Chapter 15: Anselm

She met Anselm in person twice over the course of the investigation's first year. The first meeting was the deposition. The second was a working session in The Hague, eighteen months in, when the investigation had reached the stage of requiring detailed witness preparation for the evidentiary review. He was, in person, more complicated than the careful official voice of the investigation correspondence suggested. He had opinions, some of which he kept carefully within his professional role and some of which — on the walk from the ICC building to the restaurant he'd chosen for the working lunch, where they were surrounded by other people having ordinary meals — he did not. 'The framework paper,' he said. 'It's changed the conversation at the institutional level. In ways that are faster than anything I've seen in seventeen years.' 'Because it came from a case,' she said. 'Because it came from a practitioner who understood the institutional mechanics from the inside.' He poured water. 'Theory moves slowly. Evidence moves faster.' 'I've spent my career translating theory into the specific,' she said. 'Moving between the abstract and the particular is the job.' 'Yes. And you applied it to your own situation.' He looked at her. 'Most people in your position would have focused on managing the threat. You managed the threat and wrote the institutional analysis simultaneously.' 'I had time in the safe house,' she said. 'And Petra's colleague's apartment has a very good desk.' He made the sound of someone who found this less surprising than they expected. 'The investigation is proceeding well,' he said. 'The corroborating evidence we've built around the peripheral conversation reconstruction is stronger than I initially expected. Your paper has also helped — it's documented the methodology in a way that addresses the obvious challenge.' 'I wrote it for the field,' she said. 'The investigation benefit was secondary.' 'I know,' he said. 'That's why it's convincing.'