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

suburban heart of Bidong, shanties ranked above them like so many coffins stacked around a graveyard. They climbed for more than ten minutes, up through a maze of crudely terraced streets, until Minh finally stopped by a dilapidated three-storey shanty house on a promontory near the top of the hill. From here they had a clear view across the slope, and down to the jetty and bay below. Elliot gasped for breath, his strength rapidly ebbing. Ny and Hau had had to support their mother for most of the second half of the climb.

Minh pointed to a ladder leading up to a wooden terrace above. ‘You share middle house till we find something else. You get water at beach in morning. Need to queue, though. Water rationed. Only two litre per person per day. You come to centre for UNHCR (he pronounced it ungkah) ration pack every three day. You got money, then is possible to buy more on black market.’ He made a little bow. ‘Goodnight. See you tomorrow.’ And he headed off down the hill.

Elliot looked up at the wooden terrace and smiled wryly. ‘This must be home.’

A curtain of bamboo beads hung across the door to the second level of the shanty house. The interior was dark and thick with the smell of sweat. Eyes peered out of the gloom, and they saw that there were already nine other people, men, women and children, squeezed into a room barely three metres by two. There was no sign of resentment at their intrusion. With the patient resignation of the practised refugee, the existing occupants simply shuffled closer together, to create more space. No one spoke. Elliot, Serey, Ny and the boy settled themselves against a wall and stared back at the incurious faces.

The floor was made of wooden slats, and through them, both above and below, they could see the shadows of the other occupants. Smoke drifted up from the lower level, between the slats, making the already thick air almost unbreathable. A child on the level above them had a fit of coughing. Ny and Hau curled up together, like small animals, and were quickly asleep. Elliot leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He did not expect to sleep.

A hand on his arm delivered him, abruptly, from a drifting world of jumbled images: vast stretches of sea; McCue’s body sliding into the water, a hand waving through the broken foam; a long stretch of deserted beach broken by a solitary figure that he had realized, suddenly, was himself. He opened his eyes but could see nothing in the dark.

‘Are you asleep?’ It was Serey’s voice, very close, barely a whisper.

‘No.’

She seemed to hesitate. ‘I wanted to apologize.’

‘For what?’

‘I misjudged you.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She took his hand and squeezed it gently. He was almost shocked by the warmth of her touch. ‘I am grateful, anyway.’

‘Don’t be. I’m the one who should be grateful.’

‘For leading you here?’

‘For teaching me something. About myself.’ Confessions, he thought, were easier in the dark. He remembered McCue telling him of his fear.

‘You had no reason to come here with us.’

‘More reason than not to. We all have to live with ourselves.’

He heard her sigh. ‘I wish my husband had felt as you do.’

‘That was a long time ago. He made a mistake. He regrets it.’

‘It was no mistake!’ Her voice was sour and rose in anger at the remembered hurt. ‘And time changes nothing. He showed that he loved himself more than his family. He betrayed us. My children do not fully understand this. But I do. If he regrets anything, it is his conscience.’ She lapsed into an uneasy silence. ‘I do not wish ever to see him again.’

‘Then why come all this way?’

‘I never expected to live,’ she said simply. ‘I always thought, if there is a chance to survive, then I must take it for my children’s sake. Life is an unexpected bonus, but I could never live with betrayal.’

Elliot took a deep, weary breath. ‘Your husband is on his way to Malaysia.’ He felt her tense at his side.

‘It’s not possible!’

‘I asked an American at the hotel to contact him in Bangkok. He has papers, passports. If I can get us off the island, you could be reunited within forty-eight hours and on your way to a new life in America.’

She withdrew her hand abruptly from his. ‘No.’

‘You would prefer to stay here?’ She did not reply. ‘You must go, for your children’s sake. There is no future for them on Bidong.’

Still she made no reply, and then he heard a sob catch her throat in the dark. ‘If he had stayed, Mistah Elliot, then we might have survived, as a family. Others did. We might all have had a future.’

‘You still do.’

‘My children, perhaps,’ she said. He felt a warm tear splash on his arm, and drew the fragile, trembling body to his side.

*

Two hours queuing in the stifling heat of the administration centre the next morning, to register and collect their UNHCR rations, did little for the morale of the new arrivals. Anger replaced impatience among the refugees at the contents of the ungkah ration pack: nine hundred grams of rice; a tin of condensed milk; three tins of canned meat, fish and vegetables; two packets of noodles; sugar; salt; and two small teabags. There would be no more for three days. ‘Official fresh vegetable only available every two month,’ Minh told them. ‘Can buy on black market, though.’

Elliot drew Minh aside. ‘Who supplies the black market?’

‘Unofficial,’ he said. ‘Not legal.’

‘But a fact. Where does the stuff come from?’

Minh shrugged. ‘Not my business. You speak Fat Bao. He ve-ery rich man. Find him at Vien Du coffee house.’

The Vien Du, or Venture, overlooked the sea at one end of the bay. Little more than a wooden shack, it was crammed with crude tables and chairs, a rudimentary bar and a small stage where live vocalists entertained patrons at night. Elliot left Serey, Ny and