The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller Page 26

  She hardly knew where they were. Up ahead she caught glimpses of Ny pointing uncertainly, the tense figure of Elliot urging her forward, clinging to the shadows of empty buildings, hesitating at every junction. And always, the voice of the American whispering close to her ear, coaxing, encouraging. On, on. Somewhere, far off to the west, the distant crump of an artillery shell increased the urgency. Serey found it difficult to breathe, a pain tightening across her chest, legs buckling as her head swam. Daylight had grown around them almost without their noticing, the ghost of the city emerging from the shadow of night to reveal its full horror. It was unreal, like some flickering monochrome image from an old movie. This was not her home. She didn’t know this place.

  Almost as suddenly as it had begun, nearly twelve hours before, the rain stopped, and the tropical sun rent a great chasm in the dark sky, lining black clouds with gold. The streets were immediately awash in soft light shimmering and reflecting from every wet surface to create the illusion of a newly painted world in which the paint had not yet dried. The sticky humidity gave way to a scorching heat that burned their skin, and they felt naked and exposed. Steam rose like smoke from the wet streets, and from their sodden clothing.

  They emerged into a large, empty square, and Serey gasped as though struck by a blow. On one side, the station towered above them, an imposing facade crumbling from years of neglect. A row of tumbledown apartment buildings led her eyes to a vast open space the size of a football pitch, incongruous, like a piece missing from a jigsaw. Mist rose in clouds from rainwater gathered across it in great pools. McCue put an arm round her waist to keep her on her feet.

  ‘What is it?’ But she could not speak and he followed her gaze.

  ‘The cathedral,’ she whispered at last. ‘It is gone.’ She remembered seeing it as a child, vast and imposing, a monumental stone edifice to a strange God. It had dominated the centre of the city, built by the French colons in the Thirties, the symbol of civilizing Catholic colonialism. How could it be gone? It had seemed for ever. And yet not a stone remained.

  Serey’s head dropped. If the cathedral was gone, what hope of finding her son in this bedevilled place? She had known all along that he would not be here. Hope had remained alive only for as long as Phnom Penh had seemed an impossible goal. She felt her heart wither inside her. A soft hand on her arm raised her eyes to see a reflection of herself twenty-five years ago, and she recognized the same hopelessness in the eyes. ‘We are almost there. We must not give up now.’ The hope in Ny’s voice belied the desolation she felt.

  The crump of artillery shells came again from the west, but closer now. Somewhere out towards the airport.

  Elliot’s voice was strained. ‘We must keep going.’

  Ny led them on past the site where the cathedral had stood, along a tree-lined avenue leading to a tree-covered hillock, Le Phnom, from which the city had taken its name. They hurried by a tall, crenellated building that had been the country’s most famous and celebrated hotel, Le Royal, renamed Le Phnom after the Lon Nol coup in 1970. Once, French colons and their stagiaires, planters and tourists, had sat on its grand terraces sipping Chablis and dining on fabulous fish from the Mekong. Now those same terraces gazed out on the avenue with dilapidated indifference as the stricken group limped by: an Englishman and an American, and two Cambodians who were survivors of a holocaust even the Nazis could not have imagined. Fleetingly, Elliot wondered if the French colonizers on their mission to ‘civilize’ this country a century before could ever have dreamt of such things. History had a power and will of its own which could not be predicted. Only in retrospect could understanding be found, and sometimes not even then.

  As they trailed through empty suburban streets the sky swallowed the sun and began again to spit fat drops of rain. It was impossible now to tell whether it was artillery they heard in the distance or the rumble of thunder. Crumbling villas sat in silence behind high walls and fleshy-leaved trees. Elliot carried the semi-conscious Serey in his arms. At first she had seemed feather-light and fragile, as if she might break if he handled her roughly. But now she was a dead weight, his arms aching with the strain, his khaki T-shirt black with sweat. McCue’s rifle hung down at his side, an admission of impotence in the face of overwhelming odds. He turned his face upwards to let the warm rain splash down on his burning skin. They had not seen a soul.

  The city was empty, abandoned to history and the Vietnamese. Ny walked mutely ahead, glazed eyes registering the familiar landmarks of her childhood – a time that belonged to another life in another world a million years ago. She heard the faint echo of children playing in the street. Some of the faces she saw quite clearly. Others remained obstinately obscure. Her mother’s voice rang out in admonishment, scolding. They must stay in the garden. It was dangerous in the street. Such simple dangers, so easily avoided.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Elliot searched her face with concern. She had stopped, suddenly, in the middle of the road, trembling fingers toying tentatively with each other.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said simply.

  Elliot’s eyes strayed past the broken gates to the streaked facade of the villa beyond. Its smashed shutters hung from windows opening into a gloomy interior. Gently, he put Serey back on her feet and held her arm as she wobbled unsteadily, blinking to focus on the house she had thought she would never see again. ‘You’re home, Serey.’ His voice was husky. A mighty crack of thunder broke overhead and the heavens opened. Elliot could not tell if it was the rain or tears that streaked Serey’s face.

  Slowly he led her through the rain up the broken driveway, past the buckled remains of an old bicycle, up a short flight of steps and through the open door. The house was a shambles of dust and debris, the air hot and rancid, and thick with the smell of human excrement. Flies clustered around them, filling the stillness with their incessant whine.

  McCue stepped quickly past them and into a front room, stooping to pick up an AK-47 from amongst the rubble. He shook the dust from it and checked the magazine. He looked up at Elliot. ‘Half full.’

  Both men turned as a tiny cry escaped from Serey’s lips, and she shuffled through the darkness of the hall to pick up a threadbare teddy lying abandoned in the dust. She clutched it to her chest and dropped, sobbing, to her knees. Elliot glanced at Ny. She shrugged helplessly, almost overcome by emotion.

  ‘It belong Hau.’

  Elliot went forward and crouched to put his arms around Serey. She was shivering and let her weight fall against him, her body racked with sobs. Her thin grey hair clung to her wet face as he pressed it gently to his chest. He could find no words of comfort or hope, and for a moment thought how strange it was that he should even try. Facing him, a door torn off its hinges lay on the floor, thick with a dust broken only by the tracks of small, bare feet. His eyes flickered up, penetrating the darkness of the room beyond. There, crouched against the wall, the naked figure of a small boy, knees pulled up under his chin, stared back at him. Time hung suspended, like the dust, for long seconds. The boom of artillery, the crackle of small-arms fire and the roar of trucks and tanks carried on the rain from the distant edges of the city. ‘Serey,’ Elliot whispered. And, again, more urgently, ‘Serey!’ Something in his voice made her lift her head from the depths of despair. She saw light reflected in his eyes and turned to follow his gaze.

  A cry of anguish tore from her throat and she broke free of him, scrambling over the door and into the room.

  ‘What is it?’ Ny’s voice came from the other end of the hall. Her bare feet padded through the gloom. She stopped in the doorway, her eyes filling with tears at the sight of the skinny, naked figure rocking back and forwards in Serey’s arms on the floor, clutching at her soaking black tunic. Wordlessly, she walked into the room and knelt to put her arms around her mother and brother and bury her face in theirs.

  Elliot slumped back against the wall and lit a cigarette, his eyes gritty and stinging from lac
k of sleep. He heard footsteps crunch across the debris and looked up as McCue turned his eyes from the room to meet his. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, then Elliot looked away. He had nothing to say.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Sunlight slanted through the shutters in long yellow stripes, cutting through the dark interior to zigzag across the contours of the bedroom and the bed. Lisa’s slender white body lay twisted among the sheets, frozen in the final turn of a restless sleep as though bound there by the strips of light. She seemed caught in time, like the dust suspended in the still air. Somewhere, far off in the depths of the house, the faint sound of breaking glass disturbed the silence, seeping into her troubled dreamland to force her up through unfolding shrouds of darkness to the waking light of day.

  For several drowsy moments she lay still, feeling nothing but a vague awareness of the slats of light that lay across her like hot fingers. She turned her head a little to the side and saw the oil lamp on the bedside table. A blurred memory pricked her consciousness, fighting to find focus. And then it all flooded back in a sudden shocking wave of recollection, horrifying in its clarity. She sat bolt upright, a fluttering in her chest, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tasted the choking, cloying smoke of the opium, saw the face of the General hovering over hers, twisted to ugliness by the force of his passion.

  She looked around her, suddenly anxious that he might still be there, but the room was empty. Only the stale smell of the opium lingered. For a moment she wondered if perhaps it had all been some kind of nightmare induced by the drug. Then she saw the stain of her blood on the sheets and let out a cry of shame and hurt. She turned quickly on to her side as bile rose from her stomach, burning her throat and mouth to spew out on to the pillow. Her eyes blurred as they filled with tears.

  She lay for several minutes sobbing painfully, increasingly aware of the raw, tender feeling inside her. Then, slowly, she eased herself from the bed and rose unsteadily to her feet. Still trembling, she picked up the General’s black gown from where it had been dropped on the floor. She slipped into it, hugging it tightly around her, and crossed to the door, each jarring step a painful reminder of her lost innocence. The hall was dark. She made her way along it, pushing each door open until she found the bathroom. The light switch yielded a hard bright light that glared back at her from white-tiled walls. Light-headed and on the point of fainting, she staggered to the washbasin and was sick again, a dry, retching sickness. She looked up and saw, with a shock, her face staring back at her from the mirror. It was a face she barely recognized, eyes swollen and puffy from tears she had no recollection of spilling. She saw the disgust in her expression and turned quickly away to run back along the hall to the bedroom.

  Her clothes lay strewn across the floor at the end of the bed. Hurriedly, she gathered them together and slipped into her red silk dress with fumbling fingers. She felt soiled. Dirty. But her desire to get out of this house was even greater than her desire to wash – if it would ever be possible to wash away the shame.

  She hurried down the stairs as the General’s houseboy emerged from the kitchen winding a strip of lint round a bloodied hand. He grinned. ‘I break glass,’ he said. ‘Cut myself.’

  ‘Where’s the General?’ Lisa heard herself asking.

  ‘Gone,’ said the boy. ‘Early.’

  Lisa fought to remain calm. ‘Would you call me a taxi, please.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the boy. ‘You want breakfast first?’

  ‘No!’ Lisa heard the panic rising in her voice. ‘Just call me a taxi.’

  With a little bow, the boy disappeared back into the kitchen. Lisa saw her purse lying on the settee where she had left it. She picked it up and looked inside. Her heart sank. No money. She put a hand on the back of the settee to steady herself. Think! Think! Grace would pay for the taxi when she got there. Wouldn’t she? Of course she would. She perched on the edge of the settee and waited for what seemed an age. The General’s collection of Buddhas stared at her from shelves and plinths, something mocking in the serenity of their gentle, smiling faces. She found herself shivering, and had to concentrate to stop her teeth from chattering.

  Eventually the houseboy came out from the kitchen. ‘Taxi here.’

  She almost ran to the door, flinging it open to run down the steps to the waiting car. She slipped into the back seat and pulled the door shut, and only when she saw the driver’s inquiring eyes in the mirror did she realize that she did not know Grace’s address. Again she fought to stay calm. ‘Do you know La Mère Grace?’

  ‘Everybody know La Mère Grace,’ the driver said with a grin.

  ‘Can you take me there, please?’ She was surprised at how controlled she sounded.

  ‘Chez La Mère Grace?’ said the driver. ‘No problems.’ And Lisa let her head fall back, weak with relief, as the car drew away from the house, out into the soi and away from the Klong San Saep towards Rama I Road.

  *

  ‘La Mère Grace, La Mère Grace! Is Miss Lisa!’ The girl’s shrill Thai voice pierced the brooding silence of the villa, her pale feet pattering across the cool, tiled floor.

  Grace emerged anxiously from the dining room wrapped in a white bathrobe, hair pulled back from her drawn face. There was shock in her eyes as she took in the pale, bedraggled figure of the English girl standing awkwardly just inside the door, her new red dress creased, and torn at the shoulder. ‘Good God, child! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you!’ She hurried across the hall to take her arm as Lisa almost fainted. Grace barked an instruction in Thai and the housegirl moved quickly to take Lisa’s other arm. But Lisa took a deep breath and shrugged them aside.

  ‘I’m alright.’ All the way across the city in the taxi she had wanted only to throw herself into Grace’s arms, to tell her everything, to feel her warmth and sympathy. But now that she was here she felt trapped by her own secret; guilty and ashamed. ‘The taxi is still in the drive,’ she said. ‘I had no money.’

  Grace nodded to the house girl, who hurried away to see to it.

  ‘I’d like a bath,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Of course, child. Have you eaten?’

  Lisa shook her head.

  ‘Then I will see there is some breakfast waiting for you when you come down.’ Grace watched with concern as Lisa walked to the foot of the stairs. As she climbed the first step, Lisa hesitated, half-turned, and looked back as though about to speak. Grace felt a chill run through her at the penetration of those sad blue eyes. She wondered, with a tiny stab of guilt, if it was accusation she read in them, but whatever it was that Lisa had thought to say, she changed her mind, turning away again to walk stiffly up the stairs. Grace stood for a long time in the hall after Lisa had gone. She was disturbed, confused by the powerful and unfamiliar feelings of guilt that the girl had aroused in her. It was as if some half-remembered conscience had returned from a half-forgotten past to haunt her.

  She wandered back through to the dining room and sat listlessly at the long table. A great wave of fatigue broke over her and she let her head fall into her hands. It had been such a long, sleepless night, an agony of waiting. Each time she had closed her eyes, Lisa’s trusting face had materialized in the dark, and she had been forced to open them quickly to dispel the image. She had lain wide-eyed, remembering the touch of the girl’s father. The thought that he might now be dead had only increased her sadness. She heard the faint sound of water running, the bath being filled, and she felt her eyes filling, too. Unaccountably. She shook her head. It was madness! Had she survived a life of corruption, actively pursued it, only to fall victim to the insidious innocence of a young girl? Such feelings, she knew, were a weakness, stealing away her strength and independence. And that could only be dangerous. For the first time she felt a seed of fear germinate deep inside her.

  Grace was still sitting at the table when Lisa came down, wrapped in a thin cotton robe,
her hair still wet and brushed back from her face. There was something almost shocking in the whiteness of her skin, more naked than naked. With all trace of make-up washed away she looked very young. Her eyes were red and still puffy. She cast a listless eye over the fresh fruit that had been laid out.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Grace said.

  ‘I’ll just have some orange juice.’ Lisa leaned over to pour herself a glass. She sipped at it pensively. There was something dead in her expression, something very far away.

  Grace watched her apprehensively. ‘Sit down.’

  But Lisa turned her back and drifted slowly across to the French windows where she stood in the open doorway gazing out at the sun-dappled garden. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said at length, without turning. ‘I’m not very good company.’

  A brightly coloured bird flitted among the dense green growth, screeching some secret signal to a mate. Lisa felt Grace’s hands on her shoulders, warm lips on her neck, and a shiver ran through her. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  Lisa did. But she couldn’t. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Grace moved round to her side and took her hand. ‘It might help. Whenever you feel you can.’

  Lisa turned to face her and was struck anew by her perfect beauty. Fine, dark, almond eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the full sensuous lips; lips that had kissed her father’s. And for a moment she was almost tempted to lean forward and brush her own lips against them. But the moment passed and she took a step away, turning back to the garden. ‘My father’s dead, isn’t he?’