Chapter 11: The Prosecutor

The integrity prosecutor's name was Callum Reid, and he had been waiting, he said, for a case exactly like this one. Not the specifics — those were unique. But the shape of it: old evidence, kept carefully, requiring the cooperation of multiple parties who had spent decades managing rather than resolving. He had three other cases on his desk with the same architecture, all stalled at the evidence-access stage. Rowan's photographs changed the evidence calculus immediately. 'The fraud itself is beyond the criminal statute of limitations,' Reid said, looking at the photographs. 'The transaction was 1979. That's forty-seven years.' 'I know,' Bea said. 'What isn't beyond limitation is the conspiracy to suppress the evidence. The intimidation of a researcher in 1984 — that's conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and the statute runs from the last act of concealment, not the original offense.' He looked at the facilitator's photograph. 'If he's still active in his role — if there has been any ongoing effort to maintain the suppression — the clock may not have started yet.' The room was quiet. 'How do we find out if there's been ongoing effort?' Yuna asked. 'We ask,' Reid said simply. 'With a warrant, if necessary. But an eighty-three-year-old man who knows this is coming may choose to speak first.' He looked at the photographs. 'The charities. They're the civil claimants. The financial recovery through civil proceedings has no statute limitation issue — the fraud is documented, the loss is quantifiable, the ongoing harm to the organizations is active.' He looked around the room. 'You came here with enough to take this forward on multiple fronts simultaneously. That's unusual. Most cold cases arrive with fragments.' A pause. 'Lord Hirst, it seems, planned this very carefully.' 'He had thirty years,' Westfield said. 'Then he used them well,' Reid said.