagged and measured and stored in some celestial control room, where softly spoken angels kept a benign vigil on the travelers below.

The solitary demonstrator was huddled in his hut, reading a newspaper. He stood as he saw me at the junction and came out into the sleet. I noticed he had a car parked nearby, a big old Volkswagen camper van, and I wondered why he didn’t shelter in that. As I swung right, I got a good look at his gaunt gray face. He was immobile and expressionless, taking no more notice of the drenching rain than if he had been a carved wooden figure outside a drugstore. I pressed my foot on the accelerator and headed toward Edgartown, enjoying the slight sense of adventure that always comes from driving in a foreign country. My disembodied guide was silent for the next four miles or so, and I had forgotten all about her until, as I reached the outskirts of the town, she started up again.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I said out loud and pulled over. I pressed various buttons on the navigator’s console, with the aim of shutting it down. The screen changed and offered me a menu. I can’t remember all the options. one was
ENTER A NEW DESTINATION
. I think another was
RETURN TO HOME ADDRESS
. And a third—the one highlighted—was
REMEMBER PREVIOUS DESTINATION
.