Chapter 10: The Photographs

The safe deposit box held forty photographs and a handwritten list of names. Rowan had taken them with a 35mm camera she'd borrowed from another researcher at the estate — she had kept this fact out of her original account, not knowing who to trust, and had told no one until now. The photographs showed the documents clearly: transaction records, minutes of meetings, correspondence between parties. Evidence of a land and financial fraud that had moved approximately two million pounds in 1979 through falsified heritage trust arrangements, depriving three Scottish conservation charities of endowment funds that were their legal property. 'Two million in 1979,' Dell said, who had come from Edinburgh for this meeting, calculating. 'Roughly fifteen million in today's value.' 'The charities that were defrauded,' Bea said. 'Do they still exist?' 'One doesn't. Two do,' Rowan said. She had clearly researched this. 'One became insolvent in 1984 — the same year I left the estate. The other two contracted significantly after the endowments were taken. Both are still operating, both considerably smaller than they should be.' Yuna spread the photographs on the table and looked at the documents. At names she now recognized — four transaction parties, Lord Hirst and three others, and the facilitator whose photograph Rowan had kept for forty years. 'The integrity prosecutor,' Yuna said. 'He'll see us tomorrow morning,' Westfield said. 'All of us, if we want.' Rowan looked at the photographs. At forty years of kept evidence, finally leaving the box. 'I should have done this sooner,' she said quietly. 'You tried twice,' Bea said. 'Both times the system failed you. You kept the evidence when keeping it was all you could do. That's not nothing.' She met Rowan's eyes. 'That's why we're here.' Rowan looked at her. 'Lord Hirst funded your organization,' she said. 'Yes.' 'He was not a bad man,' Rowan said. 'He was a frightened one. I understood that even then.' A pause. 'I'm glad he found a way to make it right. Even if it took him forty years.'