The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (learn to read books .TXT) 📕

The murmur of voices came from beyond the cloth partition. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Mamma, she cook rice and fish. Hau catch fish. He very smart.’

‘And Mr McCue?’

‘He there, too. You hungry?’

He nodded.

Nothing had ever tasted so good before. She fed him with chopsticks, morsels that exploded flavour on his tongue. But it was hard work eating – his jaw felt stiff and his throat swollen – and he tired quickly, lying back to drift again into the netherworld that had held him for the past three days.

He dreamed he heard the cough of an engine, the slow chug-chug of a propeller, water whispering past his ears. Then silence, a sensation of floating through space, followed by darkness and a dreamless oblivion. When next he opened his eyes he could see nothing. He heard the splash of water against the sampan, then smelled smoke – the sweet tang of tobacco. The red end of a cigarette glowed in the dark, and by its light he saw McCue’s face. He was squatted on the boards beside Elliot, smoking in silence.

‘Give me a pull at that.’

Without a word McCue leaned over to hold the cigarette to his lips. He took a deep draw and coughed violently. ‘Better?’ McCue asked.

‘Sure.’ The smoke drawn into his lungs made him feel giddy. ‘What time is it?’

‘Night. Does it matter?’

Elliot felt irritation rising in his chest. ‘Yes, it matters. Where are we?’

McCue’s voice remained calm and even. ‘We crossed the border a couple of hours back.’

Elliot frowned. ‘What border?’

‘Into Vietnam. Just like coming home, eh?’ His voice was edged with irony. ‘We set off just after sunset, then about a mile up river we cut the engine and just drifted over in the dark. Easy as pie. You can see the lights of Chau Doc from here. Ever been to Chau Doc? It’s a shitheap.’ He held the cigarette to Elliot’s lips again. Elliot took a light draw and managed this time not to choke.

‘How the hell did we get here?’

McCue shrugged, as if it had been nothing. ‘She did it. Mamma Serey. She’s quite a lady. Just sort of took over. You were as good as dead. Me, I’d given up. Didn’t see the point no more. She took the kids and her jewellery into town, bartered for food and a sampan. They came back with a cart. We got you on it, then they hid you and me under all kinds of blankets and shit and wheeled us right past the noses of the Vietnamese, down to the docks. The place was crawling with refugees, soldiers. All kindsa stuff was going on. It was chaos. Shit, no one blinked an eye at an old woman and a couple of kids wheeling a cart. We been on the river ever since. Same on the water, too. All kinda boats going up and down, and the gooks not giving a shit. They don’t know what’s happening any more than anyone else. We never even been stopped. Not once.’ He chuckled. ‘Some lady, that Mamma Serey.’

Elliot lay back, staring wide-eyed into the darkness, trying to block in McCue’s sketch of his lost three days. But his thoughts were as confused as the scenes McCue had described. He could form no picture of a Phnom Penh alive with refugees and soldiers; just empty streets and desolation. Neither could he picture the river, or the sampan in which he now lay; only the wide, empty waters of the Tonle Sap, and the small open boat in which they had so nearly perished. He felt lost in a void. And, for the first time that he could remember, he realized that he was not responsible for his own life. A huge burden had been lifted. He could embrace death with an easy conscience.

‘Why are we in Vietnam?’

McCue breathed a lungful of smoke into the darkness. ‘She reckons we can make Long Xuyen in a couple of days. I know a guy there, or did, if he’s still alive. Ethnic Chinese. Hated the Viets. I was stationed there for a couple of months. He and I played a lot of cards together, drank a lot of whisky, lost a lot of money. It’s not so far from there to Rach Gia, on the coast. I thought maybe he could help.’

Elliot laughed. The easy laugh of one who will never have to face the problem, of one suddenly free to no longer care. ‘What are you going to do, Billy? Just waltz into town, say “Hi, remember me?” Five years since the Yanks pulled out. Not many white faces around these days, I’ll bet.’

‘A few Russians, though.’ Elliot heard him grin in the dark. ‘That’d be some irony.’

‘Know any Russian?’

‘Da svedanya.’ He paused. ‘You?’

‘Skajitay pojalsta gdyeh astanavlivayetsya avtobus numer adin.’

‘Shit, I’m impressed. What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Excuse me, please, where does the number one bus stop?’’

It was the first time Elliot could remember hearing McCue laugh. ‘Hey, Elliot, I never knew you had a sense of humour.’

Elliot let his eyes close. The mere act of talking had tired him.

He was not sure if he had slept for any length of time, or merely dozed for a moment, before he next heard McCue’s voice. But it came to him as if in a dream and he had to force his eyes open. There was the faintest grey light around them, and McCue was smoking another cigarette. ‘What? What did you say?’

‘I said quit snoring. I can’t get to sleep, and they can hear you in Chau Doc.’

‘Give me a cigarette.’

McCue lit him one and Elliot took it in his right hand. There was a foul taste in his mouth again. He said, ‘Who’s on watch?’

‘The boy. I done my stint. It’ll be dawn soon, then we’ll start the motor and get moving.’ He shifted to straighten a cramped knee.

Elliot took several draws on his cigarette. ‘I suppose I should thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘My life.’

‘Nothing to do with me. It was the girl.