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

trying to catch his breath. Ny and Hau worked their canoe back to draw alongside, worried faces peering anxiously in the moonlight.

‘What wrong?’

‘Nothing. We need a rest, that’s all.’

His shoulder had almost seized completely. He looked back, but the swell was so deep now that the island only appeared in glimpses.

‘How far now?’ Ny asked.

‘Don’t know. We must be about halfway.’ But he felt despair rising in his breast. The second fifteen hundred metres would be much tougher going against the rising swell, and how could they hope to make a rendezvous with one small boat in this vast expanse of sea? They could be swept miles off course by the current. And, yet, if this was, indeed, how goods were brought ashore to feed the black market, then it had been done many times before. Perhaps allowances had been made for wind and current, based on months of experience. ‘We’d better go on. Stay close.’

After what Elliot estimated was about fifteen minutes, he ordered another rest. They were all on the point of exhaustion now. It was as much as any of them could do to keep numb fingers hanging on. It would be so much easier, he thought, just to let go, to slip away into the eternity that awaited below. Supporting himself again on the crook of his elbow, he looked around. There was not a glimpse of the island in any direction. Only the sea and, above it, the vast cosmos. Without the moon as a guide, they would not have known which way they were heading. But whatever their bearing, he knew they could not hang on for much longer.

It was Hau who spotted the light. He called out in sudden excitement and pointed away to their left. Elliot strained his eyes and saw nothing. But then, as their boat was lifted again on the swell, he saw it. A bright white light, shining across the water. He lost sight of it almost at once as their tiny craft slid down into another trough, only to spot it again on the next rise. Hope dug reserves of strength from the depths of despair, and they kicked off again in the direction of the light, shouting and calling to the boat.

As they got nearer, their calls were rewarded by the sound of an engine spluttering, then revving hard as the boat turned to head in their direction. Elliot reached across and held the two canoes together, as the wash from the power launch lifted them up, then sucked them in to its side. Light played in fractured patterns across the broken surface of the water, and he saw Yuon’s face looking down from the deck. Helping hands lifted Ny and Hau to safety. Elliot turned to offer Serey his hand, but she was gone.

‘Serey!’ He called again, ‘Serey!’, in sudden panic, and spun the canoe around, hoping to find her clinging to the far side. She wasn’t there.

‘What wrong? Where Mamma?’ Ny’s voice reached him from afar, as if in a dream. He turned this way and that in the water, looking for a glimpse of grey hair breaking the surface.

‘Light!’ he screamed. ‘Give me some fucking light!’ A searchlight swung across the water and he swam frantically back in the direction they had come. Nothing. He stopped and tried to tread water, but felt himself going under, and splashed back towards the boat again, gasping for breath. He reached the canoe and clung to it for several moments, head pressed against the bark in despair. Her words rang in his head: I could never live with betrayal. And he knew what she had done. He struck out at the water in frustration and anguish. They had come so far.

Two crewmen leaned over to pull him aboard, and he slumped back against the rail. He glanced up and saw the pain in Yuon’s eyes. He would never be free of his conscience now. Ny and her brother stood to one side, looking at Elliot with fear and confusion in their faces. They did not yet understand.

‘Where Mamma?’ Ny asked again in a quiet voice.

‘Gone,’ Elliot said. ‘Gone.’

*

In little under half an hour they saw the dark shadow of the mainland lying along the horizon, occasional lights winking along the shoreline. They sat in the back of the boat, silent except for Hau, who wept unashamedly in his sister’s arms. It had been easy to forget that he was still a child. Only war, and the Khmer Rouge, had made him old before his time. Ny stroked his hair absently, staring off into the middle distance. Yuon sat alone, detached and distraught. A sad and lonely figure.

When they drew, eventually, into the small private jetty, he ushered his family off before him, and Elliot followed wearily at a distance. The launch wheeled off into the night. Yuon turned to Elliot. ‘I have a car waiting, Mistah Elliot. We will drive straight to Kuala Lumpur. Will you come with us?’

Elliot shook his head. ‘The Thai border can’t be more than twenty kilometres away. I’ll cross on foot.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry.’

Yuon nodded, and Elliot wondered if he would ever really understand.

Ny stepped forward and held out a formal hand. Elliot took it, and they shook hands briefly. ‘Goodbye, Mistah Elliot,’ she said. In her eyes was the desire to throw her arms around him and hold on for ever, but such a thing no longer seemed possible. He took the St Christopher from around his neck and handed it to Hau.

‘I think my luck’s all burned out,’ he said.

Hau looked at it for a moment, then turned and threw it into the water, and Elliot knew that, somehow, he’d failed the boy.

He watched Yuon, and the children he did not yet know, walk quickly up the beach towards the road, to the car and the future that awaited them. When they had disappeared from view he turned and looked back across the sea. Somewhere, out there, Serey had