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

Fat Bao sat at a table by a window which looked out over the sea. A pantomime Chinaman, like an extra from Aladdin, a long pigtail hung down his back and a brightly coloured silk robe fell in folds across his belly. A wispy black moustache curled down at the corners of his mouth, accentuating the droop of his fat jowls. Piggy eyes peered shrewdly out from slits in the folds of his face. The coffee house was quiet at this hour, and Elliot drew only a few curious glances as he approached the table. ‘Mr Bao?’

Fat Bao looked up from a week-old copy of the Straits Times and his lips parted in a broad smile. He waved a hand expansively at the chair opposite. ‘Sit down Mistah Elliot. You like coffee?’

Elliot sat. ‘Yes.’

Fat Bao snapped his fingers and the barman slipped off his stool to prepare some fresh. ‘You wondering how I know you name?’

‘From what I hear I doubt if there’s much that escapes your attention.’

He grinned. ‘Quite right, Mistah Elliot, quite right. Information is power. Power is money. But whole island know already of Englishman who arrive with refugee from Cambodia. I am expecting you. You want escape from Bidong, yes?’

‘That’s right.’

He leaned confidentially across the table. ‘Cost big money, Mistah Elliot, big money. You got big money?’

The coffee arrived. Elliot took a sip. Real coffee, fresh and strong. It tasted good. He shook his head. ‘I have no money, Mr Bao. We spent it all getting this far.’

Fat Bao sat back, his jowls wobbling as he spread his hands in apology. ‘I am business man, Mistah Elliot. I trade goods from mainland. I buy and sell real estate on island, change currency, lend money. Maybe we can do deal on loan? Very reasonable rate.’

‘I don’t think so. Do you have a cigarette?’

The Chinaman delved among the folds of his robe and produced an unopened pack of Camels. He pushed it across the table. ‘My compliment.’ He watched as Elliot unpeeled the wrapper, then he produced an engraved gold lighter and held out the flame.

Elliot took a deep draw. ‘It is possible, though, to get off the island?’

‘Everything is possible.’

‘How come you’re still here, then?’

He spread his arms. ‘As you see, Mistah Elliot, I have everything I need. Why go?’

Why indeed, Elliot thought, when there was such profit in human suffering. He said, ‘I have a friend on the mainland who will pay whatever it takes to get the four of us off.’

Fat Bao nodded seriously. ‘Of course,’ he said, as if he had known all along.

‘You have contacts on the mainland?’

‘Mistah Elliot . . .’ His tone reproached the naivety of the question. Then he pulled thoughtfully at the corners of his moustache. ‘Four people? Big risk, Mistah Elliot, very dangerous.’ A precursor, Elliot thought, to hiking up the price. ‘Cost very big money,’ Bao said. ‘How much you willing to pay?’

Elliot watched his cigarette smoke disperse in the hot breeze from the sea, and flicked his ash from the window. ‘You got a pen and paper?’

Fat Bao nodded and leaned over to retrieve a leather-bound writing folder and pen from a bag on the floor. He slid it across the table and Elliot wrote Yuon Ang’s name on a fresh sheet. He pushed it back at Bao. ‘He should be at the Batu Beach Hotel near Tumpat by tonight. You can negotiate a price with him. How will you get us off?’

Bao gazed thoughtfully at the name for some moments. Eventually, he said, ‘Malay fishermen come from mainland with goods for black market. My people have half-dozen small boat. They swim out pushing boat to meet fishermen, ’bout five kilometre offshore. Fill boat with goods then come back. You swim out with boat, but no come back. Go to mainland with fishermen.’ He grinned. ‘Escape.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow night, maybe. I let you know.’

Elliot scraped back his chair and stood up to drain the last of his coffee. He put the cup back on the table. ‘I’ll be hearing from you, then.’

‘You come tonight, to Vien Du. Pretty girl sing. Big movie star in south Vietnam before communist come. I fix you up good.’

‘Some other time,’ Elliot said.

The midday sun beat down in the street outside. There was no shade anywhere, and the air was thick with flies. Across the way, on a rocky promontory, stood the remains of a refugee boat converted, by the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Vietnam, into a makeshift church and library. From the boat’s cabin, the breeze carried the sounds of a refugee class learning English: ‘Take me to Times Square.’ ‘Where is Buckingham Palace?’

*

On the long climb back up the hill with the ration packs and water, Elliot told Serey and Ny of his meeting with Fat Bao. They had to stop frequently to rest. Serey squatted, listening in solemn silence, as Ny translated for Hau. The boy greeted the news with the same reserve as his mother. Only Ny seemed cheered at the prospect of seeing her father again. Elliot held her back as they embarked on the last leg of the climb. ‘What’s wrong with Hau? I thought he’d be pleased to get out of here.’

‘We will all be pleased,’ she said, ‘to leave Bidong. But he is little frightened of going America. Khmer Rouge, you know, they tell us many bad things ’bout the West. They say colour people hated there, treated real bad.’

Elliot wondered if it was possible to suffer any more than they had done at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. But he understood the power of indoctrination. He supposed that the God of his childhood still existed in him somewhere, in spite of the rejected belief of his adult intellect. ‘He wants to see his father, surely?’

‘Is long time. He remember very little of our father. Scared, maybe, he a stranger now.’ She stared down at the