The Ghost

carrying a clipboard and wearing the unmistakable dark Crombie overcoat and polished black oxfords of a British plainclothes copper.
    I wound down my window and handed him my passport. His big, sullen face was brick colored in the cold, his ears terra-cotta: not a policeman happy with his lot. He looked as if he’d been assigned to guard one of the Queen’s granddaughters in the Caribbean for a fortnight, only to find himself diverted here at the last minute. He scowled as he checked my name against the list on his clipboard, wiped a big drop of clear moisture from the end of his nose, and walked around inspecting the taxi. I could hear surf performing its continuous, rolling somersault on a beach somewhere. He returned and gave me back my passport, and said—or at least I thought he said: he muttered it under his breath—“Welcome to the madhouse.”
    I felt a sudden twist of nerves, which I hope I concealed, because the first appearance of a ghost is important. I try never to show anxiety. I strive always to look professional. It’s dress code: chameleon. Whatever I think the client is likely to be wearing, I endeavor to wear the same. For a footballer, I might put on a pair of trainers; for a pop singer, a leather jacket. For my first-ever meeting with a former prime minister, I had decided against a suit—too formal: I would have looked like his lawyer or accountant—and selected instead a pale blue shirt, a conservative striped tie, a sports jacket, and gray trousers. My hair was neatly brushed, my teeth cleaned and flossed, my deodorant rolled on. I was as ready as I would ever be. The madhouse? Did he really say that? I looked back at the policeman, but he had moved out of sight.
    The gate swung clear, the track curved, and a few moments later I had my first glimpse of the Rhinehart compound: four wooden cube-shaped buildings—a garage, a storeroom, and two cottages for the staff—and up ahead the house itself. It was only two stories high but as wide as a stately home, with a long, low roof and a pair of big square brick chimneys of the sort you might see in a crematorium. The rest of the building was made entirely of wood, but although it was new it had already weathered to a silvery-gray, like garden furniture left out for a year. The windows on this side were as tall and thin as gun slits, and what with these, and the grayness, and the blockhouses farther back, and the encircling forest, and the sentry at the gate, it all somehow resembled a holiday home designed by Albert Speer; the Wolf’s Lair came to mind.
    Even before we drew up, the front door opened and another police guard—white shirt, black tie, zippered gray jacket—welcomed me unsmilingly into the hall. He quickly searched my shoulder bag while I glanced around. I’d met plenty of rich people in the course of my work, but I don’t think I’d ever been inside a billionaire’s house before. There were rows of African masks on the smooth white walls and lighted display cabinets filled with wood carvings and primitive pottery of crude figures with giant phalluses and torpedo breasts—the sort of thing a naughty child might do while the teacher’s back was turned. It was entirely lacking in any kind of skill or beauty or aesthetic merit. (The first Mrs. Rhinehart, I discovered afterward, was on the board of the Museum of Modern Art. The second was a Bollywood actress, fifty years his junior, whom Rhinehart had been advised by his bankers to marry in order to break into the Indian market.)
    From somewhere inside the house I heard a woman with a British accent shouting, “This is absolutely bloody ridiculous !” A door slammed and then an elegant blonde in a dark blue jacket and skirt, carrying a black-and-red hardcover notebook, came clicking down the corridor on high heels.
    “Amelia Bly,” she said with a fixed smile. She was probably forty-five but at a distance could have passed for ten years younger. She had beautiful large, clear blue eyes but wore too much makeup, as if she worked at a cosmetics counter in a department store and had been obliged to demonstrate all the products at once. She exuded a sweetly opulent smell of perfume. I presumed she was the spokeswoman mentioned in that morning’s Times . “Adam’s in New York, unfortunately, and won’t be back till later this afternoon.”
    “Actually, forget I said that: it’s fucking ridiculous!” shouted the unseen woman.
    Amelia expanded her smile a fraction,