"Night Warriors - 01 - Night Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

Now they could hear the whip-whip-whip-whooo of a distant police siren, followed by the scribbling of an ambulance.

'What can we say?' asked Susan. 'We just found her here, that's all.'

'That's all we have to say,' Henry reassured her.

The police car drove right down the ramp on to the beach, and drew up only fifteen feet away. It was hotly pursued by an ambulance from the county coroner's office. Henry and Gil and Susan waited in silence as three detectives climbed out of the police car, and two medics noisily dragged a folding stretcher out of the back of the ambulance. A second police car arrived, slewing across the sand, and two uniformed officers got out.

The detectives came over and looked down at the body, standing with their hands on their hips. Two of them were big bellied and white, Tweedledum and Tweedledee; the third was lean as an adolescent wolf, a dark-eyed Hispanic with a drooping black moustache and a cinnamon-coloured three-piece suit that looked as if it had been chosen by his wife at Sears.

'Lieutenant Ortega,' he announced himself. These are Detectives Morris and Warburg.'

'Henry Watkins,' said Henry.

'And these young people?'

'We haven't had time to introduce ourselves.'

'You don't know them?'

'This is the first time we ever met. I guess we all caught sight of the body at the same moment.'

'Your name, please?' Lieutenant Ortega asked Gil.

'Gilbert Miller.'

'And yours, young lady?'

'Susan Sczaniecka.'

Lieutenant Ortega said over his shoulder, 'You get those names?'

Detective Warburg said, 'No, sir.'

Lieutenant Ortega let out a short, testy breath, and then went across to inspect the body. He stared at it for a very long time; then walked around it; then peered at it close with his hands on his bended knees, still without touching it.

'Any of you people know this girl's identity?' he asked, without looking towards them.

'No,' they replied. Henry felt strangely guilty that he didn't; but he supposed that everybody felt the same when they were interviewed by the police.

'Looks like a straightforward drowning t'me,' said Detective Morris, clearing his throat as if he were about to give a recitation. 'Kind of early in the year, but the pattern's familiar. Nude bathing off Cardiff Beach, too much to drink, and there's a pretty sharp undertow there, once you get out a ways. You get pulled out to sea. It's cold in April, you die of hypothermia in less than ten minutes - that's if you can swim. Then the tide brings you down here.' He checked his watch. 'Right on time, I'd say.'

Lieutenant Ortega stood up straight. 'You people were down on the shoreline exceptionally early,' he said, waving his finger loosely from Susan to Gil to Henry.

'I was jogging,' said Gil. 'I hurt my leg in a motorcycle

accident last December. I have to jog for a couple of hours each day to exercise it. Early morning is the only free time I get.'

Lieutenant Ortega raised his eyebrows at Henry.