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

by Peter May

  Grace was shocked by the cold fatalism in her voice. She hesitated too long. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Lisa glanced at her. ‘He should have been back by now. They were talking at the table last night about the Vietnamese, how they have defeated the Khmer Rouge. How things are in Cambodia. Even if he has survived till now he doesn’t stand much chance, does he?’

  Grace lowered her eyes and shook her head sadly. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘I think I want to go home,’ Lisa said.

  ‘You’re in no state to travel.’ Grace wondered why the thought of Lisa going induced in her a feeling close to panic. ‘In a day or two, perhaps. You need to rest.’

  Lisa nodded distantly. ‘Is there any word of my passport?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything. I’ll speak to Tuk.’

  Lisa stepped out on to the terrace. ‘You know, when I first arrived here, I thought Bangkok must be the most exciting place on earth.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Now I just want to go home. I should go to the embassy and see if they have news of my passport.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Grace moved on to the terrace beside her. ‘I’ll take you tomorrow.’ She ran her long, brown fingers through Lisa’s still damp hair. ‘Perhaps you should try and sleep now. Maybe later you’ll feel like talking.’

  Lisa was silent for a very long time before she turned to face her, and Grace saw that her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I just feel so dirty,’ Lisa said. And she turned and ran back through the cool of the dining room and disappeared into the hall. Grace heard her bare feet on the stairs.

  ‘So do I,’ she said softly to herself.

  *

  The day passed in a tormented twilight world, somewhere halfway between sleep and waking Even with the shutters closed against the heat of the day, the room was still hot and airless. Lisa twisted and turned, naked on the double bed, tangling and untangling the sheet around her legs, clutching a pillow to her breast for comfort. Her head felt fuzzy, filled with cotton wool. Her throat was swollen and she found it difficult to swallow. For a long time she thought she would never sleep. Her thoughts were vague and curiously elusive. Faces swam before her eyes. Sivara, good-looking, smiling, seductive; and then ugly and twisted, filled with malice. Tuk, with his smiling lips and cold fish eyes. The General, smiling eyes creasing his round, gentle face, then burning with a dark, heartless passion. And Grace. Something in her eyes Lisa didn’t understand. Something disturbing. And always her father, his features unclear except for the livid scar across his cheek, the missing earlobe, the short dark hair greying at the temples. He stood in the rain watching her from a distance. She strained to see his face more clearly, but somehow it remained obscure.

  A voice growled close to her ear. You fool! You stupid little fool! How can he be your father? Your father is dead! Dead! She turned to find herself looking into David’s pale, angry face. His mouth was curled in contempt. Do you think he cares? Why should he care? You’re nothing to him! I’m all you have now. She turned to look back at the man standing in the rain, but he was gone. You see, I told you, he’s dead! No, she screamed. No! No! No! And she awoke with a start to find that the room was in darkness, the echo of her voice fading into stillness.

  She lay for a moment, breathing hard, disorientated by the unexpected passage of time. She must have been asleep for hours. Gradually her eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight that filtered through the shutters. Shapes and shadows took form around her. A movement caught her eye.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s only me.’ Grace’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. Lisa could see her only in silhouette. She moved away from the window towards the bed and sat on the edge of it.

  ‘How long have you been in the room?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘A while. I was worried about you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lisa said. ‘You must think I’m very stupid.’

  Grace reached out and ran her fingers lightly down the side of Lisa’s face. ‘Not stupid. Just innocent.’

  ‘I never thought . . .’

  Grace placed a finger over the girl’s lips. ‘Shoosh. I know. I’ve spoken to the General.’ She paused. ‘I’m afraid there’s really nothing we can do. I’m sorry.’

  Lisa nodded in mute acceptance. Then, ‘But don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  Her words turned the knife in Grace’s wound, and the older woman was glad the girl couldn’t see the guilt in her eyes.

  ‘I feel as if I’ve been robbed,’ Lisa said. Her voice cracked in the dark. ‘Of something I can never get back.’

  ‘You have, child. It should have been yours to give. It should have been a wonderful experience.’ A long silence. ‘I feel so responsible. It was me who introduced you to the General.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’ Lisa’s innocence was still painful to Grace, and she wondered why she continued to allow herself to be hurt by it, almost sought it, as if somehow the pain could atone for her guilt.

  ‘It was horrible.’ Grace saw a silver tear roll down Lisa’s cheek. ‘I’ll never sleep with a man again.’

  ‘Of course you will.’ Grace lay down beside her, propping herself on one elbow and brushing the hair lightly from Lisa’s forehead. ‘It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. With the right man.’

  ‘I wish . . .’ Lisa said.

  ‘You wish what?’

  ‘I just wish that I could have known my father.’

  ‘You mustn’t give up hope, Lisa. You mustn’t ever do that.’

  ‘You can’t hope for the impossible. He’s dead. I know he is.’

  ‘Oh, Lisa.’ Grace took her in her arms, holding her head briefly to her breast, before rolling slowly away to swing her legs out of the bed.

  Lisa caught her arm. ‘Don’t go. Please.’

  But Grace only shook her head. And Lisa realized, with a start, that there were tears in Grace’s eyes as the older woman turned toward the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I

  Watery blinks of sunlight punctuated fierce flurries of rain driven down from the north on the edge of an icy January wind. David hurried along the Strand from Temple tube station, collar pulled up against the cold and wet. Sparse mid-afternoon traffic splashed through the shiny London streets, belching fumes into the wind that whipped at the faces of passers-by. On Fleet Street he passed El Vino’s, catching a glimpse, in the smoky interior, of journalists researching stories only to be found at the bottom of beer glasses. A little further on, he swept past the commissionaire at the door of a large, modern office block, barely acknowledging the nod of recognition.

  The newsroom was busy, green phosphor screens flickering under fluorescent lights, the hubbub of voices engaged in a dozen telephone conversations, lights winking at empty desks. The heads of department were in with the editor for the editorial conference.

  David threw his coat across the desk and slumped into a seat to face his terminal.

  ‘What you doing in at this time, Dave? Thought you were still on nights.’ The reporter opposite glanced incuriously across the desk.

  ‘I am. Got some calls to make,’ David said.

  The reporter shrugged. ‘Real go-getter, aren’t you?’ He watched David start up his terminal and search through a drawer for his contacts book. ‘Still bucking for a job on features?’

  David made no response. He picked up his phone and flicked down a switch for a line. He punched out a long number and waited.

  ‘Still no word from your girl?’

  He glanced up grimly and shook his head. The ringing tone sounded in his ear, and he tensed as his call was answered six thousand miles away on the other side of the world. He checked his watch. Three o’clock. It would be ten in the evening there. ‘Narai Hotel.’ The tinny voice crackled in his ear.

  ‘Could you put me through to Lisa Elliot’s room.’
<
br />   ‘One moment, please.’ There was a long delay before the voice returned with the familiar response. ‘Sorry, no one of that name stay here.’

  ‘Look, I’m calling from London.’ David had difficulty keeping his frustration in check. ‘She was supposed to check in nearly two weeks ago. She promised to call and I’ve heard nothing. I’ve called the hotel several times already, and you keep telling me there’s no one of that name staying there. I wonder if you could check if she ever booked in?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the voice. ‘No one of that name stay here. Very busy now. Thank you. Goodnight.’ And the line went dead.

  ‘Fuck!’ David slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

  ‘The Vietnamese have taken Phnom Penh,’ the reporter opposite said.

  David frowned at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Came in on the wires early this morning.’

  ‘So what the hell’s that got to do with me! She’s in Thailand, not bloody Cambodia!’ The reporter shrugged again and turned back to his screen as David lifted the phone and dialled an internal number. He waited impatiently.

  ‘Library.’

  ‘David Greene, reporters. I’m looking for a file from nineteen sixty-three.’

  *

  The pages of history, enshrined in celluloid, jerked across the screen in a blur as David turned the microfilm impatiently through the plate. Increased American involvement in Vietnam; 16,000 US military ‘advisers’ now attached to South Vietnam ARVN forces; Soviets withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuba; Buddhist monk sets himself alight in Saigon street; Beatlemania. He paused momentarily. November 22 – Kennedy assassinated in Dallas.

  He had a vague recollection of squatting in short-trousered uniform in a seedy scout hall, a boy running in flushed with excitement, shouting, ‘The President’s been shot! The President’s been shot!’ He had been eight then. He turned the film through more pages, days, weeks. Then, 13 December 1963 – Aden Massacre: Court Martial Opens. He stopped, adjusted the focus, and squinted down the tight columns of copy looking for names. But his mind wandered again.

  There was another name that hovered, infuriatingly out of reach, somewhere in the back of his mind. A name Lisa had told him the night she flew out to Bangkok, one that the sergeant had given her. An odd name. But he hadn’t paid much heed at the time, and now it simply wouldn’t come back. Tun, Tan, Tok – for a moment he wondered why the hell he was bothering. If Lisa had wanted to phone him, presumably she could. Perhaps she’d lied to him. But he discounted that, and for all his increasing ambivalence, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was wrong, something bad must have happened to her.

  He turned his gaze back to the screen. There were several references to the young Lieutenant John Elliot who had ordered his unit into the village. The full list of the accused didn’t appear till further down the story. David ran his finger lightly down the screen to stop at the name of Elliot’s NCO. Sergeant Samuel Robert Blair. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction and wrote the name down in his notebook. If Lisa could find him, then so could he.

  II

  The lights from across the river, reflecting on the water, danced brokenly on its wind-ruffled surface. Blair gazed out beyond his dark reflection in the glass and heard the wind among unseen trees on the embankment. Behind him, a tiny reading lamp lit a corner of the room. Newspapers detailing the triumphant progress of the Vietnamese army in Cambodia lay strewn across the floor. He sipped pensively at a glass of iced water turned faintly amber by the merest splash of whisky. His mood was one of melancholy, laced with a hint of anger. Anger at himself. He could, he knew, have done more to discourage Elliot from his Cambodian enterprise. It was madness and he had known it. But then, so had Elliot. Would he even have listened? Blair smiled a humourless smile and shook his head. He doubted it.

  He turned back into the room and eased himself down into his well-worn armchair, then placed his glass on the floor and lifted a gnarled and blackened pipe from an ashtray balanced on the arm of the chair. He tapped out the dottle from the bowl, and began refilling it from a soft leather pouch.

  Elliot was a resourceful man, he told himself. If anyone could pull it off, it would be Jack. He paused suddenly, catching his thoughts, and sighed. He knew it was a false optimism he was trying to kindle, and there really was no point. He struck a match and sucked several times at the stem of his pipe, drawing the flame down through the tobacco. He listened to it crackle and then tamped down the glow with a blackened, calloused forefinger. Thick blue smoke drifted lazily upwards through the light cast by his reading lamp. His only regret was that Elliot hadn’t taken him along. If he had been ten years younger . . .

  The sound of the doorbell startled him. With a tut of annoyance, he laid his pipe in the ashtray and heaved himself stiffly out of his chair. He flicked a switch in the hall and blinked in the cold yellow light that invaded the peaceful gloom of the early evening. It was chilly out here, and he shivered as he opened the door to find a tall young man with a startling mane of windblown red hair standing on his doorstep. His face, in the reflected light of the hall, was pale, almost pasty. His eyes, screwed up against the sudden flood of light, had a hunted look. He wore a dark suit under a long beige overcoat, the knot of his tie pulled down from an open collar. Blair cast a wary eye over him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Samuel Blair?’ the young man asked. ‘Sergeant Samuel Blair?’

  Blair tensed. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name’s David Greene. I’m a friend of Lisa Robi—’ He paused to correct himself, ‘Elliot.’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  The young man’s mouth set. ‘Look, Mr Blair, I don’t have time to play silly buggers. I know all about your part in the Aden Massacre, your subsequent career as a soldier of fortune, and latterly your role as a kind of freelance quartermaster for other mercenaries. Now, either you invite me in and we talk sensibly, or you can read all about it in the national press.’

  Blair looked back at him steadily. ‘You’re playing a dangerous bloody game, laddie.’

  A little of David’s confidence evaporated. ‘Only because the stakes are so high,’ he said.

  ‘What stakes?’

  ‘A girl’s safety, maybe even her life. A girl you sent to Bangkok to look for her father.’ He ran out of steam. ‘Look, she’s been there for well over a week. She hasn’t called, she’s not at the hotel she was booked into, and they claim they’ve never heard of her.’

  Blair made a decision. He stood to one side and flicked his head towards the interior. David stepped into the hall and turned as Blair closed the door behind him. His initial impression of a shambling, rather frail-looking old man completed its transformation. Beneath the shock of white hair, Blair’s eyes were flinty hard, his old jumper and baggy trousers disguising a lean, fit physique. He was a powerful presence in the confined space of the hall and David felt intimidated by him. ‘You some kind of newspaper man?’ Blair asked.

  ‘It’s what I do for a living. But it’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘Then a piece of advice, laddie, and it’s yours for free. Don’t ever threaten me unless you mean it. And if you do, be prepared for the consequences.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ David said feebly. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. I’m worried about her.’

  Blair waved an arm towards the sitting room. ‘Go through.’

  David walked uncomfortably into the room and stood nervously as Blair crossed to his chair and picked up his pipe. It had gone out, and he dropped it back into the ashtray with annoyance. He stooped to pick up his drink. ‘You’d better tell me, then.’

  David shrugged uncertainly. ‘Well – I already have.’

  ‘When did she leave?’ Blair was clearly impatient.

  ‘About ten days ago. I saw her on to the plane myself. She was booked into the Narai Hotel, Bangkok. She said you’d g
iven her the name of a contact.’

  Blair pursed his lips. ‘And you haven’t heard anything?’

  ‘She was supposed to call when she arrived.’

  ‘And she didn’t?’

  David shook his head. ‘It’s warm in here. Do you mind if I take off my coat?’

  ‘You’re not staying,’ Blair said. ‘Why didn’t you call her?’

  ‘I did. Well, after a couple of days. I thought maybe she . . .’ His voice trailed away. ‘I don’t know what I thought. But I did think she would call eventually.’

  ‘So, finally, you phoned the hotel yourself and she wasn’t there.’

  ‘That’s right. They said there wasn’t anybody called Lisa Elliot registered. I called a few times, but always the same response.’

  ‘And she didn’t even book in the day she arrived?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. They weren’t very forthcoming. It’s difficult getting information when you’re six thousand miles away.’

  Blair seemed thoughtful, gazing away through the window across the river. Finally he looked back at David, almost as though surprised to find him still there. ‘And?’

  David shrugged. ‘And – that’s it? I thought maybe since you’d given her a contact there . . .’

  ‘I didn’t encourage her to go,’ Blair said. ‘She’s a very determined young lady.’

  ‘I know,’ David said with some feeling.

  ‘Give me your card.’ Blair held out his hand. David fumbled in his pockets before finding a tattered business card and handing it to the Scot. Blair glanced at it. ‘I’ll make some inquiries and give you a call.’ He drained his glass, placed it on a low coffee table and strode out into the hall. David hurried after him.

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I hear anything. If I hear anything.’ He opened the door to let in an icy blast of night air. ‘Goodnight.’