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

disappointed by his forty-odd years. He had enjoyed most of them, living often close to death, something that always somehow heightened the pleasure of life itself. How could you really know life, he thought, until you had faced death? But he had never had money. Not real money. How differently he might have felt about life, and death, if he had. But, then, he thought wryly, even money can’t save you from the Big C.

It was Slattery, lost in his thoughts, who saw her first. Radiant, all in white, stepping through the French windows. He blinked in case he was dreaming. She was, he thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wore a calf-length, white, cotton dress, cross-cut in a deep V over her small breasts and tied loosely at the waist by a red cord. Silken black hair cascaded over her shoulders, so black it was almost blue as it caught the glare of the sun. Her skin was the colour of teak, her eyes a deep, almost luminescent brown. There was just a touch of rouge on her fine high cheekbones, a hint of blue on the lids of her eyes, the merest trace of red on her full, wide lips. She moved with a slow assured elegance across the lawn and he realized that she was tall, perhaps five-six, and not of pure Asian blood. Tuk rose as she approached, and Elliot turned his head to see her for the first time. And he knew from that first moment that she was something very special.

‘My dear,’ Tuk said. He stood and made a little bow. She kissed him on each cheek in the French manner and took his hands in hers.

‘Than. You are well, I hope?’ she said with an accent that owed more to French than Cambodian.

Tuk smiled with genuine affection. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But I have no need to ask it of you. You are radiant, as always.’

She inclined her head in acknowledgement with the assurance of one accustomed to admiration. Slattery saw now that she was older than she appeared. Tiny lines around the eyes and the mouth, a slight loosening of the skin at her neck. She looked thirty, although she could easily have been forty, or even more. But age enhanced rather than diminished her beauty. She was flawed only by her lack of innocence. A look, knowing and calculated, in her eyes. She turned, ignoring Slattery, and looked directly at Elliot with an unwavering gaze of naked interest. ‘Are you not going to introduce us, Than?’

‘But, of course. La Mère Grace, Mr Elliot. A business associate from England.’

‘Oh? And what kind of business are you in, Mr Elliot?’

‘I make war,’ Elliot said.

She offered him a cool hand, small and perfect, which caressed his for the briefest of moments. Then she looked at Slattery. Tuk said, ‘And Mr Slattery.’

‘And do you make war also, Mr Slattery?’ she asked.

‘Only when I get paid.’ Slattery grinned and added, ‘But I prefer making love.’

She raised an elegant eyebrow. ‘Then we have much in common. I, too, prefer to make love. But only when paid.’ Her eyes flickered back to Elliot.

Tuk watched with amusement. ‘Grace runs the best brothel in Bangkok,’ he said. ‘Please, do sit.’ They all sat and Tuk called for another drink.

‘Brothel is not a word I care to use,’ La Mère Grace said. ‘It has . . . connotations. My girls entertain only the most discerning of clients. I have other establishments to cater for the more basic clientele.’ She looked again at Slattery. ‘We can cater for almost every taste.’ Slattery shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, feeling like a book that had just been read and discarded.

Tuk offered her a cigarette and lit it, then lit one for himself. He did not extend the offer to Elliot or Slattery. She took tiny puffs, exhaling the smoke through pursed lips.

‘La Mère Grace ran the most celebrated house in Phnom Penh until the early Seventies.’ Tuk leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. ‘She only just escaped the country before the Khmer Rouge took over. Unfortunately she was unable to bring her girls with her.’

‘I very much fear they were killed by the communists,’ she said with no apparent trace of regret. ‘I have had to find and train new girls. Thai girls.’

‘I was telling Mr Elliot,’ Tuk said, ‘that he must speak to you of Cambodia. He and Mr Slattery intend visiting it in the not too distant future.’

A look of surprise flickered momentarily in her eyes, but she knew better than to ask. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If I can be of any assistance.’

Tuk stood up. ‘And now, gentlemen, I have other business to attend to. At which hotel are you staying?’

Elliot rose. ‘The Narai.’

‘Then I shall pick you up this evening at seven and take you to my warehouse to examine the merchandise. And we can also make arrangements for our trip tomorrow.’

His dismissal was brief and pointed. Slattery raised himself to his feet and grinned at La Mère Grace. ‘Pleased to have met you, ma’am.’

She smiled perfunctorily and held out a card to Elliot. ‘Call on me tomorrow night. Both of you. I’ll expect you at nine.’

She watched them walk across the lawn towards the house. ‘He doesn’t say much,’ she said. ‘The dark one.’

Tuk rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It is often the quiet ones who are the most dangerous. We would, each of us, do well not to underestimate him.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

David poured the last of the wine into their glasses. Lisa had drunk most of the bottle, since he was driving. Before the meal she had gone through three gins and tonic. He wasn’t sure now whether she meant to be vague or whether it was the drink. It was she who had called and suggested they go out for a meal – the first time she’d called him in days. But she had been strangely formal and uncommunicative, and done nothing