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

  The paving stones bore all the scars of neglect that characterized the rest of the garden, cracked and broken, weeds reaching up from the rich damp earth below. At the other side of the clearing, the girl in the lilac shirt was sunk on bended knee, sticks of burning incense pressed between palms raised to her bowed forehead. Her discarded sandals lay on the ground behind her. In front of her a large square stone table stood before a jumble of shrines raised on brick pillars, tiny replicas of houses and temples bedecked with flowers and strings of jasmine blossom. Laid all around, pointing upwards towards the shrine, at an angle of forty-five degrees, were a dozen or more red and white cylinders, some of which were four or five feet long. The upward ends were round and elongated like helmets, and Lisa realized, with a sudden sense of shock, that they were giant phalluses, an arrangement of enormous erections directed towards the shrine.

  She stood for a moment, then turned, startled by a touch on her elbow. Grace stood by her side, smiling.

  ‘Erotic, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

  ‘What is it?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘The fertility shrine of San Chao Mae Tap Tim. The phalluses represent the Hindu god Shiva. Phallus worship is an ancient tradition in Thailand. But, of course, it originated in my own Cambodia more than seven hundred years ago.’

  ‘It’s disgusting!’ Lisa hissed, embarrassed by her own arousal.

  ‘Sex is never that,’ Grace said calmly. ‘It can be the most poignant experience life has to offer, if treated with respect.’

  ‘But what’s she doing?’ Lisa asked, nodding towards the girl.

  ‘She wants a child. She is praying for success. I pray that she doesn’t have it. She is one of the best girls I have. But, then, who am I to stand in the way of the procreation of the human race?’

  The girl finished her prayer, arose and turned to slip back into her sandals. She was startled to find Grace and Lisa watching, and a blush coloured her cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me, La Mère Grace,’ she whispered, and she hurried past them, head bowed, back towards the house.

  Grace laughed. ‘If the girl wants to throw away her life . . .’ She glanced at Lisa. ‘Come, take a closer look.’ She took Lisa’s reluctant hand in hers and led her across the uneven pavings. ‘Shiva is the third member of the Hindu trinity. Although represented here by the phallus, he is also sometimes known as the Destroyer. In human form he is portrayed with four arms, a third eye in the centre of his forehead, and often wearing a necklace of skulls. Sex, my poor ignorant child, can be very beautiful, but also sometimes very dangerous.’ She turned a provocative smile on the younger woman. ‘Things you will no doubt learn for yourself, in time.’ And to Lisa’s acute embarrassment she leaned towards her and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  ‘I think I should go back to the house,’ Lisa said, flustered, her cheeks burning. And she turned and hurried away across the clearing.

  ‘Perhaps you should lie down for a couple of hours,’ Grace called after her. ‘The afternoons are so hot, and I shall be out until this evening.’

  Lisa didn’t look back, but hurried through the tangle of vegetation until she stumbled into the cool darkness of the dining room.

  Her bedroom, at the top of the house, was hot and humid. She pulled the shutters closed and undressed quickly to slip between the cool sheets, then lay a long time in the dark, listening to the rapid beat of her heart. After a while she heard Grace’s voice down in the main hall, then the front door slamming shut. Somewhere, from the front of the house, came the sound of a car starting, the engine revving as it moved off down the drive. Then a deep silence. Lisa closed her eyes and let drowsiness take her in the airless heat of the room.

  *

  ‘So what do you think?’ Tuk sat back in his favourite hard leather chair and sipped at his whisky through large cubes of ice.

  Grace waited until the girl in the yellow dress who had brought her iced Perrier left the room. ‘I think she’s very young, very naive and very beautiful,’ she said. Her heel scraped on the tiles as she crossed her legs.

  Tuk smiled. ‘And English. Such lovely white skin, and a virgin, too. A valuable commodity.’

  ‘Very,’ Grace agreed. She lifted the glass to her lips and let the cold, aerated water slip back over her throat. She enjoyed its tartness.

  Tuk watched her with pursed lips and a gleam of malicious amusement in his eyes. ‘And tempting.’

  Grace flicked a darting glance in his direction, then took another sip of the Perrier. ‘My interest is entirely commercial,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She could become the most sought-after property in Bangkok – at least for a while.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  Grace studied him for a moment. ‘And just what exactly are those thoughts, Than? I hardly see what you stand to gain from all this.’

  ‘Ah,’ Tuk smiled, ‘now that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. My interest is personal rather than financial.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Who she is, of course. How can I put it . . .?’ He tugged gently at the ends of his fingers. ‘A little insurance policy.’ She raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘In the unlikely event of Elliot returning, a little leverage would not go amiss.’

  ‘And why would you require a little leverage, Than?’ Grace was intrigued.

  Tuk shifted uncomfortably. ‘Let’s just say that certain events which occurred last week may be open to misinterpretation.’

  ‘You mean you double-crossed him.’

  ‘That is one interpretation.’

  ‘The one that Elliot is most likely to make?’

  Tuk shrugged. ‘Who knows? Elliot is a dangerous man. I do not wish to take any risks.’

  Grace nodded her understanding. ‘Wasn’t that exactly what you were doing when you didn’t play it straight with him?’

  Tuk smiled ruefully. ‘The best-laid schemes.’

  ‘So.’ Grace relaxed a little now. She had the measure of the situation. ‘What exactly is there in it for me?’

  ‘I have my insurance, you have the girl. She is of value to us both.’

  ‘But if Elliot returns?’

  ‘I think that very unlikely.’

  ‘But if he does, you have your insurance. Where does that leave me?’

  ‘She is your insurance also.’

  ‘But as things stand I have no need of insurance.’

  Tuk waved his hand dismissively, irritated by her persistence. ‘He will not return.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Do you not read the newspapers, listen to the radio?’

  Grace inclined her head, smiling at the foolishness of the question. ‘When do I have the time, Than? Or the inclination?’

  ‘You should make a point of it, Grace. These are unsettled times.’

  ‘So what have I missed?’

  ‘The Vietnamese have won decisively in the south. The Khmer Rouge are retreating north. It can only be a matter of days before Phnom Penh falls. If Elliot is hoping to come back out through Thailand he is likely to find himself in the thick of the Khmer Rouge retreat. Unless he makes it in the next forty-eight hours, I think one can safely assume he never will.’

  Grace drank all this in thoughtfully. ‘And what will happen to the girl, then?’

  Tuk showed his teeth, but it could hardly be described as a smile. ‘When you have finished with her, I have plans of my own. A small revenge, perhaps, for her father’s threats, but there will still be a satisfaction in it.’

  A chill ran through Grace’s heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Shards of reflected moonlight danced on the gently rippling black waters of the Tonle Sap. The thick stillness of the night was broken only by the sound of water slapping softly against the sides of the small wooden fishing craft.
Elliot sat in the stern drawing on his last cigarette. It was several hours since the outboard motor had packed in. All day they had been heading south, keeping the eastern shore just in sight. To the west, the great lake stretched to the horizon and beyond. They had seen no one, no other craft. There had been no sign of life all day except, in the mid-afternoon, for an aeroplane flying very high and crossing their bows some miles to the south. A military aircraft.

  In the deserted fishing village close to where they had been attacked by the Khmers the previous day, they had found a small abandoned fuel dump, and a number of flimsy fishing boats scuttled on the shore. Two of them were fitted with outboard motors, neither of which worked. Although tension between Elliot and McCue was still high, professional instinct and the cause of their survival had forced them to work as a team. Posting Serey and Ny on lookout, they had laboured in feverish silence to repair the least damaged of the boats and refloat it, before tackling the outboards. They had stripped each down to its casing, before selecting the best parts and rebuilding one sound motor. Black with grease, and running with sweat, they had taken more than fifteen minutes, and a dozen adjustments, before coaxing it to life.

  They had loaded the boat with every fuel can it could safely carry, in addition to themselves and their packs, and it was almost nightfall when they finally pushed off from shore, dangerously low in the water. At little more than walking pace, they had headed south, a hundred metres offshore, hugging the shoreline which they could see brooding darkly, first by starlight and then, when it rose, by the pale light of the moon.

  McCue and Elliot took turns at the helm in two-hour shifts. The two women slept, curled up in the bottom of the boat, waking up to bale out only when the water they were shipping began to slop about their faces.

  At dawn they had been spotted, from shore, and fired upon by a ragged Khmer Rouge patrol. McCue, then at the helm, had gunned the motor and turned the boat quickly out across the lake until the shore was a distant smudge on the horizon. He had then resumed their southbound course and adopted a slower pace to conserve fuel.

  As the sun rose through the day, the heat became unbearable, eyes burning in the glare and reflected blaze from the water. Only the faintest relief came from the breeze created by their slow progress south. They improvised headgear by cutting up a sleeping mat, and McCue contrived a makeshift awning to provide a tiny area of shade at the prow of the boat, using a sleeping bag and two crossplanks. They took it in turns to squat, uncomfortably, under its protection.

  Slattery was still a presence among them, like a ghost. Although the subject had never been raised, the anger burned deeply still in McCue’s eyes. Elliot’s sullen silence seemed devoid of remorse. Serey had watched them both for long periods. She had read the anger in McCue’s eyes, recognized the hatred that simmered there. It was something she had seen many times before, in the early days of the Khmer Rouge, before all those angry young men with hate in their hearts had forgotten their justification for killing, and death had become an end in itself. It was the dead quality in Elliot’s eyes that frightened her most, a chill, emotionless quality that glazed rather than burned – windows without reflection on a man without a soul. Ironically, it was this that had made her decide that, should she ever face a choice, she would side with Elliot. It was with him, she had concluded, that the best chance of salvation lay. Not for herself – she hardly cared any more – but for Ny, if that were at all possible.

  She glanced frequently at her daughter, distressed by her brooding silence and outward calm. She had mourned the loss of Ny ever since the girl had plunged Elliot’s knife with such ferocity into the soft belly of the young cadre at the commune, severing not only a life, but the last lingering ties between mother and daughter. The shock of it was with her still. She had understood then, as now, why. And with understanding had come guilt, as if she were somehow responsible. Should not a mother lay down her life to protect her child? And yet she had done nothing, said nothing, all those nights when the cadre had come and taken Ny off in the dark.

  Once, as she was baling out water with a tin mug, Ny had caught her mother watching her, and Serey averted her face, ashamed to meet her daughter’s eye. She had failed her. Nothing could be the same between them again. And she felt tears filling her eyes. Ny watched her for some moments then turned back to her task with a leaden heart. Her mother, she knew, was ashamed of her.

  Elliot had been aware of the change of pitch in the engine for some time. It was slight, almost imperceptible, but it rang an alarm in his head. McCue heard it also, raising his head and glancing towards Elliot with concern. Elliot shrugged, and they waited, through what seemed like eternal minutes, for confirmation of their fears. From that initial change in pitch, the rhythm of the engine had begun to falter and choke, like phlegm gathering in its throat. Elliot swung the rudder in and turned the boat in the direction of the shoreline, gunning the engine to carry them faster towards its distant, hazy outline. Serey and Ny were alerted, sitting up and watching with alarm. The outboard finally coughed and spat before choking on its own failure.

  In the silence that followed, the sound of McCue clambering to the stern of the stricken boat seemed unnaturally loud, echoing across the stillness of the water.

  With no exchange between then, the two men loosened the clamps and pulled the inert engine on board. McCue made a quick examination. ‘Ain’t fuel,’ he said.

  Working with oily, black fingers, he took the outboard apart and reassembled it several times without success. Elliot had watched, with growing despair, as they drifted further and further away from the safety of the shore. McCue tried again, pulling repeatedly on the starter only to hear the engine cough into life and then choke again, like a sick man’s dying whisper.

  Darkness had gathered quickly from the eastern shore, before finally enveloping them and ending their hopes of repairing the engine before dawn. McCue’s face had flickered briefly in the light of a match as he lit a cigarette. ‘Shoulda killed us all when you had the chance, Elliot,’ he said grimly. ‘We’re as good as dead now.’

  As the moon rose, they drifted, helpless, further out into the watery vastness of the Tonle Sap. Elliot knew that he had finally lost control of his own destiny. If there was a God, then they were all in his hands. He felt no fear, just an inner numbness, as when a man has swallowed a bottle of pills and succumbs drowsily to the onset of the final sleep. His mind turned away from looking back on the wasteland of his life, and there seemed little point in looking forward, since he could see no further than the dark night that surrounded them. He took a final draw on his cigarette and threw the last inch of it away into the night, hearing the briefest sizzle as it hit the water. Fatigue engulfed him. He turned at the sound of a whisper at his side, and found himself looking into Ny’s pale, moonlit face.

  ‘We going to die?’ Her voice seemed very tiny.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We all die sometime.’

  She dropped her eyes and shook her head in frustration. ‘No, I mean . . .’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ he interrupted her.

  ‘Then, why—’

  ‘Because I don’t know!’ There was irritation in his voice.

  A long silence in the dark. Then, ‘My mamma is shamed of me,’ she said. Elliot glanced quickly at the dark shape of the older woman lying sleeping in the bottom of the boat. ‘Because I kill man.’

  ‘Are you ashamed of yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was hard. ‘He deserve to die.’

  Elliot shrugged. ‘Lot of people do.’

  ‘Like your friend Mistah Slattery?’

  A seed of anger grew for a moment inside him, but failed to germinate. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He didn’t deserve to die.’

  ‘But you kill him.’

  ‘I’ve killed too many people to draw distinctions.’

  ‘I no understand.’

  He sighed
. ‘No. Most people don’t.’

  ‘But if he no deserve to die, why you kill him?’

  For a moment he studied the earnest child’s dark eyes that genuinely sought answers, and wondered why it should matter to her. Then it struck him that his daughter would probably have asked the same questions, and he was glad he would never have to face her, never have to tell her the truth, or face it himself.

  ‘If you are a soldier, if you are prepared to kill – for whatever reason – you must be prepared to be killed.’

  ‘And you are soldiers? You and your friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I no understand. What is your army?’

  Elliot searched for another cigarette, then remembered he’d smoked the last one. ‘We have no army,’ he said irritably. ‘We are soldiers of fortune.’ And he pre-empted her ‘No understand’ by adding, ‘We do it for money.’

  ‘You kill to live.’

  Elliot nodded. ‘Yeah, I suppose you could put it that way.’

  ‘Why?’

  Why, indeed, he wondered. He remembered his pride in donning his first uniform, his determination to excel in training, his aspirations to leadership. And then, the grim reality of action. He closed his eyes and, as the red mist dispersed, saw again the bodies of women and children lying dead and dying in the fly-infested heat. ‘Governments train you,’ he said, ‘to defend your country, they tell you. A proud tradition, a heritage of freedom. War, they say, is about the nobility of one man sacrificing himself for the freedom of another. And so you go and kill people in the name of freedom and you believe you are right. And maybe sometimes you are. But when you find yourself a long way from home, in a strange land where the people see you not as a liberator but as a jailer, perhaps you begin to question who is right and who is wrong. And then all that matters is survival. You kill in order not to be killed. If you stop to think about it, you die. So you stop thinking. And then you just kill. After all, it’s what they trained you for.’