Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series Read Free

love and plans I found my gaze turning, time and time again, to the solitary glass and the empty space at the bar.
     
    *  *  *
     
    After that evening I looked out for Mr Disvan with some considerable animation, for I keenly wished to hear the story with which I’d been tantalised. Therefore, after a week of his non-appearance at the Argyll (or anywhere else for that matter) I turned again to questioning tradesmen and other local ‘in the know’ people as to his whereabouts. However, just as before, I was told that he was ‘around’ as normal and had been seen, spoken to even, only yesterday. But today? No, they didn’t know.
    It was a very annoying process but my curiosity was such that I only desisted from enquiries when I realised that I was making myself appear an obsessive in front of the people with whom I had to live. Paradoxically enough, therefore, the day after I resolved to put the matter out of my mind, I managed to run the elusive Mr Disvan to ground again. I was going about my customary evening stroll which would presumably end in the Argyll, when I thought I recognised the old man’s distinctive Panama hat atop a figure sitting in the recreation ground.
    Without needing to consider the matter, I hurried over to the spot and saw that it was indeed the person I’d been looking for. He was resting on a bench that stood in a corner which, lacking proper nets, the local cricket team employed as a practise area. He appeared to be watching the half dozen men who were currently using it for this purpose. I came up and sat beside him and although he did not turn around he seemed to know who had arrived.
    ‘Hello again, Mr Oakley.’
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘You have the air of being on a mission.’
    ‘Do I?’
    ‘Indeed. Very much a man with a purpose.’
    ‘Well, now you come to mention it, I was rather hoping you’d very belatedly finish telling the story about Mr Bolding’s drink.’
    ‘Oh, that old tale. That’s your local roots coming through you know—curiosity about such trifles!’ His tone was jocular rather than admonitory.
    ‘I can’t answer as to that but I’d certainly like to have the mystery cleared up.’
    Disvan turned to observe me, his face and voice suddenly very serious. ‘Oh no, that I can’t do. I doubt anybody could. But I can tell you the story if you really want.’
    He looked round at two young men who’d come and sat down on the grass not far off in order to adjust pads and rebind a bat handle.
    ‘This is not for your ears,’ he said to them, and to my surprise they instantly got up and moved out of earshot without so much as a word of protest. Thereafter we were left to ourselves.
    ‘Is it that bad?’ I asked.
    ‘No, not bad or wrong as I said to you before but,’ he added wistfully, ‘it’s something you should be selective about who you tell.’
    These pseudo-warnings, such as preceded horror films or shocking newsreels on the television, only ever served to whet my appetite for what was to come and I was accordingly now all agog.
    ‘Where did Mr Bolding live before he went away?’ I asked.
    ‘Binscombe Crescent.’
    ‘Just as I suspected. What number?’
    ‘That needn’t concern you; rest assured it wasn’t where you now live.’
    ‘If he had lived in my house why should that concern me?’
    ‘Because of the thought you might follow him.’
    ‘To the other Binscombe?’
    ‘Perhaps, or even to somewhere else.’
    ‘So what is the full story, Mr Disvan?’
    ‘Like I’ve said, I don’t think anyone, with the possible exception of Bolding himself, knows what you call the full story. I only know the beginning.’
    ‘Which is?’
    ‘Which is that one day Bolding vanished for a full forty-eight hours. Now, he was a locksmith and clock repairer by trade and he had a little shop in the main street. It’s a toy shop now; doubtless you’ll have seen it. Anyway, what with the shop not opening and people wanting keys cut and the like, it was soon noticed