"Smith, Martin Cruz - Polar Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

'Suicide, I think, is what you're best at.'
Chapter Four

Zina Patiashvili lay on the table, her head resting on a wooden block. She had been pretty, with the nearly Grecian profile that Georgian girls sometimes possessed. Full lips, a graceful neck and limbs, a black pubic stripe and a head of blonde hair. What had she wanted to be, a Scandinavian? She had gone into the sea, touched bottom and returned with no apparent signs of corrupнtion aside from the stillness of death. After the tension of rigor mortis all flesh became slack on the bone: breasts sagged on the ribs, mouth and jaw were loose, eyes flattened under half-open lids, the skin bore a luminous pallor. And the smell. The operating room was no morgue, with a morgue's investments of formaldehyde, and the body was enough to fill the room with an odour like the stench of soured milk.

Arkady lit a second Belomor straight from the first and filled his lungs again. Russian tobacco, the stronger the better. On a medical chart he drew four silhouettes: front, back, right side, left.

Zina seemed to levitate in the flash of Slava's camera, then settle back on the table as her shadow faded. At first the third mate had resisted attending the autopsy, but Arkady insisted so that Slava, already hostile, couldn't later claim any findings were prejudiced or incomplete. If this was a last twinge of professional pride on Arkady's part he didn't know whether to be amused at himself or disgusted. The adventures of a fish gutter! At this point, Slava was snapping pictures like a combat-hardened photo-journalist from Tass, while Arkady felt ill.

'Altogether,' Dr Vainu was saying, 'this trip has been a great disappointment. Back on land I had a good trade in sedatives. Valeryanka, Pentalginum, even foreign pills. But the women on this boat are a group of Amazons. Not even many abortions.'

Vainu was a young consumptive who generally received patients in his leisure suit and slippers, but for the autopsy he wore a lab coat with an ink-stained pocket. As always, he chainsmoked cigarettes laced with anti-stormine for seasickness. He held the cigarette between his fourth and little finger so that every time he took a puff his hand covered his face like a mask On a side table were his surgical tools: scalpels, protractors, clamps, a small rotary saw for amputations. On the table's lower shelf was a steel pan holding Zina's clothes.

'Sorry about the time of death,' Vainu added airily, 'but who in their right mind would believe a trawl would pick her up more than a day after she went over?'

Arkady tried to smoke and draw at the same time. In Moscow a pathologist did the actual work and the investigator only walked in and out. There were laboraнtories, teams of forensic specialists, a professional apparнatus and the steadying hand of routine. One comfort of the past few years had been the idea that he would never have to deal with victims again. Certainly not a girl out of the sea. A salty rankness underlay the smell of death. It was the smell of all the fish that had come down the factory line, and now of this girl from the same net, her hair matted, her arms, legs, and breasts mottled purple.

'Besides, estimating a time of death from rigor mortis is very chancy, especially in cold conditions,' Vainu went on. 'It's only a contraction caused by chemical reactions after death. Did you know that if you cut a fish fillet before rigor mortis the flesh will shrink and get tough?'

The pen slipped from Arkady's hand and his boot kicked it when he stooped for it.

'You'd think this was your first autopsy.' Slava picked the pen up and surveyed the table clinically. He turned to the doctor. 'She seems pretty bruised. Think she hit the propeller?'

'But her clothes weren't torn. Fists, not a propeller, from my experience,' Vainu said.

Vainu's experience? He was trained in broken bones and appendectomies. Everything else was handled with green liniment or aspirin because, as he said, the infirmнary dealt primarily in alcohol and drugs. That was why the table had restraining straps. The Polar Star had run out of morphine a month ago.

Arkady read the top of the chart: 'Patiashvili, Zinaida Petrovna. Born 28/8/61, Tbilisi, G.S.S.R. Height: 1.6m. Weight: 48k. Hair: black (dyed blond). Eyes: Brown.' He handed the clipboard to Vainu and started walking around the table. Just as a man who is terrified of heights will concentrate on one rung at a time, Arkady spoke slowly and moved from detail to detail.

'Doctor, will you indicate the elbows are broken. The small amount of bruising suggests they were broken after death and at low body temperature.' He took a deep breath and flexed her legs. 'Indicate the same for her knees.'

Slava stepped forward, focused, took another shot, picking angles like a movie director on his first film.

'Are you using colour or black-and-white?' Vainu asked.

'Colour,' Slava said.

'On the forearms and calves,' Arkady continued, 'indiнcate a pooling of blood, not bruising, probably from the position she was in after death. Indicate the same on the breasts.' On the breasts the pooled blood looked like a second, liverish pair of aureoles. He wasn't up to this, Arkady thought; he should have refused. 'On the left shoulder, left side of the rib cage and hip some faint bruises evenly spaced.' He used a ruler from the lab table. 'Ten apparent bruises in all, about five centimetres apart.'

'Could you hold the ruler a little steadier?' Slava comнplained and took another shot.

'I think our former investigator needs a drink,' Vainu said.

Silently Arkady agreed. The girl's hands had the feel of cool, soft clay. 'No signs of broken nails or any tissue under them. The doctor will take scrapings and examine them under a microscope.'

'A drink or a crutch,' Slava said.

Arkady took a deep pull on the Belomor before he opened Zina's mouth wide.

'Lips and tongue do not appear bruised or cut.' He closed her mouth and tilted her head to look down her nostrils. He squeezed the bridge of her nose, then pulled the eyelids up from elliptical irises. 'Indicate discolourнation in the white of the left eye.'