Polar Star Read Online Free PDF

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 firstthe third mate had resisted attending the autopsy, but Arkady had 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 photojournalist 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 chain-smoked cigarettes laced with antistormine for seasickness. He held the cigarette between his fourth and little fingers, 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 his 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 laboratories, teams of forensic specialists, a professional apparatus 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 hairmatted, her arms, legs and breasts purpled with pooled blood.
    “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 still 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 up the pen 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 infirmary 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 and took another shot, picking angles like a movie director on his first film.
    “Are