'Travel,' she said.

'The same as me.'

'But you don't go into the foreign ports; you stay on the ship.'

'I'm a purist.'

'You have a second-class visa, that's why.'

'That too. What's worse, I have a second-class curiosity. I have been so content on the factory line that I have not participated in the full social and cultural life of the ship.'

'The dances.'

'Exactly. It's almost as if I haven't been here at all. I know nothing about the women or the Americans - or, to be more particular, about Zina Patiashvili.'

'She was an honest Soviet worker who will be badly missed.'

Arkady opened the wardrobe. The clothes were on hangers and in order of owner: Dynka's girl-sized apparel, Madame Malzeva's frowsy dresses, Natasha's giant red evening gown, sundresses, pastel running suits. He was disappointed in Dynka's clothes because he'd expected some colourful Uzbek embroidery or golden pants, but all he saw was a Chinese jacket.

'You took away Zina's clothes already,' Natasha said.

'Yes, they were laid out for us very nicely.'

Three wardrobe drawers held lingerie, stockings, scarves, pills, even a swimsuit in Natasha's drawer. The fourth was empty. He checked the backs and bottoms for anything taped to the drawers.

'What are you looking for?' Natasha demanded.

'I don't know.'

'Some kind of investigator you are.'

Arkady took a hand mirror from his pocket and looked under the sink and bench for anything taped to the underside.

'Aren't you going to dust for fingerprints?' Natasha asked.

'We'll get to that later.' He checked under the berths, leaving the mirror propped against the books on Zina's mattress. 'What I need is someone who knows the crew. Not another officer and not someone like me.'

'I'm a Party member but I'm not a slug. Go talk to Skiba or Slezko.'

'I need an assistant, not an informant.' Arkady opened the wardrobe again. 'There are only so many places to hide anything in a cabin like this.'

'Hide what?'

He felt Natasha tensing beside him. He thought he'd sensed her doing it before. She seemed to tilt as he opened her drawer a second time. It was the swimsuit, of course, a green-and-blue bikini that wouldn't get past her knee. It was the suit Zina had worn with the sunglasses on deck that warm day.

The moral code on a ship was like the code of prison. The worst crime - more heinous than murder -was theft. On the other hand, it was only natural to divide up the possessions of someone dead. Either way, though, having the swimsuit and concealing it could cost Natasha her sacred Party card.

'I bet your cabin's the same as mine,' Arkady said. 'Everybody's always lending and borrowing from everyone else? Sometimes it's difficult to know whose is whose? I'm glad we found this.'

'It was for my niece.'

'I understand.'

Arkady laid the bikini on the bed. In the mirror he watched Natasha's eyes remain on the wardrobe. He did feel shameless about the mirror, but he didn't have the time or means for an ethical, scientific investigation. Returning to Natasha's side, he again perused the clothes rack. As a kind of generalization it could be said that adult Russian women went through a metamorphosis that provided them with a Rubensesque bulk against northern winters. Zina had been Georgian, a Southerner. The only one of her three cabinmates who could have worn any of her clothes was little Dynka, and the only piece of apparel with the sort of dash that seemed like Zina was Dynka's red quilted Chinese jacket. In most foreign ports there were shabby stores that specialized in the cheap goods that Soviet mariners and fishermen could afford. Often the shops were in poor neighbourhoods far from the dock, and groups of Soviets could be seen walking miles to save the cab fare. A prime souvenir was such a red jacket with golden Oriental dragons and snap pockets. The trouble was that this was Dynka's first voyage and they hadn't made any port calls yet. With a little thought he wouldn't have had to use the mirror at all. He really felt ashamed.

As Arkady removed the jacket from its hanger, Natasha's eyes grew like those of a girl watching her first magician. 'And this,' he said. 'Zina lent this to Dynka before the dance?'

'Yes.' More firmly she added, 'Dynka would never steal anything. Zina was always borrowing money and never paying it back, but Dynka would never steal.'

'That's what I said.'

'Zina never wore it. She was always fussing with it, but she never wore it on board. She said she was saving it for Vladivostok.' The words poured out of her with relief. There were no more glances at the wardrobe.

'Fussing?'

'Sewing it. Mending it.'

The jacket seemed new to Arkady. He kneaded the quilting and the padded edge of the front. The label said, "Hong Kong. Rayon".

'A knife?'

'One second.' Natasha found one in an apron hanging by the door.

'You should carry your knife at all times,' Arkady reminded her. 'Be ready for emergencies.'

He felt the quilting at the back and sleeves, then squeezed the edge at the neck and bottom hem. When he slit the hem at the centre, a stone the size of a candy lozenge dropped into the palm of his hand. As he pinched the hem, more stones dropped until the hollow of his palm was filled with the red, light purple and dark blue of polished but uncut amethysts, rubies and sapphires. Although they were pretty, they didn't look like high-quality gems.

He poured the stones into a pocket of the Chinese jacket and snapped it shut, then pulled the rubber gloves off his hands.

'They could have come from Korea, the Philippines or India. No place we've been, so Zina got them from another ship. Let's just be happy that Dynka didn't try to wear this jacket past the Border Guard.'

'Poor Dynka,' Natasha muttered as she considered the prospect of her friend being caught for smuggling. 'How would Zina get the stones through?'

'She'd swallow them, sew the jacket and wear it down the gangplank just like she said. Then she'd collect the stones later.'

Natasha was disgusted. 'I knew Zina was brazen. I knew she was a Georgian. But this . . . '

Arkady struck while the Chaika was still awed by his elementary reasoning and good luck. 'See, I didn't know she was "brazen". I don't know anything about the crew. That's why I need you, Natasha.'

'You and me?'

'We've worked the same factory line for six months. You're methodical and you have nerve. I trust you, just as you can trust me.'

She glanced at the jacket and the swimsuit. 'Or else?'

'No. I'll report I found them under her mattress. The third mate and I should have found them before.'

Natasha pushed a damp curl away from her eyes. 'I'm not the sort who squeals.'

She had nice eyes, about as black as Stalin's but nice. Striking, in fact, with the blue running suit.

'You wouldn't be informing; you'd be asking questions. You'd be telling me what other people say.'

'I'm not sure.'

'The captain wants to know what happened to Zina before we reach Dutch Harbor. The first mate says we shouldn't have a port call at all.'

'That bastard! All Volovoi does is run the movie projector. We've cleaned fish for four months.'

'You only have one more shift in the factory. Skip it. You'll be working with me.'

Natasha studied Arkady as if really seeing him for the first time. 'No anti-Soviet agitation?'

'Everything according to Leninist norms,' he assured her.

She was good for one final hesitation. 'You really want me?'

Chapter Twelve.

Arkady enjoyed the view from the crane operator's cabin, the top decks covered with nets and planks, the yellow gantries framing the fog, the gulls seesawing in the wind. Looking forward, around the gantries of the forward house was a spider's nest of wire antennas strung to catch low radio frequencies. An array of whip dipoles cast in the breeze for shorter frequencies. Two interlocked circles were a radio directional finder, and star-shaped antennas picked up passing satellites. Despite all appearances, the Polar Star was not alone.

'Bukovsky is happy about my selection?' Natasha asked.

'He will be.' Arkady was pleased because the book from Susan was by Mandelstam, a wonderful poet, very urban, dark and probably not Natasha's cup of socialist tea. Even if it was only a collection of letters, Arkady had already stashed it as tenderly as gold leaf under his mattress.

'Here he comes,' Natasha said.

Indeed, the third mate was fairly flying across the forward deck and around a group of mechanics who were lazily batting a volleyball back and forth over the net.

She added, 'He doesn't look happy.'

Slava disappeared below and Arkady thought he could hear the reverberations of his Reeboks as they ran up three flights. In Olympic time the third mate emerged on the top deck and pushed into the crane cabin. 'What is this about another assistant?' Slava gasped. 'And why are you calling me to meet you? Who's in charge?'

'You are,' Arkady said. 'I thought we might have some fresh air and privacy here. A rare combination.'

The crane cabin was the ultimate in privacy because the windows, broken and repaired with washers and pins like crockery, sloped in and forced intimacy whenever more than one person was inside. Still, the view could not be beaten.

Natasha said, 'Comrade Renko thinks I can be helpful.'

'I've cleared Comrade Chaikovskaya with the fleet electrical engineer and the captain,' Arkady said. 'But since you are in charge, I thought that you should know. Also, I have to make a list of Zina's effects.'

'We did that,' Slava said. 'We saw her old clothes, we examined the body. Why aren't you looking for a suicide note?'

'Victims rarely leave them. It will be very suspicious if that's the first thing we find.'

Natasha laughed, then cleared her throat. Since she took up half the cabin it was hard for her to be subtle.

'And what are you going to be doing?' Slava glared at her.

'Gathering information.'

Slava laughed bitterly. 'Great. Stirring up more trouble. I can't believe this. My first voyage as an officer and they make me trade union representative. What do I know about workers? What do I know about murder?'

'Everyone has to learn sometime,' Arkady said.

'I think Marchuk hates me.'

'He's entrusted a vital mission to you.'

The third mate slumped against the cabin side, his face sunk in misery, his curly hair limp with self-pity. 'And you two, a pair of deuces from the slime line. Renko, what is this pathological need of yours to lift every rock? I know Volovoi will write the final report on this; it's always a Volovoi who writes the final - Look out!'

The wall below the crane cabin resounded as the volleyball bounced off. The ball fell back down onto the deck and rolled by the mechanics, who glared up at the threesome in the cabin.

'See?' Slava said. 'The crew has already heard all about their port call depending on this so-called investigation of ours. We'll be lucky if we don't end up with knives in our backs.'

Gantries had another name, Arkady recalled: gallows. A succession of bright yellow gallows sailing through the mist.

'But you know what really gets me?' Slava asked. 'The worse our situation becomes, the happier you are. What difference does it make whether there are two of us or three of us? Do you really think we're going to find out anything about Zina?'

'No,' Arkady conceded. He couldn't help noticing that Natasha was starting to be affected by Slava's pessimism, so he added, 'But we should take heart from Lenin.'

'Lenin?' She perked up. 'What did Lenin say about murder?'

'Nothing. But about hesitation he said, "First action, then see what happens." '

Wearing rubber gloves, Arkady laid out on the operating table jeans and blouses with foreign labels. Paybook. Dictionary. Snapshot of a boy amid grapes. Postcard of a Greek actress with racoon eyes. The intimate hardware of rollers and brushes still coiled with bleached hair. Sanyo cassette player with headphones and six assorted Western tapes. Bikini for a single sunny day. Spiral notebook. Jewellery box containing fake pearls, playing cards and pink ten-ruble notes. An embroidered Chinese jacket with a pocketful of gems.

The paybook: Patiashvili, Z.P. Born Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Vocational-school training in food industries. Three years working galleys of the Black Sea Fleet out of Odessa. One month in Irkutsk Two months working in a dining car on the Baikal-Amur main line. Eighteen months at the Golden Horn Restaurant in Vladivostok. The Polar Star was her first Pacific voyage.

Arkady lit a Belomor and drew in the raw fumes. This was his first time alone with Zina - not the cold corpse but the inanimate odds and ends that held whatever soul was left. Somehow smoking made it more social.

Odessa had always been too rich and worldly. They didn't settle for smuggling semi-precious stones there; they brought in bars of Indian gold for the locals and bags of Afghan hash for trucking north to Moscow. Odessa should have been a natural habitat for a girl like Zina.

Irkutsk? Rabid Young Communists volunteered to lay railroad ties and fry sausages in Siberia, not a girl like Zina. So something had happened in Odessa.

He broke the wad of pink ten-ruble notes: a thousand rubles, a lot to take to sea.

Vladivostok. Waiting tables at the Golden Horn was a clever move. Fishermen drank by the bottle to make up for their relatively dry months at sea, and they regarded their hard-won Arctic bonuses as onerous burdens to be shared with the first warm women they met. She should have done well.

Slut. Smuggler. Depending on politics or prejudice, it was easy to write off Zina as either a corrupted materialist or a typical Georgian. Except that usually it was Georgian men, not Georgian women, who were adept privateers. Somehow from the start Zina was different.

He fanned the playing cards. They were a collection, not a deck. A variety of cut-down Soviet cards, corners cracked, with bright-cheeked peasant girls on one side, the design of a star and sheaves of wheat on the other. Swedish cards with nudes. A British Queen Elizabeth on her Silver Jubilee. All of them the queen of hearts.