The Ghost

finally—almost reluctantly, it seemed to me—he came out and paused at the top of the steps. He was holding his own briefcase, which was not something he had done when he was prime minister. The wind lifted the back of his jacket and plucked at his tie. He smoothed down his hair. He glanced around as if he was trying to remember what he was supposed to do. It was on the edge of becoming embarrassing when suddenly he caught sight of us watching him through the big glass window. He pointed and waved and grinned, exactly the way he had in his heyday, and the moment—whatever it was—had passed. He came striding eagerly across the concourse, transferring his briefcase from one hand to the other, trailed by a third Special Branch man and a young woman pulling a suitcase on wheels.
    We left the window just in time to meet him as he came in through the arrivals gate.
    “Hi, darling,” he said and stooped to kiss his wife. His skin had a slightly orange tint. I realized he was wearing makeup.
    She stroked his arm. “How was New York?”
    “Great. They gave me the Gulfstream Four—you know, the transatlantic one, with the beds and the shower. Hi, Amelia. Hi, Jeff.” He noticed me. “Hello,” he said. “Who are you?”
    “I’m your ghost,” I said.
    I regretted it the instant I said it. I’d conceived it as a witty, self-deprecatory, break-the-ice kind of a line. I’d even practiced my delivery in the mirror before I left London. But somehow out there, in that deserted airport, amid the grayness and the quietness, it hit precisely the wrong note. He flinched.
    “Right,” he said doubtfully, and although he shook my hand, he also drew his head back slightly, as if to inspect me from a safer distance.
    Christ, I thought, he thinks I’m a lunatic.
    “Don’t worry,” Ruth told him. “He isn’t always such a jerk.”

FIVE
    It is essential for the ghost to make the subject feel completely comfortable in his or her company.
    Ghostwriting
    “BRILLIANT OPENING LINE,” SAID Amelia as we drove back to the house. “Did they teach you that at ghost school?”
    We were sitting together in the back of the minivan. The secretary who’d just flown in from New York—her name was Lucy—and the three protection officers occupied the seats in front of us. Through the windscreen I could see the Jaguar immediately ahead carrying the Langs. It was starting to get dark. Pinned by two sets of headlights, the scrub oaks loomed and writhed.
    “It was particularly tactful,” she went on, “given that you’re replacing a dead man.”
    “All right,” I groaned. “Stop.”
    “But you do have one thing going for you,” she said, turning her large blue eyes on me and speaking quietly so that no one else could hear. “Almost uniquely among all members of the human race, you seem to be trusted by Ruth Lang. Now why’s that, do you suppose?”
    “There’s no accounting for taste.”
    “True. Perhaps she thinks you’ll do what she tells you?”
    “Perhaps she does. Don’t ask me.” The last thing I needed was to get stuck in the middle of this catfight. “Listen, Amelia—can I call you Amelia? As far as I’m concerned, I’m helping write a book. I don’t want to get caught up in any palace intrigues.”
    “Of course not. You just want to do your job and get out of here.”
    “You’re mocking me again.”
    “You make it so easy.”
    After that I shut up for a while. I could see why Ruth didn’t like her. She was a shade too clever and several shades too blonde for comfort, especially from a wife’s point of view. In fact it struck me as I sat there, passively inhaling her Chanel, that she might be having an affair with Lang. That would explain a lot. He’d been noticeably cool toward her at the airport, and isn’t that always the surest sign? In which case, no wonder they were so paranoid about confidentiality. There could be enough material here to keep the tabloids happy for weeks.
    We were halfway down the track when Amelia said, “You haven’t told me what you thought of the manuscript.”
    “Honestly? I haven’t had so much fun since I read the memoirs of Leonid Brezhnev.” She didn’t smile. “I don’t understand how it happened,” I went on. “You people were running the country not that long ago. Surely one of you had English as a first language?”
    “Mike—” she began, then stopped. “But I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
    “Why make them an exception?”
    “All