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

by Peter May

  There was no word from Fat Bao, and the day passed slowly, eating, sleeping, a constant search for escape from the heat and the flies. Night brought no relief from the heat, and for Elliot little sleep. His shoulder ached constantly, and he began to fear that the wound had become reinfected. All day, Serey’s mood had been morose. She had spoken little, and through the long hours of the night Elliot was aware that she too slept little, and even then only in restless fits.

  In the morning, Elliot went to the tin-roofed medical clinic in the centre of the camp to have his wound examined. He sat waiting for nearly three hours, wide-eyed undernourished children and their mothers staring at him with bleak faces. One man, with a suppurating stump of an arm, arrived after Elliot and sat ashen-faced. The pain expressed by his eyes was past bearing, and yet he sat in silence with a seemingly endless, patient endurance. When it came to Elliot’s turn he let the man go first. But there was no room in those eyes for gratitude, only surprise amid the pain. All it cost Elliot was another twenty minutes.

  Dr Nguen Xuan Trieu was a middle-aged man with a pale, educated face. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and examined Elliot’s wound with a clinical interest. His English was impeccable. ‘A bullet wound,’ he said. ‘I have not seen many of those since the war ended.’ He displayed no curiosity as to how Elliot might have come by it. Nor any sympathy. ‘How have you treated it?’ he asked.

  ‘It was washed out with urine, and the poison drawn out with poultices.’

  ‘You are lucky to be alive,’ he said. ‘I have seen men die from a scratch in these conditions. There is a little fungal infection around the new tissue growth.’ He dabbed the wound with some white cream and re-dressed it. ‘It needs proper attention. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities, or the medicines. Children are dying from malnutrition. There is meningitis and typhoid. I cannot spare antibiotics for bullet wounds.’

  When Elliot got back to the shanty house, one of Fat Bao’s minions was waiting, a boy who could not have been more than fifteen. He seemed nervous of Elliot, and his eyes flickered over him warily. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Midnight. On beach other side of Religion Hill.’

  ‘Where the hell’s Religion Hill?’

  ‘Ask,’ said the boy, and he hurried away down the hill, quickly obscured by the washing lines. Elliot glanced up and saw Serey watching him from the terrace.

  *

  Religion Hill turned out to be the rocky promontory where the former Presbyterian Moderator had set up his church in the wreck of a refugee boat. The beach beyond it was deserted. The midnight lights of the Vien Du, on the jetty side of the church, cast a faint glow across the white coral sands. Carried on the night breeze, the nasal voice of a girl singing some Vietnamese hit song had replaced the daytime chants of the English class: ‘Where is Buckingham Palace?’

  Elliot stepped cautiously on to the beach, disturbing dozens of crabs that scuttled off into the night chasing their long shadows. Two tiny canoes no more than five feet long, crudely fashioned from fallen trees, lay side by side at the water’s edge. They were not big enough to hold a man, nor stable enough to remain upright if they could. A flashlight shone in his face, and two figures detached themselves from the shadows of the palms. ‘You Elliot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where others?’

  He couldn’t see their faces. ‘Turn that thing off.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation before the light went out. Elliot blinked away the circle of black in front of his eyes. Both men were in their twenties. One had close-cropped hair and a scar on his temple. The other had long greasy hair that flopped over his eyes. The one with long hair glanced nervously, several times, in the direction of the Vien Du. ‘Where others?’ he insisted.

  Elliot signalled towards the trees, and Ny and Hau emerged, followed by Serey still clutching her bag.

  ‘Hurry!’ whispered Long Hair. ‘Police patrol regular.’

  The women and the boy fell in behind Elliot. He said, ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘Hold on back of boats and swim. Straight out. Three kilometre. Boat waiting. You see light long way in dark.’

  Cropped Head strode down the sand to the boats. ‘We help you push off.’

  Elliot nodded to Long Hair, indicating that they would follow him. The Vietnamese shrugged and moved ahead.

  The water was warm around their ankles as they pushed the boats into the shallows. Elliot remained standing at the water’s edge. ‘You go,’ Long Hair urged. ‘Quick.’

  ‘We’ll go when you’ve gone,’ Elliot said.

  The two Vietnamese exchanged glances. ‘Okay,’ said Cropped Head. They moved reluctantly away from the boats, towards the beach. Long Hair grinned at Hau and held out his hand.

  ‘Good luck.’

  Hau took the hand and was jerked suddenly, almost off his feet. The Vietnamese reeled him in like a fish on a line, clamping a hand over his mouth and pulling the back of the boy’s head to his chest. A blade flashed in the dark and pressed into the soft flesh of his neck. A trickle of blood appeared. Elliot stepped quickly back as the other man produced a long, thin-bladed knife from the folds of his tunic. Serey choked back a scream and grasped her daughter’s arm.

  ‘What do you want?’ Elliot’s voice remained steady and calm.

  ‘Open the bag.’ Cropped Head’s knife was shaking in his hand.

  Elliot snatched the bag from Serey.

  Long Hair tensed. His eyes were wild. ‘I kill the boy!’

  Elliot threw the bag up on to the sand. ‘Open it yourself.’

  Cropped Head moved cautiously past him, keeping a safe distance, then ran up the beach to the bag. ‘I don’t know what you hope to find,’ Elliot said. ‘I told Bao we had nothing.’

  Long Hair grinned. ‘Maybe Fat Bao believe you. Maybe not. We not. You Westerner. Got money there, maybe gold.’

  Elliot shook his head. ‘And what about the boat waiting out there – if there is a boat?’

  ‘Boat waiting, okay. You disappear. Drowned maybe. Too bad.’

  Elliot’s hand slipped inside his shirt, and pulled the Colt .45 into a two-handed grip. He knew he had only one shot. The bullet punched a hole through Long Hair’s forehead, propelling him backwards on crumpled legs to splash into six inches of foaming brine and turn it briefly pink. Elliot swivelled to face the kneeling Cropped Head, who looked up in stunned surprise from the upended bag and had hardly an instant’s blink of disbelief before Elliot shot him full in the face.

  Serey and Ny splashed forward to pick Hau out of the water where he had fallen. He clutched his neck, blood oozing through his fingers. Elliot reached them in three strides and pulled his hand away to look at the wound. ‘Just a cut. He’ll live. We’ve got to get out of here!’

  The singing coming from the direction of the Vien Du had stopped. A flashlight raked across Religion Hill, and there came the sound of raised voices. There was no going back now. And if they missed their rendezvous at sea, they were certain to drown.

  Elliot threw Serey’s bag into the nearest canoe and they pushed the two boats off into the shallow swell. ‘I can’t swim,’ Serey whispered to him, as they plunged waist-deep through the water.

  ‘Jesus!’ Elliot said. ‘Now you tell me! Just hang on and kick with your feet. If you keep holding on you won’t sink.’

  Ny and Hau had surged ahead, hands grasping the rear lip of their canoe, feet kicking up luminescent foam in the dark. When he was certain Serey had a firm grip, Elliot pushed hard away from shore and their canoe slid through the water in pursuit.

  They kicked hard at first, seeming to make little progress, until Elliot glanced back and saw that they were already five or six hundred metres from shore. They had cleared the rocky outcrop, and away to their left they could see the lights of the French hospital ship anchored in the bay. Flashlights twinkled on the shore behind them, wielded by shadowy fi
gures running along the water’s edge. Aimless shots rang out in the dark.

  Soon the sound of water breaking on land faded, and the rocky silhouette of Bidong took shape against a night sky brightly lit by the moon rising from behind the island. Ny and Hau were about ten metres ahead, and drifting further away to the left. From time to time they disappeared completely beyond the rise of the swell. Elliot called to them to stay close. They must not lose each other. He glanced at Serey and saw that she was tiring rapidly, the strain in her arms showing on her face. He was, himself, close to exhaustion.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stop!’ And he hooked an elbow over the rim of the canoe and hung loose, trying to catch his breath. Ny and Hau worked their canoe back to draw alongside, worried faces peering anxiously in the moonlight.

  ‘What wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. We need a rest, that’s all.’

  His shoulder had almost seized completely. He looked back, but the swell was so deep now that the island only appeared in glimpses.

  ‘How far now?’ Ny asked.

  ‘Don’t know. We must be about halfway.’ But he felt despair rising in his breast. The second fifteen hundred metres would be much tougher going against the rising swell, and how could they hope to make a rendezvous with one small boat in this vast expanse of sea? They could be swept miles off course by the current. And, yet, if this was, indeed, how goods were brought ashore to feed the black market, then it had been done many times before. Perhaps allowances had been made for wind and current, based on months of experience. ‘We’d better go on. Stay close.’

  After what Elliot estimated was about fifteen minutes, he ordered another rest. They were all on the point of exhaustion now. It was as much as any of them could do to keep numb fingers hanging on. It would be so much easier, he thought, just to let go, to slip away into the eternity that awaited below. Supporting himself again on the crook of his elbow, he looked around. There was not a glimpse of the island in any direction. Only the sea and, above it, the vast cosmos. Without the moon as a guide, they would not have known which way they were heading. But whatever their bearing, he knew they could not hang on for much longer.

  It was Hau who spotted the light. He called out in sudden excitement and pointed away to their left. Elliot strained his eyes and saw nothing. But then, as their boat was lifted again on the swell, he saw it. A bright white light, shining across the water. He lost sight of it almost at once as their tiny craft slid down into another trough, only to spot it again on the next rise. Hope dug reserves of strength from the depths of despair, and they kicked off again in the direction of the light, shouting and calling to the boat.

  As they got nearer, their calls were rewarded by the sound of an engine spluttering, then revving hard as the boat turned to head in their direction. Elliot reached across and held the two canoes together, as the wash from the power launch lifted them up, then sucked them in to its side. Light played in fractured patterns across the broken surface of the water, and he saw Yuon’s face looking down from the deck. Helping hands lifted Ny and Hau to safety. Elliot turned to offer Serey his hand, but she was gone.

  ‘Serey!’ He called again, ‘Serey!’, in sudden panic, and spun the canoe around, hoping to find her clinging to the far side. She wasn’t there.

  ‘What wrong? Where Mamma?’ Ny’s voice reached him from afar, as if in a dream. He turned this way and that in the water, looking for a glimpse of grey hair breaking the surface.

  ‘Light!’ he screamed. ‘Give me some fucking light!’ A searchlight swung across the water and he swam frantically back in the direction they had come. Nothing. He stopped and tried to tread water, but felt himself going under, and splashed back towards the boat again, gasping for breath. He reached the canoe and clung to it for several moments, head pressed against the bark in despair. Her words rang in his head: I could never live with betrayal. And he knew what she had done. He struck out at the water in frustration and anguish. They had come so far.

  Two crewmen leaned over to pull him aboard, and he slumped back against the rail. He glanced up and saw the pain in Yuon’s eyes. He would never be free of his conscience now. Ny and her brother stood to one side, looking at Elliot with fear and confusion in their faces. They did not yet understand.

  ‘Where Mamma?’ Ny asked again in a quiet voice.

  ‘Gone,’ Elliot said. ‘Gone.’

  *

  In little under half an hour they saw the dark shadow of the mainland lying along the horizon, occasional lights winking along the shoreline. They sat in the back of the boat, silent except for Hau, who wept unashamedly in his sister’s arms. It had been easy to forget that he was still a child. Only war, and the Khmer Rouge, had made him old before his time. Ny stroked his hair absently, staring off into the middle distance. Yuon sat alone, detached and distraught. A sad and lonely figure.

  When they drew, eventually, into the small private jetty, he ushered his family off before him, and Elliot followed wearily at a distance. The launch wheeled off into the night. Yuon turned to Elliot. ‘I have a car waiting, Mistah Elliot. We will drive straight to Kuala Lumpur. Will you come with us?’

  Elliot shook his head. ‘The Thai border can’t be more than twenty kilometres away. I’ll cross on foot.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Yuon nodded, and Elliot wondered if he would ever really understand.

  Ny stepped forward and held out a formal hand. Elliot took it, and they shook hands briefly. ‘Goodbye, Mistah Elliot,’ she said. In her eyes was the desire to throw her arms around him and hold on for ever, but such a thing no longer seemed possible. He took the St Christopher from around his neck and handed it to Hau.

  ‘I think my luck’s all burned out,’ he said.

  Hau looked at it for a moment, then turned and threw it into the water, and Elliot knew that, somehow, he’d failed the boy.

  He watched Yuon, and the children he did not yet know, walk quickly up the beach towards the road, to the car and the future that awaited them. When they had disappeared from view he turned and looked back across the sea. Somewhere, out there, Serey had at last found peace.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The hang yao passed under a low wooden bridge and Elliot, sitting in the front of the boat, felt its shadow pass over him like the Angel of Death. A shout came from a klong house, and he glanced round anxiously, but the man was shouting to a boy who stood waist-deep in the water brushing his teeth. He heard the sound of laughter, breathed in the smell of cooking drifting on the wind. Life went on. Death, even here, seemed remote, a natural end upon which men and women did not dwell unduly. It would come to them soon enough. After weeks in the field life seemed unreal, normality abnormal.

  Here too, a white face – a farang – on the klongs attracted little attention. His presence was unremarkable, a matter of indifference. Another tourist, perhaps. It would take time, he knew, to adjust.

  His driver brought the boat to rest at the foot of wooden steps leading up to McCue’s house. ‘Wait for me,’ Elliot said, and climbed the steps with ice in his heart. The rocker still stood on the terrace, but it had an abandoned air, as if it had not been sat in for a long time. The mosquito nets were gone from the windows, and the door stood ajar. The floorboards creaked like snow underfoot as he stepped inside. The emptiness shocked him, like finding somebody naked unexpectedly. A fine film of dust had settled on the floor and the window ledges. The door to the back room, where the baby had lain beneath its protective netting, opened on to more emptiness. Late afternoon sun streamed through the windows, as though trying to shed light on a dark place.

  A voice called from the klong, and he stepped back out on to the terrace to find a wizened old lady standing on the bottom step. She smiled to show friendship and revealed gums without teeth. ‘You look for Lotus?’ She held her hand to her eyes, to shield them from the sun, and take a better look at Elliot.

  ‘Yes
,’ he said. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘She no live here any more. Take baby, go back to live in town, work in bars.’

  ‘Do you know where? What bars?’

  ‘She no say. Her man leave her, no come back. Is normal. You friend of her?’

  Elliot shook his head. ‘I knew her man,’ he said. ‘He didn’t leave her.’

  As the hang yao sped out from the klong into the choppy waters of the Chao Phraya river, Elliot opened his hand and the torn fragments of the cheque that could have bought a better future for Lotus and her child were whipped away on the edge of the wind. To have searched for her in a city of five million people would have been hopeless. Lotus, he knew, was not her real name. It was a name used by countless girls, in numberless bars. And he was not sure he would even have known her again. Just another bar girl with a fatherless child.

  At the Oriental Hotel landing stage, he pushed his way through the crowds queuing to cross the river, and picked up a taxi. His fire was all but extinguished, but somewhere, in all his black emptiness, an ember still smouldered. One remaining score to settle. ‘Sukhumvit Road,’ he told the driver.

  All the shutters on Tuk’s villa were closed. The gates were padlocked. Elliot gazed through the bars, and was struck by an all too familiar sense of abandonment. The taxi driver leaned through his open window. ‘You looking for Tuk Than?’

  Elliot turned. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He dead,’ the driver said cheerfully. And Elliot thought, even revenge is denied me. ‘Newspapers full of it when it happen,’ the driver went on. ‘Some farang shoot him. English or American. They don’t know. But they say La Mère Grace involve, too.’