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

imposing, a monumental stone edifice to a strange God. It had dominated the centre of the city, built by the French colons in the Thirties, the symbol of civilizing Catholic colonialism. How could it be gone? It had seemed for ever. And yet not a stone remained.

Serey’s head dropped. If the cathedral was gone, what hope of finding her son in this bedevilled place? She had known all along that he would not be here. Hope had remained alive only for as long as Phnom Penh had seemed an impossible goal. She felt her heart wither inside her. A soft hand on her arm raised her eyes to see a reflection of herself twenty-five years ago, and she recognized the same hopelessness in the eyes. ‘We are almost there. We must not give up now.’ The hope in Ny’s voice belied the desolation she felt.

The crump of artillery shells came again from the west, but closer now. Somewhere out towards the airport.

Elliot’s voice was strained. ‘We must keep going.’

Ny led them on past the site where the cathedral had stood, along a tree-lined avenue leading to a tree-covered hillock, Le Phnom, from which the city had taken its name. They hurried by a tall, crenellated building that had been the country’s most famous and celebrated hotel, Le Royal, renamed Le Phnom after the Lon Nol coup in 1970. Once, French colons and their stagiaires, planters and tourists, had sat on its grand terraces sipping Chablis and dining on fabulous fish from the Mekong. Now those same terraces gazed out on the avenue with dilapidated indifference as the stricken group limped by: an Englishman and an American, and two Cambodians who were survivors of a holocaust even the Nazis could not have imagined. Fleetingly, Elliot wondered if the French colonizers on their mission to ‘civilize’ this country a century before could ever have dreamt of such things. History had a power and will of its own which could not be predicted. Only in retrospect could understanding be found, and sometimes not even then.

As they trailed through empty suburban streets the sky swallowed the sun and began again to spit fat drops of rain. It was impossible now to tell whether it was artillery they heard in the distance or the rumble of thunder. Crumbling villas sat in silence behind high walls and fleshy-leaved trees. Elliot carried the semi-conscious Serey in his arms. At first she had seemed feather-light and fragile, as if she might break if he handled her roughly. But now she was a dead weight, his arms aching with the strain, his khaki T-shirt black with sweat. McCue’s rifle hung down at his side, an admission of impotence in the face of overwhelming odds. He turned his face upwards to let the warm rain splash down on his burning skin. They had not seen a soul.

The city was empty, abandoned to history and the Vietnamese. Ny walked mutely ahead, glazed eyes registering the familiar landmarks of her childhood – a time that belonged to another life in another world a million years ago. She heard the faint echo of children playing in the street. Some of the faces she saw quite clearly. Others remained obstinately obscure. Her mother’s voice rang out in admonishment, scolding. They must stay in the garden. It was dangerous in the street. Such simple dangers, so easily avoided.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elliot searched her face with concern. She had stopped, suddenly, in the middle of the road, trembling fingers toying tentatively with each other.

‘We’re here,’ she said simply.

Elliot’s eyes strayed past the broken gates to the streaked facade of the villa beyond. Its smashed shutters hung from windows opening into a gloomy interior. Gently, he put Serey back on her feet and held her arm as she wobbled unsteadily, blinking to focus on the house she had thought she would never see again. ‘You’re home, Serey.’ His voice was husky. A mighty crack of thunder broke overhead and the heavens opened. Elliot could not tell if it was the rain or tears that streaked Serey’s face.

Slowly he led her through the rain up the broken driveway, past the buckled remains of an old bicycle, up a short flight of steps and through the open door. The house was a shambles of dust and debris, the air hot and rancid, and thick with the smell of human excrement. Flies clustered around them, filling the stillness with their incessant whine.

McCue stepped quickly past them and into a front room, stooping to pick up an AK-47 from amongst the rubble. He shook the dust from it and checked the magazine. He looked up at Elliot. ‘Half full.’

Both men turned as a tiny cry escaped from Serey’s lips, and she shuffled through the darkness of the hall to pick up a threadbare teddy lying abandoned in the dust. She clutched it to her chest and dropped, sobbing, to her knees. Elliot glanced at Ny. She shrugged helplessly, almost overcome by emotion.

‘It belong Hau.’

Elliot went forward and crouched to put his arms around Serey. She was shivering and let her weight fall against him, her body racked with sobs. Her thin grey hair clung to her wet face as he pressed it gently to his chest. He could find no words of comfort or hope, and for a moment thought how strange it was that he should even try. Facing him, a door torn off its hinges lay on the floor, thick with a dust broken only by the tracks of small, bare feet. His eyes flickered up, penetrating the darkness of the room beyond. There, crouched against the wall, the naked figure of a small boy, knees pulled up under his chin, stared back at him. Time hung suspended, like the dust, for long seconds. The boom of artillery, the crackle of small-arms fire and the roar of trucks and tanks carried on the rain from the distant edges of the city. ‘Serey,’ Elliot whispered. And, again, more urgently, ‘Serey!’ Something