Chapter 19: Inspector Osei

Inspector Osei sent him a note three months after the trial. Professional, brief, the way her communications always were: the Harwick case had been cited in a parliamentary committee review of charitable organization oversight, the review had produced three recommendations, one of which had been adopted and would change how fraud in membership organizations was investigated. A note at the bottom, in handwriting rather than typescript: *Your documentation made the case. Not just the evidence — the way it was assembled. You built it the way she built it. It held together under challenge because the structure was sound.* Crane read this several times. He wrote back: *The structure was hers. I followed it. I think that's the distinction worth making.* Osei's reply came the following week: *The distinction is correct. I'll make it in the committee's case record.* Mrs. Farquhar's name appeared in the committee record as the primary contributor to the evidentiary framework that had enabled the prosecution. Crane's name appeared as the investigator who had followed the framework to its conclusion. This was accurate. It was also, he thought, exactly what she would have wanted: the record reflecting what had actually happened, with the proper attribution, in a form that would survive because it was in an official committee document and would be read by people who needed to understand how fraud in closed societies worked. Documentation outlasted people. She had been right about that.