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

horror quickly replaced by one of guilt. She felt as if she had desecrated a grave, uncovered a body it had taken years to bury. And the corpse was still alive. She said feebly, ‘I’m sorry,’ and couldn’t bring herself to meet his eye.

As if to deflect his own pain, he said, ‘Most of us learned to live with it, one way or another. But it was Jack’s name in the headlines, his life that could never be picked up on. When your mother disowned and divorced him there was no way back. Whatever capacity he’d had for love turned to hate, most of it directed towards himself. I said before, it’s easier to hate than to love. It’s also easier to be hated than to be loved. He lost his humanity. He cared for no one, least of all himself, and that way expected nothing in return. He was a lost soul, Lisa, lost and lonely. So don’t ever hate him.’

She stared at the floor, and he stood for a long time without speaking. He felt old and tired. Fat drops of rain began to fall outside.

‘I’ll make that coffee now,’ he said.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

A slight breeze stirred the freshly starched tablecloths on the dining terrace of the Batu Beach Hotel. The guests were seating themselves for lunch at their usual tables, overlooking the clear blue waters of the South China Sea. A middle-aged American couple, some Australians, a small party of Japanese, a group of English on a four-centre tour of the Far East.

‘Would you look at them!’ the American said, his voice rasping with irritation. The Japanese chattered animatedly at their table, cameras still dangling from necks, or laid next to plates.

‘What about them, George?’ said his wife. She smiled in their direction but got no response.

‘You’d think they’d won the goddam war the way they behave.’ It annoyed him that they had ignored his overtures of friendship. They were completely wrapped up in their own company. They ate together, went to the beach together, all went in the swimming pool at the same time, and they never stopped taking photographs of one another. It was as if the rest of the world did not exist.

‘The war was a long time ago, George,’ Yvonne said.

The babble of Japanese voices two tables away rose suddenly in pitch. George glowered in their direction, and saw that something out at sea had caught their attention. Yvonne put a hand on his arm. ‘George, look! What’s that?’

He craned round and saw, just clearing the headland, a big wooden trawler listing severely to starboard. The vessel was clearly in trouble, shipping water, and limping towards their beach. The forward deck appeared to be crowded with people waving towards the shore.

The waiter arrived at their table with pieces of barbecued marinaded chicken on bamboo skewers, and two bowls of spicy peanut sauce. ‘Hey, fella, what the hell’s that out there?’ George asked him.

The waiter looked up and frowned. ‘Boat people,’ he said. ‘Damn nuisance.’

‘Boat people? What, you mean people who’ve escaped from Vietnam? Refugees?’

‘Refugee, yes,’ said the waiter. ‘Bad news. Very bad news.’ And he hurried away.

‘Refugees?’ Yvonne said. ‘Oh, George, how dreadful.’

George stood up and dropped his napkin on the table. ‘I’m gonna take a closer look.’

But the Japanese had beaten him to it. They were flocking down the steps to the beach. Several other guests followed.

The trawler ran aground in shallow water two hundred metres offshore, and tipped precariously on its side. Some of the sixty or so refugees who had survived the journey jumped overboard and began swimming for shore. Others, clutching all their worldly possessions, slithered down ropes into the water. Guests, and some staff from the hotel, gathered on the beach to watch. Japanese cameras whirred and clicked. Yvonne caught up with her husband and held his arm. ‘These poor, wretched people,’ she gasped. ‘We must do something for them.’

‘It’s not up to us, dear. The authorities’ll deal with it. Anyway, God knows what kind of diseases they might be carrying.’

‘Do you think so?’

The first refugees made it to the beach and stood gasping, looking in wonder at the curious stares of these affluent holidaymakers. An odd silence settled on the sand. Yvonne’s grip suddenly tightened around her husband’s arm. ‘George, there’s a white man with them!’

‘Where?’ He followed her pointing finger and saw a tall, dark-haired European in a white shirt and ragged black pyjama trousers, staggering through the shallows, supported by two Asian women and a small boy. ‘Goddam!’ he said. ‘He could be an American.’

Behind them, a jeep pulled up in the car park overlooking the beach, and two policemen stepped out.

*

From his comfortable bamboo armchair, in the air-conditioned lounge overlooking the ocean, George could see the white man sitting in the hotel lobby, where he had remained most of the afternoon. He made a curious figure in his ragged pyjama trousers and bare feet. He had a thick growth on his face slashed through by a livid scar on his cheek where the hair refused to grow. His patience, it seemed to George, was infinite.

By inclining his head a little, the American could see down to the beach, where the Asian refugees squatted in family groups in the sand, watched over by an armed Malay policeman. His attention was caught by the arrival of a thirty-foot launch, which had appeared round the headland a few minutes earlier. It passed the wreck of the trawler, and dropped anchor a little closer to shore. A Malaysian flag fluttered on the bows of the launch, and he could just make out the figures of half a dozen armed policemen standing, smoking, on the rear deck.

The excitement of it all had been too much for Yvonne, and she had retired for an afternoon nap. But George’s curiosity was aroused. At last he could contain it no longer. He eased himself out of his chair and sauntered through to the lobby. Another policeman stood just outside the main door.