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

Arkady drained his own glass in a swallow. A little antiseptic, but not bad.

What sort of doctor, he considered, did factory ships generally have? Certainly not one with curiosity about the whole range of physical dysfunction, of deliveries, childhood diseases, geriatrics. On the Polar Star there wasn't even the usual maritime hazard of tropical disнeases. Medical duty on the waters of the North Pacific was pretty boring, which was why it drew drunks and medical-school graduates assigned against their will. Vainu was neither. He was Estonian, from a Baltic repubнlic where Russians were treated like occupying troops. Not a man with a great deal of sympathy for the crew of the Polar Star.

'No problems of dizziness, headaches, fainting? No problems with drugs? You didn't treat her for anything?'

'You saw her records. Absolutely clean.'

'Then how is it that no one was surprised by the absence of this able-bodied worker?'

'Renko, I have the impression that you are the only man on board who didn't know Zina.'

Arkady nodded. He was getting that impression, too.

'Don't forget your axe,' Vainu said as Arkady started for the door.

'I'd like you to examine the body for signs of sexual activity. Get her fingerprints and enough blood for typing. I'm afraid you'll have to clean out the abdomen.'

'What if...?' The doctor stared at the eel.

'Right,' Arkady said. 'Keep the axe.'

Slava Bukovsky was bent over the rail outside. Arkady stood beside him as if they were taking the air. On the trawl deck mounds of yellow sole waited to be shovelled down the chute to the factory. An American nylon net was strung between two booms, and a net needle Ц a shuttle with a split tip Ц hung from an ongoing repair. Arkady wondered if that was the net Zina had come up in. Slava studied the sea.

Sometimes fog acted like oil on water. The surface was dead calm, black, a few gulls hovering over a trawler he could make out only because American boats were so bright, like fishing lures. This one was red and white, with a crew in yellow slickers. It swung in and out behind the Polar Star's stern, the factory ship's rusty hull looming forty feet above the trawler. Of course the Americans went out only for weeks at a time, whereas the Polar Star was out for half a year. The American boat was a toy in the water; the Polar Star was a world to itself.

'That doesn't usually happen at autopsies,' Arkady said softly.

Slava wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. 'Why would anyone stab her if she was already dead?'

'The stomach has bacteria. The puncture was to let the gasses out, to keep her from floating. I can carry on alone for a while; why don't you catch up when you feel better?'

Slava stiffened up from the rail and folded his handkerchief. 'I'm still in charge. We will do everything like a normal investigation.'

Arkady shrugged. 'In a normal homicide investigation when you find the body you go over the ground with a magnifying glass and metal detectors. Look around you. Is there any particular wave you want to examine?'

'Stop saying homicide. That's rumour-mongering.'

'Not with those wounds.'

'It could have been the propeller,' Slava said.

'If someone hit her over the head with it.'

'There were no signs of a struggle Ц you said so yourself. It's your attitude that is the greatest problem. I'm not going to let your antisocial posturing comproнmise me.'

'Comrade Bukovsky, I'm just a worker off the factory line. You are an emblem of the radiant Soviet future. How can I compromise you?'

'Don't play the worker with me. Volovoi told me about you. You made a big mess back in Moscow. Capнtain Marchuk was crazy to let you off the line.'