The Ghost

creating tiny fissures in her smooth pink cheeks.
    “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. I’m afraid poor Ruth’s having ‘one of those days.’”
    Ruth. The name resonated briefly like a warning drumbeat or the clatter of a thrown spear among the African tribal art. It had never occurred to me that Lang’s wife might be here. I had assumed she would be at home in London. She was famous for her independence, among other things.
    “If this is a bad time—” I said.
    “No, no. She definitely wants to meet you. Come and have a cup of coffee. I’ll fetch her. How’s the hotel?” she added over her shoulder. “Quiet?”
    “As the grave.”
    I retrieved my bag from the Special Branch man and followed Amelia into the interior of the house, trailing in her cloud of scent. She had very nice legs, I noticed; her thighs swished nylon as she walked. She showed me into a room full of cream leather furniture, poured me some coffee from a jug in the corner, then disappeared. I stood for a while at the French windows with my mug, looking out over the back of the property. There were no flower beds—presumably nothing delicate would grow in this desolate spot—just a big lawn that expired about a hundred yards away into sickly brown undergrowth. Beyond that was a pond, as smooth as a sheet of steel under an immense aluminum sky. To the left, the land rose slightly to the dunes that marked the edge of the beach. I couldn’t hear the ocean: the glass doors were too thick—bullet-proof, I later discovered.
    An urgent burst of Morse from the passage signaled the return of Amelia Bly.
    “I’m so sorry. I’m afraid Ruth’s a little busy at the moment. She sends her apologies. She’ll catch you later.” Amelia’s smile had hardened somewhat. It looked as natural as her nail polish. “So, if you’ve finished your coffee, I’ll show you where we work.”
    She insisted that I go first up the stairs.
    The house, she explained, was arranged so that all the bedrooms were on the ground floor, with the living space above, and the moment we ascended into the huge open sitting room, I understood why. The wall facing the coast was made entirely of glass. There was nothing man-made within sight, just ocean, pond, and sky. It was primordial: a scene unchanged for ten thousand years. The soundproofed glass and under-floor heating created the effect of a luxurious time capsule that had been propelled back to the Neolithic age.
    “Quite a place,” I said. “Don’t you get lonely at night?”
    “We’re in here,” said Amelia, opening a door.
    I followed her into a big study, adjoining the sitting room, which was presumably where Marty Rhinehart worked on holiday. There was a similar view from here, except that this angle favored the ocean more than the pond. The shelves were full of books on German military history, their swastikaed spines whitened by exposure to the sun and the salt air. There were two desks: a little one in the corner at which a secretary sat typing at a computer, and a larger one, entirely clear except for a photograph of a powerboat and a model of a yacht. The sour old skeleton that was Marty Rhinehart crouched over the wheel of his boat—living disproof of the old adage that you can’t be too thin or too rich.
    “We’re a small team,” said Amelia. “Myself, Alice here”—the girl in the corner looked up—“and Lucy, who’s with Adam in New York. Jeff the driver’s also in New York—he’ll be bringing the car back this afternoon. Six protection officers from the UK—three here and three with Adam at the moment. We badly need another pair of hands, if only to handle the media, but Adam can’t bring himself to replace Mike. They were together so long.”
    “And how long have you been with him?”
    “Eight years. I worked in Downing Street. I’m on attachment from the Cabinet Office.”
    “Poor Cabinet Office.”
    She flashed her nail-polish smile. “It’s my husband I miss the most.”
    “You’re married? I notice you’re not wearing a ring.”
    “I can’t, sadly. It’s far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security.”
    “Ah.” We understood one another perfectly.
    “The Rhineharts also have a live-in Vietnamese couple, but they’re so discreet you’ll hardly notice them. She looks after the house and he does the garden. Dep and Duc.”
    “Which is which?”
    “Duc is the man. Obviously.”
    She produced a key from the pocket of her well-cut jacket and unlocked a