The Difference

The next morning, Emma met Calum in a café near Waverley Station. He put a folder on the table before he sat down.

“Please don't write that the trust ruined my life,” he said. “I finished my course. But paying for it was difficult.”

“I won't write that,” Emma promised. “I want to understand what happened.”

Calum opened the folder. Inside were a letter from the trust, a college bill and two emails.

The first email said that the trust was preparing a payment. The second email, sent months later, said there had been a delay.

“Did the college get the money?” Emma asked.

“Not that I know of. In the end, I paid the bill myself.”

“Can I ask the college to check?”

“Yes. I'll give them permission.”

Emma copied the dates into her notebook. She asked Calum to send the documents safely. She did not take pictures without asking.

“Did you speak to anyone at the trust?” she asked.

“I went to their office. They told me the person who worked on my case had left.”

“Was that person Claire Morrison?”

“I don't know. I never met Claire.”

Emma thanked him for his time. On her way home, she thought about the two students. Ailsa had received some money, but less than she expected. Calum said his college had received nothing. Those were not the same problem.

At home, Emma wrote three new questions. What were the rules of the scholarship? Who decided when to pay? Who kept the payment records?

With Calum’s permission, she also prepared a request for the college to check his account. It could take time to find records from 2010.

That evening, Ailsa sent a photograph of her old letter. The letter really did say up to £3,000. Emma was glad she had not assumed that the full amount was promised.

But another sentence caught her attention: The accounts office will confirm the payment schedule in writing.

Ailsa said she had never received that schedule.

Perhaps the office had sent it and it had been lost. Perhaps it had never been sent. Emma did not know.

She needed to speak to someone who had worked with the trust's accounts.

She opened an old report and found a name she had seen before.

Fiona Kerr.

Emma wrote it at the top of a clean page. Tomorrow, she would try to find Fiona's contact details.