The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller Page 6

  ‘So what about that drink?’

  ‘Why not.’ Elliot felt like getting drunk.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lisa opened a small, white-painted wooden gate and started down the path through the trees towards the house. It was a mock Tudor building, white with black-painted cross-beams and latticed windows. The garden was extensive and well kept, a path leading round the side to a large lawn at the back which sloped down towards the river’s edge. The weather had changed overnight. It had been bitterly cold, threatening snow for Christmas. But today it was unseasonably mild, an almost springlike warmth in the sun that slipped out periodically from behind the scudding white clouds that raced across the winter sky.

  She was apprehensive, but the passing days had blunted hope and she expected nothing. She had returned several times to the mews house, but always there had been no one there. If this proved another dead end, she had resolved to put it all behind her, return to college after the holidays and try to build a new life for herself. She would tell herself that, after all, her father really was dead as her mother had always told her. In time she might even grow to believe it. She would probably marry David, raise children and lead a normal life. Normal! Whatever that was.

  She knocked on the door and waited, praying that at least someone would answer, even if only to tell her she had the wrong address. Not knowing was the worst. The sun slipped behind a cloud and a shadow fell over her like fading hope. She knocked again and was about to turn away when the door opened abruptly. A grey-haired man in a green pullover, baggy trousers and tennis shoes peered out at her. She hesitated, not quite sure now what to say. ‘Yes?’ the man asked.

  ‘Sergeant Samuel Blair?’ she stammered, aware of the colour rising on her cheeks. He frowned, eyeing her suspiciously.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I’m Lisa Elliot,’ she said.

  Blair was at a loss for words. He had figured her for some young reporter trying to dig up an old story. It happened from time to time. But he saw now that she was too young, her face flushed with uncertainty.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ he said at length.

  He led her through to the sun lounge and indicated the chair where her father had sat only a few days before. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ She shook her head. He sat on the edge of his leather armchair opposite her, leaning forward, hands clasped between his legs. He stared at them for a moment. Big rough hands, speckles of age like large freckles spattering the back of them. ‘So how can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for my father.’ She was hesitant. Not sure how much she should tell him. But there was something warm in his eyes that drew her on. ‘I have an address in a Chelsea mews. I know he did live there, but it seems to be empty now.’

  Blair nodded, reluctant to commit himself to anything yet. He examined her face. Pretty. And he thought he saw something of her father in her. Was it the blue of her eyes? Maybe something in the set of the mouth, or the line of the jaw? ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Luck really,’ she said. ‘And a journalist’s training.’ He allowed himself an ironic smile. He hadn’t been so wrong, after all. She added, ‘I went through all the names of those convicted at the court martial and looked in the telephone book. Yours was the only one listed. But, even then, I couldn’t be sure it was the same Samuel Blair.’

  Blair made a mental note to change his number and go ex-directory. ‘I understood you’d been told Jack was dead.’

  ‘Jack? Is that what you call him?’ It was odd hearing him referred to by name by someone who knew him. It made him more real. ‘I thought it was John.’

  Blair shrugged. ‘He’s always been Jack to me. And you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d asked me one.’ She caught his look. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I was told he was dead. Then this man turned up at the funeral . . .’

  Blair was taken aback. ‘He was at the funeral!’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I didn’t know who he was, of course. But then I found all the newspaper cuttings in the attic, and some old photographs. My mother had shut them away.’

  He saw a large tear gather itself on the brim of her eye before it rolled down her cheek.

  ‘All those years he was alive, sending money. And I grew up without a father. And then I find out he was a – a murderer!’ She looked at him, daring him to contradict her, her eyes blurred and wet. ‘And you were, too.’

  Blair was embarrassed by her tears, hurt by her words, sharing the pain of them. ‘You mustn’t be too hard on him, Lisa.’

  And immediately she punished the inadequacy of the only words he had been able to find in response. ‘Why not?’ Her eyes blazed at him. ‘Do you think it wasn’t hard on me? All the other kids had dads. Dads who took them skating, picked them up from dancing, read them stories.’

  ‘And all those dads had little girls to pick up from dancing, to read stories to. It goes both ways, Lisa.’

  ‘Maybe. But whose fault was that? Mine?’ All the resentment that had been growing inside spilled out in bitter words. Now she knew why she wanted to find her father so badly. She wanted someone to blame. Blair reached across and took her hand. Such a small hand in his. There was compassion in his eyes. Understanding. And Lisa wondered how it was possible that this man, too, was responsible for killing all those women and children.

  ‘I think you could do with some air,’ he said. A wry smile. ‘I think I could, too.’

  *

  Lisa said, ‘Not having a father, not knowing anything about him, I invented him for myself, made up stories about him.’ She felt better for the fresh air, strangely comfortable with this man, able to talk to him as she had never talked to anyone before. They followed a path through the trees by the water’s edge, scuffing through the dead leaves that still lay thick and rotting on the ground.

  ‘He was very handsome and kind, and brave, and he died in some heroic gesture trying to save the lives of his men. It had broken my mother’s heart and it still hurt her deeply even to talk about him, so she never did. It’s what I told my friends. There was a time, I think, I actually believed it myself. But somewhere, deep down, I suppose I always knew it wasn’t true. And as I got older I started to hate him, blame him for dying and leaving us. Just as I blame my mother now for leaving me to face everything on my own. Not very rational. How can you blame someone for dying?’

  ‘It’s quite common when someone close to you dies,’ Blair said. ‘You feel let down, betrayed.’

  Lisa glanced at him, sensing that he wasn’t generalizing, that he was speaking from personal experience. But she didn’t ask. ‘I was never close to my mother, though,’ she said. ‘I didn’t love her, and I’m sure she didn’t love me. Sometimes I even felt that she resented me. Maybe she did. Maybe all I was to her was a constant reminder of my father.’ She shook her head. ‘But if that was true, why did she go to such lengths to protect me from the truth? From ever knowing anything about him?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Blair, ‘she wasn’t so much protecting you as punishing him.’

  Lisa looked at him, startled. But he refused to meet her gaze. Of course! It would fit with her mother’s twisted logic. The thought had a profoundly depressing effect on her.

  ‘But that’s probably oversimplifying it,’ Blair added lamely and too late.

  They came to a bench overlooking the river and sat down, watching the slow movement of the water in silence for some time. Finally she asked the question that had been consuming her for days. ‘What’s he like, my father?’

  Blair shrugged. ‘That’s like asking how long is a piece of string.’

  ‘But you know him – or did.’

  The Scot shook his head. ‘Jack’s not a man you ever know. Not really. Though I suppose I’m the closest thing he’s got to a friend. But even then, I don’t know him. He’s a complex character. If you’re asking if
I like him the answer is yes. Very much. I admire him and respect him, but I also like him.’

  ‘How can you like someone you don’t know?’ And immediately she recognized the paradox of her question. She didn’t know the man she had asked it of, but she knew she liked him.

  ‘Jack never confided in me,’ Blair said. ‘At least, not anything personal, never what was really in his heart. But there was always a rapport between us. Sometimes it’s the things left unsaid that say the most. He never spoke of your mother, or of you, but I knew he was hurting. And he still carries the scars of that hurt, though you can’t see them like you can the scar on his face.

  ‘When they sent him to prison he asked me if I would make sure that you were both provided for – until he could pay me back.’

  ‘It was you that paid the money into my mother’s account?’

  He nodded. ‘And, of course, he did pay me back. It wasn’t easy for him at first, when he got out. He went to Vietnam for a spell and fought for the Diem regime. And then in the Seventies to Africa. Rhodesia, Angola.’

  ‘A mercenary?’ Lisa could not hide her distaste for the word.

  Blair smiled wryly. ‘A soldier of fortune,’ he said. ‘After all, it was all he knew, soldiering. It was what he was trained for, and he was very good at it. If it hadn’t been for Aden . . .’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Lisa broke in, accusation again in her voice. ‘How could you shoot all those people in cold blood like that?’

  Blair got up and walked a few paces towards the river’s edge. hands in his pockets, remembering how it had been. The heat. That scorching, dusty, white heat. The casualties, on both sides, the dead and the dying, men with horrific injuries. Betrayal and counter-betrayal. Never knowing who to trust. And the flies. Always those damned flies, crawling into every gaping wound, getting in your mouth, your eyes. He breathed deeply, drawing the chill clean English air into his lungs. ‘Whatever it was, it wasn’t in cold blood,’ he said. ‘We were all of us tired and scared. We’d been drawn into an ambush at a town on the edge of the southern desert. False information. They’d sucked us in and were cutting us to pieces. We all thought we were going to die.

  ‘We’d been coming under heavy fire from a large building in the middle of town. Jack reckoned if we could take and hold that building we could secure our position, at least for a while. We lobbed a couple of grenades through the ground-floor windows and moved in under covering fire. That’s when the white flag appeared. Not a flag, really. A piece of dirty white cloth in one of the windows. But, Jesus, if we’d stopped then we’d have been sitting ducks. How were we to know that they’d already withdrawn, that all that was left was a bunch of women and children?

  ‘Jack ordered us to keep going, ignore the flag, and he was right. I’d have done the same. We all would. But he was the officer, he gave the order, he took the fall.’ He paused, fists clenched in his pockets, eyes tight shut trying to black out the horror of it. Then he opened them wide and saw it as clearly as he had every night in the dreams that had haunted him all the years since.

  ‘We went in, guns blazing, just like in the movies. Only when the dust and the smoke cleared we were looking at the bodies of women and kids, dead, dying, bleeding.’ He turned to face her, but found that he couldn’t meet her gaze and his eyes flickered away.

  ‘It didn’t read like that in the newspaper reports of the court martial,’ she said.

  ‘No – but, then, courts only deal with facts. The truth – well, the truth is something else.’

  ‘Truth is subjective.’

  He looked at her, surprised by the insight in one so young. But her eyes carried no condemnation, only pity. And, perhaps, he thought, that was worse. ‘It was all a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I suppose I really don’t know what the truth is any more. All I know is the truth I can live with. And, God knows, that’s hard enough, lass.’

  They walked back to the house in silence. ‘Would you like to stay for tea?’ he asked when they got in.

  ‘No, I must go.’ She turned at the door. ‘Where is he, Mr Blair?’

  Blair hesitated. There was a good chance Elliot would never come out of Cambodia alive. Then, ‘Thailand,’ he said.

  *

  He sat for a long time in the dying day after she’d gone, full of doubts. The room was sunk in a deep gloom when he finally reached for the phone. He listened to Elliot’s voice on the other end, thin and unreal on the tape of his answering machine. After the tone Blair said, ‘If she hasn’t found you before you get this message, Jack, your daughter knows you’re alive and she’s looking for you.’

  And the machine was primed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tuk Than had a villa on Sukhumvit Road. It was an impressive house built in the French colonial style, anonymous and cool behind shuttered windows. The brief chill of early morning had given way to the fierce south-east Asian sun which was rising high now above the Bangkok skyline, smeared by a haze of heat and humidity. Slattery’s face was red and beaded with sweat. He tugged uncomfortably at his collar and loosened his tie. ‘Jeez, chief, did we have to get all togged up for this?’

  ‘It’s expected,’ was all Elliot said, and Slattery wondered how he managed to look so cool in his dark suit.

  A demure young Thai girl in yellow tunic and long silk skirt bowed and led them through the delicious cool of the house, where ceiling fans turned lazily in darkened rooms. Out through French windows into the heat once more. Elliot and Slattery screwed their eyes against the glare. The large walled garden was lush and green, still dripping after its early morning sprinkling. A white table and four chairs were set in the shade of a tall, broad-leafed tree at one end of a lawn like billiard baize. Tuk was taking breakfast at the table, short black hair brushed stiffly back from his brown face. He wore an immaculately pressed white shirt and pale slacks. Everything about him – hair, hands, clothes, his smile and his English – was as neatly manicured as his lawn.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ He made no attempt to rise, but waved expansively towards the empty chairs. ‘Won’t you join me? I’m having a little late breakfast.’

  ‘Thank you, we’ve already eaten,’ Elliot said. He and Slattery sat down.

  ‘Mr Elliot, I take it,’ Tuk said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And . . .’ Tuk’s eyes flickered towards the sweating Slattery.

  ‘Slattery,’ Elliot said. Slattery nodded, uncomfortable and untidy in his crumpled, ill-fitting white suit.

  ‘So . . .’ Tuk clasped his hands and beamed at them. ‘Our friend in London has told me of your requirements, and of course I can supply – at a price.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Elliot was already wary of him. He was too squeaky clean, too ostentatiously wealthy – calculating and obsequious. His aftershave, liberally applied to his freshly shaved cheeks, was too expensive and carried the reek of corruption. His hands, Elliot noticed, were like a woman’s. He was small and slim, possibly in his early forties. Wariness was turning to distrust.

  ‘I have arranged passes allowing you access to the Mak Moun refugee camp north of Aranyaprathet on the Cambodian border. I can take you down tomorrow. There I can also put you in touch with a man who will take you safely across the border.’ He smiled. ‘We can discuss terms later, but first . . .’ He raised an arm and snapped his fingers. The girl who had brought them in appeared at the French windows and he uttered some clipped instruction. ‘I insist that you join me in a drink.’

  ‘I won’t say no to that,’ Slattery grinned.

  The girl brought three amber-coloured drinks in tall glasses, ice ringing coolly against the glass. ‘A Mekong-based cocktail, mixed with various fruit juices,’ Tuk said. Slattery eyed the girl as she retreated towards the house. Tuk followed his eyes and smiled. He inclined his head and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to your success.’ They sipped the bitter-sweet cocktail and Tuk
dabbed his brow with a small white handkerchief. ‘You realize, of course, that the Thai authorities would not approve of your little venture into Democratic Kampuchea.’

  ‘I didn’t think your people were on the best of terms with Pol Pot and his pals,’ Slattery said.

  ‘They are not, Mr Slattery, but they wish to avoid a war at all costs. There is a large army presence along the border. It is well patrolled. Naturally, if the police or the army were to discover your intentions you would most certainly be arrested. They would not like to provoke an incident with the Khmer Rouge. The risk, therefore, to myself in supplying you is increased.’

  ‘Like the price, no doubt.’

  Tuk smiled at the irony in Elliot’s voice. ‘It goes without saying. The greater the risk, the greater the recompense. I imagine you would not be undertaking this – adventure – if the rewards were not very great.’

  ‘A calculated risk,’ Elliot conceded.

  ‘And your calculations will doubtless include the knowledge that the area east of the north-west sector is thick with Khmer Rouge units.’

  ‘It’s our only possible crossing point,’ Elliot said. ‘I’ve looked at all the other possibilities. There’s the Dangrek mountains to the north, and the Phnom Malai mountain range, thickly wooded as I understand it, to the south.’

  ‘Which is precisely why there is such a heavy concentration of troops in the north-west. It is from there that any Cambodian invasion of Thailand will come. Conversely, it is this area that the Khmers see the need to defend against any imagined threat from the west. And, of course, it is through this area that most of the refugees have come. The forests are mined and booby-trapped, and well patrolled by the Khmer Rouge.’

  Elliot had done his homework. He already knew much of what Tuk was telling them. ‘I’m banking on a decreased presence because of the continuing border confrontations with the Vietnamese in the south,’ he said.

  ‘Then you are banking on a fantasy,’ Tuk replied. ‘You must realize, Mr Elliot, that the regime of Pol Pot is neither rational nor sane. I myself heard the famous broadcast from Radio Phnom Penh last year, which claimed that one Kampuchean soldier was capable of killing thirty Vietnamese, and that, therefore, only two million Kampuchean troops would be required to wipe out the entire population of Vietnam.’ There was contempt in his smile. ‘They are sacrificing thousands of yotheas – child soldiers – in the border war with Vietnam. Children of ten and twelve years, Mr Elliot. And if they refuse to fight they are shot in the back by their own people. As I understand it, Phnom Penh has committed only thirty to forty thousand troops in the south, while the Vietnamese have massed around a hundred and twenty thousand along the border.’