The Matching Reference

The next morning, Fiona sent Emma a report from the records team. They had compared several reference numbers in the recovered book with the list of payment exceptions. Some matched. This made the book more likely to belong to the student travel scheme, but it did not prove that every entry was correct.

Fiona had also found a clearer copy of the instructions about manual approvals. A finance manager could authorise some exceptions. Larger requests had to go to the trust chair. The amount of the limit was still difficult to read.

“Have you worked out whose initials are in the book?” Emma asked.

“Not safely. We are checking staff records from 2011. We cannot guess from two letters.”

Emma told Sarah. Sarah immediately thought of Malcolm Vale, who had chaired the trust.

“Could he have signed one of them?”

“He could have had the authority,” Emma said. “That doesn't tell us whether he used it.”

In the afternoon the trust's accountants found one more useful document: a summary of payments sent to the bank. It contained totals for a month, but no student names in the version Fiona could describe. The accountants had not yet compared it with individual approval entries.

“So at last we have proof every approved grant was paid?” Sarah asked.

“No. We have another type of record. We need to match the dates and references.”

Emma opened Helen Ward's redacted letter again. It showed one selected application, with payment depending on further checks. Helen's cousin had not provided bank evidence. Emma could not connect that letter to any line in the recovered book.

Then Fiona called. The loose page in the middle of the book had been examined. It was still attached by a thin strip of paper. The team had not established that any sheet was missing.

“That matters,” Emma told Sarah. “We shouldn't describe the book as damaged deliberately.”

Before leaving, Emma asked Fiona whether the trust would make a separate check of the signatures and bank records. Fiona said the team was arranging it. She could not promise what it would show.

That evening Emma wrote three statements in her notebook: Some references match. Some initials remain unidentified. No payment to a particular student is yet verified.

Sarah read them and sighed. “After all this work, we still can't name anyone.”

“Not responsibly,” Emma said.

A final message from Fiona arrived. One approval entry had a follow-up reference, and staff had found the same code in a separate banking index. The records behind that code were still being checked.

Emma stared at the number. This time, there was a specific transaction to trace. It might connect an approval to an actual transfer—or show why they had never been the same thing.