What would have had to exist for this to be impossible?

A scene from a story. Illustration, not evidence. Nothing in it is a finding. What it stands in for, and what it does not establish, is set out below.

He stopped trying to prove the past that week.

He did not announce it. He did not have a moment on a rooftop. He simply stopped spending days on the folder and started spending them on a question, and the question was: what would have had to exist, in April, for the November version of me to be impossible?

Not a better lawyer. Not a warning about Tobi. Not a smarter Kelechi. The answer was small and boring and total:

Every time he paid one of those six men, somebody should have seen it happen. Not approved it — seen it. A record made at the time, by a thing with no reason to lie for him, that could have refused. He hadn't needed permission. He had needed a witness.