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

‘I – I don’t understand.’

‘No, you don’t!’

‘Mr Tuk said—’

‘Hah!’ Grace’s eyes blazed as she moved down the length of the table towards the trembling English girl. ‘Tuk used you like he uses everybody. He double-crossed your father when he went into Cambodia, tried to have him killed. And then you stumbled into his nasty little web, the perfect insurance against your father’s return, a hostage to vengeance. You thought I was your friend. You were my prisoner. Tuk gave you into my safe keeping to do with as I would until you were no longer required.’

The blood pulsed painfully at Lisa’s temples, confusion and disbelief crowding her mind. She wanted to run away from this, didn’t want to hear any more. But a vast weight seemed to bear down upon her, robbing her of any ability to move. Grace stood no more than a foot away from her now, her face twisted and ugly, her voice rising in pitch, almost to a scream. Flecks of spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. ‘You thought the General raped you. Well, he paid for the privilege. Paid me. Paid dearly. And there would have been others. Dozens of them. Wealthy Thais willing to splash out for a girl like you.’

‘No!’ Lisa screamed. She desperately wanted to wake up, prayed for the nightmare to end. If she screamed loud enough—

The slap of Grace’s palm across her face nearly knocked her over – the same hand that had so tenderly held her in the dark the night before. But still she could hear herself screaming. And again the hand smacked the side of her head. This time she stumbled and half-fell across the table. A voice was still screaming, only it was no longer hers. It was Grace.

‘Get out! Go! Before it’s too late!’

A deep sob tore itself from Lisa’s chest, tears burning acid tracks down her cheeks. She lay across the table unable to move. Grace’s hands took her roughly by the shoulders, pulling her to her feet, as if she were no more than a rag doll. Through the tears Lisa saw the blurred and distorted features of Grace’s face only inches from hers. Hot breath hissed in her face. ‘Don’t you understand? He’s going to kill you !’

A girl appeared in the doorway, Lisa’s case in her hand. ‘The car is ready, La Mère Grace.’

Grace collected herself, brushing the tears away from her eyes. ‘Take the case out to the car.’ Her voice sounded abnormally controlled. The girl melted away into the hall. Lisa pulled herself free and took a step back. She was no longer weeping, but she shook uncontrollably. She stared at Grace with an intensity close to pain.

‘I hate you,’ she whispered, and she turned and ran into the hall. Grace heard her footsteps recede and then the slamming of the front door. Slowly she sank into a chair, staring vacantly into nothingness. She felt empty, sucked dry of blood and life. For a long moment her face was calm, without expression, before suddenly crumpling, and she wept as she had not done since she was a child. She did not hear the scurry of feet across the hall and the cry of her name. Only the shaking of her shoulders by urgent hands caused her to look up.

‘La Mère Grace, La Mère Grace. They are taking Miss Lisa!’

It took a moment for Grace to assimilate what the girl had said. With an effort she pulled herself out of the chair and ran through the hall, wiping the tears from her eyes. On the steps, heat and light rained down like blows. Her tear-blurred vision created the mirage of Tuk’s white Mercedes gliding on air towards the gate. But she heard the crunch of its tyres on the gravel, and saw Lisa’s panicked face pressed against the rear window, her mouth opened wide in a silent, terrified scream. And she knew it was no trick of the light.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

In the hours before they left, while they waited for darkness to fall, Elliot was aware of the boy watching him. Big saucer eyes that fixed themselves, unblinking, on Elliot’s hand as the Englishman absently fingered the tiny silver medallion that hung from his neck. McCue had stripped down his M16 and was cleaning it with an instinctive professionalism. They could hear Serey in the kitchen boiling up a pot of rice. Ny seemed lost in time and space, sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at the wall beyond Elliot. The boy’s eyes flickered up to meet Elliot’s, and held his gaze for an inordinate length of time, staring with unselfconscious candour. Finally he turned away towards his sister and whispered something to her. The only indication that she had heard was a slow refocusing of her eyes on Elliot. ‘He want know what you wear round neck.’

Elliot felt, between his thumb and forefinger, the contour of the small figure set in its circle of silver, familiar and comforting. McCue glanced up curiously from his gun parts. ‘It’s a St Christopher,’ Elliot said. ‘Patron Saint of travellers. My mother gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday.’ It came almost as a shock to McCue to think of Elliot as having a mother.

‘A charm?’ Ny asked.

‘I suppose you could call it that.’

‘And it work?’

‘Well, I’ve made it this far, so I suppose it must.’

Hau scanned his sister’s face passively as she offered him a brief explanation. The boy was silent, then, for a long while, his gaze drawn back again to the tiny figure, like needles to a magnet.

McCue said, ‘I think the kid would like it, Elliot.’ Elliot shook his head. McCue’s chuckle was sour and filled with irony. ‘I’d never have figured you for a superstitious bastard.’

‘Lots of things you’ve never figured, Billy.’

McCue’s smile never wavered. ‘We’ll need more than a good-luck charm to get us out of here in one piece. It’ll take a fucking miracle. How are you on miracles, Elliot?’ Serey