Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (33 page)

‘Sure. Give ‘em the same as us, why not?’

The bodyguards, sitting at the table opposite us, were duly served with cream teas which they entirely ignored.

We were otherwise alone in the restaurant. It was a quiet time in the afternoon and Reggie had persuaded the owner, with the eloquent assistance of a wad of banknotes, to shut up shop early. Occasionally some thirsty shoppers would rattle the door and peer in, before moving, unrefreshed, on their way. In what I suppose is the hallmark of a classy establishment the world over, the staff knew when to remain behind the scenes. After our orders were provided, we were left to our own devices.

‘Well, Reginald,’ said Mr Disvan, smoothing cream onto a scone, ‘what’s the problem?’

Reggie was impressed.

‘Quite right,’ he said firmly, ‘cut the crap, get down to business. I quite agree.’

‘Well, get on with it then,’ Disvan urged.

Reggie seemed to be having difficulty in finding the right words but eventually took the plunge.

‘It’s a property dispute, Mr Disvan,’ he said, all in a rush. ‘I’m involved in a property dispute.’

‘Then you’ve wasted your time, Reginald. Neither Mr Oakley or I know anything about property law.’

‘Well, actually...’ I interrupted, ‘now that you mention it, I do...’

‘It’s not that kind of a dispute,’ said Reggie interrupting my interruption.

‘And again,’ Disvan persisted, ‘if you’ve got yourself into another gang war, we can’t help you there either.’

‘No,’ said Reggie, ‘it’s not that. It really is a property dispute; about my property, to be specific—my villa in Spain. The crux of the matter is that someone else wants it—and can you blame them?  Here, take a look at these photos.’

He fetched a wallet of pictures from a pocket in his camel-hair coat and passed them round.

I found myself looking at a property that was a villa only in the sense that the Roman palace at Fishbourne was a villa or that Notre Dame is a church. ‘Mansion’ would have been a more accurate description. Picture after picture depicted vast rooms, patios, gardens, swimming pools and balconies that looked down on a clear blue sea.

‘Who’s this?’ asked Mr Disvan, holding aloft a photograph of a brown Venus clad in what looked like two pieces of string, posing beside a huge pool.

‘My girlfriend,’ answered Reggie.

‘And this?’

‘This’ was another photograph of a different girl: just as delectable and similarly clad.

‘Another girlfriend.’

‘And this?’

‘A third.’

Disvan shook his head sadly.

‘You haven’t changed, Reginald; not inwardly—for all your possessions and bodyguards. I know you were always a terror for the ladies but, now you’re the age you are, I can’t understand why you don’t settle down with a nice Binscombe girl.’

Reggie Suntan retrieved the pictures of his ‘girlfriends’ and surveyed them with a wry smile on his face.

‘I know, Mr Disvan,’ he said, ‘inexplicable, innit?’

‘Your trouble is,’ said Disvan, ‘that you’re a worshipper of the female form, that’s all. Just like Mr Oakley, really.’

Reggie turned and looked at me with renewed interest.

‘You too, eh?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t... er, say that exactly...’

‘You wouldn’t? Oh, forget it then.’

He turned back and ignored me once again.

‘I’ve got a good lifestyle,’ he said, readdressing Mr Disvan. ‘I make no excuses for it—why should I? I live the way I want to live, and I’ve worked hard and taken risks to get that way. It’s my just deserts. But now—‘ and here Reggie’s voice hardened—‘someone’s disputing my right to live the way I like, and I want your help to
sort ‘em out!
’

Mr Disvan’s face remained impassive. He appeared entirely taken up in the act of stirring his tea.

‘I must say that you surprise me, Reginald,’ he said. ‘I thought that sorting people out was more your line of work.’

Reggie Suntan acknowledged this by nodding.

‘That’s the nub of it, Mr Disvan. As far as people are concerned, I— or my employees,’ he indicated his watchful bodyguards with a jerk of his be-ringed thumb, ‘can take care of things, if need be. However, when it comes to ex-people...’

‘Did you say ex-people?’ I repeated incredulously, despite myself.

‘I did, Mr Beakly. As I was saying, when it comes to them, I naturally turn back to my roots for help.’

It was Mr Disvan’s turn to nod approval.

‘I think that that’s a very wise assessment of the situation, Reginald,’ he said. ‘Good boy.’

‘Thank you.’

Reggie thoughtfully picked up a cream packed doughnut, twisted it about in his hand and then replaced it, having concluded that he couldn’t have both his cake and dignity.

‘No, indeed,’ he mused, ‘nothing I’ve ever learnt in my business career has equipped me for this situation.’

He suddenly issued a curt and, to me, incomprehensible instruction in what I presumed to be Japanese. The appropriate bodyguard nigh on flew to our table and placed on it a tiny tape recorder. Reggie waved him away again and then pressed the play button.

Despite the distortion of the medium and the fact that he was speaking in a foreign language, I recognised Reggie’s voice on the tape. He seemed to be involved in a serious fracas with another man. From time to time, their exchanges were punctuated by loud crashes and bangs which sounded not unlike impacting crockery and furnishings. At first, Reggie’s tone was reasonableness itself, but as the recording wore on, so his temper wore out. After passing through all the stages which divide calmness from berserk fury, interspersed with his dodging a fair tonnage of missiles, we heard Reggie end the exchange and sign off the tape with a burst of Anglo-Saxon derived words that I could clearly understand but won’t repeat.

It was the second voice that held our interest, however. Even though I, at least, did not follow what was being said, the pattern of speech was arresting.

Recalling the sound long after, I described it as like that of a distant radio station on a cheap transistor. Its waveband ebbed and flowed through the ether, occasionally bursting out with great clarity, at other times almost submerged in interference.

I suspected that the language being used was Spanish and, with less evidence, that it was being used to issue threats—very calm and authoritative threats, but threats nevertheless. For some reason the second voice made me feel cold, and I impulsively mentioned the fact to Mr Disvan. He did not seem surprised.

‘Quite possibly, Mr Oakley,’ he said. ‘Even at second hand, the transmission would involve a degree of life energy drain.’

I was interested to follow up this pronouncement but Reggie Suntan forestalled me.

‘You see what I’m up against,’ he said.

Mr Disvan ‘hmmmed’ affirmatively.

‘It does sound like a bad case,’ he said.

Disvan reminded me of a doctor discussing head colds—concerned, but not that concerned. At the risk of disrupting the flow of events, I felt impelled to interject.

‘Hang on,’ I said to Mr Disvan, ‘did you understand what was being said?’

He seemed surprised that I should doubt it. ‘Yes.’

‘So you know Spanish as well as all your other languages?’

‘It’s only a smattering, Mr Oakley. Nothing to boast about.’

‘Mr Disvan was in the International Brigade in ‘37,’ said Reggie Suntan, ‘so of course he picked up a...’

Disvan swiftly drew his finger across his throat and thereby silenced Reggie as effectively as if he’d shot him. There followed a moment of confused silence before Mr Disvan allowed the conversation to continue.

‘You were saying, Reginald?’

Reggie Suntan had taken the hint. ‘Well, what I was gonna say was that... er, that you don’t know the half of the problem I’m facing.’

‘No, I don’t suppose that we do, Reginald.’

‘So..?’

‘So what, Reginald?’

‘So what shall I do?’

Disvan’s answer was ready and waiting for delivery. ‘Sell up, what else?  Buy another enormous villa.’

We then saw why Reggie Suntan had done so well in business.

‘No way!’ he said, chopping through the air between us with the edge of his hand. ‘Watch my lips:
no frigging way!
Got it? I bought that place fair and square, cash up front, the full fair price. I
like
that place. My favourite girlfriends
like
that place. I don’t move,
he
moves. Right?’

We were tremendously impressed and remained silent.

Reggie suddenly remembered both where he was and who he was speaking to. He darted a stealthy glance at Disvan.

‘No disrespect to you, of course, Mr Disvan,’ he said quickly.

‘None taken, Reginald.’

‘I’m just a bit overwrought, that’s all.’

‘Of course you are. But at the same time, try and remember you’re not in Beirut now.’

‘Actually,’ said Reggie, ‘I wound up that side of the operation.’

‘Too dangerous?’

‘Too religious. They insisted I convert.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Anyway,’ said Reggie, regrouping, ‘will you help me please? Like in the old days, eh? I would, of course, be overwhelmingly grateful.’

Like a superpower about to adopt a humane policy, Mr Disvan hesitated just long enough to spoil the gesture.

‘Naturally, we’ll help, Reginald,’ he said at last, ‘if we can. Give us some of the background to your problem.’

Reggie took out what appeared to be a snuffbox and a tiny mirror before apparently thinking better of it. Instead he produced an elegant ivory case full of Havana cigars which he passed around. I joined him with alacrity but Mr Disvan declined in favour of his customary meerschaum and, alas, customary smoking material. Very shortly the restaurant was under a cloud cover of expensive and exotic smoke. It gave the otherwise homely place a late night drinking club atmosphere, suitable for odd disclosures.

‘I bought the villa,’ said Reggie Suntan, ‘from a little old lady who lived there all alone. She was very trad, y’know—very uptight and Spanish, all dressed in black, mass every Sunday, crucifix in every room and all that crap. You get the picture?’

We did.

‘Well, she drove a hard bargain—which was fair enough. I mean, I don’t exactly have to worry where the next meal’s coming from, and I assumed she wanted to provide for the time when she couldn’t look after herself. In those circumstances it seemed a bit mean to haggle too hard, and I let her have what she asked.

‘The only thing that worried me, though, was that she kept looking at me and grinning, all the way through the negotiations. Every time I looked up she’d have this smirk on her clock like I had my flies undone or something. It worried me enough to have my legal crew and the surveyor double and triple check the deal, but it all seemed kosher. I had to accept that the old lady found me funny in some way. Women are strange like that, aren’t they, Boakley?’