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

sunshine sparkled on the slow-moving waters of the Thames. The slightest breeze rattled among the leafless branches of the willows that wept along the embankment. London seemed a long way away here, in the quiet affluence of this Upper Thames village. In the summer, lovers would pass idly by in punts, drifting gently among the backwaters, somnolent and languid in the afternoon sun. Picnics on the embankment, the murmur of bees. But now it was cold, deserted, save for one old man swaddled in coat and scarf walking an equally old dog along the riverside.

Elliot watched them absently from the warmth of the sun lounge, large windows that in hot weather would open on to the garden, now providing a winter panorama across the river. ‘You still take lemonade in your whisky?’ Blair turned from the drinks cabinet.

‘Nothing changes,’ Elliot said.

Blair grinned. ‘Heathen!’ He turned back to pour lemonade with reluctance into a generous measure of amber liquid. He was a tough, wiry, old Scot approaching his middle fifties, a fine head of grey hair over a lean, tanned face. He wore a faded army-green pullover, leather patches at the elbow, and a pair of baggy trousers that concertinaed over dirty white tennis shoes. ‘How’d it go in Africa?’

‘Bloody disastrous.’ Elliot ran a finger gently along the line of his scar. Even after all this time it still occasionally hurt, like toothache. ‘Lost nearly half my men before we crossed the border.’ He snorted his disgust. ‘Freedom fighters! A rabble. No training, no discipline, no balls. Last time I’ll take on a job like that. Barely got out alive myself. Didn’t get bloody paid, either!’

Blair chuckled. ‘Times are tough, eh?’ He handed Elliot his whisky and Elliot noticed he hadn’t poured one for himself.

‘You not joining me?’

‘Too early.’ Blair eased himself into a deep leather armchair. He paused, his smile fading. ‘I saw the death notice in the paper.’ Elliot nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It was all too long ago to mean anything now.’

Blair eyed the younger man with affection. ‘What about the girl?’

‘She’s well provided for.’ Elliot sipped his drink. ‘I need weapons and kit.’

Blair smiled ruefully. No matter how hard you tried you never got beneath the skin. ‘Where this time?’

‘Thailand.’

Blair whistled his surprise. ‘Jesus Christ! What are you doing in Thailand?’

‘Thailand’s just base. I’m taking a team into Cambodia.’

The older man laughed. ‘Taking on the Khmer Rouge single-handed, are we?’

Elliot smiled. ‘It’s a small private job. Man’s paying me a lot of money to go in and get his family out.’

‘How far in?’

‘About a week there, a week back. It’ll be a small team. Just three of us. I’ll want automatics, pistols, grenades, knives, kit, radio, rations and medical supplies. And maps. Can you do it?’

‘Thailand’s tricky. Can’t get anything in. Have to procure locally.’

‘I don’t want to know how difficult it is, I want to know if you can do it.’

‘’Course I can do it. Have you ever know your old sergeant to let you down?’ He rose. ‘I think I will have that drink.’ He crossed to the cabinet to pour himself a stiff measure. ‘Can’t guarantee what I get you, though. Be either Russian or American. Probably Russian.’

‘I’d prefer American.’

‘Might cost more.’

‘So, it’ll cost more.’

Blair sipped his whisky and rolled it around his mouth. ‘Who are you taking?’

‘Slattery.’

‘That bloody Aussie! Man, he’s aff his heid!’

‘He’s good. I phoned Sydney this morning. I’m meeting him in Bangkok.’

Blair shook his head. ‘The two of you loose in Bangkok. That would be worth seeing.’ Pause. ‘Who else?’

‘A pal of Slattery’s. A Yank called McCue. Vietnam vet. Ex-Big Red One. Tunnel Rat. Stayed on in Bangkok after the war.’

‘When you going?’

‘Flying out later this week. I want to be ready to move in a fortnight.’

Blair emptied his glass. ‘You’re aff your heid, man!’ Another pause. ‘Don’t suppose you’d like to take a fourth?’

Elliot grinned. ‘You’re too bloody old, Sam.’

‘I’m as fit as you are.’

‘No chance. The only place you’re going to die now is in your bed.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lisa had not gone back to college. The Christmas holidays were coming up and, anyway, she couldn’t have faced it. The sympathy of her friends, the questions she wouldn’t want to answer. And she was no longer sure she was the person she had been just a week ago. College, and a future in journalism, seemed unimportant, trivial.

She had wandered around the house for days, unable to settle, picking up a book, reading a few pages then laying it aside. She had phoned Wiseman several times, but he had no news. David had called every day and she had put him off each time. Somehow he belonged to the person she had been before, to Lisa Robinson, the shy orphaned eighteen-year-old who had stood so helplessly at her mother’s graveside only a few days earlier. Lisa Elliot was someone else. Who that person was, she could not yet tell. Just that she was different. She had money, independence, and a father who’d killed women and children in cold blood.

Then, on the fourth day, came the call she had been waiting for. Wiseman’s voice at the other end of the line. ‘We can’t guarantee,’ he said, ‘that he’ll still be there. But it’s the last address that we can find.’

*

Lisa’s mouth was dry and her hands trembled as she stepped out of the taxi into the King’s Road. She had not wanted to take the cab right to the door. She needed time to walk, collect her thoughts, summon the courage to make her way to the mews address Wiseman had given her, to knock on the door and face the man she had always thought was dead. Her father.

She realised very quickly that had been a mistake. All she’d done was make time for her courage to fail. What would she say to him? What if he didn’t want to know, and shut the door in her face? What would she do then? She walked slowly, dreamlike, through the late