The Defector by Evelyn Anthony Page B

tension which was making him so restless and uneasy. Charley, the irresistible, who didn’t know how to stop taking other women’s men, would be used in her turn. The face in the mirror was hard and plain, the mouth turned down. It would be ironic if the sister who had wrecked her private life should help her with Sasanov. It was a touch the Brigadier would have found amusing. She changed out of her skirt and blouse, slipped into the passage in her dressing-gown, and found the bathroom locked. Charley was inside. Taking all the hot water, as usual. She washed in the basin in her room, changed into the dark-blue skirt and sweater. And with cynical bravado, she made up her face and arranged her hair in a high, smooth sweep. Charley would appear, so skilfully dishevelled that it took hours to give the impression she’d run a comb through her hair and tossed on some clothes. And Sasanov would be the object of her attention, a victim selected and pursued, with the indulgent approval of their father. He had always delighted in his beautiful daughter’s conquests;
    sometimes their mother showed embarrassment, but she too had accepted Charley’s effect upon men as inevitable and not her fault. She was just too beautiful and attractive. Davina glanced at herself once more in the mirror. Too tall, too thin, too neat. And too clever. Charley’s got the beauty and Davina’s got the brains. She went down and knocked on Sasanov’s door. There was no reply and she opened it. The room was empty; he’d already gone downstairs. There was a tight little smile on her face when she went into the sitting-room and found him playing chess with her sister. The senior police officer who had lunched with the Brigadier at his club set about supplying his friend with a dead body before he went off for the weekend. He lived just outside Dartford in Kent, with wife and two sons in the final stages of advanced education. He liked to spend Saturday mornings playing golf. It relaxed him. He left instructions with his office to make inquiries round the coast, and to put a security cover on anyone recently drowned in the Thames area. His immediate subordinate did not go home at the weekends, or have time to play golf. So by Friday evening, while the Brigadier and his wife were driving to a neighbour’s house for dinner, his superior was settled in front of the television for the evening, and the Grahams with their two daughters and their guest were sitting down to dinner, four dead men of approximately correct requirements had been reported to the Special Branch. Two were identifiable and had been reported missing; both were suicides with mental histories. The third was little more than a male torso, caught in the net of a trawler fishing offskegness and, from the brief report upon it, appeared to be a murder victim. The fourth was a body that had spent some time in the sea; it was badly decomposed but carried a tattoo on one forearm which suggested that the man had been a seaman. A quick examination had showed gold dental work which was not typical of English dentistry. This dead body seemed the most likely to fit the requirements. The body was removed from the south-coast mortuary under a special authority signed by the Special Branch chief before he left on Friday afternoon, and placed in a small private mortuary under official seal. After the weekend a surgeon would amputate what remained of the left hand at the wrist, and sever the other at the elbow, removing the tattoo as well as any chance of fingerprints. In due course a dentist would perform a passable job on the teeth, duplicating as far as possible the dental work already documented on Sasanov’s teeth. The body had no other distinguishing marks; the age was approximately right, and the dead man had been of similar build and height. The cause of death could definitely be stated as drowning. The length of time the body had been in the water did not approximate to the date of Sasanov’s