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

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The hang yao passed under a low wooden bridge and Elliot, sitting in the front of the boat, felt its shadow pass over him like the Angel of Death. A shout came from a klong house, and he glanced round anxiously, but the man was shouting to a boy who stood waist-deep in the water brushing his teeth. He heard the sound of laughter, breathed in the smell of cooking drifting on the wind. Life went on. Death, even here, seemed remote, a natural end upon which men and women did not dwell unduly. It would come to them soon enough. After weeks in the field life seemed unreal, normality abnormal.

Here too, a white face – a farang – on the klongs attracted little attention. His presence was unremarkable, a matter of indifference. Another tourist, perhaps. It would take time, he knew, to adjust.

His driver brought the boat to rest at the foot of wooden steps leading up to McCue’s house. ‘Wait for me,’ Elliot said, and climbed the steps with ice in his heart. The rocker still stood on the terrace, but it had an abandoned air, as if it had not been sat in for a long time. The mosquito nets were gone from the windows, and the door stood ajar. The floorboards creaked like snow underfoot as he stepped inside. The emptiness shocked him, like finding somebody naked unexpectedly. A fine film of dust had settled on the floor and the window ledges. The door to the back room, where the baby had lain beneath its protective netting, opened on to more emptiness. Late afternoon sun streamed through the windows, as though trying to shed light on a dark place.

A voice called from the klong, and he stepped back out on to the terrace to find a wizened old lady standing on the bottom step. She smiled to show friendship and revealed gums without teeth. ‘You look for Lotus?’ She held her hand to her eyes, to shield them from the sun, and take a better look at Elliot.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do you know where she is?’

‘She no live here any more. Take baby, go back to live in town, work in bars.’

‘Do you know where? What bars?’

‘She no say. Her man leave her, no come back. Is normal. You friend of her?’

Elliot shook his head. ‘I knew her man,’ he said. ‘He didn’t leave her.’

As the hang yao sped out from the klong into the choppy waters of the Chao Phraya river, Elliot opened his hand and the torn fragments of the cheque that could have bought a better future for Lotus and her child were whipped away on the edge of the wind. To have searched for her in a city of five million people would have been hopeless. Lotus, he knew, was not her real name. It was a name used by countless girls, in numberless bars. And he was not sure he would even have known her again. Just another bar girl with a fatherless child.

At the Oriental Hotel landing stage, he pushed his way through the crowds queuing to cross the river, and picked up a taxi. His fire was all but extinguished, but somewhere, in all his black emptiness, an ember still smouldered. One remaining score to settle. ‘Sukhumvit Road,’ he told the driver.

All the shutters on Tuk’s villa were closed. The gates were padlocked. Elliot gazed through the bars, and was struck by an all too familiar sense of abandonment. The taxi driver leaned through his open window. ‘You looking for Tuk Than?’

Elliot turned. ‘That’s right.’

‘He dead,’ the driver said cheerfully. And Elliot thought, even revenge is denied me. ‘Newspapers full of it when it happen,’ the driver went on. ‘Some farang shoot him. English or American. They don’t know. But they say La Mère Grace involve, too.’

Elliot frowned. ‘Grace? What happened?’

The driver shrugged. ‘Nobody know. They find her body in river. Ma-any bullet. They kill her good. Where you want go now?’

Elliot stood for a moment, then slid wearily into the back seat. ‘Home,’ he said.

‘Where home?’

‘A long way from here.’

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

She stood by the window watching for the taxi. It was five minutes late, but her train did not leave for two hours yet. There was plenty of time. Too much. She wanted to be away. Away from this empty house, stripped of its furniture and its memories. Its cold bare rooms seemed unfamiliar to her now, as a dead body seems strangely unconnected with the spirit that once animated it.

Outside, the February wind slapped sleet against the window and flapped the end of the SOLD sticker on the FOR SALE sign in the garden. A car drew up at the gate. She stooped to pick up her case, all that she would carry from an unhappy past to an uncertain future, and went into the hall. The bell rang as she reached the door, and she opened it to find Blair sheltering on the doorstep, collar turned up against the sleet.

She looked at him with surprise. ‘I thought you were the taxi.’

‘Can I come in?’ She held the door open, and he hurried in out of the cold. He looked at the case still in her hand. ‘I just caught you, then.’

‘My train’s at five.’ She put it down again.

He seemed unusually hesitant. ‘I didn’t realize you were going so soon.’

‘I start on Monday.’ He nodded, but said nothing. She added, ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything.’

‘That’s alright.’

‘Not even a seat.’

He stood awkwardly. ‘It’s not important.’

‘Why are you here, Sam?’

He avoided her eyes. ‘I didn’t know whether to come or not. I’m still not sure it’s the right thing.’ He glanced at her uncertainly, but she offered him no help. He reached into an inside pocket and held out a folded slip of paper. ‘It came yesterday.’

She unfolded the paper. It was an international telegram from Bangkok. It read: STILL IN ONE PIECE STOP HOME TOMORROW STOP J. She frowned