Inside the lobby, a girl dressed up as a Victorian maid with a white lace mob cap handed me a message from Lang’s office. I would be picked up at ten the next morning, and should bring my passport to show to security. I was starting to feel like a man on a mystery tour: as soon as I reached one location, I was given a fresh set of instructions to proceed to the next. The hotel was empty, the restaurant dark. I was told I could have my choice of rooms so I picked one on the second floor with a desk I could work at and photographs of Old Edgartown on the wall: John Coffin House, circa 1890; the whale ship Splendid at Osborn Wharf, circa 1870. After the receptionist had gone, I put my laptop, list of questions and the stories I had torn out of the Sunday newspapers on the desk and then stretched out on the bed.
I fell asleep at once and didn’t wake until two in the morning, when my body clock, still adjusted to London time, went off like Big Ben. I spent ten minutes searching for a minibar, before realising there wasn’t one. On impulse, I called Kate’s home number. What exactly I was going to say to her I had no idea. In any case there was no answer. I meant to hang up but instead found myself rambling to her answering service. She must have left for work very early. Either that, or she hadn’t come home the night before. That was something to think about, and I duly thought about it. The fact that I had no one to blame but myself didn’t make me feel any better. I took a shower and afterwards I got back into bed, turned off the lamp, and pulled the damp sheets up under my chin. Every few seconds the slow pulse of the lighthouse filled the room with a faint red glow. I must have lain there for hours, eyes wide open, fully awake and yet disembodied, and in this way passed my first night on Martha’s Vineyard.
*
The landscape which dissolved out of the dawn the next morning was flat and alluvial. Across the road beneath my window was a creek, then reed beds, and beyond those a beach and the sea. A pretty Victorian lighthouse with a bell-shaped roof and a wrought-iron balcony looked across the straits to a long, low spit of land about a mile away. That, I realised, must be Chappaquiddick. A squadron of hundreds of tiny white seabirds, in a formation as tight as a school of fish, soared and flicked and dived above the shallow waves.
I went downstairs and ordered a huge breakfast. From the little shop next to reception I bought a copy of The New York Times. The story I was looking for was entombed deep in the world news section, and then re-interred to ensure maximum obscurity far down the page:
LONDON (AP) – Former British premier Adam Lang authorized the illegal use of British special forces troops to seize four suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and then hand them over for interrogation by the CIA, according to newspaper reports here Sunday.
The men – Nasir Ashraf, Shakeel Qazi, Salim Khan and Faruk Ahmed – all British citizens, were seized in the Pakistani city of Peshawar five years ago. All four were allegedly transferred out of the country to a secret location, and tortured. Mr Ashraf is reported to have died under interrogation. Mr Qazi, Mr Khan and Mr Ahmed were subsequently detained at Guantanamo for three years. Only Mr Ahmed presently remains in US custody.
According to documents obtained by the London Sunday Times, Mr Lang personally endorsed “Operation Tempest”, a secret mission to kidnap the four men by the UK’s elite Special Air Services (SAS). Such an operation would have been illegal under both UK and international law.
The British Ministry of Defence last night refused to comment on either the authenticity of the documents or the existence of “Operation Tempest”. A spokeswoman for Mr Lang said that he had no plans to issue a statement.
I read it through three times. It didn’t seem to add up to much. Or did it? It was hard to tell any more. One’s moral bearings were no longer as fixed as they used to be. Methods my father’s generation would have considered beyond the pale, even when fighting the Nazis – torture, for example – were now apparently acceptable civilised behaviour. I decided that the ten per cent of the population who worry about these things would be appalled by the report, assuming they ever managed to locate it; the remaining ninety would probably just shrug. We had been told that the Free World was taking a walk on the dark side. What did people expect?
I had a couple of hours to kill before the car was due to collect me, so I took a walk over the wooden bridge to the lighthouse, and then strolled into Edgartown. In daylight it seemed even emptier than it had the previous night. Squirrels chased undisturbed along the sidewalks and scampered up into the trees. I must have passed two dozen of those picturesque nineteenth-century whaling captain’s houses, and it didn’t look as if one was occupied. The widow’s walks on the fronts and sides were deserted. No black-shawled women stared mournfully out to sea, waiting for their menfolk to come home – presumably because the menfolk were all on Wall Street. The restaurants were closed; the little boutiques and galleries stripped bare of stock. I had wanted to buy a windproof jacket but there was no place open. The windows were filled with dust and the husks of insects. ‘Thanks for a great season!!!’ read the cards. ‘See you in the spring!’
It was the same in the harbour. The primary colours of the port were grey and white – grey sea, white sky, grey shingle roofs, white clapboard walls, bare white flagpoles, jetties weathered blue-grey and green-grey, on which perched matching grey-and-white gulls. It was as if Martha Stewart had colour-coordinated the whole place, Man and Nature. Even the sun, now hovering discreetly over Chappaquiddick, had the good taste to shine pale white.
I put my hand up to shield my eyes and squinted at the distant strand of beach with its isolated holiday houses. That was where Senator Edward Kennedy’s career had taken its disastrous wrong turn. According to my book, the whole of Martha’s Vineyard had been a summer playground for the Kennedys, who liked to sail over for the day from Hyannisport. There was a story of how Jack, when he was president, had wanted to moor his boat at the private jetty of the Edgartown Yacht Club, but had decided to sail away when he saw the massed ranks of the members, Republicans to a man, lined up with their arms folded, watching him, daring him to land. It was the summer before he was shot.
The few yachts moored now were shrouded for winter. The only movement was a solitary fishing boat with an outboard motor heading for the lobster traps. I sat for a while on a bench and waited to see if anything would happen. Gulls swooped and cried. On a nearby yacht the wind rattled the cables against a metal mast. There was hammering in the distance as property was renovated for the summer. An old guy walked a dog. Apart from that, nothing occurred in almost an hour which could possibly have distracted an author from his work. It was a non-writer’s idea of a writer’s paradise. I could see why McAra might have gone insane.
Four
* * *
The ghost will also be under pressure from the publishers to dig up something controversial that they can use to sell serial rights and to generate publicity at the time of publication.
Ghostwriting
* * *
IT WAS MY old friend the deaf taxi driver who picked me up from the hotel later that morning. Because I’d been booked into a hotel in Edgartown, I’d naturally assumed that Rhinehart’s property must be somewhere in the port itself. There were some big houses overlooking the harbour, with gardens sloping down to private moorings, that looked to me to be ideal billionaire real estate – which shows how ignorant I was about what serious wealth can buy. Instead, we drove out of town for about ten minutes, following signs to West Tisbury, into flat, thickly wooded country, and then, before I’d even noticed a gap in the trees, swung left down an unmade sandy track.
Until that moment I was unfamiliar with scrub oak. Maybe it looks good in full leaf. But in winter I doubt if nature has a more depressing vista to offer in its entire flora department than mile after mile of those twisted, dwarfish, ash-coloured trees. A few curled brown leaves were the only evidence they might once have been alive. We rocked and bounced down a narrow forest road for almost three miles and the only creature we saw was a run-over skunk, until at la
st we came to a closed gate, and there materialised from this petrified wilderness a man carrying a clipboard and wearing the unmistakable dark Crombie overcoat and polished black Oxfords of a British plainclothes copper.
I wound down my window and handed him my passport. His big, sullen face was brick-coloured in the cold, his ears terracotta: not a policeman happy with his lot. He looked as if he’d been assigned to guard one of the Queen’s granddaughters in the Caribbean for a fortnight, only to find himself diverted here at the last minute. He scowled as he checked my name against the list on his clipboard, wiped a big drop of clear moisture from the end of his nose, and walked around inspecting the taxi. I could hear surf performing its continuous, rolling somersault on a beach somewhere. He returned and gave me back my passport, and said – or at least I thought he said: he muttered it under his breath – ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’
I felt a sudden twist of nerves, which I hope I concealed, because the first appearance of a ghost is important. I try never to show anxiety. I strive always to look professional. It’s dress code: chameleon. Whatever I think the client is likely to be wearing, I endeavour to wear the same. For a footballer, I might put on a pair of trainers; for a pop singer, a leather jacket. For my first ever meeting with a former prime minister, I had decided against a suit – too formal: I would have looked like his lawyer or accountant – and selected instead a pale blue shirt, a conservative striped tie, a sports jacket and a pair of grey trousers. My hair was neatly brushed, my teeth cleaned and flossed, my deodorant rolled on. I was as ready as I would ever be. The madhouse? Did he really say that? I looked back at the policeman but he had moved out of sight.
The gate swung clear, the track curved, and a few moments later I had my first glimpse of the Rhinehart compound: four wooden cube-shaped buildings – a garage, a storeroom, a couple of cottages for the staff – and up ahead the house itself. It was only two storeys high, but as wide as a stately home, with a long, low roof and a pair of big square brick chimneys of the sort you might see in a crematorium. The rest of the building was made entirely of wood, but although it was new it had already weathered to a silvery-grey, like garden furniture left out for a year. The windows on this side were as tall and thin as gun-slits, and what with these, and the greyness, and the blockhouses further back, and the encircling forest, and the sentry at the gate, it all somehow resembled a holiday home designed by Albert Speer; the Wolf’s Lair came to mind.
Even before we drew up, the front door opened and another police guard – white shirt, black tie, zippered grey jacket – welcomed me unsmilingly into the hall. He quickly searched my shoulder bag while I glanced around. I’d met plenty of rich people in the course of my work, but I don’t think I’d ever been inside a billionaire’s house before. There were rows of African masks on the smooth white walls, and lighted display cabinets filled with wood carvings and primitive pottery of crude figures with giant phalluses and torpedo breasts – the sort of thing a naughty child might do while the teacher’s back was turned. It was entirely lacking in any kind of skill or beauty or aesthetic merit. The first Mrs Rhinehart, I discovered afterwards, was on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art; the second was a Bollywood actress, fifty years his junior, whom Rhinehart had been advised by his bankers to marry in order to break into the Indian market.
From somewhere inside the house I heard a woman with a British accent shouting, ‘This is absolutely bloody ridiculous!’ Then a door slammed, and an elegant blonde in a dark blue jacket and skirt, carrying an A4 black and red hardcover notebook, came clicking down the corridor on high heels.
‘Amelia Bly,’ she said with a fixed smile. She was probably forty-five but at a distance could have passed for ten years younger. She had beautiful large, clear blue eyes, but wore too much make-up, as if she worked on a cosmetics counter in a department store and had been obliged to demonstrate all the products at once. She exuded a sweet and opulent smell of perfume. I presumed she was the spokeswoman mentioned in that morning’s Times. ‘Adam’s in New York unfortunately and won’t be back till later this afternoon.’
‘Actually, forget I said that: it’s fucking ridiculous!’ shouted the unseen woman.
Amelia expanded her smile a fraction further, creating tiny fissures in her smooth pink cheeks.
‘Oh dear. I’m so sorry. I’m afraid poor Ruth’s having one of those days.’
Ruth. The name resonated briefly like a warning drumbeat or the clatter of a thrown spear among the African tribal art. It had never occurred to me that Lang’s wife might be here. I had assumed she would be at home in London. She was famous for her independence, among other things.
‘If this is a bad time …’ I said.
‘No, no. She definitely wants to meet you. Come and have a cup of coffee. I’ll fetch her. How’s the hotel?’ she added over her shoulder. ‘Quiet?’
‘As the grave.’
I retrieved my bag from the Special Branch man and followed her into the interior of the house, trailing in her cloud of scent. She had very nice legs, I noticed; her thighs swished nylon as she walked. She showed me into a room full of cream leather furniture, poured me some coffee from a jug in the corner, then disappeared. I stood for a while at the French windows with my mug, looking out over the back of the property. There were no flower beds – presumably nothing delicate would grow in this desolate spot – just a big lawn that expired about a hundred yards away into sickly brown undergrowth. Beyond that was a lake, as smooth as a sheet of steel under an immense aluminium sky. To the left, the land rose slightly to the dunes that marked the edge of the beach. I couldn’t hear the ocean: the glass doors were too thick – bulletproof, I later discovered.
An urgent burst of Morse from the passage signalled the return of Amelia Bly.
‘I’m so sorry. I’m afraid Ruth’s a little busy at the moment. She sends her apologies. She’ll catch you later.’ Amelia’s smile had hardened somewhat. It looked as natural as her nail polish. ‘So, if you’ve finished your coffee, I’ll show you where we work.’
She insisted that I went first up the stairs.
The house, she explained, was arranged so that all the bedrooms were on the ground floor, with the living space above, and the moment we ascended into the huge open sitting room, I understood why. The wall facing the coast was entirely made of glass. There was nothing man-made within sight, just ocean, lake and sky. It was primordial: a scene unchanged for ten thousand years. The soundproofed glass and under-floor heating created the effect of a luxurious time-capsule that had been propelled back to the Neolithic age.
‘Quite a place,’ I said. ‘Don’t you get lonely at night?’
‘We’re in here,’ said Amelia, opening a door.
I followed her into a big study, adjoining the sitting room, which was presumably where Marty Rhinehart worked on holiday. There was a similar view from here, except that this angle favoured the ocean more than the lake. The shelves were full of books on German military history, their swastika-ed spines whitened by exposure to the sun and the salinated air. There were two desks – a little one in the corner at which a secretary sat typing at a computer, and a larger one, entirely clear except for a photograph of a powerboat and a model of a yacht. The sour old skeleton that was Marty Rhinehart crouched over the wheel of his boat – living disproof of the old adage that you can’t be too thin or too rich.
‘We’re a small team,’ said Amelia. ‘Myself, Alice here’ – the girl in the corner looked up – ‘and Lucy who’s with Adam in New York. Jeff the driver’s also in New York – he’ll be bringing the car back this afternoon. Six protection officers from the UK – three here and three with Adam at the moment. We badly need another pair of hands, if only to handle the media, but Adam can’t bring himself to replace Mike. They were together so long.’
‘And how long have you been with him?’
‘Eight years. I worked in Downing Street. I’m on attachment from the Cabinet Office.’
‘Poo
r Cabinet Office.’
She flashed her nail-polish smile. ‘It’s my husband I miss the most.’
‘You’re married? I notice you’re not wearing a ring.’
‘I can’t, sadly. It’s far too large. It bleeps when I go through airport security.’
‘Ah.’ We understood one another perfectly.
‘The Rhineharts also have a live-in Vietnamese couple, but they’re so discreet, you’ll hardly notice them. She looks after the house and he does the garden. Dep and Duc.’
‘Which is which?’
‘Duc is the man. Obviously.’
She produced a key from the pocket of her well-cut jacket and unlocked a big gunmetal filing cabinet, from which she withdrew a box file.
‘This is not to be removed from this room,’ she said, laying it on the desk. ‘It is not to be copied. You can make notes, but I must remind you that you’ve signed a confidentiality agreement. You have six hours to read it before Adam gets in from New York. I’ll have a sandwich sent up to you for lunch. Alice – come on. We don’t want to cause him any distractions, do we?’
After they’d gone, I sat down in the leather swivel chair, took out my laptop, switched it on, and created a document entitled ‘Lang MS’. Then I loosened my tie, unfastened my wristwatch and laid it on the desk beside the file. For a few moments I allowed myself to swing back and forth in Rhinehart’s chair, savouring the ocean view and the general sensation of being world dictator. Then I flipped open the lid of the file, pulled out the manuscript and started to read.