He began with the beginning.

This was, she would think later, the particular and specific thing about Julian Blackwood that she had been learning since September and which this chapter of him confirmed: he did not summarize. He did not give her the managed version, the executive brief, the particular and specific account of a man deciding in advance what was relevant and offering her the curated portion. He had sat down in the chair across from her desk with his cup of tea on the edge of it and he had looked at the middle distance for a moment… the particular and specific look of a man locating the...