The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller Peter May (intellectual books to read .txt) 📖

army is one way. I spend twenty taels of gold in last year keeping my boy out of army. You know – bribe. That more than six thousand dollar. It cost nearly three thousand dollar just to live.’ He shrugged. ‘Food very expensive on black market. I no can afford carry on much longer. My son in hiding now.’

‘Where the hell d’you get the money?’

Heng spread his lips in a wide grin, revealing his three remaining front teeth, like tombstones crumbling in a graveyard. ‘Money all in gold, Billee. They no find my gold.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Oh, we got to leave Vietnam, if we gonna stay alive.’

‘When?’

The old Hoa shook his head sadly. ‘Is not so easy, Billee. My cousin work on boat at Rach Gia for six month. We all give him money and he buy gasoline and keep it safe for trip. But not so easy now. At first many people leave Vietnam by boat, and government no worry. Now they make it hard. Shoot you if you try leave. We must wait for good weather, then two day only on South China Sea and we get to Malaysia.’

‘We’re just coming into the better weather now, aren’t we?’

‘Sure. But it cost much money. Many people need pay for boat. Not easy organize such thing.’

‘We got money, Heng. Dollars, gold, some diamonds.’

Heng’s brow furrowed doubtfully. ‘Dangerous try take foreigner, Billee. Take time, too.’

McCue reached across suddenly and grabbed Heng’s bony wrist. It was an act not intended to threaten, but one born of desperation. ‘We haven’t got time, Heng! We can’t tie up in that harbour indefinitely without someone getting curious, sooner or later. They find us, we’re dead, man!’ His eyes burned fiercely into the old Chinaman’s. Then, conscious that he had crossed the line beyond polite Chinese etiquette, he released Heng’s wrist. ‘I’m sorry.’

The Hoa rubbed the bruised flesh on his arm and stared back thoughtfully at McCue. ‘You got gun?’

‘Sure we got guns. Four automatic rifles, two pistols.’ He grinned nervously. ‘Awesome, huh?’

‘Crossing dangerous,’ Heng said. ‘Many pirate.’

‘Pirates?’

‘Thai fishermen. They attack boat people. Steal their money, rape their women, kill many men. Plenty bad story ’bout Thai pirate.’

McCue’s optimism rose like the smoke from the oil lamp. ‘Then you’re going to need us along for protection.’

Heng nodded solemnly. ‘Sure Billee.’ He paused. ‘How much money you got?’

*

The sampans rose and fell silently in the dark, like the shallow breathing of sleeping bodies. There were no lights anywhere along the harbour. McCue stepped carefully across the boats. From one of them, the muffled voice of a man cursed him for disturbing his sleep. Ny’s face appeared in the shadowed margin of the mat roof above their sampan, one half of her face caught pale in the moonlight. McCue crouched down, pushing past her to enter the cabin. He saw pinpoints of light reflected in Serey’s eyes, and a movement behind her told him the boy was awake, too.

‘What happen?’ Ny whispered.

‘Is Elliot awake?’

‘He is awake.’ Serey’s voice seemed strained and brittle.

McCue pulled back the curtain and saw the glow from Elliot’s cigarette.

‘You want food now?’ Ny asked, and he felt a stab of guilt. He had eaten and drunk well, and they had made do with rice and dried fish.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Well?’ There was impatience in Elliot’s tone that annoyed McCue.

‘They was going anyway,’ he said. ‘His family and some others. They’ve got a boat at Rach Gia and they been saving fuel.’

‘When?’ It was Serey’s voice this time that carried a hint of impatience.

‘Not for another month.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Elliot hissed. ‘We can’t hang about here for a month!’

‘I talked them into going early.’

‘How long?’

‘A week – at the most. Someone’ll come for us.’

He heard Elliot expelling air through his teeth.

‘Even that’s pushing it, Billy.’

McCue was angry. ‘Fuck sake, Elliot, what d’you want – club-class tickets on the first flight out?’

‘That’ll do nicely.’

Serey’s hand touched McCue’s arm. He turned towards her. ‘How much?’ she asked.

He hesitated. ‘A lot. Probably just about everything we . . . everything you got.’

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The winter sun washed the room with its pale morning light. Outside a cold wind rattled the empty branches of the trees. Lisa sat in front of the mirror on the dressing table, and raised an arm slowly to brush her hair. Despite the heavy strapping, the pain from her broken ribs was still intense. It hurt just to breathe. The worst of the swelling on her face had subsided, bruises faded to the colour of jaundice yellow. The red slash of her lips heightened the chalky white of her skin. She looked ugly and tired. She felt like death.

After four days in the hospital in Hong Kong, and the thirteen-hour flight home, she had been exhausted and slept for eighteen hours, waking to a strange bed and a numbing disorientation. Only when a drawn-looking Blair had come in with a cup of tea did she remember where she was. The strain of his concern showed around his eyes.

‘How are you?’

She shrugged. ‘Alright.’ She pulled herself up to lean against the headboard.

He handed her the cup. ‘Do you feel up to a visitor?’

‘Who?’

He sensed her alarm and his face clouded with guilt. ‘I’m sorry, lass. Perhaps I should have waited. I called your boyfriend to let him know you were safe. He insisted on coming.’

‘Here?’

He nodded.

‘When?’

He looked at his watch. ‘About an hour. If you don’t want to see him . . .’

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll have to see him sometime.’ She made it sound like a dental appointment.

Now, as she stared at the stranger in the mirror, she heard a car draw up in the road outside, a door slam shut. She did not know how to be with him. He belonged to another life, as different and remote as a butterfly’s former larval existence. The sound of his feet crunching on the gravel path filled her with dread. But there was a lack of urgency in his step, a secret