G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

The American woman (Portia had learned her name was Constance and her husband was Karl) had a voice like the crazed yapping of a caged dog. The acoustics in the room had always been terrible, and with drink the noise level became intolerable. Still, above it all could be heard the yap, yap, yapping of Constance Dunning. She seemed to be discussing triangles, which puzzled Portia, until she realized she meant relationships.

"Divorce is always such a pity. I don't care what the circumstances." Portia heard this plainly. "Don't you agree, Karl?"

Of course, Karl did agree.

Constance's yap was punctuated here and there by loud guffaws from Augie Cramb, who was clearly going all out to impress Lexy, who in her turn was probably secretly storing up the Texan's buffoonerisms to amuse her friends back in London.

Gwenn Pengelly had walked in a minute late, earning a frown of disapproval from the Master. Gwenn smiled unperturbedly and took the nearest empty seat, which happened to be on Karl's other side at the far end of the table.

Portia looked down the table, past the field of candelabra flames that flickered like gold against the polished wood, and saw that Sir James, far from Lexy, was flanked by his wife on one side and Hermione Jax on the other. How rare a sight, thought Portia: Although Hermione was always one to stand on ceremony, she had apparently happily relinquished her spot at High Table for a seat next to the illustrious Sir James.

For his part Sir James, awaiting the next course with every appearance of joyful anticipation (that smile will soon be wiped off your face, thought Portia, or I don't know the college chef), leaned over to talk with Hermione. But his eyes frequently drifted, as if by compulsion, in the direction of Lexy Laurant. -- An hour had passed in apparent conviviality. Had the Bursar but realized it, his cost-cutting schemes usually back-fired in this regard: The inedible food led to over-consumption of wine, saving the college little and almost certainly adding to the monthly expenditures. It did, however, frequently lend a bacchanalian air to the tenor of the evening meals, featuring many a loud, impromptu toast to the founder of the college and its various benefactors. Gwennap Pengelly and Geraldo Valentiano, in particular, might have been said to have overindulged, judging by the increasing volume of their laughter. That was unfortunate on this particular evening, about which the police were going to ask numerous questions that almost none of the guests were going to be able to answer.

The conversation ranged and wandered, as conversations of the reunited will, over the fields of "Do you remember so-and-so?" and "Whatever happened to what's-his-name?" Hermione Jax, however, had other things on her mind and was emboldened to speak that mind. With Hermione, this was not uncommon.

"I realize I was probably not your first choice in dinner companions this evening," she said to Sir James, launching into one of the few conversations that would later be remembered.

While what Hermione had said was indisputably true, Sir James, true to his upbringing, demurred politely.

"See here," she continued. "May I give you some advice?"

Sir James, guessing at the topic, said quickly, coldly, "I'd much rather you didn't."

"Yes, I suppose when one can guess at the advice already, one would rather not hear it. An observation, then. You've already crossed the Rubicon with regard to Lexy, you know. Years ago. There's no going back."

Sir James arranged his silverware, which was one centimeter out of true.

"There's always a way back when it's a question of forgiveness," he said gruffly. "Otherwise we'd all be… doomed."

"A bit melodramatic that, what?"

Lowering his voice still further, although it was highly doubtful his wife could hear them over the din, he said, "I should say it depends on how many lives you think you have. I believe I have only this one, and I've made a right cock-up of… a few things. I won't have a million chances to put it right. This weekend is it."

Hermione, being in many respects an intelligent woman, forbore to ask what his wife would make of this new resolve of his. She could guess, only too well. -- As the alumni dinner ended, Sebastian was still moving with practiced speed along the river, his sculls cutting rhythmically through the dark water, the sky as it deepened towards night making him feel both invisible and invincible. It was nearly Lighting Up, and he was reluctant to stop when his strength was nowhere near exhausted, but he didn't want to be too flagrant about bending the rules. To be selected only for the second boat, which Sebastian regarded as a fate worse than death, was one thing. To accumulate so many fines he was forbidden the river altogether was unthinkable.

Minutes later he slowed as he approached the college; leaning onto the outside scull, he turned the boat until it was parallel to the bank. As he stepped out and lifted the boat from the water, his head was filled with the future glory of winning a Blue and the imaginary applause of onlookers, which is why he never noticed the lumpen pile of black cloth to one side of the boathouse doors. He might not have seen it at all in the light ground mist but that a slight disturbance caught his ear, causing him to turn towards a rustle in the undergrowth. Some small animal making its way to shelter before total darkness fell, perhaps. It was then to the left of the boathouse he noticed a shadow, nothing more. He went to investigate. There was a scull lying on the ground, next to that lumpen pile.

If someone had forgotten to put away the college's equipment there'd be hell to pay, he thought. Was all this stuff lying there when he'd set out? He wasn't sure…he hadn't been looking in that direction.

One year, during May Bumps, a group of undergraduates had thrown a plastic dummy in the water dressed in Queens' colors. Intimidation of their chief rival was the goal. It was the kind of harmless rag that went on all year, usually in the run-up to the Bumps. So Sebastian didn't hesitate, but poked at the lumpen form with the tip of one of his oars.

That didn't feel right, he thought. He couldn't have said why it wasn't right, but the form was softer and more yielding and yet heavier than he, in his limited experience of dummies and lumpen forms, would have expected.

No. No sirree. That couldn't be right.

He stepped a foot closer, peering into the darkness. Then, dropping his oars with a loud, jumbled crash, he ran.

St. Just sat eighteen miles away in another suicidally boring meeting at Hinchingbrooke Park, Huntingdon-headquarters for the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. The meeting had convened some hours ago in a building that looked like a prison, only with larger windows, in a room that resembled a classroom in a particularly underfunded comprehensive school.

It was an unusually late meeting, even by the standards of the new Chief Constable, who would accept nothing less than the one-hundred-percent proven devotion of her team. These after-hours catered meetings had become both her stick (metaphorically) and her carrot (literally) for attaining that devotion. She was delivering herself of her usual views on Crime Management, views illustrated with colorful pie charts displaying crime trends, transgression "hot spots," and intelligence analyses. With all the fervor of the convert to the scientific method, the Chief believed that if only crime could be precisely quantified, it could be made magically to disappear.

As though, thought St. Just, anything as unpredictable and bloody-minded as the criminal element thwarted of its desires could be managed. Pacified, perhaps. Bribed, certainly. Managed, never.

St. Just was sketching a caricature of the Chief in the margins of his hand-out sheet-unobtrusively, he hoped-confining himself to a very small corner of the page, trusting that his occupation and less-than-full attention to the grave matters at hand would go unnoticed. He was trying to capture the look of her hair, which she wore in a shining helmet-impenetrable, St. Just feared, to any idea that could not be summed up in a catchy slogan.