‘There are. But it’s like a jigsaw. Each piece you place correctly isn’t just a piece that’s now in the right place, it’s also a piece that’s no longer in among the mess of unplaced pieces. It’s very much a zero-sum game.’

‘I take my hat off to you,’ Becks said as she looked at the document. ‘I never thought you’d be able to do it.’

‘So go on, then,’ Suzie said eagerly. ‘What’s so important that Andy Bishop had to shred it the moment you’d left the room?’

‘It’s a page from the Borlasian.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s the magazine for the old boys and girls of William Borlase’s Grammar School.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Becks said. ‘Why would Andy Bishop need to shred a page from an old school magazine?’

‘Have a look and you’ll see.’

Suzie and Becks bent down and peered at the thin strips of paper on the table.

‘I don’t want to get too near,’ Becks said.

‘Don’t worry,’ Judith said. ‘I bought some cellophane and glue. I wasn’t having a gust of wind ruin all of the hours of work I’d put into this. I’ve glued each shredded piece of paper to the cellophane, so you can pick it up and look at both sides of the page. In fact, you’ll need to look at both sides.’

To demonstrate, Judith picked up the document and handed it to Becks and Suzie. They pored over it, but enlightenment still eluded them.

‘It’s a report on last year’s school hockey team,’ Suzie said.

She was correct. The page covered the exploits of the girls’ and boys’ first XI teams during the previous season.

‘As I say, that’s not the interesting side. Turn it over,’ Judith said.

The other side of the reconstructed paper was a page dedicated to the old boys and old girls of the school. There was a message from the president of the association, news of a fund-raising drive, and a list of names of old pupils who’d died in the past year. Again, it was entirely innocuous.

‘Okay,’ Suzie said. ‘Either I’m going mad, or this is just school guff.’

‘Where did he even get it from?’ Becks asked.

‘Good question,’ Judith said. ‘At first I thought it was his copy of the magazine. You see, I looked Andy Bishop up on his company website. He went to Borlase’s Grammar School back when he was a child. So he’d get the school magazine sent to him every year.’

‘But you don’t think it’s his?’ Suzie asked.

‘Keep looking,’ Judith said, and the other two women could see that she was enjoying herself tremendously.