The Ghost

until at last she put the phone back down on the table.
    “You’re not going to call him?”
    “Maybe. In a while.” She stood. “I’m going for a walk first.”
    “But it’s nine o’clock at night,” I protested. “It’s pouring rain.”
    “It’ll clear my head.”
    “I’ll come with you.”
    “No. Thanks, but I need to think things through on my own. You stay here and have another drink. You look as though you need one. Don’t wait up.”

    IT WAS POOR BARRY I felt sorry for. No doubt he’d been downstairs, with his feet up in front of the television, looking forward to a quiet night in. And suddenly here was Lady Macbeth again, off on yet another of her ceaseless walks, this time in the middle of an Atlantic storm. I stood at the window and watched them cross the lawn, toward the silently raging vegetation. She was in the lead, as usual, her head bowed, as if she’d lost something precious and was retracing her steps, searching the ground, trying to find it. The floodlights spread her shadow four ways. The Special Branch man was still pulling on his coat.
    I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. My legs were stiff from cycling. I felt shivery with an incipient cold. Even Rhinehart’s whiskey had lost its allure. She had said not to wait up, and I decided I wouldn’t. I put the photographs and photocopies away in the envelope and went downstairs to my room. When I took off my clothes and switched off the light, sleep seemed to swallow me instantly, to suck me down through the mattress and into its dark waters, as if it were a strong current and I an exhausted swimmer.
    I surfaced at some point to find myself alongside McAra, his large, clumsy body turning in the water like a dolphin’s. He was fully clothed, in a thick black raincoat and heavy, rubber-soled shoes. I’m not going to make it, he said to me, you go on without me.
    I sat up in alarm. I’d no idea how long I’d been asleep. The room was in darkness, apart from a vertical strip of light to my left.
    “Are you awake?” said Ruth softly, knocking on the door. She had opened it a few inches and was standing in the corridor.
    “I am now.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “It doesn’t matter. Hold on.”
    I went into the bathroom and put on the white terry-cloth robe that was hanging on the back of the door, and when I returned to the bedroom and let her in I saw that she was wearing an identical robe to mine. It was too big for her. She looked unexpectedly small and vulnerable. Her hair was soaking wet. Her bare feet had left a trail of damp prints from her room to mine.
    “What time is it?” I said.
    “I don’t know. I just spoke to Adam.” She seemed stunned, trembling. Her eyes were open very wide.
    “And?”
    She glanced along the corridor. “Can I come in?”
    Still groggy from my dream, I turned on the bedside light. I stood aside to let her pass and closed the door after her.
    “The day before Mike died, he and Adam had a terrible row,” she said, without preliminaries. “I haven’t told anyone this before, not even the police.”
    I massaged my temples and tried to concentrate.
    “What was it about?”
    “I don’t know, but it was furious—terminal—and they never spoke again. When I asked Adam about it, he refused to discuss it. It’s been the same every time I’ve broached it since. In light of what you’ve found out today, I felt I had to have it out with him once and for all.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He was having dinner with the vice president. At first, that bloody woman wouldn’t even go in and give him the phone.”
    She sat on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed incongruous to remain standing, towering over her, so I sat down next to her. She was shaking from head to toe: it could have been fear, or anger, or maybe it was just the cold.
    “He said to begin with he couldn’t talk,” she went on, “but I said he bloody well had to talk. So he took the phone into the men’s room. When I told him Mike had been in touch with Rycart just before he died, he didn’t even pretend to be surprised.” She turned to me. She looked stricken. “He knew .”
    “He said that?”
    “He didn’t need to. I could tell by his voice. He said we shouldn’t say any more over the telephone. We should talk when he gets back. Dear God, help us—what has he got himself mixed up in?”
    Something seemed to give way in her and she sagged toward me, her arms