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

‘Well . . .?’ Grace had inclined her head, amused by her embarrassment.

At first Lisa had denied it. Of course she wasn’t a virgin, she’d had lots of boyfriends. Grace had raised a sceptical eyebrow, and her penetrating gaze seemed to see through Lisa’s flustered deceit with startling ease. Lisa felt her cheeks burn again. ‘Well, one anyway,’ she said.

‘And he has made love to you?’ asked Grace.

‘Not exactly.’ Lisa stared hard at her hands on the table in front of her.

‘Then you are still a virgin.’

‘I suppose so.’

Grace smiled fondly at her, marvelling at such innocence. ‘Well, don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘It’s not necessarily a permanent condition. There is a cure.’

In spite of herself Lisa smiled. ‘Only it doesn’t come on prescription.’

‘I should hope not!’ The idea seemed to shock and amuse Grace. ‘The only cure for virtue’ – she smiled wickedly – ‘is vice. It’s delicious. Not a bit like medicine.’

Lisa wondered now, as she gazed out at the garden, if Grace had simply been poking fun again. She knew she must seem very naive to a woman like La Mère Grace, but wondered what pleasure the woman derived from taunting her with it. There seemed no malice in her, just amusement, but it did nothing for Lisa’s confidence, serving only to increase her sense of vulnerability.

She remembered that, not so long ago, what she had craved most was safety, the security of her home, her mother, David; and for a moment she almost regretted forcing open the trunk in the attic. It was as if, in that one action, she had closed down her past and opened up a future of bleak uncertainty, where the only light, glowing faintly in the distance, was the knowledge that somewhere in this hostile world was a man who was her father. She knew that somehow she thought that in finding him she might find herself. But it appeared that the closer she got, the less, rather than more, certain she became of who she really was. What was she doing here? What did she hope to find? And, in that moment, she was almost overwhelmed by a feeling of being completely and hopelessly alone.

A movement in the garden caught her eye. A glimpse of pale lilac caught in dappled sunlight. It was the girl who had served them lunch. She wore a simple lilac shirt over short, baggy, black trousers. Her dark hair was bobbed, cut short high into the nape of her neck, and her feet flapped in open rubber sandals as she padded from the house along an overgrown path. There was something odd in the nervous, secret intent of the girl’s carriage that banished Lisa’s thoughts of only a moment before, and aroused her curiosity. She stepped out on to the terrace and ran quickly down the half-dozen steps to the garden to follow the girl along the path.

By the time Lisa reached the spot where she’d last seen her, the girl had disappeared and the path seemed to peter out among the fronds that grew in prolific clusters all around. The garden appeared to stretch endlessly away on either side, and Lisa stood on tiptoes trying to catch a glimpse of the lilac shirt. She listened intently in the hot broken shade for some sound to give her a clue, but all she heard were the insects and the birds, and a rustling among the undergrowth that might have been a snake. She pushed quickly on through the fronds and found the garden opening up, suddenly, into a paved clearing.

The paving stones bore all the scars of neglect that characterized the rest of the garden, cracked and broken, weeds reaching up from the rich damp earth below. At the other side of the clearing, the girl in the lilac shirt was sunk on bended knee, sticks of burning incense pressed between palms raised to her bowed forehead. Her discarded sandals lay on the ground behind her. In front of her a large square stone table stood before a jumble of shrines raised on brick pillars, tiny replicas of houses and temples bedecked with flowers and strings of jasmine blossom. Laid all around, pointing upwards towards the shrine, at an angle of forty-five degrees, were a dozen or more red and white cylinders, some of which were four or five feet long. The upward ends were round and elongated like helmets, and Lisa realized, with a sudden sense of shock, that they were giant phalluses, an arrangement of enormous erections directed towards the shrine.

She stood for a moment, then turned, startled by a touch on her elbow. Grace stood by her side, smiling.

‘Erotic, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

‘What is it?’ Lisa asked.

‘The fertility shrine of San Chao Mae Tap Tim. The phalluses represent the Hindu god Shiva. Phallus worship is an ancient tradition in Thailand. But, of course, it originated in my own Cambodia more than seven hundred years ago.’

‘It’s disgusting!’ Lisa hissed, embarrassed by her own arousal.

‘Sex is never that,’ Grace said calmly. ‘It can be the most poignant experience life has to offer, if treated with respect.’

‘But what’s she doing?’ Lisa asked, nodding towards the girl.

‘She wants a child. She is praying for success. I pray that she doesn’t have it. She is one of the best girls I have. But, then, who am I to stand in the way of the procreation of the human race?’

The girl finished her prayer, arose and turned to slip back into her sandals. She was startled to find Grace and Lisa watching, and a blush coloured her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry. Forgive me, La Mère Grace,’ she whispered, and she hurried past them, head bowed, back towards the house.

Grace laughed. ‘If the girl wants to throw away her life . . .’ She glanced at Lisa. ‘Come, take a closer look.’ She took Lisa’s reluctant hand in hers and led her across the uneven pavings. ‘Shiva is the third member of the Hindu trinity. Although represented here by the phallus,