The Ghost

sherry and had a book called A Thing of Beauty with a red-and-gold cover. Young Adam would look at the pictures for hours; that was what first gave him his interest in the theater. We remembered Christmas pantomimes he had been to (I made a note to look up exactly what was playing in Leicester when he was growing up) and his stage debut in the school nativity play.
    “Was I a wise man?”
    “That sounds a little smug.”
    “A sheep?”
    “Not smug enough.”
    “A guiding star?”
    “Perfect!”
    By the time we broke for lunch, we had reached the age of seventeen, when his performance in the title role of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus had confirmed him in his desire to become an actor. McAra, with typical thoroughness, had already dug out the review in the Leicester Mercury , December 1971, describing how Lang had “held the audience spellbound” with his final speech, as he glimpsed eternal damnation.
    While Lang went off to play tennis with one of his bodyguards, I dropped by the downstairs office to check on the transcription. An hour’s interviewing generally yields between seven and eight thousand words, and Lang and I had been at it from nine till nearly one. Amelia had set both secretaries on the task. Each was wearing headphones. Their fingers skimmed the keyboards, filling the room with a soothing rattle of plastic. With a bit of luck I would have about a hundred double-spaced pages of material to show for that morning’s work alone. For the first time since arriving on the island, I felt the warm breath of optimism.
    “This is all new to me,” said Amelia, who was bent over Lucy’s shoulder, reading Lang’s words as they unfurled across the screen. “I’ve never heard him mention any of this before.”
    “The human memory is a treasure-house, Amelia,” I said, deadpan. “It’s merely a matter of finding the right key.”
    I left her peering at the screen and went into the kitchen. It was about as large as my London flat, with enough polished granite to furnish a family mausoleum. A tray of sandwiches had been laid out. I put one on a plate and wandered around the back of the house until I came to a solarium—I suppose that’s what you would call it—with a big sliding glass door leading to an outside swimming pool. The pool was covered with a gray tarpaulin depressed by rainwater, on which floated a brown scum of rotting leaves. There were two silvered wooden cube-shaped buildings at the far end, and beyond those the scrub oak and the white sky. A small, dark figure—so bundled up against the cold he was almost spherical—was raking leaves and piling them into a wheelbarrow. I presumed he must be the Vietnamese gardener, Duc. I really must try to see this place in summer, I thought.
    I sat down on a lounge, releasing a faded odor of chlorine and suntan lotion, and called Rick in New York. He was in a rush, as usual.
    “How’s it going?”
    “We had a good morning. The man’s a pro.”
    “Great. I’ll call Maddox. He’ll be glad to hear it. The first fifty thousand just came in, by the way. I’ll wire it over. Speak to you later.” The line went dead.
    I finished my sandwich and went back upstairs, still clutching my silent phone. I had had an idea, and my newborn confidence gave me the courage to act on it. I went into the study and closed the door. I plugged Amelia’s flash drive into my laptop, then I attached a cable from my computer to the cell phone and dialed up the internet. How much easier my life would be, I reasoned—how much quicker the job would be done—if I could work on the book in my hotel room each night. I told myself I was doing no harm. The risks were minimal. The machine rarely left my side. If necessary, it was small enough to fit under my pillow while I slept. The moment I was online, I addressed an email to myself, attached the manuscript file, and pressed Send.
    The upload seemed to take an age. Amelia started calling my name from downstairs. I glanced at the door and suddenly my fingers were thick and clumsy with anxiety. “Your file has been transferred,” said the female voice that for some reason is favored by my internet service provider. “You have email,” she announced a fraction later.
    Immediately I yanked the cable out of the laptop, and I had just removed the flash drive when somewhere in the big house a klaxon started. At the same time there was a hum and a rattle above the window behind me and I spun round to see a heavy