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

deaths he had encountered in a life that was more about dying than living. As they at last reached the end of the causeway and mounted the steps into the black and cavernous mouth of the temple, he wondered why he should feel now, for the first time, what he had not felt in all those years. Was it the proximity of death? And yet he had been close to death many times. Perhaps, as the wat swallowed them into its darkness, so hell would swallow him into eternity. And the seductive allure of death stirred somewhere deep inside him. Perhaps all his life had led him to this place only to die.

In the blanket of darkness that enveloped them, the faintest sound rustled and echoed off invisible surfaces. Elliot eased Slattery gently on to the icy slabs and a soft grunt escaped his lips in a breath. McCue knelt beside him.

‘You okay, buddy?’

‘No troubles.’

And McCue heard him grin in the dark.

Elliot struck the flint of his lighter and held a small flame up above his head. A tiny halo burgeoned into the almost tangible darkness that engulfed the flame and snuffed its light. Elliot’s sweat grew cold on his skin. He shivered, taking several steps into the void, seeking a surface that would reflect his light. Faint grey images flickered back at him. Thick-limbed peasants with coarse, clownish faces; the bodies of the damned trodden underfoot by horsemen and torn by wild beasts; aristocratic faces smiling beatifically from long boats, secure in the knowledge that, sooner or later, they would appear in the honours lists as minor gods. A cockfight seemed to reflect the futility of their own struggle. Elliot stepped closer to run his hand lightly over the cold carved stone and feel its slimy humidity. For a moment, a memory of the tiny engravings on Grace’s silver necklace and bracelet, crafted by Sihanouk’s own silversmith, flickered through his mind. A memory from another world. He put his hand to his neck and found that the thong was broken, the ring she had given him gone – the only part of her that would ever return to the soil of her birth. His fingers found only his own St Christopher.

‘Hey, Elliot. We gotta do something for Mikey.’

Elliot turned back, the lighter now burning his fingers. Ny and her mother squatted on the floor beside the prone figure of Slattery and the kneeling shadow of McCue. Faces glowed palely in the light of the searing heat that grew from his hand. All turned towards him. Looking for answers. From him. His responsibility. Hadn’t it always been that way?

‘Better light a fire.’ He wondered for a moment where this strange voice had come from, metallic and soulless, echoing out of nowhere – before he realized it was his own.

McCue took less than half an hour, returning several times with armfuls of dry wood, to get a fire burning. Elliot laid out a sleeping mat, eased Slattery on to it, and covered him with another. The Aussie’s face was so pale it almost glowed, drained of blood and life. Elliot fingered the sticky warmth of the blood that oozed around the tourniquet on Slattery’s leg. He knew that if he took it off Slattery would bleed to death. If it stayed on much longer he would lose the leg.

The flames of McCue’s fire licked up around the small group, yellow light flickering across faces lost in fatigue and hopelessness.

‘Sleep,’ Elliot said. ‘I’ll take first watch.’

*

The shadows of lions couchant and many-headed serpents rose up around him. He walked slowly through the slabs of silvered light that fell between the tall stone columns guarding the hideously carved outer walls of the wat. People devoured by crocodiles, butchered by swordsmen. Elliot wondered if this barbarous culture had somehow proved a breeding ground for the horrors of the Khmer Rouge to come.

He glanced back along the length of the causeway, across the long grass and the still lakes, to the distant line of the outer walls and the jungle beyond. Not a sound, nor a movement, stirred the night air. It did not seem natural. McCue had pumped Slattery full of painkillers and the Aussie had fallen into a restless slumber. McCue himself had been asleep almost before his head touched the floor, curled up in a curiously foetal position close to the fire. A sleeping child. Elliot had left Ny wide-eyed and sleepless watching over her mother. ‘Don’t let the fire go out,’ he told her.

The scrape of a foot on stone brought his thoughts to an abrupt halt. He turned to find Ny staring up at him out of the gloom, dark eyes turning black. ‘You should be sleeping,’ he said curtly.

She shrugged. ‘No can sleep.’

He took in her slight, fragile frame, and for the first time realized just how small she really was. Like a child half her age. And yet there was a maturity and experience in her eyes that might have belonged to a woman of twice her years. In her gaze was a sense of knowing, as if she had known him all her life. As if she knew him all too well, as only he did. The idea discomfited him. He rested his M16 against the wall and squatted down on the top step, leaning back against a pillar and taking out a cigarette. He lit it and felt the smoke, dry and acrid, burn his mouth, and he sucked it deep inside him and felt the tightness across his chest relax.

‘Smoke?’ he asked, and held out a cigarette.

She shook her head. ‘When cadres smoke it smell bad. Bitter. Like . . .’ she searched for the word ‘. . . privilege.’

He smiled. ‘You’re too young to have thought that one up for yourself. You hear it from your mother?’

She tilted her jaw defiantly. ‘My mamma clever. She keep us stay alive.’

Elliot nodded seriously. ‘Sure.’ He drew again on the cigarette. ‘Weren’t you ever curious? For yourself?’

‘About what?’

‘Smoking.’

She