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

eight million people. Eyes blazing defiance, she had turned on him. ‘I’m training as a reporter, aren’t I?’

He hadn’t been able to help himself. ‘Reporter! You really have no idea, do you? Newspapers are for grown-ups, Lisa. You’ll be lucky if you end up writing knitting patterns for the woman’s page of the Torquay Gazette!’ Instantly he had wanted to bite his tongue, but it was too late. She had turned away, her face red with anger and embarrassment, refusing to discuss it further, determined to prove him wrong. He was still cursing his stupidity.

There had been a reconciliation since then – of sorts. He had made all the running, apologized, said he was angry and frustrated and hadn’t meant what he’d said. He asked her to reconsider. She refused, and was relieved when he seemed to accept it. In truth he had realized, at last, that there was no point in fighting her. She was obsessed with finding her father. So, let her find him. He could never live up to the myth she was creating in her own mind, or accord with the excuses she had been making for him. He probably wouldn’t even want to know her – why else would he have stayed away all these years? But, whichever way it went, she would have to get it out of her system, and David had decided it was easier to swim with the current than against it. When the river of her obsession ran dry, as it was bound to, Lisa would be his again.

He still did not fully understand why it was he wanted her so much. Perhaps because she was one of the few things in his life that had not come easy. Winning had always come easy to David. Lisa was a challenge. One he was determined to beat.

For her part she was glad they had made up, was in need of his moral support. There was no one else, after all. She glanced at him as he drove. She wanted to say, I’m scared, but was frightened to admit it. All those brave words – I’m going to find my father. The reality was very different. And she was frightened, too, of the unknown. Of the stranger she was going to find. She would have liked to turn to David and say, I’ve changed my mind. But it was too late now. She was trapped by her own pride.

‘Listen, I want you to telephone me when you get to your hotel,’ David said. ‘So I know you’re alright.’

‘I will.’

He allowed himself an inner sigh of relief. As long as she kept in touch by phone he would retain some measure of control over what she did.

They checked her in at the British Airways desk and took her luggage, and she and David sat in the departure lounge waiting for her flight to be called. She had gone very quiet, subdued by nerves. He took her hand and squeezed it.

‘It’s a long flight,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘I’m looking forward to meeting him.’ She looked at him, surprised, and he forced himself to laugh. ‘After all, he’s the one I’m going to have to ask for your hand in marriage.’

She tensed and drew her hand away. ‘Don’t, David.’ It was as though he was making fun of her.

‘Oh, come on, I’m sorry. It was a joke, that’s all. I know you don’t want to hurry things. And I don’t want to push you.’ He took her hand again and decided to steer the conversation in a different direction. ‘You know what hotel he’s staying at?’

‘The Narai.’

‘And if he’s not there?’

She hesitated. ‘I went back to see the Sergeant.’

He turned his head sharply. ‘You never told me.’

‘I was going to. But I thought – well, I thought that you might be angry.’

‘Why would I be angry?’

‘Because you’ve behaved very strangely over everything to do with my father.’ The defiance in her voice again.

I’ve behaved strangely! he thought. But all he said was, ‘What did he say, the Sergeant?’

‘He said he thought my father would still be in Bangkok. If he wasn’t at the hotel he gave me another address to try. A man who might be able to help me. A man called Tuk Than.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

McCue had been watching the pig for some time from a concealed position a metre back from the path. It was somnolent and off-guard in the late afternoon heat, snuffling about in the undergrowth, foraging idly for something to eat. Elliot and Slattery were sleeping, and McCue was nearly at the end of his two-hour stint on watch. He was refreshed and alert after five hours’ sleep. The pig moved nearer the trap, infuriatingly slowly. But the tunnels had taught McCue patience. The beast was quite large and thickly haired with a long snout and two sharp tusks. McCue knew the dangers of provoking a wild pig into attack. It could knock a man over, and its tusks could inflict serious injury, often dangerously close to the femoral artery on the upper leg. He had seen a man bleed to death from such an injury.

Something close to McCue seemed suddenly to draw its attention, and it began lumbering down the path towards him, still contentedly unaware of his presence. As its forelegs broke the tripwire, the sapling sprang and the two sharpened bamboo stakes plunged deep into its chest. It let out a blood-curdling squeal and rolled over on its side, still twitching. It was not dead, but quickly failing. McCue approached with caution. It could still be dangerous. He raised the butt of his automatic and moved in to finish the job, clubbing the beast several times over the head. The twitching subsided and it lay quite still. A rustling in the undergrowth behind him made him swing round, drawing his knife to meet his assailant. It was Elliot.

‘What the hell’s happened!’

McCue smiled a rare smile. ‘We got pork for dinner,’ he said.

Slattery still slept while Elliot put water