The Ghost

and started striding up and down. “‘Oh, Adam Lang,’” he drawled, performing a pitch-perfect caricature of an upper-class Englishman, “‘have you noticed the way he changes his voice to suit whatever company he’s in?’ ‘Aye’”—and now he was a gruff Scotsman—“‘you can’t believe anything the wee bastard says. The man’s a performer, just piss and wind in a suit!’” And now he became pompous, judicious, hand-wringing: “‘It is Mr. Lang’s tragedy that an actor can only be as good as the part he is given, and finally this prime minister has run out of lines.’ You’ll recognize that last one from your no doubt extensive researches.”
    I shook my head. I was too astonished by his tirade to speak.
    “It’s from the editorial in the Times on the day I announced my resignation. The headline was ‘Kindly Leave the Stage.’” He carefully resumed his seat and smoothed back his hair. “So no, if you don’t mind, we won’t dwell on my years as a student actor. Leave it exactly the way that Mike wrote it.”
    For a little while neither of us spoke. I pretended to adjust my notes. Outside, one of the policemen struggled along the top of the dunes, headfirst into the wind, but the soundproofing of the house was so efficient he looked like a mime. I was remembering Ruth Lang’s words about her husband: “There’s something not quite right about him at the moment, and I’m a bit afraid to leave him.” Now I could see what she meant. I heard a click and leaned across to check the recorder.
    “I need to change disks,” I said, grateful for the opportunity to get away. “I’ll just take this down to Amelia. I won’t be a minute.”
    Lang was brooding again, staring out of the window. He made a small, slightly dismissive gesture with his hand to signal that I should go. I went downstairs to where the secretaries were typing. Amelia was standing by a filing cabinet. She turned around as I came in. I suppose my face must have given me away.
    “What’s happened?” she said.
    “Nothing.” But then I felt an urge to share my unease. “Actually, he seems a bit on edge.”
    “Really? That’s not like him. In what way?”
    “He just blew up at me over nothing. I guess it must be too much exercise at lunchtime,” I said, trying to make a joke out of it. “Can’t be good for a man.”
    I gave the disk to one of the secretaries—Lucy, I think it was—and picked up the latest transcripts. Amelia carried on looking at me, her head tilted slightly.
    “What?” I said.
    “You’re right. There is something troubling him, isn’t there? He took a call just after you finished your session this morning.”
    “From whom?”
    “It came through on his mobile. He didn’t tell me. I wonder…Alice, darling—do you mind?”
    Alice got up and Amelia slipped into position in front of the computer screen. I don’t think I ever saw fingers move so rapidly across a keyboard. The clicks seemed to merge into one continuous purr of plastic, like the sound of a million dominoes falling. The images on the screen changed almost as quickly. And then the clicks slowed to a few staccato taps as Amelia found what she was looking for.
    “Shit!”
    She tilted the screen toward me, then sat back in her chair in disbelief. I bent to read it.
    The web page was headed “Breaking News”:
    January 27, 2:57 PM (EST)
    NEW YORK (AP)—Former British Foreign Secretary Richard Rycart has asked the International Criminal Court in The Hague to investigate allegations that the former British prime minister Adam Lang ordered the illegal handover of suspects for torture by the CIA.
    Mr. Rycart, who was dismissed from the cabinet by Mr. Lang four years ago, is currently United Nations special envoy for humanitarian affairs and an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Rycart maintained at the time he left the Lang government that he was sacked for being insufficiently pro-America.
    In a statement issued from his office in New York, Mr. Rycart said he had passed a number of documents to the ICC some weeks ago. The documents—details of which were leaked to a British newspaper at the weekend—allegedly show that Mr. Lang, as prime minister, personally authorized the seizure of four British citizens in Pakistan five years ago.
    Mr. Rycart went on: “I have repeatedly asked the British government, in private, to investigate this illegal act. I have offered to give testimony to any inquiry. Yet the government