My Name Is Michael Sibley

Chapter 1 Sometimes it had been hard work, but I had succeeded, and now indeed I was on top of the world. I had a good job, a market for my spare-time writing, a small private income, and I had Kate. I had her safely now, and she had me, and the future belonged to us to carve as we wished. Some people can go through life alone, and they do not mind; in fact, they revel in their own self-sufficiency; others need a human refuge to whom they can fly in trouble, or simply somebody to whom they can return at night after the stresses of the day's work. Poor Ackersley, the assistant housemaster, had been like that, and Geoffries, the Lascar seaman, and so was Kate. Kate, so shy and sensitive, was the last person in the world to be by herself. Yet it had fallen to her to spend a great deal of her life alone. There had been one brief and passionate interlude, I gathered, with a young man in one of the offices in which she had worked, and then there had been nothing; nothing and nobody until I came along, and I, who began by being sorry for her, ended by loving her. It was a story with a happy ending. I hummed contentedly as I strolled along towards Harrington Gardens that lovely summer evening. I was in one of those moods when you are acutely conscious of the beauty of small, everyday things; I noted how the movement of a small cloud set the sunlight racing from a red chimney pot, down the house wall, and along the road, so that a stunted lilac tree and some laurel bushes suddenly shimmered with a new light, a country green, and the whole grey waste of stucco houses seemed to glow with warmth and friendliness. A ginger cat sat licking its paws on the doorsteps of a house, and looking up at a window I saw a girl on a stepladder hanging up a clean net curtain. As I passed, she looked out into the street and our eyes met, and she smiled; not coquettishly, but as if to show that she knew she looked rather funny perched on that ladder, but didn't care because it was such a lovely evening and so good to be alive. I continued on my way, and let myself into my digs with my key. I intended staying in, that evening, to finish a short story, and had never felt better in my life or in finer trim for writing. As a professional writer, I knew that to wait for the right mood before beginning work means long periods of idleness and brief periods of writing; nevertheless, there are times when you have more zest for it than others, and I felt I was going to do well that evening. A few seconds after I had gone to my room, Ethel, the maid, who must have been listening for my return, knocked on the door. She told me that two men who had not given their names had called during the afternoon and asked for me. On being told that I was not in, they said they would return about eight o'clock in the evening. "Did they say what it was about?" "No; they just said they hoped you would be in, as it was rather important." "What did they look like?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Just ordinary. One was middleaged, and the other youngish." I knew a couple of French correspondents with whom I sometimes spent an evening, but I thought it unlikely that they would expect to find me in during the afternoon. "Were they English, do you think?" "Oh, yes; there was nothing funny about them." "Well, I'll be in all this evening. Show them straight in when they arrive, eh?" Upon reflection, I guessed that they were police officers. They would possibly want a few details about Prosset. More likely, the main purpose of their visit would be to tell me that I might have to appear as a witness at the inquest. I did not mind. Inquests held no terrors for me; I had attended hundreds as a newspaper reporter. I shall never forget the shock I received when I opened the paper and read about the way Prosset had died. There was not very much to read. Just a small paragraBingham, John is the author of 'My Name Is Michael Sibley ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781416540472 and ISBN 1416540474.