The Ghost

minidisks and a mains lead (I’ve learned the hard way not to rely solely on my batteries); a metallic silver Panasonic Toughbook laptop computer, which is not much larger than a hardcover novel and considerably lighter; a couple of small black Moleskine notebooks and three brand-new Jetstream rollerball pens, made by the Mitsubishi Pencil Co.; and finally two white plastic adapters, one a British multipoint plug and one a converter to fit an American socket. It’s a superstition with me always to use the same items, and to lay them out in the proper sequence. I also had a list of questions, culled from the books I’d bought in London and my reading of McAra’s first draft the previous day.
    “Did you know,” said Lang suddenly, “that the Germans had jet fighters in 1944? Look at that.” He held up the page to show the photograph. “It’s a wonder we won.”
    “We have no floppy disks,” said Amelia, “only these flash drives. I’ve loaded the manuscript onto this one for you.” She handed me an object the size of a small plastic cigarette lighter. “You’re welcome to copy it onto your own computer, but I’m afraid that if you do, your laptop must stay here, locked up, overnight.”
    “And apparently Germany declared war on America, not the other way round.”
    “Isn’t this all a bit paranoid?”
    “The book contains some potentially classified material that has yet to be approved by the Cabinet Office. More to the point, there’s also a very strong risk of some news organization using unscrupulous methods to try to get hold of it. Any leak would jeopardize our newspaper serialization deals.”
    Lang said, “So you’ve actually got my whole book on that?”
    “We could get a hundred books on that, Adam,” said Amelia, patiently.
    “Amazing.” He shook his head. “You know the worst thing about my life?” He closed the book with a snap and replaced it on the shelf. “You get so out of touch. You never go in a shop. Everything’s done for you. You don’t carry any money—if I want some money, even now, I have to ask one of the secretaries or one of the protection boys to get it for me. I couldn’t do it myself, anyway, I don’t know my—what’re they called?—I don’t even know that—”
    “PIN?”
    “You see? I just don’t have a clue. I’ll give you another example. The other week, Ruth and I went out to dinner with some people in New York. They’ve always been very generous to us, so I say, ‘Right, tonight, this is on me.’ So I give my credit card to the manager and he comes back a few minutes later, all embarrassed, and he shows me the problem. There’s still a strip where the signature’s supposed to be.” He threw up his arms and grinned. “The card hadn’t been activated.”
    “This,” I said excitedly, “is exactly the sort of detail we need to put in your book. Nobody knows this sort of thing.”
    Lang looked startled. “I can’t put that in. People would think I was a complete idiot.”
    “But it’s human detail. It shows what it’s like to be you.” I knew this was my moment. I had to get him to focus on what we needed right from the start. I came round from behind the desk and confronted him. “Why don’t we try to make this book unlike any other political memoir that’s ever been written? Why don’t we try to tell the truth?”
    He laughed. “Now that would be a first.”
    “I mean it. Let’s tell people what it really feels like to be prime minister. Not just the policy stuff—any old bore can write about that.” I almost cited McAra but managed to swerve away at the last moment. “Let’s stick to what no one except you knows—the day-to-day experience of actually leading a country. What do you feel like in the mornings? What are the strains? What’s it like to be so cut off from ordinary life? What’s it like to be hated?”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    “What fascinates people isn’t policy—who cares about policy? What fascinates people is always people—the detail of another person’s life. But because the detail is naturally all so familiar to you, you can’t sort out what it is the reader wants to know. It has to be drawn out of you. That’s why you need me. This shouldn’t be a book for political hacks. This should be a book for everyone.”
    “The people’s memoir,” said Amelia dryly, but I ignored her, and so, more important, did Lang, who was looking at me quite differently now: it was as if some electric