Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (10 page)

In the mornings, before he went out, he would check the time-switches and decide whether or not to use the inflatable woman. He didn't want the sketching to become too predictable, so he varied the position of the dummy in its smock and frequently just left it indoors. Once or twice, at dusk, he took it out in the dinghy past the harbour and waved to the fishermen on the quay.

At the end of August he posted Janet's cards to Melissa's aunts in Stockport. Their messages had the timeless banality of all postcard communications.

In the first week of September he continued his nautical rounds and awaited the explosion from
GLISS
.

Because the cottage wasn't on the telephone, the explosion, when it came, on 5 September, was in the form of a telegram. (Hector had kept the sketching dummy out of the way for a few days in anticipation of its arrival.) It was from his assistant, saying a crisis had arisen, could he ring as soon as possible.

He made the call from the Yacht Club. His assistant was defiantly guilty. Something had gone wrong with the production authorization for
GLISS SPOT-REMOVER
. The factory hadn't received it and now there would be no stock to meet the November orders.

Hector Griffiths swore—a rare occurrence—and gave his assistant a lavish dressing-down. The young man protested he was sure he had done the paperwork, but received an unsympathetic hearing. Good God, couldn't he be trusted with the simplest responsibility? Well, there was nothing else for it, he'd have to go and see all the main buyers and apologize. No, letters wouldn't do, nor would the telephone.
GLISS'S
image for efficiency was at stake and the cock-up had to be explained personally.

But, the young man whimpered, what about his forthcoming trip to
INTERSAN
in Hamburg?

Oh no! Hector had forgotten all about that. Well, it was out of the question that his assistant should go now, far too much mopping-up to be done. Damn, he'd have to go himself.
GLISS
must be represented. It was bloody inconvenient, but there it was.

After a few more demoralizing expletives, Hector put the phone down and, fuming, joined Commander Donleavy at the bar. Wasn't it bloody typical? he demanded rhetorically, can't trust anyone these days—now he was going to have to cut his holiday short just because of the incompetence of his bloody assistant. Young people had no sense of responsibility.

Commander Donleavy agreed. They should bring back National Service.

Hector made a few more calls to
GLISS
management people, saying how he was suddenly going to have to rush off to Hamburg. He sounded aggrieved at the change of plan.

On his last day in Cornwall, the 6th of September, he deflated the dinghy and the woman. He went a long way out to sea in the motor-boat, weighted them with the outboard motor and a few stones, and cast them overboard. The electrical time-switches and the rubber gloves followed.

That evening he said goodbye to Commander Donleavy in the Yacht Club. He confessed to being a little worried about Janet. Whereas previously she had just seemed listless, she now seemed deeply depressed. He didn't like to leave her in the cottage alone, though she spoke of going up to London, but he wasn't sure that he'd feel happier with her there. Still, he had to go on this bloody trip and he couldn't get her to make up her mind about anything. . . .

Commander Donleavy opined that women were strange fish.

As he drove the Mercedes up to London on 7 September, Hector Griffiths reviewed the necessary actions on his return from Hamburg. Because of the
GLISS SPOT-REMOVER
crisis, he could legitimately delay going back to Cornwall for a week or two. And, since the cottage wasn't on the phone and she hadn't contacted him, he'd have to write to Janet. Nice, fatherly, solicitous letters.

Only after he had received no reply to two of these would he start to worry and go down to Cornwall. That would get him past the next low tide when the cave was accessible.

On arriving and finding his letters unopened on the mat (he would first search the cottage for a copy of the
Daily Telegraph
for 14 September and, if he found one, destroy it), he would drive straight back to London, assuming that he must somehow have missed his step-daughter there. He would ring her French mistress and Melissa's aunts in Stockport and only after drawing blanks there would he call the police.

When they spoke to him, he'd mention Janet's talk of going up to London. He'd also mention her depressed state. He would delay as long as possible mentioning that his rubber dinghy appeared to be missing.

Then, preferably as much as four months after her murder on 17 August, by which time, his reading of forensic medicine told him, it would be difficult to date the death with more than approximate accuracy, he would remember her once mentioning to him a hidden cave she'd found at low tide round “Stinky Cove”.

The body would then be discovered.

Because of the lack of accurate timing from its state of decomposition, the police would have to date her death from other clues. The presence of the dinghy and the dryness of her clothes would indicate that she had entered the cave at a spring tide, which at once limited the dates.

Local people would have seen the dinghy, if not the girl, around until shortly before Hector's departure on 7 September. But other clues would be found in the girl's pocket. First, a
NUGGY BAR
, a new nut and nougat confection which was not available in the shops until 10 September. And, second, a phone number written on a scrap of newspaper dated 14 September. Since that was the date of a spring tide, the police would have no hesitation in fixing the death of Janet Wintle on 14 September.

On which date her step-father was unexpectedly, through a combination of circumstances he could not have foreseen, in Hamburg at
INTERSAN
, an international domestic cleaning exhibition.

So Hector Griffiths would have to come to terms with a second accidental death in his immediate family within two years.

And the fact that he would inherit his step-daughter's not inconsiderable wealth could only be a small compensation to him in his bereavement.

10.
IS YOUR PRODUCT A SUCCESS? (ARE YOU SURE THERE'S NOTHING YOU'VE FORGOTTEN
?)

On the day before he left for Hamburg, Hector Griffiths had a sudden panic. Suppose one of Melissa's aunts in Stockport had died? They were both pretty elderly and, if it had happened, it was the sort of thing Janet would have known about. She'd hardly have sent a postcard to someone who was dead.

He checked by ringing the aunts with some specious inquiry about full names for a form he had to fill in. Both were safely alive. And both had been so glad to get Janet's postcards. When they hadn't heard from her the previous year, they were afraid she had forgotten them. So it was lovely to get the two postcards.

Two postcards? What, they'd got two each?

No, no, that would have been odd. One each, two in all.

Hector breathed again. He thought it fairly unlikely, knowing Janet's unwillingness to go out, that she'd sent any other postcards, but it was nice to be sure.

So everything was happily settled. He could go abroad with a clear conscience.

He couldn't resist calling
GLISS
to put another rocket under his assistant and check if there was anything else urgent before he went away.

There was a message asking him to call the advertising agency about the second wave of television commercials for
GLISS HANDY MOPPITS (IDEAL FOR THE KITCHEN, NURSERY OR HANDBAG
). He rang through and derived his customary pleasure from patronizing the account executive. Just as he was about to ring off, he asked, “All set for the big launch?”

“Big launch?”

“On the tenth. The
NUGGY BAR
.”

“Oh God. Don't talk to me about
NUGGY BARS
. I'm up to here with
NUGGY BARS.
The bloody Product Manager's got cold feet.”

“Cold feet?”

“Yes. He's new to the job, worried the product's not going to sell.”

“What?”

“They've got the report back from the Tyne-Tees area where they tested it. Apparently forty-seven per cent of the sample thought it was ‘pretty revolting'.”

“So what's going to happen?”

“Bloody Product Manager wants to delay the launch.”

“Delay the launch?”

“Yes, delay it or cancel the whole thing. He doesn't know what he wants to do.”

“But he can't pull out at this stage. The television time's been contracted and the newspapers and—”

“He can get out of most of it, if he doesn't mind paying off the contracts. He's stuck with the magazine stuff, because they go to press so far ahead, but he can stop the rest of it. And, insofar as he's capable of making a decision, he seems to have decided to stop it. Call came through just before lunch—Hold everything—The
NUGGY BAR
will not be launched on the tenth of September!”

The Mercedes had never gone faster than it did on the road down to Cornwall. In spite of the air-conditioning, its driver was drenched in sweat.

The motor-boat, too, was urged on at full throttle until it reached “Stinky Cove”. Feverishly Hector Griffiths let out the anchor cable and, stripping off his jacket and shoes, plunged into the sea.

The water was low, but not low enough to reveal the opening. Over a week to go to the spring tide. He had to dive repeatedly to locate the arch, and it was only on the third attempt that he managed to force his way under it. Impelled by the waves, he felt his back scraped raw by the rocks. He scrambled up on to the damp sand.

Inside all seemed dark. He cursed his stupidity in not bringing a flashlight. But, as he lay panting on the sand, he began to distinguish the outlines of the church-like interior. There was just enough glow from the underwater arch to light his mission. Painfully, he picked himself up.

As he did so, he became aware of something else. A new stench challenged the old one that gave the cove its name. Gagging, he moved towards its source.

Not daring to look, he felt in her clothes. It seemed an age before he found her pocket, but at last he had the
NUGGY BAR
in his hand.

Relief flooded his body and he tottered with weakness. It'd be all right. Back through the arch, into the boat, back to London, Hamburg tomorrow. Even if he'd been seen by the locals, it wouldn't matter. The scrap
of Daily Telegraph
and the dry state of Janet's clothes would still fix the date of her death a week ahead. It'd all be all right.

He waded back into the cold waves. They were now splashing higher up the sand, the tide was rising. He moved out as far as he could and leant against the rock above the arch. A deep breath, and he plunged down into the water.

First, all he saw was a confusion of spray, then a gleam of diluted daylight ahead, then he felt a searing pain against his back and, as his breath ran out, the glow of daylight dwindled.

The waves had forced him back into the cave.

He tried again and again, but each time was more difficult. Each time the waves were stronger and he was weaker. He wasn't going to make it. He lay exhausted on the sand.

He tried to think dispassionately, to recapture the coolness of his planning mind, to imagine he was sitting down to the Desk Work on a cleaning fluid problem.

But the crash of the waves distracted him. The diminishing light distracted him. And, above all, the vile smell of decomposing flesh distracted him.

He controlled his mind sufficiently to work out when the next low tide would be. His best plan was to conserve his strength till then. If he could get back then, there was still a good chance of making the flight to Hamburg and appearing at
INTERSAN
as if nothing had happened.

In fact, that was his only possible course.

Unless . . . He remembered his lie to Janet. Let's climb up the pile of rubble and see if there's an opening at the top. It might lead to another cave. There might be another way out.

It was worth a try.

He put the
NUGGY BAR
in his trouser pocket and climbed carefully up the loose pile of rocks. There was now very little light. He felt his way.

At the top he experienced a surge of hope. There was not a solid wall of rock ahead, just more loose stones. Perhaps they blocked another entrance . . . a passage? Even an old smugglers' tunnel?

He scrabbled away at the rocks, tearing his hands. The little ones scattered, but the bigger ones were more difficult. He tugged and worried at them.

Suddenly a huge obstruction shifted. Hector jumped back as he heard the ominous roar it started. Stones scurried, pattered and thudded all around him. He scrambled back down the incline.

The rockfall roared on for a long time and he had to back nearer and nearer the sea. But for the darkness he would have seen Janet's body buried under a ton of rubble.

At last there was silence. Gingerly he moved forward.

A single lump of rock was suddenly loosed from above. It landed squarely in the middle of his skull, making a damp thud like an exploded paper bag, but louder.

Hector Griffiths fell down on the sand. He died on 8 September.

Outside his motor-boat, carelessly moored in his haste, dragged its anchor and started to drift out to sea.

It was four months before the police found Hector Griffiths' body. They were led to it eventually by a reference they found in one of his late wife's diaries, which described a secret cave where they had made love. It was assumed that Griffiths had gone there in his dinghy because of the place's morbidly sentimental associations, been cut off by the rising tide and killed in a rockfall. His clothes were soaked with salt water because he lay so near the high tide mark.