The Filing Guide

Emma received a reply from the newspaper archive on Monday morning. The archivist had checked the old filing guide. In 2011, the newspaper used separate sections for letters from readers, questions for the editor, and documents sent only for information. The three entries about student travel came from different sections.

“Does that mean they were written by different people?” Emma asked.

“No,” the archivist said. “A person could write more than once. The sections tell us why the newspaper filed something, not who wrote it.”

Emma made three notes. One entry was in the readers' letters section. Another was among questions sent to the editor. The entry dated 12 October was in the information section. The title about a decision not received had been created by newspaper staff.

She called Sarah.

“We shouldn't call them three complaints,” Emma said. “Now we know the index was organised by type of correspondence.”

“Can we read any of the letters?”

“Not yet. The archive is still checking its rules about private information.”

Emma looked at the date of the October entry again. Claire had disappeared weeks earlier. But the index gave no reason to connect the letter to Claire. Emma refused to turn a date into a story.

At lunchtime, Fiona Bell emailed her from the foundation. The team had found a list of records stored in boxes. It included the appeals folder, the outgoing letters book and some general office instructions. It did not say what was inside the appeals folder. Fiona had not opened it.

“Can you confirm whether students were told about the review rules?” Emma wrote back.

“Not from this list,” Fiona replied. “It only tells us that some records were stored.”

Emma spent the afternoon comparing the two organisations' information. The newspaper index explained how letters had been classified. The foundation's list explained how papers had been stored. Neither showed what had happened to an individual student.

Sarah called again. “We've found lots of documents, but very few answers.”

“Then we need better questions,” Emma said.

She wrote one for the archive: could staff describe the October document without revealing the writer's identity? She wrote another for Fiona: was there any general instruction about when students should receive decision letters?

Before sending them, Emma read Claire's old interview notes. Claire had said that people sometimes asked the wrong questions. Emma had once thought she meant something dramatic. Now the words seemed much simpler.

If she wanted to understand what had happened, she had to know the difference between a label, a document and a fact.

She sent the two questions and closed her notebook.