'It is instructive to appreciate that only the council is responsible for setting in motion the process of appointing a substantive bursar. And it was only recently that the Federal Government appointed a new chairman for the governing council.'
After 10 years in the banking industry, in 1999 Kirkpatrick joined SIU as bursar. For 19 years she been responsible for the accounting procedures, systems and policies of collection, depositing and tracking the university's tuition and fees.
So her prim and cosy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe.