The Ghost

known—at least I’ve never seen it written up anywhere. But apparently his seat was originally all lined up for her, only at the last minute she stood aside and let him have it.”
    I thought of my conversation with Rycart.
    “The member for Michigan,” I murmured.
    “Who?”
    “The sitting MP was a man called Giffen. He was so pro-American he was known as the member for Michigan.” Something moved uneasily inside my mind. “Can I ask you a question? Before Adam was killed, why were you so determined to keep that manuscript under lock and key?”
    “I told you: security.”
    “But there was nothing in it. I know that better than anyone. I’ve read every tedious word a dozen times.”
    Amelia glanced around. We were still on the fringe of the party. Nobody was paying us any attention.
    “Between you and me,” she said quietly, “ we weren’t the ones who were concerned. Apparently, it was the Americans. I was told they passed the word to MI5 that there might be something early on in the manuscript that was a potential threat to national security.”
    “How did they know that?”
    “Who’s to say? All I can tell you is that immediately after Mike died, they requested we take special care to ensure the book wasn’t circulated until they’d had a chance to clear it.”
    “And did they?”
    “I’ve no idea.”
    I thought again of my meeting with Rycart. What was it he claimed McAra had said to him on the telephone, just before he died? “The key to everything is in Lang’s autobiography—it’s all there at the beginning.”
    Did that mean their conversation had been bugged?
    I sensed that something important had just changed—that some part of my solar system had tilted in its orbit—but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was. I needed to get away to somewhere quiet, to take my time and think things through. But already I was aware that the acoustics of the party had changed. The roar of talk was dwindling. People were shushing one another. A man bellowed pompously, “Be quiet!” and I turned around. At the side of the room, opposite the big windows, not very far from where we were standing, Ruth Lang was waiting patiently on a platform, holding a microphone.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much. And good evening.” She paused, and a great stillness spread across three hundred people. She took a breath. There was a catch in her throat. “I miss Adam all the time. But never more than tonight. Not just because we’re meeting to launch his wonderful book, and he should be here to share the joy of his life story with us, but because he was so brilliant at making speeches, and I’m so terrible.”
    I was surprised at how professionally she delivered the last line, how she built the emotional tension and then punctured it. There was a release of laughter. She seemed much more confident in public than I remembered her, as if Lang’s absence had given her room to grow.
    “Therefore,” she continued, “you’ll be relieved to hear I’m not going to make a speech. I’d just like to thank a few people. I’d like to thank Marty Rhinehart and John Maddox for not only being marvelous publishers, but also being great friends. I’d like to thank Sidney Kroll for his wit and his wise counsel. And in case this sounds as though the only people involved in the memoirs of a British prime minister are Americans, I’d also like to thank in particular, and especially, Mike McAra, who tragically also can’t be with us. Mike, you are in our thoughts.”
    The great hall rang with a rumble of “hear hear.”
    “And now,” said Ruth, “may I propose a toast to the one we really need to thank?” She raised her glass of macrobiotic orange juice, or whatever it was. “To the memory of a great man and a great patriot, a great father and a wonderful husband—to Adam Lang!”
    “To Adam Lang!” we all boomed in unison, and then we clapped, and went on clapping, redoubling the volume, while Ruth nodded graciously to all corners of the hall, including ours, at which point she saw me and blinked, then recovered, smiled, and hoisted her glass to me in salute.
    She left the platform quickly.
    “The merry widow,” hissed Amelia. “Death becomes her, don’t you think? She’s blossoming by the day.”
    “I have a feeling she’s coming over,” I said.
    “Shit,” said Amelia, draining her glass, “in that case I’m getting out of here. Would you like me to take you to