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

McCue climbed in the back of the trishaw to a cacophony of complaint from the other drivers. His driver just pushed them aside and mounted his cycle. He began pedalling towards the policemen at the end of the street. As the trishaw approached, one of them stepped out with his hand raised. The driver braked and drew up alongside. The policeman looked suspiciously at McCue, then rattled off a series of questions at his driver. Perhaps fearing the loss of his fare, the driver began to argue, waving his arms. There was a lengthy exchange between them before the second policeman, losing patience, stepped up to McCue and spoke to him directly. His eyes were hostile and suspicious.

McCue looked at his watch and shrugged. ‘Skajitay pojalsta gdyeh astanavlivayetsya avtobus numer adin,’ he said with as much authority as he could muster. The policeman looked back at him blankly. For a brief, irrational moment, McCue feared he might be directed to the main square, and told that the number one bus left on the hour every hour. He leaned forward to tap his driver on the shoulder and wave him on. ‘Da svedanya, da svedanya!’ The driver remounted his bike and pedalled away, leaving the two policemen to watch them go, resigned to their impotence. Even the police were afraid of a higher authority. McCue breathed a sigh of relief.

In spite of the persecution, Long Xuyen’s Chinese quarter was still thriving, just coming to life it seemed, as the rest of this provincial town prepared for sleep. The streets were choked with people and traffic – trucks and bicycles – while the alleys spilled over with street markets selling everything from shoelaces to Peking duck. Ancient Confucian and Buddhist temples jostled with down-at-heel cinemas and seedy bars.

‘Let me off here,’ McCue called to his driver. The man, his wiry body sweating in shorts and singlet, drew his trishaw into the pavement and turned, grinning expectantly. McCue took off his watch and held it out. ‘Rolex,’ he said. ‘Best there is. Okay?’

The driver took the watch and examined it gravely. Then his face opened up in a grin, and he nodded vigorously. ‘Okay.’

McCue looked around him, ignoring the stares of the local Chinese. It all looked and smelled so familiar. Somewhere, further down the street, was the House of a Hundred Girls, the brothel he had frequented during his stay here eight years before. But perhaps, in the new morality, it would no longer be there. He took a left, pushing through the crowds of straw-hatted shoppers patronizing one of the less salubrious street markets. A food stall selling sweet buns was crawling with cockroaches. At the far end of the alley he took a right, turning into a quiet, cobbled street. Here the shops, and the factories that contrived to reproduce the vital parts of foreign-made motorcycles, were closed and shuttered.

Halfway down, a light burned above the door to a private apartment. It was a door McCue had passed through many times. But as he stood before it now, he hesitated. What if Heng no longer lived here? He might have moved away, or been put in prison. He could be dead. McCue wiped the sweat from his palms and knocked on the door.

He waited almost a full minute, and was about to knock again when the door opened a crack, and a sliver of light fell out into the street. Dark eyes in a wrinkled, yellow face peered out at him, wisps of silver hair scraped across an otherwise bald pate. ‘Hello, Heng,’ McCue grinned. ‘Is there a game tonight?’ There were several moments of stunned silence before the door opened a little wider, and astonishment shone out from Heng’s shrewd old face.

‘Billee?’ he said.

*

A ring of curious faces hovered around the edge of the pale light cast by an oil lamp on the table. They watched in grave silence as McCue ate hungrily, washing down rice and fried chicken with warmed rice wine; two boys and a girl, the children of Heng’s younger brother, Lee, Lee’s wife Tuyen, and Heng’s wife Kim. A wizened, white-haired old crone, Kim’s mother, sat somewhere beyond the reach of the light, rocking slowly back and forth, muttering inward imprecations. She no longer existed in their world. From time to time, McCue glanced up to meet Heng’s eye and nod as the old Chinaman exercised his rusted English.

‘For time after seventy-five, Billee, they let us carry on; shop, private trader, factory. Then last year they start clampdown. Many Chinese and Vietnamese taken from town to work in New Economic Zone.’ His chuckle contained no humour. ‘’Nother name for labour camp. Working in field. I lucky. They take my shop, everything I got, and they make me work in co-operative making wheat noodle.’

‘Sounds real lucky, Heng.’

‘Lucky for sure, Billee. I too old to work in field. I die there, maybe. Then war with Cambodia, and now they say China ’bout to invade in the north. Things get real bad for Hoa then.’

McCue nodded. The Hoa was the name the Vietnamese gave to ethnic Chinese living outside China. He knew that if China sent troops into Vietnam’s northern provinces, all Hoa in Vietnam would be regarded as potential fifth columnists.

‘They even start draft for Chinese boys. You know what is draft, Billee?’

‘Heng, I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for the goddam draft.’ McCue finished his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘My grandfather used say to us, “China is our home. Vietnam is only our second home.” We Chinese don’t want to fight Chinese. And we hate communist, we don’t want to fight for communist.’

‘Shit, the Chinese are communists, too, Heng.’

‘Yes, Billee, but they still Chinese. Is different.’

Billy shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. If the Vietnamese are frightened of a war with China, why would they enlist Chinese in the army?’

‘Because they want rid of Chinese in Vietnam, Billee. They want us killed. Putting our boys in