The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller

by Peter May

  Ang raised an eyebrow. ‘And how would you know that?’

  ‘That you’ve never worked the paddy fields? Your hands, Mr Ang. Hands tell you a lot about a man.’

  Ang glanced at his hands then looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Corrupt?’

  ‘Nobody ever got wealthy in Cambodia without being corrupt. And I’d say you probably did well out of the Americans.’

  Ang’s expression hardened. ‘There are worse things than corruption – or Americans.’

  Elliot said evenly, ‘The Khmer Rouge would never have taken power if the Americans had not brought down the Prince.’

  Ang was irritated now. ‘I did not ask you here to argue politics, Mistah Elliot.’ He paused to collect himself. ‘And wealthy?’

  Elliot inclined his head in a slight ironic gesture. ‘The manicure, the cut of your suit, the quality of your English. And if you didn’t have money you couldn’t afford me.’

  A waitress brought small round dishes of soy sauce and spring onion, a large dish filled with strips of raw marinated beef, and a hotplate which she placed on one side before lighting a gas ring beneath it.

  ‘Chopsticks?’ Ang asked Elliot.

  ‘Sure.’

  The girl smiled and brought them each a pair of finely engraved ivory chopsticks. She returned with a bowl of shredded Korean vegetables, soaked in a bitter dressing, then started arranging the meat on the hotplate with a pair of wooden chopsticks. The beef sizzled and spat as she moved it around, and the air was filled with a delicious aroma of exotic spices. Two bowls of steamed rice were brought before she served them the cooked meat, bowed and took her leave. Elliot tried it. Ang watched.

  ‘Good?’

  Elliot nodded. It was. ‘Excellent.’

  They helped themselves to rice and vegetables and Ang arranged more meat on the hotplate. Two small jugs of warm sake arrived. Ang poured them each a cup and raised his. ‘To a profitable relationship,’ he said.

  Elliot sipped his sake. ‘I’ll wait till I hear what the deal is.’

  Ang drained his cup in a single draught. ‘What do you know about Cambodia, Mistah Elliot? Or should I say, Democratic Kampuchea?’ He could not hide the bitterness in his voice.

  Elliot shrugged. ‘Since the Khmer Rouge took over, not much. Except that they seem to be killing a lot of people.’

  ‘Not a lot, Mistah Elliot. Millions.’

  ‘An exaggeration, I think, Mr Ang.’

  ‘No. The stories have been confirmed by the refugees coming across the northern border into Thailand. And they have come in their thousands. I know. I have spent a lot of time in the refugee camps there, Mistah Elliot, off and on for more than three years.’

  ‘You don’t look much like a refugee to me.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But I am, nonetheless.’

  ‘A rich refugee.’

  If Ang detected Elliot’s sarcasm he gave no sign of it. ‘As you supposed, I was not without influence with the Americans. I succeeded in getting most of my money out of the country in the months before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge.’

  ‘And yourself with the American evacuation, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Elliot detected a moment of pain in the Cambodian’s eyes.

  ‘Unfortunately my influence did not extend to the evacuation of my family.’ Ang glanced at Elliot and saw the contempt flicker across his face. A look he had seen on many faces since 1975. He examined his hands. ‘My wife, Serey. My daughter, Ny. She will be seventeen now. And Hau, my son. He will be twelve.’

  ‘If they are still alive.’

  ‘Oh, they are still alive.’ The light of hope burned brightly for a moment in Ang’s eyes.

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘I did not spend all that time in the refugee camps because I had to, Mistah Elliot. I have American citizenship now.’

  ‘Amazing what money can buy – and what it can’t.’

  Ang faltered only momentarily. ‘I was there through choice. I talked to hundreds, maybe thousands, of refugees. They all told the same stories of what was happening in Cambodia – of the atrocities these murderers are perpetrating in my country.’

  Elliot recalled the infamous Nixon pronouncement after the US bombing of Cambodia in 1970 – Cambodia is the Nixon doctrine in its purest form. No involvement. As if bombs were somehow neutral.

  Ang was still talking. ‘There were always those in the camps seeking news of relatives or friends. Some were lucky, most were not.’

  ‘And you?’ Elliot found himself interested, in spite of an instinctive dislike of Ang.

  ‘I had almost given up.’ He remembered the hopelessness of it all. The skeletal figures with their pathetic bundles of ragged possessions who came out of the jungle day after day. Some had lost wives or husbands, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They thought they had escaped to freedom, when all that awaited them were the camps, and the indifference of the West. Barbed wire, rows of long insanitary huts. A Thai regime that didn’t want them was determined to keep them there, without home or country.

  ‘Until six weeks ago,’ he said. ‘I had a reported sighting at a commune north of Siem Reap. A woman who had known my wife in Phnom Penh. It was promising, but uncertain.’ He had recalled the woman vaguely. Her children had gone to school with his. She had told him it could have been his wife she saw. But one face looked much like another in the communes, she said. Blank. People did not speak. Recognition was dangerous. The past could kill. ‘I still needed confirmation. I got it ten days ago. No doubts. My wife is alive. And my daughter.’ He paused. ‘My son I do not know about.’ He sat silent for a long time, then he looked up. ‘Mistah Elliot, I will pay you half a million US dollars – everything I have left – if you will go into Cambodia and get them out.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun had been merciless, beating down in waves like physical blows, her only protection the conical hat and ragged black pyjamas she wore. Hands like leather worked the wooden shaft of the hoe to a rhythm that was as much a part of her now as breathing.

  Serey had lost track of the passage of time since her death. For that was how she saw her life under the Khmer Rouge. A living death. An existence, nothing more. The endless hours in the fields, the indoctrination sessions when the sun went down. Young fanatics haranguing the new breed of Cambodians. Automatons serving the needs of Angkar – the Organization. Mercifully, these had become less frequent since moving to this commune. At first the speakers had been seductive, appealing to those with an education, those with technical, medical, administrative skills, to come forward and serve Angkar on a higher plane. Angkar needs you, they said. Angkar will reward you. And at first there had been those who succumbed. But they all knew now that a call to Angkar meant torture and mutilation in the woods. A bayonet in the stomach or, if you were lucky, a bullet in the head. The weak, the sick, all those who could not work went to Angkar.

  There was no conversation, no friendly chatter in the fields, no eye contact, lest it be seen by the guards who watched them from the shade of the trees. The only sound was the scraping of countless hoes in the dry earth, and the idle talk of the guards as they smoked or ate from hampers of fruit and meat and rice. Serey could not remember the last time she had eaten fresh meat. She had eaten grubs, worms, all manner of insects, anything she knew would provide her with at least some protein. And there had been the berries she picked in the jungle, the tubers she dug from the earth. The three meagre portions of rice they were provided with each day would never have sustained her. But still she had the sores on her arms and legs and face that came from vitamin and protein deficiencies.

  Ten metres away an old man buckled at the knees and fell face first into the earth. The nearest of the guards shouted at him to get up. He did not stir. The guard approached and kicked him in the ribs and struck him several times across
the back with a bamboo staff. The faintest groan escaped the old man’s lips. At a signal from the first, a second guard came across and they dragged him away. Another sacrifice to Angkar. There was not the faintest flicker of acknowledgement among those left hoeing. Not a head turned. The rhythm of the hoes continued unbroken. In the early days Serey had heard stories of guards dragging people into the woods, using bayonets to cut open their stomachs. It was said they removed the livers of their still-living victims and ate them raw. She had found it hard to believe. Now she believed anything, and nothing.

  Her back ached, her whole being ached, but she no longer felt the pain. Many times she had wished they would come and take her to Angkar. It would, perhaps, have been easier. But she’d had to stay strong for Ny, even though she could no longer acknowledge her as her daughter. Nor Ny her as her mother. Families divided loyalties. They owed loyalty only to Angkar.

  It was a miracle that she and Ny were still together after the frequent moves from commune to commune. Somehow they had always contrived to be aboard the same truck. Here they even shared the same hut – with a dozen others. But their only contact was the occasional exchange of glances, a brushing of hands as they passed. Hau, she knew, was in a commune across the river. She had seen him once, sitting in the back of a truckful of guards as it rumbled through their village. He had an automatic rifle slung across his shoulder, and wore a kramar – the red, chequered headscarf of the Khmer Rouge. Twelve years old and they had made him one of them. He had seen her, too, she was sure. But he had turned his face away. She wondered if he, like some of the other children, had been made to pick out those whose faces he did not like, and watch as plastic bags were pulled over their heads to suffocate them.

  It was almost dark as the siren sounded and they shuffled from the field back to the village and their respective huts. The women in Serey’s hut ate their rice in silence, slowly, without passion. Serey glanced at Ny and felt her eyes fill with tears. She had more flesh on her bones than the others, fewer sores, a lustre to her hair and a burning hatred in her eyes. Seventeen and beautiful – or should have been. So many things she should have been. So much that life should have offered.

  Ny was aware of her mother looking at her, but kept her eyes down, ashamed to meet her mother’s gaze. She was consumed by shame, and hatred for the young cadre who would come for her before very much longer.

  Most of the women were asleep, curled up on the hard wooden floor, when she heard the creak of his step on the ladder. Then he appeared in the open doorway and nodded curtly. Silently, she arose and followed him down the steps. He smiled at her. ‘How are you tonight?’

  ‘Well,’ she said.

  He took her arm and led her quickly between the stilts of the huts, beyond the perimeter of the village and into the woods to the place he always took her.

  ‘Undress,’ he said. She did so, without a word, as he slipped out of his black pyjamas. She lay down without being told. She knew the routine well. First he kissed her, his lips wet, his tongue probing her mouth. She had to fight to keep down the bile. His hands slipped easily over her breasts, pinching, squeezing. She felt the pressure of his erection against her stomach and clenched her teeth as he entered her, digging her nails into his back in what he always mistook for passion. He was quickly spent, grunting as he came inside her, then sighing, breathless, allowing his full weight to press down on her. He lay for a short while until he softened and then withdrew, kissing her lightly on the lips and brushing her long hair back from her eyes. ‘You’re a good girl,’ he said.

  He got up and dressed quickly. She shivered, though the night was warm, wishing she could wash it all away. From her body and her mind. When she had dressed he handed her a small cloth sack of food, some dried meat and fruit, an extra portion of rice. Ny was never quite sure whether it was a payment or a penance, for afterwards, passion spent, he always seemed embarrassed. She took the sack without a word and hurried back to the hut.

  Serey heard her coming in, felt the warmth of her closeness as she leant beside her and filled her bowl with half the contents of the sack. Serey feigned sleep, as she always did. Nothing was ever acknowledged between them. The shame would have been unbearable.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I

  David tutted irritably. ‘Well, why didn’t you answer?’

  ‘I was in the attic,’ she lied.

  ‘But I let it ring for ages.’

  ‘Oh David, never mind! I want you to look at these.’ She had the contents of the trunk spread across the table in the dining room. She opened the wedding album.

  ‘Wedding photographs,’ he said, without enthusiasm. He was tired. He had only come off the night shift at seven that morning, and she had phoned him at home at eight. He should have been asleep by now. But there had been an urgent quality in her voice. So he had driven over and found her in a state he could only describe as near-euphoria. Sometimes death affected people that way. Down one minute, on a high the next. He had been prepared to play the role of comforter, but had not been prepared for this. She stabbed at a picture of the bride and groom.

  ‘Look,’ she said.

  He recognized her mother. Very young, quite pretty, not at all like the haggard, pinched woman he had known. He shrugged. ‘What do you want me to say? It’s your mother.’

  ‘Not my mother! The groom!’ She could hardly contain her impatience.

  He looked at the groom without interest. ‘So, it’s your father, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t you recognize him?’

  David almost laughed. ‘How could I recognize him? He’s been dead for years. Look, Lisa, you didn’t get me all the way down here just to look at old wedding photographs, did you?’

  But she was insistent. ‘Look again, David, please!’ He sighed and looked at the face more closely. And, oddly, there did seem something familiar about him, now that he gave the photo more attention. Lisa saw his frown. ‘See, you have seen him before, haven’t you?’

  He was reluctant to admit his doubt. ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘At the churchyard yesterday. The man under the trees. The one with the scar.’ She was desperate for confirmation, needed to know she wasn’t imagining it. He frowned uneasily as he recalled the face of the man he had seen standing in the rain. And his sense of unease deepened as he remembered the way the man had looked at Lisa.

  ‘This guy doesn’t have a scar,’ he said.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, David! That photograph must be twenty years old.’ She paused. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me we saw a ghost?’

  ‘Did he look like a ghost to you?’ His silence spoke for him. ‘He’s alive,’ she said.

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense, Lisa. Why would your mother have told you he was dead? And if it was him, why didn’t he come over and speak to you?’

  Lisa shook her head in frustration. ‘I don’t know.’ They were questions that had been rattling around her head all night, a night without sleep, a night of so many questions and so few answers. She slumped wearily into a chair. ‘I phoned my mother’s lawyer first thing. I’ve made an appointment to see him at twelve. Will you come with me?’

  David saw a day without sleep, and a long, tiring night ahead of him in the newsroom. But he nodded. It was as well to get all this out of the way as soon as possible. ‘Well, I suppose if anyone can tell you the truth he can.’

  Lisa closed her eyes, a wave of relief and fatigue sweeping over her. At least with David there she wouldn’t feel quite so alone, quite so vulnerable.

  ‘Lisa . . .’ Something in David’s voice made her open her eyes sharply. He had been leafing idly through the bundle of old newspapers. He held one up. ‘Have you seen this?’ It had never crossed her mind to look at them. There was a group photograph of four men in army uniform. A headline: VERDICT IN ADEN MASSACRE. She felt the blood rise on her cheeks
as she recognized one of the men as her father.

  II

  Wiseman was in his sixties, with more than half an eye on retirement. His life had been one long succession of conveyancing, divorces and wills. Long gone were the heady ambitions of the student lawyer; the Bar, the Old Bailey, the triumphs and intrigues of criminal law. Instead, life had brought him to this small, seedy office in an insignificant south London legal partnership. He was the senior partner now, but it was little consolation. Nothing was more difficult in life than coming to terms with your own limitations.

  This, however, was something rather different. He examined the young lady seated at the other side of his desk, a desk piled with conveyances, divorces and wills. Her thick blonde hair was cut short, swept back from a strong-featured face. Full, sensuous lips, a fine straight nose and clear blue eyes. She wore no make-up and there were deep shadows under her eyes. He supposed he wasn’t seeing her at her best, having just buried her mother. But he could see she was a good-looking girl, slim, her blouse tucked loosely into her jeans. She wore a long dark jacket which hung open, a leather satchel slung from her shoulder. Her hands were clasped between her thighs as she sat slightly forward listening earnestly. She was not at all like her mother – a bitter, brittle woman whom he had never liked.

  Her young man sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, listening with a sort of grim detachment. Wiseman had taken an instant dislike to him, but the girl had insisted that he sit in on their meeting.

  ‘Of course, you realize it was your mother’s wish that you never know,’ he was saying.

  ‘I think she’d already gathered that,’ the young man said impatiently.

  ‘David,’ Lisa admonished him.

  Wiseman flicked him a glance of disapproval. ‘However,’ he went on, ‘since you have found out for yourself, I don’t see any harm in telling you as much as I know.’ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘It also releases me from the obligation of trying to conceal from you the source of the money your mother has left you.’