The Ghost

deflated airship and settled over the island. I could understand why Ruth said the landscape reminded her of Cornwall. The minivan’s headlights fell on wild, almost moorland country and in the side mirror I could just make out the luminous white horses flecking the waters of Vineyard Sound. The heater was turned up full and I had to keep rubbing a porthole in the condensation to see where we were going. I could feel my clothes drying, sticking to my skin, releasing the same faintly unpleasant odor of sweat and dry cleaning fluid I had smelled in McAra’s room.
    Ruth didn’t speak for the whole of the journey. She kept her back turned slightly toward me and stared out of the window. But just as we passed the lights of the airport, her cold, hard hand moved across the seat and grasped mine. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I could guess, and I returned her pressure: even a ghost can show a little human sympathy from time to time. In the rearview mirror, Barry’s eyes stared into mine. As he indicated to turn right into the wood, the images of death and torture, and the words “for as in Adam all die” flickered briefly in the darkness, but as far as I could see the little hut was empty. We rocked down the track toward the house.

ELEVEN
    There may be occasions on which the subject will tell the ghost something that contradicts something else they have said, or something that the ghost already knows about them. If that happens, it is important to mention it immediately.
    Ghostwriting
    THE FIRST THING I did when we got back was run a hot bath, tipping in half a bottle of organic bath oil (pine, cardamom, and ginger) I found in the bathroom cabinet. While that was filling, I drew the curtains in the bedroom and peeled off my damp clothes. Naturally, a house as modern as Rhinehart’s didn’t have anything so crudely useful as a radiator, so I left them where they fell, went into the bathroom, and stepped into the large tub.
    Just as it’s worth getting really hungry occasionally, simply to savor the taste of food, so the pleasure of a hot bath can truly be appreciated only if you’ve been chilled by the rain for hours. I groaned with relief, let myself slide right down until only my nostrils were above the aromatic surface, and lay there like some basking alligator in its steamy lagoon for several minutes. I suppose that’s why I didn’t hear anyone knock on my bedroom door and became aware that someone was next door only when I broke the surface and heard a person moving around.
    “Hello?” I called.
    “Sorry,” Ruth called back. “I did knock. It’s me. I was just bringing you some dry clothes.”
    “That’s all right,” I said. “I can manage.”
    “You need something that’s been properly aired, or you’ll catch your death. I’ll get Dep to clean the others.”
    “Really, there’s no need.”
    “Dinner’s in an hour. Is that okay?”
    “That’s fine,” I said, surrendering. “Thank you.”
    I listened for the click of the door as she left. Immediately I rose from the bath and grabbed a towel. On the bed, she had laid out a freshly laundered shirt belonging to her husband (it was handmade, with his monogram, APBL, on the pocket), a sweater, and a pair of jeans. Where my own discarded clothes had been there was only a wet mark on the floor. I lifted the mattress—the package was still there—then let it fall.
    There was something disconcerting about Ruth Lang. You never knew where you were with her. Sometimes she could be aggressive for no reason—I hadn’t forgotten her behavior during our first conversation, when she virtually accused me of planning to write a kiss-and-tell memoir about her and Lang—and then at others she was bizarrely overfamiliar, holding hands or dictating what you should wear. It was as if some tiny mechanism was missing from her brain, the bit that told you how to behave naturally with other people.
    I drew my towel more tightly around me, knotted it at my waist, and sat down at the desk. I’d been struck before by how strangely absent she was from her husband’s autobiography. That was one of the reasons I’d wanted to begin the main part of the book with the story of their meeting—until I discovered that Lang had made it up. She was there, naturally enough, on the dedication page—

    To Ruth,
    and my kids,
    and the people of Britain

    —but then one had to wait another fifty pages until she actually appeared in person. I leafed through