Damian had spent his career making numbers tell a flattering story.

My mother had spent hers insisting they tell an accurate one, and the difference between those two projects turned out to be the difference between a company that nearly died and eight hundred families who were measurably better off.

There was a soft knock, and Malcolm Langford let himself in with two cups of black coffee from the cafe downstairs.

He set one in front of me and folded himself into the chair opposite with the sigh of a man who has earned his coffee.