The Ghost

back of the house. “Is that better?”
    “I’ve just heard the news,” said Maddox. “This can only be good for us. We should start with this.”
    “What?” I was still walking.
    “This war crimes stuff. Have you asked him about it?”
    “Haven’t had much chance, John, to be honest.” I tried not to sound too sarcastic. “He’s a little tied up right now.”
    “Okay, so what’ve you covered so far?”
    “The early years—childhood, university—”
    “No, no,” said Maddox impatiently. “Forget all that crap. This is what’s interesting. Get him to focus on this. And he mustn’t talk to anyone else about it. We need to keep this absolutely exclusive to the memoirs.”
    I’d ended up in the solarium, where I’d spoken to Rick at lunchtime. Even with the door closed I could still hear the faint noise of the telephones ringing on the other side of the house. The notion that Lang would be able to avoid saying anything about illegal kidnapping and torture until the book came out was a joke. Naturally I didn’t put it in quite those terms to the chief executive of the third largest publishing house in the world. “I’ll tell him, John,” I said. “It might be worth your while talking to Sidney Kroll. Perhaps Adam could say that his lawyers have instructed him not to talk.”
    “Good idea. I’ll call Sid now. In the meantime, I want you to accelerate the timetable.”
    “Accelerate?” In the empty room my voice sounded thin and hollow.
    “Sure. Accelerate. As in speed things up. Right at this moment, Lang is hot. People are starting to get interested in him again. We can’t afford to let this opportunity slip.”
    “Are you now saying you want the book in less than a month?”
    “I know it’s tough. And it’ll probably mean settling for just a polish on a lot of the manuscript rather than a total rewrite. But what the hell. No one’s going to read most of that stuff anyway. The earlier we go, the more we’ll sell. Think you can do it?”
    No, was the answer. No, you bald-headed bastard, you psychopathic prick—have you seriously read this junk? You must be out of your fucking mind. “Well, John,” I said mildly, “I can try.”
    “Good man. And don’t worry about your own deal. We’ll pay you just as much for two weeks’ work as we would for four. I tell you, if this war crimes thing comes off, it could be the answer to our prayers.”
    By the time he hung up, two weeks had somehow ceased to be a figure plucked at random from the air and had become a firm deadline. I would no longer conduct forty hours of interviews with Lang, ranging over his whole life. I would get him to focus specifically on the war on terror, and we would begin the memoir with that. The rest I would do my best to improve, rewriting where I could.
    “What if Adam isn’t keen on this?” I asked, in what proved to be our final exchange.
    “He will be,” said Maddox. “And if he isn’t, then you can just remind Adam ”—his tone implied we were just a pair of faggoty Englishmen—“of his contractual obligation to produce a book that gives us a full and frank account of the war on terror. I’m relying on you. Okay?”
    It’s a melancholy place to be, a solarium when there’s no sun. I could see the gardener in exactly the same spot where he had been working the day before, stiff and clumsy in his thick outdoor clothes, still piling leaves in his wheelbarrow. No sooner had he cleared away one lot of detritus than the wind blew in more. I permitted myself a brief moment of despair, leaning against the wall, my head tilted to the ceiling, pondering the fleeting nature of summer days and of human happiness. I tried to call Rick, but his assistant said he was out for the afternoon, so I left a message asking him to ring me back. Then I went in search of Amelia.
    She wasn’t in the office, where the secretaries were still fielding calls, or the passage, or the kitchen. To my surprise, one of the policemen told me she was outside. It must have been after four by now and getting cold. She was standing in the turning circle in front of the house. In the January gloom, the tip of her cigarette glowed bright red as she inhaled, then faded to nothing.
    “I wouldn’t have guessed you were a smoker,” I said.
    “I only ever allow myself one. And then only at times of great stress or great contentment.”
    “Which is this?”
    “Very funny.”
    She had buttoned her jacket against the chilly dusk and