Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (34 page)

‘Absolutely.’

‘Anyway, the deal went through without a hitch and then, blow me if the old girl didn’t pass away the very next day, leaving everything she had, including the sale proceeds, to some Papist charity. It was like she’d planned it that way all along.

‘Curious, I thought, but what more could I think than that? So, my friends and I moved in and settled down nicely. Some Yank came out and redesigned the whole interior. Jollied the place up a bit and put a slice of colour in it instead of just black and white like before.

‘I had the pools and the jacuzzi installed, put up some erotic—but tasteful, mind—murals and so on and on. It was all very
simpatico
, even if I say so myself. Then, one night we were having a party and things were, I admit, getting a little out of hand. I happened to look round and there was this stranger glaring at me, like the death’s-head at the feast. I only caught a glimpse that time, but it was no picture, I tell you. He looked a biggish sort of chap—for a Spaniard, which he obviously was—but starved or sick, and very angry about it. That time I didn’t really notice, but later on I saw that he was wearing a grey military uniform which was all tattered and torn, plus lots of oddments like blankets and rags. There seemed to be a kind of strong wind playing about him ‘cause his hair and clothing were sort of lifted up and moving as if they were in a draught.

‘ “That can’t be right,” I says, “the designer guaranteed this place was draught proof.” My second thought was, how the hell did this gatecrasher get through security?’

‘Well, with these questions in mind, I got off the girl I was on and was going to speak to him when the swine threw a bottle at me. As it happened, the bottle was full at the time, and the next thing I knew was waking up six hours later in hospital.

‘That was the start of the business. After that, there was rarely a day when he didn’t pay me a visit, especially if I was doing anything considered immoral—as defined by, say, Oliver Cromwell with a headache. I couldn’t sleep with a woman I wasn’t married to, or have a drink, or snort or smoke or anything, without matey materialising out of nowhere and hurling a sofa at me.

‘Pretty soon I was a wreck, I don’t mind telling you, gents. I was driven out of my own house, if I wanted to live a normal life and indoors I had to live like some plaster saint. My friends wouldn’t come and visit me—not unreasonably, since one got her skull cracked by a flying stereo. And, since I couldn’t talk shop on the phone without screaming as a carving knife came hurtling towards me, my business associates were starting to ask questions about my reliability. That, as you’ll appreciate, gentlemen, was a very dangerous development.

‘Actually, for someone who’s fought hand to hand with the Hezbollah, I must admit I was shaken. It was his looks, you see, rather than his appearance. As soon as he arrived and thrown something, he’d give me this otherwordly stare and, at the risk of sounding poetic, I felt that it was risky looking into his eyes. He knows things that we’re not supposed to. Not yet, anyway. Each time I stared into that face, I was sharing that knowledge—and consequently getting a little bit nearer the grave. Don’t ask me how I can be sure of that; I just am.’

‘It’s quite plausible,’ confirmed Mr Disvan. ‘The very fact that you could see him meant that you were partly in his world, just as he was partly in ours. You were meeting in some no-man’s land of your own.’

Reggie Suntan considered this and grimaced.

‘That would explain,’ he said slowly, ‘why no one else can see him. In effect we’re having private meetings.’

‘Which again makes sense,’ Disvan continued, ‘since it’s with you that he obviously has business to conduct.’

Reggie nodded, gradually taking this in and processing the information through his formidable mind.

‘With him setting all the appointments,’ smiled Disvan.

‘Yeah, okay,’ said Reggie, grimly, ‘I get the picture. Anyway, just to round off the story, I can tell you that we soon had the full SP on this bloke. I had my people ask the locals and there was no problem in identification. He was, and I mean was, the brother of the old girl who’d sold me the villa. She’d inherited it from him when he got killed in ‘43.’

I thought I’d make an impression by seizing on this point. There seemed a fair chance that it was relevant. ‘Killed, eh?’ I said

‘That’s right, Mr Booty. He was one of the Blue Division volunteers that didn’t make it back.’

Any attempt to tot up points floundered due to my ignorance. ‘The blue who?’

‘Blue Division, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan. ‘They were a special unit sent by the Franco regime to fight alongside the Nazis on the Eastern Front during the War.’

‘Oh... so he was like that, was he?’

Reggie nodded.

‘Apparently. He was one of the old school who thought the world was being run by freemasons and Jews and probably Jewish freemasons at that. Come 1941, he said that Franco and the Pope had gone wishy-washy on Communism and felt obliged to go to Russia to stem the Bolshevik tide himself.’

‘Whereupon, so it seems, either the Bolsheviks or the winter bought an end to his crusade.’

‘Definitely the former, Mr Disvan,’ said Reggie. ‘You can quite clearly see the bullet holes all over him. Very distressing, that is—seeing bits of the opposite wall through someone.’

‘And, on reflection,’ Disvan continued to muse, ‘I think I should have said that the Russian bullets only temporarily ended his crusade.’

Reggie Suntan was suddenly alert and interested. It seemed he’d spotted a new angle on the problem.

‘What do you mean,
temporarily?
’ he said with great deliberation.

‘Well,’ replied Disvan, ‘it was one thing to rest in peace after dying for the cause far from home. But when home itself is occupied by the forces of Godless, communist, weirdo degeneracy—as represented by yourself, Reginald—then perhaps the great struggle has to go on, even from beyond the grave.’

‘Me? A communist, Mr Disvan? Leave it out, I’ve never even voted.’

‘Maybe so. But when was the last time you went to church?’

‘Mum’s funeral.’

And before that?’

‘ To be baptised.’

‘There you are, then,’ said Disvan triumphantly, like a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat. ‘Solid evidence of atheistic, communist tendencies—to a Blue Division volunteer.’

Reggie Suntan started to nod in agreement.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘And what with my parties...’

‘Degenerate, bolshevist, free-love orgies.’

‘And... substances.’

‘Decadent, opium-crazed, corruption.’

‘And my friends...’

‘Rootless cosmopolitan scum. Are you getting the picture?’

‘Only too clearly. I take offence at all this, you know.’

‘Well,’ said Disvan, ‘perhaps you shouldn’t be too harsh. How would you like it, for instance, if a tax inspector or a senior member of Interpol moved into the house you grew up in?’

‘It’s hardly likely, Mr Disvan. Why would bastards like that move into a two up, two down with no central heating, in Binscombe?’

‘Don’t evade the question. How would you feel?’

Reggie gave this some thought and then conceded the point.

‘I’d feel pretty rough about it.’

‘Exactly. But he only throws bottles. From what I remember reading about that fracas in Constantinople, if the tables were turned I suspect that you’d throw something a little more lethal...’

‘Maybe I would, Mr D but I don’t purport to be defending Christendom. In the meanwhile, what’s his price?’

Mr Disvan shrugged his shoulders.

‘What makes you think he has a “price”, as you put it?’

Reggie Suntan put on a smug facial expression that implied he knew something we didn’t.

‘Everyone, without exception, has a price, Mr Disvan,’ he said. ‘That’s the one great lesson of my life.’

‘Is it indeed?’ said Disvan abruptly. ‘Then what was your mother’s price?’

‘What?’

‘Come on, Reginald; it’s a simple question. What was your mum’s price?’

Reggie, obviously an honest debater, considered the hole he’d dug himself into.

‘An infinite number of pounds,’ he said, at length, ‘which she’d then give to charity.’

‘Not bad, Reginald, not bad at all,’ said Mr Disvan, smiling. ‘You should have been a politician.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr Disvan.’

‘Take it how you like, Reginald. However, returning to the matter of price, you’ll find us a lot more reasonable than your late mother. A mere £100,000 will purchase our full assistance.’

‘That’s a bit steep,’ said Reggie, poker faced.

‘Consider it as a “consultant’s fee” if it makes you feel better. And rest assured, it’ll be put to good use. You see, I’ve always felt that Binscombe could do with a social centre—for flower festivals and the Cubs and Brownies and all that. Your consultant’s fee would just about cover providing one.’

Reggie Suntan looked fixedly at the ceiling, perhaps considering which bank accounts could be juggled in order to raise the cash without attracting unwanted attention.

‘It did look like a very comfortable villa, Reggie,’ prompted Disvan slyly.

Reggie snapped his attention back to us.

‘Okay,’ he said briskly, ‘Eighty thou for the Village Hall—if it’s named after me—plus a substantial contribution of hardware to the Concrete Fund.’

‘How substantial?’

‘Sub-stant-ial.’

‘Done.’

They shook hands on the deal.

‘What are you going to call it?’ asked Reggie with unfeigned interest.

‘The social centre, you mean? How about the “Reggie Suntan Memorial Hall”?’

‘Memorial? I’m not dead yet!’

‘You will be one day.’

‘True. Fair enough then, Mr D—to business. What have I got to do?’

‘Exactly as I say. Preferably with understanding.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Right then, Reginald. Tell me, what are the motivations of the fascistic mind?’

Reggie seemed to have already marshalled his thoughts on the subject. ‘Violent hatred?’

‘In part, in part. But direct your mind to the idealistic sort of fascist, the one who joins the movement early on and eventually gets liquidated by the more bestial latecomers. Consider the sort of person who might, for instance, volunteer for the Blue Division.’

Reggie mused before answering. ‘A tendency to militarism and simple solutions,’ he said slowly, thinking as he went along. ‘Paranoid fears about social minorities. Deep-rooted concern about racial purity... Am I getting warm?’

‘Warmish. Carry on a little bit more.’

‘A dislike of the Jews, contempt for democracy, suppressed jealousy of sexual license… Ah, I’ve got it. You’re going to say that I’ve got to appear to mend my ways and then he’ll leave me alone. Perhaps if I wear a black shirt and a wedding ring for a while, then...’

Mr Disvan shook his head.

‘Sorry, Reginald, but no. It wouldn’t work. Repentance and forgiveness play small parts in fascist ideology. He’d redouble his vigilance if you seemed to reform. There’d always be the fear, you see, of you backsliding once he was gone. That way, you’d never ever be rid of him.’