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

had been morose and cold. Then nothing. He just disappeared. Two weeks, maybe three, and she had thought she would never see him again. It happened. A man took a fancy to you, lavished you with money and gifts, told you he loved you and wanted to take you away from it all. Then he would be sent back home and know that he could not take you with him. A brief illusion. A candle that burned too bright to be real. Then Billy turned up at the club one night, took her by the hand and pulled her out into the street.

‘You’re quitting. Now,’ he said. She had pulled herself free and told him he was mad, and he’d said quite simply, ‘I want to marry you.’

He had looked her straight in the eye, and she knew that he meant it. He had never told her he loved her, or promised her anything, but it was all there in his dark tragic eyes. She had wondered what America would be like. Reality, she knew, could never be like the dream. But she was never to know. He had bought them a house on the klongs. He was never going home, he said.

But it had been an escape of a sorts. She had not loved him, not then, had not known what love was. But they had found peace together, a kind of happiness she had not experienced since childhood. He had never told her where the money came from, though sometimes he had been away for weeks on end. But they had never wanted for anything and so she never asked.

She had found herself returning to the ways of her mother, and her mother before her. All the values she had rejected, the heritage she had wished to trade for the dream that had been America. She was Thai, and she was happy in the knowledge of who she was.

But Billy had changed since their child was born. The inner peace they had found together was gone, like the still surface of a pond broken by the monsoon rains. And the trouble in his heart was reflected in his eyes, like mirrors of his soul.

She finished with the shirt, and was padding through to check the mosquito net around the baby’s sleeping mat when she heard the bump of a small boat against the landing stage and Billy’s step on the stairs. Something had happened, she knew. It was in those eyes that spoke to her more eloquently than the words he used so seldom and so sparingly.

‘When will you be going?’ she asked.

He shrugged, avoiding her eyes. ‘A week.’

‘And when will you be back?’ She felt the tension in him.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘when I get back we’re going home.’

‘This is my home. I thought it was your home too.’

He glanced through to the room where the baby slept. ‘There’s more chance for him in America.’ She squatted on the floor and examined the shirt she had mended. He lit a cigarette. He had been smoking more these past two days. ‘If – if I don’t come back . . .’ She looked up. ‘If I don’t come back, I want you to take him anyway. There’ll be plenty of money and my folks’ll look after you.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want money, or America. I want a husband, and a father for my child.’

He stood for a moment, then turned and went out on to the terrace. She heard the creak of his old rocking chair. After some minutes she rose slowly from the floor and went out beside him. The sky was thick with stars, like the eyes of Heaven gazing down upon the affairs of men. She didn’t even look at him. ‘Don’t go, Billy,’ she said. ‘I love you.’

He looked up and felt the sting of tears in his eyes. She had never told him that before. No one had.

II

‘There’s a gentleman been waiting to see you,’ the receptionist told Elliot when he got back to the hotel. She nodded towards a man sitting on one of the large sofas dotted around the reception lounge. Elliot and Slattery turned to look.

‘It’s Ang,’ Elliot said. ‘I’ll catch you later.’

Slattery disappeared towards the lifts. Ang rose and held out his hand as Elliot approached. Elliot sat down without taking it. Ang’s smile of greeting faded and he resumed his seat. ‘Do you have the stuff I asked for?’ Elliot said.

‘Yes.’ Ang lifted a large buff envelope from the seat beside him. ‘The daily routine and layout of the commune near Siem Reap. It was not easy to come by, Mistah Elliot.’

‘Is it accurate?’

‘As accurate as the recollection of half-starved refugees can be.’ Ang paused. ‘The money has been lodged and credited to the account number you gave me.’

‘I know,’ Elliot said. ‘I checked.’

‘The second payment will be released just as soon as my wife and family are delivered safely to me here in Thailand.’

Elliot looked at Ang with ill-concealed contempt. He remembered the story Chan Cheong had told him in that stinking hut in Mak Moun. He remembered the dead look in the eyes of the refugee. Eyes that had watched his wife and children bayoneted to death. I cannot say I am free. I cannot say I am alive, he had said. And here was a man who had left his wife and family to their fate. Here was a man who was free, who was alive, who had the money to buy off his conscience and the memory of his betrayal.

‘Will there be penalties?’ Elliot said. ‘If I don’t come back with a full complement.’

‘I don’t think I understand, Mistah Elliot.’

‘I mean, are you paying by the head? A third each for your wife, your daughter and your son? After all, we’re not even sure where your son is.’

Ang faced out Elliot’s contempt impassively. ‘They paid you by the head in Vietnam, did they not?’

Elliot was momentarily taken aback. Ang had done his homework.