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

'Meaning what?' Slava asked.

'There are no signs of a direct blow,' Arkady went on. 'Possibly shock from a blow on the back of the skull.' He rolled Zina on to her shoulder and pulled brine-stiffened hair from the nape of her neck. The skin there was bruised black. He took the clipboard from Vainu and said, 'Cut her.'

The doctor selected a scalpel and, still smoking a cigarette with a long ash, made a slice the length of the cervical vertebrae. Arkady cradled the head as Vainu probed.

'This is your lucky day,' the doctor said drily. 'Indicate a crushed first vertebra and base of the skull. This must be a little triumph for you.' He glanced at Arkady and then at the saw. 'We could bring the brain out to make sure. Or crack the chest and examine the air passages for sea water.'

Slava snapped a picture of the neck and straightened up, swaying a little as he stood.

'No.' Arkady let her head settle on the block and closed her eyes. He rubbed his hands on his jacket and lit a second Belomor from the first, sucking fiercely, then sorted through the clothes in the pan. If she had drowned there would have been ruptures in her nose and mouth; there would have been water in her stomach as well as in her lungs, and when she was moved she'd still be seeping like a sponge. Besides, Vladivostok had enough investigators and technicians who'd be happy to carve her up and analyse her. down to atomic elements. The pan held a red plastic shoe of Soviet manufacture, loose blue exercise pants, panties, white cotton blouse with a Hong Kong label and a pin that said, 'I Love L.A.' An international girl. In a pocket of the pants was some sodden blue pasteboard that had been a pack of Gauloises. Also a playing card, the queen of hearts. A romantic girl, Zina Patiashvili. Also a sturdy Soviet condom. But a practical one too. He looked at her waxy face again, at the scalp already withdrawing from the black roots of her blonde hair. The girl was dead, leaving her fantasy life behind. He always got mad at autopsies Ц at the victims as well as the murderers. Why didn't some people just shoot themselves in the head the day they were born?

The Polar Star was in a turn, trailing after its catcher-boats. Arkady steadied himself unconsciously. Slava braced himself at the table while trying not to touch it.

'Losing your sea legs?' Vainu asked.

The third mate stared back. 'I'm fine.'

Vainu smirked. 'At least we should remove the viscera,' he told Arkady.

Arkady took the clothes from the pan. They were daubed with fish blood, torn here and there by fish spines, no more than you'd expect from a ride in a net.

There might have been an oil smudge on a pants knee. Spreading the blouse, Arkady noticed a different sort of rustiness on the front flap, not a rip but a cut.

He returned to the body. There was a maroon disнcolouration on the limbs, breasts and around the navel. Maybe it wasn't all blood pooling; maybe he'd been too quick to say that just to get away from her. Sure enough, as he spread the belly from the navel he saw a puncture, a narrow stab wound about two centimetres long. Just what a fisherman's knife would leave. Everyone on the Polar Star had a knife with a white plastic handle and a 20cm double-edged blade for gutting fish or cutting net. Signs throughout the ship advised: 'Be ready for emergencies. Carry your knife at all times.' Arkady's was in his locker.

'Let me do that.' Vainu elbowed Arkady aside.

'You found a bump and a scratch,' Slava said. 'So what?'

Arkady said, 'It's more than the usual wear and tear, even for a high dive.'

Vainu staggered from the table. Arkady thought he must have opened the wound more because a short length of intestine, purplish-grey and slick, stood out of it. More of it rose with a life of its own, and continued to emerge from the girl's belly through a bubbling collar of salt water and pearly ooze.

'Slime eel!'

Slime eel or hagfish. By either name, a primitive but efficient form of life. Sometimes the net brought in a halibut two metres long, a beast that should have weighed a quarter-ton and was nothing but a sack of skin and bones and a nest of slime eels. The outside of the fish could be untouched; the eels entered through the mouth or anus and forced their way into the belly. When an eel appeared in the factory the women scattered until the men had hammered it to death with shovels.

The eel's head, an eyeless stump with fleshy horns and a puckered mouth, whipped from side to side against Zina Patiashvili's stomach; then the entire eel, as long as an arm, slid seemingly forever out of her, twisted in mid-air and landed at Vainu's feet The doctor stabbed, snapping the scalpel in two against the deck. He kicked, then grabbed another knife from the table. The eel thrashed wildly, rolling across the room. Its main defence was a glutinous, pearly ooze that made it impossible to hold. One eel could fill a bucket with slime; a feeding eel could cover bait in a cocoon of slime that not even a shark would touch. The tip of the knife broke off and flew up, cutting Vainu's cheek. He tripped, landed on his back and watched the eel squirm towards him.

Arkady stepped into the passage and returned with a fire axe which he swung, blunt-end down, on the eel. With each blow the eel thrashed, smearing the deck. Arkady lost his balance on the slime, caught himself, turned the hatchet edge down and cut the eel hi half. The two halves went on twisting separately until he had chopped each of them in two. The four divided parts twitched in pools of slime and blood.

Vainu staggered to the cabinet, pulled the instruments from the sterilizing jar and poured the alcohol into two glasses for Arkady and himself. Slava Bukovsky was gone. Arkady had a fleeting memory of the third mate bolting for the door a moment after the eel appeared.

'This is my last trip,' Vainu muttered.

'Why didn't anyone notice she was missing from work?' Arkady asked. 'Was she chronically ill?'

'Zina?' Vainu steadied his glass with both hands. 'Not her.'