Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense

by Simon Brett

  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 tugge
d 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.

  It was difficult to date the death exactly after so long, but a check on the tide tables (in which, according to a Commander Donleavy, Griffiths had shown a great interest) made it seem most likely that he had died on 14 September. This was confirmed by the presence in his pocket of a NUGGY BAR, a nut and nougat confection which was not available in the shops until 10 September.

  Because the Product Manager of NUGGY BAR, after cancelling the product’s launch, had suddenly remembered a precept that he’d heard in a lecture when he’d been a Management Trainee at GLISS. . . .

  ONCE YOU HAVE MADE YOUR MAJOR DECISIONS ABOUT THE PRODUCT AND THE TIMING OF ITS LAUNCH, DO NOT INDULGE SECOND THOUGHTS.

  So he’d rescinded his second thoughts and the campaign had gone ahead as planned. (It may be worth recording that the NUGGY BAR was not a success. The majority of the buying public found it “pretty revolting”.)

  The body of Hector Griffiths’ step-daughter, Janet Wintle, was never found. Which was a pity for two old ladies in Stockport who, under the terms of a trust set up in her mother’s will, stood to inherit her not inconsiderable wealth.

  THE GIRL IN VILLA COSTAS

  THERE WAS ONLY one girl worth looking at in that planeload. I’d been doing the job for two months, since May, and I’d got quicker at spotting them.

  She was tall, but then I’m tall, so no problem there. Thin, but the bits that needed to be round were good and round. Dress: expensive casual. Good jeans, white cotton shirt, artless but pricey. Brown eyes, biscuit-coloured hair pulled back into a rubber band knot, skin which had already seen a bit of sun and just needed Corfu to polish up the colour. (Have to watch that. With a lot of the girls—particularly from England—they’re so pale you daren’t go near them for the first week. Lascivious approaches get nothing but a little scream and a nasty smell of Nivea on your hands.)

  The girl’s presence moved me forward more keenly than usual with my little spiel. “Hello, Corforamic Tours, Corforamic Tours. I am your Corforamic representative, Rick Lawton. Could you gather up your baggage please, and proceed outside the arrivals hall to your transport.”

  I ignored the puffing English matrons and homed in on the girl’s luggage.

  It was then that I saw the other one. She looked younger, shorter, dumpier; paler brown hair, paler eyes, a sort of diluted version, as if someone had got the proportions wrong when trying to clone from the dishy one.

  They were obviously together, so I had to take one bag for each. They thanked me in American accents. That in itself was unusual. Most of the girls who come on these packages are spotty typists from Liverpool.

  But then their destination was unusual, too. The majority of the Corforamic properties are tiny, twin-bedded apartments in Paleokastritsa and ipsos. But there’s one Rolls-Royce job near Aghios Spiridion—converted windmill, sleeps eight, swimming pool, private beach, live-in maid, telephone. And that was where they were going. They’d booked for a month.

  I read it on their labels. “Miss S. Stratton” (the dishy one). “Miss C. Stratton” (the other one). And underneath each name, the destination—“Villa Costas”.

  By six I’d seen all the ordinary punters installed, answered the questions about whether it was safe to drink the water, given assurances that the plumbing worked, given the names of doctors to those with small children, told them which supermarkets sold Rice Krispies, quoted the minimal statistics for death by scorpion sting, and tried to convince them that the mere fact of their having paid for a fortnight’s holiday was not going automatically to rid the island of mosquitoes.

  Villa Costas was a long way to the north of the island. I’d pay a call there the next day.

  I drove to Niko’s, on the assumption that none of my charges would venture as far as his disco on their first evening. You get to value your privacy in this job. I sat under the vine-laden shelter of the bar and had an ouzo.

  As I clouded the drink with water and looked out over the glittering sea, I felt low. Seeing a really beautiful woman always has that effect. Seems to accentuate the divide between the sort of man who gets that sort of girl and me. I always seem to end up with the ugly ones.

  It wasn’t just that. There was money, too, always money. Sure I got paid as the Corforamic rep., but not much. Winter in England loomed, winter doing some other demeaning selling job, earning peanuts. Not the sort of money that could coolly rent the Villa Costas for a month. Again there was the big divide. Rich and poor. And I knew which side I really belonged. Poor, I was cramped and frustrated. Rich, I could really be myself.

  Niko’s voice cut into my gloom. “Telephone, Rick.”

  She identified herself as Samantha Stratton. The dishy one. Her sister had seen a rat in the kitchen at Villa Costas. Could I do something about it?

  I said I’d be right out there. Rats may not be dragons, but they can still make you feel knight-errantish. And, as any self-respecting knight-errant knows, there is no damsel so susceptible as one in distress.

  Old Manthos keeps a kind of general store just outside Kassiope. It’s an unbelievable mess, slabs of soap mixed up with dried fish, oil lamps, saucepans, tins of powdered milk, brooms, faded postcards, coils of rope, tubes of linament, deflated beach-balls, dusty Turkish Delight, and novelty brandy bottles shaped like Ionic columns. Most of the stock appears to have been there since the days of his long-dead father, whose garlanded photograph earnestly surveys the chaos around him.

  But, in spite of the mess, Manthos usually has what you want. May take a bit of time and considerable disturbance of dust, but he’ll find it.

  So it proved on this occasion. With my limping Greek, it took a few minutes for him to understand the problem, but once he did, he knew exactly where to go. Two crates of disinfectant were upturned, a bunch of children’s fishing nets knocked over, a pile of scouring pads scattered, and the old man triumphantly produced a rusty tin, whose label was stained into illegibility.

  “Very good,” he said, “very good. Kill rats, kill anything.” He drew his hand across his throat evocatively.

  I paid. As I walked out of the shop, he called out, “And if that doesn’t work . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Ask the priest. The Papas is sure to have a prayer for getting rid of rats.”

  It was nearly eight o’clock when I got to Villa Costas, but that’s still hot in Corfu in July. Hot enough for Samantha to be on the balcony in a white bikini. The body fulfilled, or possibly exceeded, the promise I had noted at the airport.

  “Candy’s in bed,” she said. “Shock of seeing the rat on top of all that travelling brought on a migraine.”

  “Ah. Well, let’s see if we can put paid to this rat’s little exploits,” I said, in a business-like and, to my mind, rather masculine manner.

/>   “Sure.”

  I filled some little paper dishes with poison and laid them round the kitchen floor. Then I closed the tin and washed my hands. “Shall I leave the poison with you, so you can put down more if you want to?”

  She was standing in the kitchen doorway. The glow of the dying sun burnt away her bikini. Among other things, I saw her head shake. “No, thanks. Dangerous stuff to have around. You take it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Like a drink?”

  She was nice. Seemed very forthcoming with me, too. But I didn’t want to queer anything up by moving too fast.

  Still, when she asked where one went for fun on the island, I mentioned Niko’s disco. And, by the time I left—discreetly, didn’t lay a finger on her, play it cool, play it cool—we’d agreed to meet there the next evening.

  And as I drove back to my flat in Corfu Town, I was beginning to wonder whether maybe after all I was about to become the sort of man who gets that sort of girl.

  When I arrived at nine, there were quite a lot of people at the disco. But no tall, beautiful American girl. Come to that, no less tall, less beautiful American girl.

  I could wait. Niko signalled me over to where he was sitting, and I ordered an ouzo.

  The group drinking at the table was predictable. Niko’s two brothers (the one who drove a beer lorry and the one who rented out motor-scooters) were there, along with his cousin the electrician, and Police Inspector Kantalakis, whose relaxed interpretation of government regulations about overcrowding, noise and hygiene always ensured him a generous welcome at the bar.

  There was also a new face. Wiry black hair thinning on top, thick black moustache draped over the mouth, healthy growth of chest hair escaping from carefully faded denims. Solid, mid-thirties maybe, ten years older than me. “Rick, this is Brad,” said Niko.

  He stretched out a hairy hand. “Hi.” Another American. “We were just talking about Niko’s wife,” he said with a grin.

  They all laughed, Niko slightly ruefully. Whereas some people have bad backs or business worries to be tenderly asked after, Niko always had wife problems. It was a running joke and, from the way Brad raised it, he seemed to know the group well. “How are things at home, Niko?” he continued.