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

year for the Fêtes des Eaux, a sort of Oxford and Cambridge boat race on the Mekong, held during the rainy season when the waters of the river and the Tonle Sap reverse their currents and flow back on themselves. It is one of the wonders of the world.’

Elliot yawned and she chided him with mock severity. ‘I don’t think you are taking me very seriously, Mr Elliot.’

‘Tell me about Chez La Mère Grace.’

Her smile was resigned. ‘At Chez La Mère Grace,’ she said, ‘time was unimportant. There were no clocks, as you will see there are none here. Sex cannot be measured by the minute or the hour, or even by the day. Nor is it something to be done in the dark, furtive and secret.’ She paused. ‘Another drink?’

‘Sure.’

She rose and crossed to the cabinet to refill their glasses. ‘Of course, not everyone came to Chez La Mère Grace for sexual gratification. A night out in Phnom Penh was not complete without a visit to my house for a few pipes of opium. I had one of the best boy pipes’ – she pronounced it peeps – ‘in the city. A couple would dine at a club along the river then come to the Rue Ohier, in the fashionable centre of Phnom Penh, to smoke in one of my upstairs rooms.’ She came back with their drinks and curled up on a cushion, revealing the curve of one of her legs all the way up to the top of her thigh, brown and smooth and tempting. ‘A good boy pipe is a very rare commodity. He must be able to cook the opium over the flame of a candle so that it does not burn but remains soft and malleable in order that the pipe may be primed to perfection. Only one or two pulls at each pipe are necessary to achieve that pitch of exquis-ite harmony and peace that the smoker seeks.’

Elliot took a pull at his second drink. ‘How did the war affect you?’

‘At first not at all. We were all very sad when the Prince was driven into exile after Lon Nol’s coup. The General was little more than an American puppet, and that gave the Khmer Rouge a popular support which they had never previously enjoyed. If it had not been for the interference of the Americans, the Khmer Rouge could never have taken power. They would have remained a small, ineffectual group of guerrillas buried away somewhere in the jungle.

‘We sometimes heard the sound of distant guns from the swimming pool where we would spend our afternoons in the sun, cooling ourselves in the water and sipping chilled Chablis. I could never understand why the Cambodian people felt it necessary to fight, to make war.’

‘Understanding is seldom found in swimming pools and glasses of chilled wine.’

The contempt in his voice stung her to reply. ‘Nor is it to be found in England or America, where you know nothing of Cambodia or its people. Cambodians are a lazy, happy people, Mr Elliot. They live in a rich, fertile and beautiful land. They have never had reason to do other than smile and give thanks to Buddha.’

Elliot remembered the face of the refugee at Mak Moun. He had had no reason to do either.

‘In the last months it became clear that the Khmer Rouge were going to win,’ she said. ‘Lon Nol’s army was corrupt, had no will to fight. The officers sold the food for the troops, the money for the war effort lined their pockets. Dollars for Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge were only a few kilometres from the city they would still prefer to spend their nights drinking or smoking opium or buying favours from my girls. Eventually I barred army officers from my house. And a few weeks later I was forced to close up, take what I could, and flee the country. I would certainly have been killed had I stayed.’ She got up and moved to a trunk by the bed. ‘All I have left now of Cambodia are my memories and my jewellery.’

With a small key hanging on a fine gold chain round her neck, she unlocked the trunk and threw back the lid. She lifted out tray after tray of necklaces and earrings and gold and silver bracelets, rings and brooches. ‘These’ – she held out a necklace and bracelet set of hand-engraved silver – ‘were my mother’s. Made for her by the Prince’s own silversmith, Minh Mol. There are others, too. Earrings, cufflinks, brooches, crafted by men now dead whose skills have been lost for ever. Only in Cambodia could you find such men.’

Elliot examined the fine detail of the engraving. Miniatures of many of the scenes hewn out of the stone of the temples of Angkor Wat. ‘And this’ – Grace passed him a small, round, pink tin box, scraped and dented – ‘is my most prized possession. Given me by one of my regular customers.’ Painted in faded gold on the lid of the box was the name of the shop where it had been bought: BIJOUTERIE HUE-THANH, 121 RUE OHIER, PHNOM PENH. ‘It is such an unprepossessing little box,’ she said, ‘I could not imagine what manner of cheap jewellery it might contain.’

Elliot lifted the lid to reveal a gold bracelet on a bed of tissue. It was a good inch wide, comprising thousands of tiny links, each hand-crafted in the form of a miniature star. He lifted it carefully out. It was heavy, flexible, every link moving freely. He turned it over and marvelled at the way a human hand had ever been able to work such tiny pieces of metal with such fine precision. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘I took it to a jeweller in Paris one time, and he could not believe it had been made by hand. He said there was not a jeweller in France who could make such a thing.’

Elliot put it back in the box.