“Good. No recording devices on you?”

“No. I’m going to use”-she held a spiral-bound reporter’s notebook-“this.”

“OK. Oh. Here.” Highsmith produced from his pocket a ballpoint emblazoned with the words “Maurice Morris: The People’s Choice.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll…treasure it.”

“You’re going to be focusing more on his personal life.”

“Sure,” said Veronica, flashing her most winning smile, in a way that suggested not merely acquiescence but a supine obedience; it was this smile, one might argue, and this smile alone that had ensured she was one of the Impartial Recorder’s most successful reporters. It was her ticket out of here.

Highsmith looked at her, with a middle-aged man’s look between lust and contempt: her clingy dress, her high heels. She did not seem to him to be dressed so much for a serious political interview as for a cocktail party covered by the Ulster Tatler. She did not look serious. She was perfect as an interviewer for Maurice Morris.

Highsmith looked at his watch.

“You’re only going to get about fifteen minutes, OK?”

“That’s fine. That’s plenty.”

“May I look at your questions?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m sorry, I haven’t got anything written down.”

Highsmith viewed her up and down. She looked too stupid to do any serious damage.

“Wait here. I’ll see if he’s ready to see you.” He knocked on the door of the inner sanctum, waited, and then entered, closing the thin wood-effect door carefully behind him.

She glanced around at the black-framed certificates and photographs on the wall-certificate for this, certificate for that, Maurice Morris emerging from the sea, his body surprisingly lean for a man in his fifties. And his wife and daughter of course. The wife-she’d always struck her as a little bohemian looking.

Highsmith returned and ushered her in.

She had interviewed politicians before, but not often, and always at press conferences or local ceremonies and events: public occasions. This was the first time she’d secured a one-on-one. And she had to admit, she was excited. Previously she’d always been separated from them by a certain distance. Even then, she could feel it, although exactly what the “it” was she wasn’t entirely sure. It wasn’t exactly charisma, though some of them certainly had that. It was something else, though, something that made you look at them, watch them. Maybe it was power, pure and simple-like being in thrall to an animal, the thrill of some nonhuman thing.

Maurice Morris was taking her hand in front of a large mahogany desk and leading her to a seat. How old was he? Forty-five? Fifty? Fifty-five? It was difficult to tell. His hair was beginning to gray around the temples, but he was still attractive. Two words sprang into her mind. George. And Clooney. And then another two.

“So. Miss-it is Miss?”

“Yes.” She blushed through her blushes.

“Tell me about yourself. How long have you been with the paper?”

Within ten minutes Veronica seemed to have told Maurice Morris her entire life story-her hopes, her dreams. She told him all about growing up in Tumdrum, the daughter of the owner of the grocery store, how she’d worked there helping her father after her mother had died, and had given up her dreams of going to university in order to pursue a career in journalism, which would allow her to assist her father. He smiled serenely and nodded. It was like talking to her father, except Maurice was better looking, with white teeth and hair and no paunch.

“Well, let me wish you all the best in your career,” said Maurice Morris, with the tone of someone wrapping up the interview.

“Actually, sorry. I do have some questions.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said.

There was a knock at the door and Highsmith entered.

“Time’s up,” he said.

“Oh, no. What a shame!” said Maurice. “That’s our time up. I’m so sorry.”

“But I haven’t had time to ask all my questions,” said Veronica. “For the profile.”

“Ah.”

“I think we maybe need a little more time together, don’t we, Veronica?” said Maurice. “Could you give us five minutes, Mickey?”

Mickey nodded and silently exited.

“Thanks so much,” said Veronica.

“No problem,” said Maurice Morris. “You’ve some more questions?”

“Yes, I wanted to ask you about your daughter, if that’s OK?”

“Well, yes.” Maurice looked down. Tears sprang instantly to his eyes.

“This must be a very difficult time for you,” began Veronica.

“Yes. It is. It’s…awful. It’s very difficult for me to talk about this. Particularly with the election so close. I don’t want the focus to be on me. I want the focus to remain on policy issues.”

“Of course,” said Veronica. “But your daughter’s disappearance must be a terrible worry and a burden to you.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I wonder if you wouldn’t mind telling me a little bit about your daughter and your relationship with her?”

Which Maurice Morris gladly did.

“That’s all now,” said Highsmith, reappearing five minutes later.

“That’s such a shame,” said Maurice. “Perhaps we could meet up for an informal chat,” he said, “over coffee?”

“Well, that would be…”

“Here’s my card,” said Maurice. “Call me anytime. If there’s anything I can help you with.”

Israel managed to get an early morning cancellation with a doctor in Tumdrum’s state-of-the-art health center out on the main road going up toward Coleraine.

The health center looked like something designed by dreamy Finns and built by Australians in a screaming hurry, a kind of cross between an Alvar Aalto and a woolshed in New South Wales, with a lot of ambitious angles and exposed wood and steel frames and corrugated iron cladding in bright blue and red, and with a big black roof like a butterfly straining to take off from its mounting board. Yard upon yard of thick red plastic guttering spewed rain into downpipes, as if the building itself had realized its mistake and had slit its veins and was slowly bleeding to death into Tumdrum’s bitter ground. There was what appeared to be a cattle ramp-a long, high-sided yellow platform bridge, the yellow of an old French postal van, like a long, sickly unrolling tongue glistening with saliva-leading from the car park to a deep, shady veranda stretching along the whole front of the building, set with low steel benches on which sat disconsolate smokers, people shamed and condemned by their own families and contemporaries, who sat inside staring out at the backs of them through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The building would probably have worked in Helsinki or Sydney, and may even have won prizes, but in Tumdrum it was a sick joke, as if an architectural prankster had dumped it off the back of a truck and driven away at high speed: the iron parts were rusting, the wood cladding was rotting into a sickly shade of green, the miserable phormiums planted up all around it looked as though they’d been chewed at by hungry hounds, and the acres of glass were not a good idea in Ireland, thought Israel, as he sat and waited to see the doctor, the whole building thrumming with the sound of rain and the big windows streaked as if they themselves were downpouring. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine that he was elsewhere.

It didn’t work.

Eventually, he was buzzed through to his appointment with Dr. Withers.

“Yes?” asked Dr. Withers, as though Israel had arrived unexpectedly to clean the room.

“Dr. Withers?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Israel Armstrong.”

“Israel Armstrong,” repeated the doctor. “I see.”

Israel hovered nervously by the door.

“Come in and sit down.”

Israel came in and sat down, and “Yes?” said Dr. Withers again. He was hoping for a hiatus hernia. “How can we help you?”

“I need a sick note,” said Israel.