Temporarily distracted from the arrangement of stones, he watched her athletic body, more with a sense of curiosity than outright lust. He remembered that she had been a competitive swimmer, winning a silver medal for Austria in the European Student Games. Even now, in her tight-fitting T-shirt and dark blue jeans, she cut a striking figure.

‘The distribution of fragments was like a V formation from the main group.’ Her words snapped him out of his thoughts. ‘That would suggest that the stones had been dropped or thrown from a certain position and smashed outwardly in the same direction. So working outward radially any further made no sense.’

‘You could have excavated another line of squares on the far side, to follow up your V distribution theory.’ His tone was impatient.

‘We did. And we found another two pieces. But they were both quite small, without any engravings. The only reason we think it might have formed part of the stone or stones is because of the shape. One of the students on the dig is a physics graduate and he said they looked like break lines. He also told us that lighter pieces travel further when they bounce.’

‘And?’ Mansoor prompted.

‘Well, he also said that with stone lighter means smaller, and that meant that if we found any more fragments, they’d be too small to physically handle to put them together.’

Mansoor shook his head. ‘We’ve got people who can do that with tweezers and glue. Besides, nowadays we scan them in 3-D and then examine them on a computer screen. I’m surprised your physics student didn’t tell you that.’