Free Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense by Simon Brett Page B

property, that,” said Commander Donleavy, as he was handed another double.
    The cycle of the tides did not allow Hector Griffiths to become an “R and D boy” and get back into “the white heat of the laboratory” again until his step-daughter was established in the cottage for her summer holiday. Janet was, he thought, quieter than ever; she seemed to take her mother’s death hard. Though not fractious or uncooperative, she seemed listless. Except for a little sketching, she appeared to have no interests, and showed no desire to go anywhere. Better still, she did not seem to have any friends. She wrote duty postcards to two elderly aunts of Melissa in Stockport, but received no mail and made no attempt to make new contacts. All of which was highly satisfactory.
    So, on the day of the spring tide, she made no comment on her step-father’s decision to take the boat out, and Hector felt confident that, when he returned, he would still find her stretched lethargically in her mother’s armchair.
    He anchored the motor-boat in shallow water outside the cave entrance, took off his trousers (beneath which he wore swimming trunks), put on rubber shoes, and slipped over the side. The water came just above his knee, and more of the entrance arch was revealed. On his previous visit the tide cannot have been at its very lowest. But the entrance remained well hidden; no one who didn’t know exactly where it was would be likely to find it by chance.
    He had a flashlight with him, but switched it off once he was inside the cave. The shifting ripples of reflection gave enough light.
    It was better than he remembered. The cave was about the size, and somehow had the atmosphere, of a small church. There was a high pile of fallen rocks and stones up the altar end, which, together with the stained glass window feel of the filtered light, reinforced the image.
    But it was an empty church. There was no detritus of beer-cans, biscuit packets or condoms to suggest that anyone else shared Hector’s discovery.
    Down the middle of the cave a seeping stream of water traversed the sand. Hector trod up this with heavy footsteps, and watched with pleasure as the marks filled in and became invisible.
    The pile of rubble was higher than it had at first appeared. Climbing it was hard, as large stones rocked and smaller ones scuttered out under the weight of his feet. When he stood precariously on the top and looked down fifteen feet to the unmarked sand below, he experienced the sort of triumph that the “R and D boys” must have felt when they arrived at the formula for the original GLISS CLEANING FLUID .
    In his pocket he found a paper bag and blew it up. Inflated, it was about the size of a human head. He let it bounce gently down to the foot of the rubble pile, and picked up a large stone.
    It took three throws before he got his range, but the third stone hit the paper bag right in the middle. The target exploded with a moist thud. Shreds of it lay plastered flat against the damp sand.
    Hector Griffiths left the cave and went back to get his step-daughter’s lunch.
    5. PACKAGING (WHAT DO YOU WANT THE PRODUCT TO LOOK LIKE? WHAT DOES THE PUBLIC WANT THE PRODUCT TO LOOK LIKE ?)
    â€œThe appearance of your product is everything,” the diligent young men who worried about their first mortgages and second babies would hear. “Packaging can kill a good product and sell a bad one. It can make an original product look dated, and an old one look brand new.”
    It could also, Hector Griffiths believed, make the police believe a murder to be an accident and an old corpse to be a slightly newer one.
    As with everything, he planned well ahead. The first component in his murder machine was generously donated by its proposed victim. Listless and unwilling to go out, Janet asked if he would mind posting her cards to Melissa’s aunts in Stockport. She didn’t really know why she was writing to them,