"Greg Egan - Quarantine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

Andrews - not to mention the fifteen thousand I've already received in advance. Of course, if her lawyers were
confident of a large settlement and a fat contingency fee, fifteen thousand would be nothing to them. Their wish to be
anonymous might be no more sinister than my own use of a pseudonym with Bella; when laws are being broken, it's
nice to have bulkheads against the risk of a conspiracy charge.

Do I talk to Martha? I can't see how it could upset her lawyers, and even if she hired me herself (which can't yet be
ruled out completely; her finances may have hidden depths) then she chose anonymity over the alternative of
explicitly instructing me to keep my distance.

I have no real choice but to act as if I hadn't given a moment's thought to the question of my client's identity -even if
the truth is that, so far, nothing about the case fascinates me more.

Martha looks very much like her sister, with a little more flesh and a lot more worries. On the phone she asked, 'Who
are you working for? The hospital?' When I told her that I wasn't free to disclose my client's name, she seemed to take
that to mean yes. (In fact, it's inconceivable; IS owns a great slab of shares in Pinkerton's Investigations, so the
Hilgemann would never hire a freelance.) Now, face to face, I'm almost certain that she wasn't dissembling.

'Really, I'm the last person to help you find Laura. She was in their care, not mine. I can't imagine how they could have
let something like this happen.'

12

'No - but forget their incompetence, just for a moment. Do you have any idea why someone might want to kidnap
Laura?'

She shakes her head. 'What use would she be to anyone?' The kitchen, where we're sitting, is tiny and spotless. In the
room next door, her boys are playing this summer's craze, Tibetan Zen Demons on Acid vs Haitian Voodoo Gods on
Ice - and not in their heads like the rich kids; she winces at the sound of a theatrically bloodcurdling scream, followed
by a loud, wet explosion, and live cheers. 'I've told you, I'm in no better position to answer that than anyone else.
Maybe she wasn't kidnapped. Maybe the Hilgemann harmed her somehow -mistreated her, or tried out a new kind of
drug that went wrong - and their whole story about her disappearance is a cover-up. I'm only guessing, of course, but
you ought to keep the possibility in mind. Assuming that you are interested in finding out the truth.'

'Were you close to Laura?'

She frowns. 'Close? Haven't they told you? What she's like?'

'Attached to her, then? Did you visit her often?'

'No. Never. There was no point visiting her - she wouldn't have known what it meant. She wouldn't have known it was
happening.'

'Did your parents feel the same way?'

She shrugs. 'My mother used to see her, about once a month. She wasn't fooling herself - she knew it made no
difference to Laura - but she thought it was the right thing to do, regardless. I mean, she knew she'd feel guilty if she
stayed away, and by the time they had mods that could fix that, she was too set in her ways to want to change. But
I've never had any problem, myself; Laura's not a person, so far as I'm concerned, and I'd only feel like a hypocrite if I
tried pretending otherwise.'