The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller Page 7

  Slattery glanced at Elliot. ‘Tougher than you thought, then, chief?’

  Elliot seemed unfazed. ‘I need more first-hand intelligence on the ground we’ll be covering. It makes it all the more important for us to talk to refugees who have recently come through the north-west sector.’

  There was hardly a breath of air in the sheltered silence of Tuk’s garden. The late morning heat was intense, the humidity rising. Slattery finished his drink with regret and felt the now familiar tightening across his chest, a dull pain growing acidly from somewhere deep inside his solar plexus. His concentration wandered as Tuk sat back languidly in his chair, dabbing his forehead, clearly in a mood to talk. ‘What do you know of Democratic Kampuchea, Mr Elliot?’ he said.

  ‘Only what I’ve read in the newspapers,’ Elliot said. ‘There isn’t much information coming out of the country.’

  ‘Enough to know that there has been genocide on a massive scale.’ Tuk sipped at his drink. ‘Stone-Age communism, the Vietnamese call it. Even the Chinese, who have backed Pol Pot from the start, are embarrassed by what has been happening since he took power. The Khmer Rouge are giving communism a bad name. They have been trying to build what they see as a classless society, based on an agrarian economy. They have emptied the cities, wiped out their intelligentsia. Anyone who could read or write, or speak another language. If you wore glasses you were shot as an intellectual – even if you had been no more than a simple fisherman. They are fanatical, almost beyond belief. Even Stalin would have been shocked.’

  He leaned back reflectively, enjoying what he knew, savouring it from the security of his villa in Sukhumvit Road, passing it on to lesser mortals with a careless generosity.

  ‘The strange thing is that it is a peculiarly Cambodian phenomenon. These are Cambodians destroying fellow Cambodians. Incestuous genocide. You must speak to a Cambodian friend of mind about it.’ He glanced at his gold wristwatch. ‘If you care to have another drink while you wait, she will be here very shortly.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do no harm, chief,’ Slattery said eagerly.

  Elliot shrugged. ‘We’ve nothing better to do.’

  The drinks came and Tuk spoke for some time of Thailand, of the Prime Minister, General Kriangsak Chamanan, a moderate military figure, he said, who had cut back Thai support for the Khmer Serei – the Free Khmer – guerrillas who were based along the border and dedicated to the downfall of the Khmer Rouge. Elliot seemed to Slattery to be listening with interest, but Slattery himself had no interest in any of it. He looked around the garden, reflecting on how good life could have been. Not that he had been disappointed by his forty-odd years. He had enjoyed most of them, living often close to death, something that always somehow heightened the pleasure of life itself. How could you really know life, he thought, until you had faced death? But he had never had money. Not real money. How differently he might have felt about life, and death, if he had. But, then, he thought wryly, even money can’t save you from the Big C.

  It was Slattery, lost in his thoughts, who saw her first. Radiant, all in white, stepping through the French windows. He blinked in case he was dreaming. She was, he thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wore a calf-length, white, cotton dress, cross-cut in a deep V over her small breasts and tied loosely at the waist by a red cord. Silken black hair cascaded over her shoulders, so black it was almost blue as it caught the glare of the sun. Her skin was the colour of teak, her eyes a deep, almost luminescent brown. There was just a touch of rouge on her fine high cheekbones, a hint of blue on the lids of her eyes, the merest trace of red on her full, wide lips. She moved with a slow assured elegance across the lawn and he realized that she was tall, perhaps five-six, and not of pure Asian blood. Tuk rose as she approached, and Elliot turned his head to see her for the first time. And he knew from that first moment that she was something very special.

  ‘My dear,’ Tuk said. He stood and made a little bow. She kissed him on each cheek in the French manner and took his hands in hers.

  ‘Than. You are well, I hope?’ she said with an accent that owed more to French than Cambodian.

  Tuk smiled with genuine affection. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But I have no need to ask it of you. You are radiant, as always.’

  She inclined her head in acknowledgement with the assurance of one accustomed to admiration. Slattery saw now that she was older than she appeared. Tiny lines around the eyes and the mouth, a slight loosening of the skin at her neck. She looked thirty, although she could easily have been forty, or even more. But age enhanced rather than diminished her beauty. She was flawed only by her lack of innocence. A look, knowing and calculated, in her eyes. She turned, ignoring Slattery, and looked directly at Elliot with an unwavering gaze of naked interest. ‘Are you not going to introduce us, Than?’

  ‘But, of course. La Mère Grace, Mr Elliot. A business associate from England.’

  ‘Oh? And what kind of business are you in, Mr Elliot?’

  ‘I make war,’ Elliot said.

  She offered him a cool hand, small and perfect, which caressed his for the briefest of moments. Then she looked at Slattery. Tuk said, ‘And Mr Slattery.’

  ‘And do you make war also, Mr Slattery?’ she asked.

  ‘Only when I get paid.’ Slattery grinned and added, ‘But I prefer making love.’

  She raised an elegant eyebrow. ‘Then we have much in common. I, too, prefer to make love. But only when paid.’ Her eyes flickered back to Elliot.

  Tuk watched with amusement. ‘Grace runs the best brothel in Bangkok,’ he said. ‘Please, do sit.’ They all sat and Tuk called for another drink.

  ‘Brothel is not a word I care to use,’ La Mère Grace said. ‘It has . . . connotations. My girls entertain only the most discerning of clients. I have other establishments to cater for the more basic clientele.’ She looked again at Slattery. ‘We can cater for almost every taste.’ Slattery shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, feeling like a book that had just been read and discarded.

  Tuk offered her a cigarette and lit it, then lit one for himself. He did not extend the offer to Elliot or Slattery. She took tiny puffs, exhaling the smoke through pursed lips.

  ‘La Mère Grace ran the most celebrated house in Phnom Penh until the early Seventies.’ Tuk leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. ‘She only just escaped the country before the Khmer Rouge took over. Unfortunately she was unable to bring her girls with her.’

  ‘I very much fear they were killed by the communists,’ she said with no apparent trace of regret. ‘I have had to find and train new girls. Thai girls.’

  ‘I was telling Mr Elliot,’ Tuk said, ‘that he must speak to you of Cambodia. He and Mr Slattery intend visiting it in the not too distant future.’

  A look of surprise flickered momentarily in her eyes, but she knew better than to ask. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If I can be of any assistance.’

  Tuk stood up. ‘And now, gentlemen, I have other business to attend to. At which hotel are you staying?’

  Elliot rose. ‘The Narai.’

  ‘Then I shall pick you up this evening at seven and take you to my warehouse to examine the merchandise. And we can also make arrangements for our trip tomorrow.’

  His dismissal was brief and pointed. Slattery raised himself to his feet and grinned at La Mère Grace. ‘Pleased to have met you, ma’am.’

  She smiled perfunctorily and held out a card to Elliot. ‘Call on me tomorrow night. Both of you. I’ll expect you at nine.’

  She watched them walk across the lawn towards the house. ‘He doesn’t say much,’ she said. ‘The dark one.’

  Tuk rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It is often the quiet ones who are the most dangerous. We would, each of us, do well not to underestimate him.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  David poured the last of the wine into their glasses. Lisa had drunk most of the bottle, s
ince he was driving. Before the meal she had gone through three gins and tonic. He wasn’t sure now whether she meant to be vague or whether it was the drink. It was she who had called and suggested they go out for a meal – the first time she’d called him in days. But she had been strangely formal and uncommunicative, and done nothing to assuage his growing exasperation with her. He was beginning to lose patience.

  She was toying absently with her glass, staring vacantly at some spot on the table. It was as though he wasn’t there. He felt an anger welling in him. He did appreciate that she was going through an emotional crisis – the death of her mother, the discovery that her father was alive. But she was refusing to share it with him, to let him in, to let him help. Now he was feeling used. Why had she asked him to take her out for a meal, and then sat through it silent and morose, refusing to give a direct answer to any of his questions? He restrained an impulse to snap at her, and asked with a patience that he did not feel, ‘Why won’t he see you?’

  She lifted her head and seemed surprised. ‘Oh, it’s not that he won’t see me. He can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he – he’s out of the country. He doesn’t even know I know he’s alive.’

  ‘So how do you know he’s out of the country?’

  She sighed. She hadn’t wanted to go into it all. She could have told him over the phone what she was going to do, but felt she at least owed him an explanation in person. But faced with him like this, she wasn’t finding it easy. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve got time.’

  She hesitated, then reached a decision, drained her glass and said, ‘Alright, I’ll tell you. But take me home first.’ She didn’t want a row in the restaurant.

  He bit back a retort and signalled the waiter that he wanted the bill.

  They drove back to the house in silence. He glanced at her once or twice, but she was still miles away. The house was cold and dark when they got in, and she lit the gas fire in the living room, drawing the curtains and turning on a small table lamp. ‘You want a drink?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m driving.’

  She nodded and poured herself a large gin and tonic.

  He said, ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough already?’

  ‘No,’ she replied simply. ‘If I want to get pissed I’ll get pissed.’ She took her glass, almost defiantly, and squatted on the rug in front of the fire. He sat in her mother’s armchair and thought how childish she was being. What had he ever seen in her? She was a good-looking girl, intelligent, brimming with potential. But if he had once believed it was a potential he could shape, he was already beginning to entertain doubts. It wasn’t as though they even had any kind of sexual relationship. She’d always been strange about that, as if sex frightened her. And, like most things about her, he didn’t begin to understand because she would never tell him. Anything. She was like a book with an exotic title that excited the interest. But she had never allowed him to open it.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You were going to tell me.’

  She looked at him and wondered why she had felt she owed him anything. She didn’t love him. Oh, she had thought so at first. He was so good-looking. Thick red hair swept back from a fine face. A voice that came from his boots. He looked as though he should have led a Bohemian existence in the Paris of the nineteen-twenties. And he had seemed so caring and sincere at first, with all his deeply held views on social justice. Social justice! she thought with irony. The only social justice he was interested in was his own. He was so possessive about everything: his job, his future, his life. And she was just another of his possessions. The only reason, it occurred to her, that he hadn’t already given up on her was because he would have counted it a failure. His failure. And David couldn’t bear to fail at anything. And, yet, in spite of it all, there was something about him she still liked. She shied away from the idea that it was the sense of safety she felt with him. She wanted to believe it was more than that.

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me or aren’t you?’ he asked. She sipped her gin then took a deep breath and told him. Everything. The mews house in Chelsea where there was never any reply, the searches through the phone book, the visit to the Sergeant’s house, everything that he had told her, everything she had told him. David listened gravely, just letting her talk. It occurred to him that it would make a good feature for one of the Sunday papers, then he was shocked that he had even thought of it and realized how little he really cared. It worried him, sometimes, how little he felt for other people, how little their problems touched him. Life was all a performance, the way you were expected to behave. And hurt was only what you felt, never what the other person felt. He decided to be sympathetic.

  He sat down on the floor beside her, slipping an arm around her waist, squeezing her gently, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. He ran his hand back through her hair, then traced the line of her nose, lips and chin lightly with his fingers. The smell of her perfume, the warmth of her closeness, began a stirring in his loins and quickened his heart. What was it about her that made him want her so much? ‘Poor Lisa,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. You must have thought me very unsympathetic.’ For the first time he felt he was making progress. That she was on the point of opening up the book to him at last. And he relaxed as he felt her respond to his touch.

  Lisa closed her eyes and felt the drink spinning her head. She should have known David would understand. But she’d been frightened to give him the chance. He’d been so antagonistic when she had gone to see the lawyer.

  Now, just having told him felt good. Someone else to share the weight of it all. She felt his lips on her neck, gently brushing her skin. His breath sent a shiver down her back. He bit her softly and she felt the first stirrings of arousal. She turned her head towards him and his lips found hers, barely touching. He kissed her – a light, loving kiss. Then again. This time more fiercely. She felt herself responding, felt his hand slip under her top and push up her bra, felt it warm on her breast. A thrill ran through her, leaving her weak. She pushed herself against him and they slipped over gently on to the floor, the softness of the rug beneath them, the warmth of the fire on their skin. His mouth was everywhere. Her lips, her neck. Her bra had come away, her top pushed up. She heard herself moan, a distant voice that belonged to someone else. She felt him hard against her leg. She opened her eyes and saw him looking down at her, the strangest look on his face, eyes burning with a passion so violent that suddenly it frightened her. She went cold.

  ‘No,’ she said. It wasn’t right. He didn’t own her, she didn’t love him. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘No, David.’ And she tried to push him away. He resisted, pressing down on her hard.

  ‘It’s alright, Lisa. It’ll be alright.’

  But she knew it wouldn’t. ‘No!’ And with a great effort she pulled herself away from under him, sitting up fastening her bra and pulling down her top. He looked at her, mouth tight, eyes filled with anger.

  ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you!’ he shouted.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she said, with all the control she could muster. But her voice was trembling. ‘I think you’d better go.’

  ‘I think I had.’ He got to his feet and looked at her with patent hostility, running his hands back through his hair as if trying to smooth his ruffled pride. ‘Don’t expect me to call.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said to his back as he turned towards the door. ‘And even if you did I wouldn’t be here.’

  He stopped, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve already applied for my passport,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving early next week.’

  ‘For where?’ He glared at her in consternation.

  ‘Bangkok,’ she said. ‘To find my father.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The long dusty drive south-west to Aranyaprathet was tedious. The unbroken flatness of the paddy field
s stretching away on either side of a long straight road that sat up on an embankment rising a metre above the surrounding countryside. The air conditioning in Tuk’s car made it difficult to believe it was hot out there – crucifyingly hot under the December sun.

  ‘In the rainy season,’ Tuk said brightly, ‘this road is impassable, under almost a metre of water.’

  Elliot, Slattery and McCue sat in the back, silenced by the monotony of the drive, while Tuk sat in the front beside his driver, chatting animatedly.

  Mak Moun camp, he told them, was effectively controlled by a man called Van Saren, a captain in the army of Lon Nol before the Khmer Rouge victory. Tuk turned in his seat and smiled. ‘Well, so he says. He might have been a lieutenant, but even that’s doubtful. He calls himself Marshal and claims to be the most honourable of the Khmer Serei. It is he who will arrange your border crossing.’ He laughed. ‘Actually, he smuggles teak and artefacts out of Cambodia for me. He’s a nice man. You’ll like him.’ He laughed again, and Elliot felt there was something unpleasant in the laugh.

  The previous night Tuk had taken the three of them to Bangkok’s dockland, to a lock-up among a jumble of deserted warehouses. There, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, they had selected weapons and equipment from what was virtually an arsenal. The Colt Commando variation of the M16 automatic rifle, M26 anti-personnel hand grenades, Colt .45 automatic pistols. McCue had picked out a long, lethal hunting knife that hung from a belted sheath that strapped high up round the shoulder. He handled it with a kind of reverence and had to be persuaded to take an automatic rifle. ‘Never carried one in the tunnels,’ he said. ‘Too goddam clumsy!’