My Name is Michael Sibley

by John Bingham

  At 9:30 I took her home.

  It was early, but I could hardly keep my eyes open for fatigue. She asked me if I would care to come up for a few minutes, but I said I needed my bed.

  So we said good night in the hall, under the dreary yellow light where, I suppose, I had really fallen in love with her in the first place. She kissed me and said, “I love you, Mike.”

  “And I love you, Katie. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything at all. Everything is going to be all right.”

  She nodded and smiled, and went up the stairs. At the turn in the staircase she looked round and waved.

  After a long period of exhaustion, the body either breaks down or takes its own steps to put itself once more in order. I overslept the following morning. I believe Ethel made some attempt to wake me, but I took no notice.

  When I woke up at 9:30 I did not in the least regret the lateness of the hour. I would be late for the office, but I did not regret that either. There is a certain elasticity of hours in many newspaper offices, based upon the principle that if you expect reporters to work overtime now and again, you should try to exact a kind of automatic clocking-in system.

  I did not hurry. I felt fit and refreshed. I took my time dressing, and even stopped at a café on the way to Fleet Street to have a scone and a cup of coffee. It was a glorious day, cloudless and warm, yet periodically cooled by a little wind from the north; so that, although you longed to be in the country or fishing by the side of some quiet stream or cutting through the sparkling water in a yacht, you still did not mind so very much being in London, because it was almost impossible to be depressed in such weather.

  Charlie Baines was merely sarcastic when I arrived. He said it was a shame he had had to ask me to break my holiday in such lovely weather. Then, although he had not asked me much about the Prosset case until now, he said, “What’s happening in that bloody case of yours? Dickson says they think it is murder.”

  “Quite a lot is happening,” I said, “and most of it in the wrong direction. They questioned me myself like mad, two or three times. I began to feel myself figuring in one of those paragraphs which say it is understood that a man had made a statement to the police; or even, ‘Mr. Sibley, who is assisting the police in their inquiries, was still at the police station at a late hour last night.’”

  “What other lines are they working on, apart from you?”

  “They don’t exactly take me into their confidence. But if you want to know whether an arrest is likely, I should say the answer is ‘No.’ As far as I can see, they are lashing out in various directions hoping they’ll hit on something. Personally, I think Prosset was engaged in a smuggling fiddle of some kind with his partner, but one can’t write it, of course.”

  “Do the police suspect that?”

  “I just don’t know, Charlie.”

  Nor did I know. Despite their apparently abortive talk with Herbert Day, I did not rule out the possibility that they had received a tip from some source or other to indicate illegal activities.

  As a kind of penalty for arriving late, I had to prepare for syndication to our provincial papers an article on “The Modern Holiday.” Charlie Baines said they were whipping up a page on advertisements about holiday resorts and wanted something to go in the middle of the page.

  “Nobody will read it,” he remarked by way of encouragement.

  It required a certain amount of minor research into facts and figures, and the preparation for it took the remainder of the morning and a good part of the afternoon.

  At lunchtime I strolled across to the Falstaff for a pint of beer and a snack. Charlie came, too. He asked me whether I had been worried about the case.

  “It’s not been a question of worrying,” I said. “It’s simply been such a waste of time.”

  I saw no reason why Charlie Baines should know the truth, because, if Charlie Baines knew it, all Fleet Street would know it in twenty-four hours.

  “Who’s on the job, Mike? I used to know one or two of the coppers at the Yard.”

  When I told him, Charlie said he didn’t know them.

  “Well, you haven’t missed much,” I said ruefully.

  Back at the office I began writing the article in the late afternoon. It was to be about fifteen hundred words, and once I had the facts it didn’t take too long to knock it out. Still, I had started the job late in the day, and it was getting on for seven when I stepped out of the office.

  I was due to be at Kate’s for a meal round about 7:30. I walked towards Temple Bar, glad to be in the fresh evening air. I looked up at the sky and saw that it was still cloudless.

  The previous day or two, appropriately enough, had been cloudy. But now it seemed to me that I was through the worst; and the evening sky was in tune with my mood.

  I stooped to light a cigarette by the kerb. As I did so, I was conscious of a car pulling up by my side. I looked up in time to see the Sergeant open the door.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said. “Could you spare the time to come along to the office?”

  I must have looked doubtful, for he added, “It may not take too long, sir.”

  “I’ve got an appointment,” I temporized.

  “With Miss Marsden?”

  I nodded. “You could telephone her from the Yard, sir. I am sure she will understand.”

  He appeared to be in no doubt about my decision, for he leaned back and opened the rear door of the car. I stepped in. I pulled the door shut after me. The driver, a uniformed man, let the clutch in and we moved off, weaving our way through the traffic in the direction of the Embankment and the Yard.

  CHAPTER 15

  I sensed a different atmosphere before I had been half a minute in the Inspector’s room.

  He was seated at his desk in his shirtsleeves; although the window was wide open, there was a blue haze of smoke in the room which smelt unpleasant after the air outside.

  His desk was covered with papers and files; his own particular ashtray was filled with matchends, and another, on the corner of the desk, had a large number of cigarette ends in it. So much I noticed, and guessed there had been some sort of conference. A man in plain clothes was seated at a small table in a corner of the room looking through a shorthand notebook. There was a chair on the opposite side of the desk to the Inspector, and another at the side of the desk.

  “Good evening,” I said when I came in.

  He looked up and murmured, “Good evening. Sit down.”

  He pointed to the chair opposite him. The Sergeant, having put his hat and gloves on top of one of the filing cabinets, sat down in the chair at the side of the desk.

  “I’m rather glad you sent for me,” I began airily, “because I’ve some news for you.”

  Neither the Inspector nor the Sergeant said anything.

  “You remember my smuggling theory?”

  “What of it?” said the Inspector.

  “Well, when I went down on the Saturday—I forgot to tell you this—and while I was waiting for Prosset, I noticed a smell of Cyprus cigarettes in the cottage. Herbert Day smokes Cyprus cigarettes.”

  “Does he?” said the Inspector.

  “My theory is that Day, either alone or with somebody else, saw me arrive and walk about the garden. They could have slipped out of the back door. Perhaps they left their car some distance away. Perhaps they came back on the Sunday.”

  My voice died away.

  “Perhaps,” said the Inspector; he stared at me a moment, and began to read a file on his desk. The Sergeant said nothing at all. For a moment I felt angry at their indifference. Then the anger vanished. I felt tensed and alert. I thought: so it wasn’t the end, after all. This is it, one way or another. This is the final clash. My happiness, Kate’s happiness, depend on this. Two ordinary, rather insignificant people. I must keep my head. For our sakes, I must keep my head. This is England, and I have nothing to be afraid of. I will take my time. I will think out every answer. I will not be ruffled. I felt the dreadful premonition
of defeat creeping upon me, but fought it back. I could not afford to go under, because Kate was involved, too. Kate, Kate, Kate, a voice inside me kept saying.

  The Inspector continued to read the file for a few seconds. Once he glanced up and stared at me with his hard, merciless eyes. I stared back at him, and he dropped his eyes to the file again, frowned, and went on reading.

  I saw him then for what he was, a hard-bitten career police officer; a man who had started from humble beginnings and fought his way to his present position against competition, against envy and even malice from others who were similarly struggling to the top; a man who had fought free of the rut, who was going to hold his position come what might, and even improve it. I read it in his observant, unfeeling eyes.

  I could understand what I represented to him. I wasn’t Michael Sibley at all. I was a threat to his reputation or another rung in the ladder to promotion; one or the other, according to whether he succeeded on this job or failed.

  I was a name in the file on the Prosset case. It was a step to improved pay, a chance to win a better pension, to consolidate his position in the suburbs, perhaps to a better house, better education for his children, better clothes for his wife, and a more assured social position in general. I was of great importance to the Inspector. And one day somebody would sit in the chair I was occupying who would be of equal importance to the Sergeant; but the Sergeant could only expect reflected glory or second-hand failure from the present case.

  When the Inspector spoke, he was not a patient, tolerant, good-humoured inspector with a half-wheedling, polite voice; he was only indirectly an inspector trying to fight crime for the protection of the community.

  He was much more dangerous. He was fighting for himself and for his family. Primeval. Out to win the meat.

  His words came suddenly and without warning, in a hard aggressive voice which he had never used before with me.

  “Well, Sibley, what about stopping this boxing and coxing?”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “What boxing and coxing?”

  “You know bloody well what I mean. What about the truth for a change?”

  “I’ve told you the truth, as far as I know it.”

  “Have you? Have you? You’ve told the truth as far as you know it, have you? What do I gather from that, eh? Don’t you know the truth when it is the truth, eh? Eh?”

  I said nothing. I wasn’t going to fall for that one, to get tied up in a useless argument about the meaning of truth. I thought again: this is it; take your time; there’s a chap taking it all down in shorthand in the corner of the room. Take it easy, don’t be bustled.

  “Let’s go right back to the beginning, shall we, Sibley?”

  There were no “sirs” now; it wasn’t even “Mister” Sibley.

  “If you like,” I said indifferently. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or another.”

  “I don’t want you giving me any sauce, either, see?”

  “I wasn’t giving you sauce. I merely said—”

  He tapped the table impatiently with his pencil. “All right, all right. Skip it. Listen to me. You and me have got to understand each other right, see? I am going to ask you some questions. How’s your memory?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Some people have bad memories in here, and it doesn’t help, see?”

  He was speaking in short, quick little bursts, his eyes fixed on my face, watching for any emotions.

  “Now listen here. I’m going to ask some questions, like I told you, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll give the right answers at once. No more bloody dodging. The truth. It’s your last chance, see?”

  “What do you mean by that? That sounds like a—”

  “You’re here to answer questions, Sibley, not ask ’em. I’m doing the asking. You’re doing the answering. Got it? All right.”

  He leaned back in his chair, glanced at the file, and went on in a calmer voice.

  “Do you remember the first time we called on you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’m going to ask you a question about that. I want a straight answer, mind. Do you remember telling me that Miss Marsden knows no more about Prosset than you—in fact, much less?”

  “Yes; I remember.”

  “How do you know she doesn’t, eh? Were you always present when she was with him, eh? Or was she ever alone with him—say for an evening? I’m asking you that straight, and I want a straight answer, and don’t forget Prosset’s diary. Well?”

  I had told myself I would take my time. But that wouldn’t apply to this question. Once again, in my dealings with the police, the reply, to be convincing, had to come out quickly and smoothly.

  “No; she was never alone with him for an evening.”

  The Inspector appeared to be examining his right thumbnail closely. “All right. Now tell me what you did immediately after we left you that first evening. Go on. I suppose you can remember that, can’t you?”

  I hesitated. I recalled that Kate had told them, on my instructions, that it was a friend at her office who had telephoned.

  After a pause the Inspector said, “Memory failed you, has it? Want me to help you? All right. I’ll help you. We’re always anxious to help, aren’t we, Sergeant? You rang up Miss Marsden.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said quickly.

  “You didn’t? Make a note of that, Sergeant. In that case, I expect you’ll have no objection to making a voluntary signed statement to that effect. Will you, eh?”

  “Must I make a signed statement about everything I say?”

  The Inspector ignored the question. He was lighting his pipe. When he had finished he leaned back and said in a mild voice to the Sergeant, “You know, Sergeant, I don’t think we’re being quite fair to the gentleman, do you?”

  The Sergeant looked up from his interminable doodling. “Perhaps not, sir. No, perhaps we aren’t, sir.”

  “Shall we let him into a little secret, Sergeant?”

  “It might be fairer, sir.”

  “All right, Sibley, just to show you we’re all square and above board and not pulling any quick ones, I’ll tell you. We saw Miss Marsden at her place of work this afternoon.”

  So I was suddenly brought face to face with it, the one tremendous advantage which the police have in any interrogation: you cannot tell how much they know, and how much is bluff. And your instinct, bearing in mind all the resources they have, is inclined to credit them with knowing more than they may do.

  “Tell him what Miss Marsden said, Sergeant. Tell him what she said when you asked her for the name of the office friend she said had telephoned her that evening.”

  “All right,” I broke in, “all right, all right. I did telephone her. Why shouldn’t I?”

  The Inspector put on an act of exaggerated surprise. “I never said you shouldn’t, did I? Did I say he shouldn’t have telephoned her, Sergeant? Of course I didn’t. She’s your fiancée, isn’t she? What’s more natural?”

  I waited for the next shot. It came from the Sergeant.

  “Why did you lie about it? It wasn’t necessary, was it?”

  “The Inspector said he wanted me to keep the interview with him to myself. That’s all. That’s the reason. I knew he would assume I had spoken about the interview, if she told him who it was on the phone, so soon after his visit to me. I thought he might be annoyed.”

  “That sounds a bit complicated: was that the only reason?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That was the only reason.”

  “So you told her to tell us it was an office friend ringing her up, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did you tell her?” The Sergeant looked up and gazed at me thoughtfully as he spoke, his dark, Celtic eyes watching mine. “Try and remember what else you spoke about.”

  “Nothing much else. Just ordinary things, you know. Anyway, if you’ve learned so much from her, no doubt she told you that, too.”


  The Sergeant looked down and began doodling again. He said, “Look, it won’t really pay you to make smart-alec replies, you know. The Inspector here doesn’t like it.”

  The Inspector had been listening, rocking backwards and forwards on his chair, and now he broke in with some of his heavy, sarcastic, let’s-all-be-fair stuff.

  “Now, now, Sergeant, we mustn’t try to catch him out, you know. Tell him what Mr. Reynolds and Mrs. White told us.”

  “I think you’ve got their statements in that folder there, sir, on your desk.”

  “Have I? Dear me, so I have. Here is a Mr. Reynolds, Sibley. Do you know who he is? I see you don’t. He lives above Mr. Prosset’s flat. He remembers the Friday before Whitsun very well. That was Mr. Prosset’s last night in London, before going down and getting bumped off at Ockleton, if you’ll excuse my slang. He remembers the date well, because it was his birthday, and although it was his birthday he wasn’t feeling very well, and Mr. Prosset was playing his radio so loud that he thought of going down and complaining. But he didn’t. Let’s see what he says, shall we, Sibley?”

  “If you wish.”

  “‘Just after one o’clock in the early morning, I still could not sleep,’ says Mr. Reynolds, ‘though the radio had stopped. It was very warm. I went to the window to open it wider at the bottom. I heard Mr. Prosset’s door close, and looked out. I saw a girl in what appeared to be a white mackintosh walk away. She walked unsteadily. I formed the impression she had had too much to drink.’ That’s what Mr. Reynolds says, Sibley. Miss Marsden has a whiteish mac, hasn’t she? Odd, ain’t it?”

  “Lots of women have white mackintoshes,” I said stolidly.

  “And women whose names begin with ‘K’?”

  “My opinion will make no difference to you.”

  “Doesn’t he take a lot of convincing?” said the Inspector, still in his exaggeratedly mild voice. “Well, now, here’s Mrs. White. I should have thought he would have known Mrs. White, wouldn’t you, Sergeant, seeing he was such a good, close friend of Mr. Prosset’s? Mrs. White was Mr. Prosset’s charwoman, Sibley. Do you know what she found in Mr. Prosset’s flat the morning after Mr. Reynolds had had such a disturbed night? Why, a lady’s handkerchief. Like to hear what she says? ‘I remember the name on the handkerchief was K. Marsden. I remember the name because I thought, that is a new one, meaning a new girlfriend. I put the handkerchief on the mantelpiece.’ And Mr. Prosset put it in his drawer, see? And that’s where we found it. He might have given it back to her, if he had lived to meet her again, mightn’t he, Sibley? Anyway, he put a nice bit in his diary about a girl called K., didn’t he?”