Read Online Death at the Alma Mater by G. M. Malliet - Free Book Online

believed, when closer observation of his character might easily have convinced him otherwise, that Sebastian always operated within the rules. Even if he’d been so inclined, that was getting harder each day: There was so much congestion on the Cam a flurry of regulations had been issued to try to disentangle everyone and their oars. With the rules changing so often, the chances were good there was always someone out there illegally, rowing or spinning at the wrong place and time.
    Still, trying to outwit the EMMs for the heck of it was one of Sebastian’s favorite pastimes, although their main interest was to be on the lookout for too much early noise and too many novice boats on the river. Sebastian knew just how far to push it, and went no further. He wasn’t going to risk what he already thought of as his seat in the Blue Boat.
    Sebastian’s thoughts kept pace with his steadily increasing speed, his powerful leg drive propelling the scull with ease: So what if the boats these days seemed to be filled with long, tall graduate students, some doing bullshit degrees just so they could row. I can compete with the best of them. I will win.
    Sebastian was far from being a novice rower, even when he had been a novice. He had grown up near Cambridge, and knew the river well, from Baitsbite to Jesus. For much of his young life, he had withstood hot days in the sun and bitter cold mornings in the rain just to be on the water. He now knew the river, he thought, as well as he knew Saffron. Better than. He knew the moment boats had to cross at the Gut and Plough Reach; he knew where crews would be spinning, just upstream of Ditton Corner. He knew where the river narrowed to the point it was barely possible for two eights to squeeze past each other.
    He knew that come Michaelmas term, between Chesterton footbridge and Jesus Lock, the junior and novice crews would be menacing everyone else out on the water. Uncoxed boats, rowing blind, the steerer’s mind elsewhere, were a particular hazard. It didn’t help that the river was increasingly crowded with rowers of all skill levels, and that long boats motoring past often had a complete disregard for the rowers, rather seeming to steer straight towards them. The “party” long boats of an evening, carrying drunken passengers, were the worst. No matter how many regulations CUCBC might pass, you couldn’t regulate against stupidity. The dangerous corners of the Cam—Queen Elizabeth Way, Green Dragon, Ditton, and Grassy—each year awaited the unwary.
    An uncoxed boat was bearing down on him now, all of the rowers, to Sebastian’s trained eye, too quick into the catch, or splashing their blades about in a domino effect from the stern. He eased up and gave a shout—it was that collection of berks from Jesus again. This time of year, there were usually only town crews on the river; very few, if any, college crews like this lot; maybe the odd post-graduate crew. Annoyed at the interruption, Sebastian strove to regain his rhythm, his thoughts also changing course, to his parents, the famous Lexy, all the oldies who had begun arriving the day before. Some of them in their forties, from the look of them. Really old. It was a wonder they could walk. Losing their hair, wearing glasses in old-fashioned frames, flaunting their kangaroo paunches. Trying too hard, some of them, to look with it. And that was just the women. It was pathetic.
    Thirty, to Sebastian, was a great age. Christ had been thirty-three when he died, hadn’t he?
    Thinking: Only thirteen years to go, Sebastian pulled harder and the scull shot away, skimming the glassy water like a gull.
    –––
    Sebastian was well downriver as the old members enjoyed a celebratory meal, preceded by drinks in the SCR.
    Portia, wearing her academic gown over a dark sheath, had been making her way downstairs when she ran into Lexy, coming from the other end of the corridor. Tonight Lexy had exchanged her vamp-of-the-sea look for a black