In the more recent of the two, dated June fifteenth, 1921, a distinguished figure, General Sanderson, had been discovered floating in solitary and perfectly dead state down the River Cam in a punt an hour after dawn, following the evening of the Trinity May Ball. He had been carried along by the current, lying apparently at ease on the cushions, eyes closed, hands tucked up casually beneath his head. The punt on its undirected course had been spotted by an early oarsman in a skiff who had stuck out an oar and manoeuvred it to the bank, where he’d engaged a student on a bike to summon help.

“Odd that it travelled so far downstream without getting stuck, sir?”

“I don’t think it was ever expected to reach the North Sea. But its course was eased—the banks along that stretch are relatively frictionless. It’s well kept, with all obstacles routinely removed and a strong current flowing. We even had punters come forward who remembered seeing the old bird, taking him to be asleep or drunk and giving his boat a helpful nudge off the bank back into the main stream.

MacFarlane’s immaculate investigation involving measuring and timing the flow and linking it with the estimated time of death had borne little fruit. The ownership of the punt had been traced back to Clare College, where it had been reported missing when the two occupants, a Clare undergrad and his girl, had tied it to the bank whilst they went for a walk in the meadows bordering the stream at Coe Fen. The lad was adamant that he’d secured it firmly and thought it was taken deliberately. That stretch of river had been busier than Piccadilly Circus that night of the year, both on the water and the riverbanks, thick with raucous students trying to make it upstream to Grantchester for breakfast.

Passing by Redfyre’s chair, MacFarlane commented, “Can you imagine the answers I got when I asked if they’d noticed anything unusual going on in the neighbourhood? Bloody smart alecks!”

Again, Redfyre found himself considering a military connection. “This general, sir, was he still active?”

“No. He retired straight after the war. He wasn’t sacked—no one in the British army had the stomach for all that button cutting and epaulette chopping with all the real carnage still fresh. But he seems to have got up some people’s noses, though no one would give the police any information. And their records are sealed to the bumbling plod.”

“What was he doing in Cambridge? He’s from Somerset.”

“Came up with the lady wife to celebrate their oldest son’s graduation, or end of his three-year stint, as doting parents do. Staying at the Garden House Hotel. Told Mrs. General that he was going out for a drink with some old college friends and she wasn’t to wait up. That was the last she saw of him.”