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

the sight that unfolded here. The sixty or seventy refugees who had made it aboard had turned the deck into a floating camp. Children peeped out from a canvas awning raised over the forward hold, providing shade for most of the escapees. Above him, on the roof of the wheelhouse, several women squatted, cooking over wood and charcoal stoves. The rear quarter of the boat was festooned with sun-dried fish and clothing strung up on poles to dry. He was aware of the eyes that turned towards him, ready smiles springing to trusting faces. It made him feel uncomfortable, like a boy stepping up to receive first prize for an exam in which he had cheated.

McCue lit a cigarette and passed it to him. ‘The last one,’ he said. Elliot looked at its glowing tip for a moment then passed it back.

‘You have it. This seems like as good a time as any to give up. I always meant to, anyway. Might get cancer or something.’

‘Yeah,’ McCue drawled. ‘Pretty dangerous – smoking.’ He took a long pull at it.

Elliot watched Ny and Hau pick their way back across the deck to rejoin their mother just inside the awning, and saw Serey looking back at him from the shadows. She had remained sullen and distant since that first night in the camp near Siem Reap – it seemed so long ago now – when he had fired above the heads of her fellow prisoners. She had never trusted him. A spiritual instinct, perhaps, that recognized lost souls. He looked quickly away toward the horizon.

The two men stood for a long time, watching as the sun dipped its gold into the sea. Darkness fell quickly, and Elliot spotted a strange distant glow in the sky, far away to the south-west.

‘What the hell’s that?’

McCue followed his gaze. ‘Heng says Exxon or somebody’s got oil and gas rigs about a hundred and ninety Ks off the coast of Malaysia. They’ll be floodlit and burning off gas. He was told they could be seen on a clear night more than a hundred Ks away. A kinda signpost in the sky.’

‘Where does that put us, then?’

‘About halfway, maybe. Should hit the north-east Malaysian coast by tomorrow night.’

‘Why don’t we just head straight across for Thailand?’

McCue shrugged. ‘Turns out the Thais ain’t too keen on boat people. Safer heading for Malaysia.’

By midnight the trawler was set dead on course for the Exxon rigs, jets of waste gas burning thirty metres into the night, a distant second sun suspended in darkness. In the wheelhouse, the captain left the wheel to the ship’s mate, and curled up on the top bunk. Most of the refugees were huddled together, asleep beneath the forward awning.

Elliot sat out on the deck, leaning back against the wheelhouse. He heard the cry of a child as it awoke from a disturbing dream, then the comforting murmurs of a sleepy mother woken, too, from a fitful sleep. A group of five men sat up on the bows, smoking, and talking quietly. Their voices carried gently in the wind, just audible above the constant rhythm of the engines and the sound of churning water. The rising moon dusted the deck with silver.

McCue appeared from the rear of the vessel and sat down beside him. Elliot leaned his head back against salt-crusted boards. ‘I could do with a cigarette.’

McCue smiled at his hands. ‘Thought you’d given up.’

‘Never did have much willpower.’

McCue produced a pack from the breast pocket of his jacket and held one out. Elliot looked at it, surprised. ‘I thought you’d smoked your last one.’

‘I traded some bits and pieces for a couple of packs. Chinese love to trade.’

Elliot took the cigarette and let McCue light it for him. ‘Bad for your health,’ he said.

McCue shrugged. ‘So’s dying.’ He lit one for himself. ‘And we could die tomorrow. So who gives a shit?’

They sat smoking in easy silence for some minutes. McCue asked, ‘What’s the game plan when we get to Malaysia?’

‘I’ll call Ang at his hotel in Bangkok. If he hasn’t given up on us, he can come and get his family and we can go home.’ He glanced at the American. ‘What are you going to do when you get home, Billy?’

‘Gonna take a bath,’ McCue said. He grinned and, as his smile faded, added, ‘Then I’m gonna get the hell out of this shit. Take the family to America. Klongs ain’t no place to bring up a kid.’ And as he said it, he realized how long it had been since he had thought of his wife, and his child. He found it hard, somehow, to recall their faces with any clarity, and that brought pangs of guilt and regret. ‘Guess I’ve missed them,’ he said. ‘What about you?’

‘Something I never ask myself,’ Elliot said. He flicked the last inch of his cigarette off into the dark. It would be like asking a blind man directions, he thought. ‘I’m going to get some sleep.’

He lay for a long time on his bunk listening to the sobbing of the captain above him. It was ironic, he thought, how you could envy another man his pain. The ability to be hurt was a precious gift.

III

The scream of rending metal and splintered wood tore into his dreams. The world jarred and tipped sideways. A grey dawn assailed his waking eyes in the seconds before his shoulder hit the floor, and all consciousness was consumed by a moment of supreme pain. Blood-red light seared his eyes, through lids screwed tight shut. He heard his own breath scrape in his throat, even above the screams and murderous whoops that came from the deck below. The engines had stalled and the boat rolled and yawed in the heavy swell. He opened his eyes and found himself looking into the dead, staring eyes of the ship’s mate. Blood oozed thickly from a deep gash in the dead man’s temple. Elliot rolled quickly over on to his knees and