Cambridge Noir

The spires of Cambridge loomed through the mist like the spars of wrecked ships …

As heads bent in hurried conclave by the window, hands scrabbling through the papers on the desk, no one thought to search the stroller in the Senior Combination Room.

Cambridge: a town where a single store might fit you out with bespoke robes, custom-fitted dagger sheath, garrotte resistant clerical collar and the finest military-grade port.

Cambridge, a beguiling town of quiet leafy corners and warped reflections.

The gate was not unlike the college’s master: notable for its rococo flourishes but inflexible, iron hard and quite tricky to climb past.

(The gumshoe is on hiatus. This casenote was first taken on 10 August 2012.)

Sometimes a few pallid fingers of daylight managed to pry their way into the College’s cloistered world, but not often and seldom to great effect.

(The gumshoe is on hiatus. This casenote was first taken on 7 August 2012.)

I’d finally found the hidden sanctum of the Potsherd Club, the archaeological elite of Cambridge. These were hard men and women. Hard men and women with tiny trowels and brushes.

(The gumshoe is on hiatus. This casenote was first taken on 27 June 2012.)

The lanes and alleys of Cambridge conceal a backstreet scene thick with book-smugglers, body snatchers and student theatre.

(The gumshoe is on hiatus. This casenote was first taken on 3 July 2012.)

While this town still deals in scholarship, liberty is sometimes in short supply …

I had the strangest feeling I wasn’t in Cambridge any more …

It’s a good day if, when looking out a Cambridge College window, the worst thing you see is a combination of inappropriate footwear and an old reel mower.

Under Cambridge’s placid surface lie dark currents navigated by thrashing, muscled monsters of ambition; each armed with bright, sharp bibliographic teeth. 

The gate was not unlike the college’s master: notable for its rococo flourishes but inflexible, iron hard and quite tricky to climb past.

The great torrent of patriotism washing across the Kingdom slowed to something of a trickle in Cambridge.

Sometimes a few pallid fingers of daylight managed to pry their way into the College’s cloistered world, but not often and seldom to great effect.