Denial, she had learned, is not stupidity.

It is grief that hasn’t been given permission to begin.

She had needed those eight months not to gather evidence — the evidence had been conclusive early — but to say goodbye, privately, to a man who, it turned out, had never existed in the first place.

That part of her had left in the limousine, kissed goodnight beside an open car door.

“Release the full report,” she said.

“Including the recorded meetings?”