The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

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On the way back Elliot was silent. The hot air battered against his face as their driver, now glazed and unreachable, drove their hang yao through the myriad waterways with a reckless disregard for the safety of anyone. Slattery hung on to the side of the boat grinning maniacally, eyes on fire. ‘Fantastic, chief! Absolutely fantastic!’ They had consumed enough Mekong, a distilled rice concoction, to leave them with as much disregard for their safety as their driver.

Elliot was miles away. McCue’s total commitment to his child had touched a raw nerve. However little he cared for himself, or even his wife, he was prepared to die to provide the chance of a better future for his son. Elliot had a picture in his head that wouldn’t go away. Of a young woman in a churchyard, all in black, lifting her veil and looking at him without recognition. Somehow that had been more painful than the years of denial. He had known her at once, felt he would have known her anywhere. And he had provided for her, hadn’t he? After a fashion? He shook his head. It was the Mekong talking, not his conscience. He had no conscience, or if he had it had never offered him guidance, only pain, somewhere deep inside, buried away from public gaze.

‘I could do with a real drink,’ Slattery shouted above the roar of the engine.

Elliot looked at him. ‘What age do you reckon McCue is?’

Slattery frowned. ‘I dunno. About thirty? Why?’

Elliot shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘So what about that drink?’

‘Why not.’ Elliot felt like getting drunk.

CHAPTER TEN

Lisa opened a small, white-painted wooden gate and started down the path through the trees towards the house. It was a mock Tudor building, white with black-painted cross-beams and latticed windows. The garden was extensive and well kept, a path leading round the side to a large lawn at the back which sloped down towards the river’s edge. The weather had changed overnight. It had been bitterly cold, threatening snow for Christmas. But today it was unseasonably mild, an almost springlike warmth in the sun that slipped out periodically from behind the scudding white clouds that raced across the winter sky.

She was apprehensive, but the passing days had blunted hope and she expected nothing. She had returned several times to the mews house, but always there had been no one there. If this proved another dead end, she had resolved to put it all behind her, return to college after the holidays and try to build a new life for herself. She would tell herself that, after all, her father really was dead as her mother had always told her. In time she might even grow to believe it. She would probably marry David, raise children and lead a normal life. Normal! Whatever that was.

She knocked on the door and waited, praying that at least someone would answer, even if only to tell her she had the wrong address. Not knowing was the worst. The sun slipped behind a cloud and a shadow fell over her like fading hope. She knocked again and was about to turn away when the door opened abruptly. A grey-haired man in a green pullover, baggy trousers and tennis shoes peered out at her. She hesitated, not quite sure now what to say. ‘Yes?’ the man asked.

‘Sergeant Samuel Blair?’ she stammered, aware of the colour rising on her cheeks. He frowned, eyeing her suspiciously.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I’m Lisa Elliot,’ she said.

Blair was at a loss for words. He had figured her for some young reporter trying to dig up an old story. It happened from time to time. But he saw now that she was too young, her face flushed with uncertainty.

‘You’d better come in,’ he said at length.

He led her through to the sun lounge and indicated the chair where her father had sat only a few days before. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ She shook her head. He sat on the edge of his leather armchair opposite her, leaning forward, hands clasped between his legs. He stared at them for a moment. Big rough hands, speckles of age like large freckles spattering the back of them. ‘So how can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for my father.’ She was hesitant. Not sure how much she should tell him. But there was something warm in his eyes that drew her on. ‘I have an address in a Chelsea mews. I know he did live there, but it seems to be empty now.’

Blair nodded, reluctant to commit himself to anything yet. He examined her face. Pretty. And he thought he saw something of her father in her. Was it the blue of her eyes? Maybe something in the set of the mouth, or the line of the jaw? ‘How did you find me?’

‘Luck really,’ she said. ‘And a journalist’s training.’ He allowed himself an ironic smile. He hadn’t been so wrong, after all. She added, ‘I went through all the names of those convicted at the court martial and looked in the telephone book. Yours was the only one listed. But, even then, I couldn’t be sure it was the same Samuel Blair.’

Blair made a mental note to change his number and go ex-directory. ‘I understood you’d been told Jack was dead.’

‘Jack? Is that what you call him?’ It was odd hearing him referred to by name by someone who knew him. It made him more real. ‘I thought it was John.’

Blair shrugged. ‘He’s always been Jack to me. And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘I didn’t know you’d asked me one.’ She caught his look. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I was told he was dead. Then this man turned up at the funeral . . .’

Blair was taken aback. ‘He was at the funeral!’

Lisa nodded. ‘I didn’t know who he was, of course. But then I found all the newspaper cuttings in the attic, and some old photographs. My mother had shut them away.’

He saw a large tear gather itself on the brim of her eye before