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

audible. The door lay slightly ajar, and through it she could see the dark reflection, in a tall mirror, of the two men standing in the doorway. She saw Prachak hand Tuk something that he slipped into his inside jacket pocket. Her vision of them was still blurred by tears, and she rubbed her eyes and strained in the gloom to see more clearly. She wished that all the shutters were not closed against the heat of the day and that there was more light to see by.

The two men shook hands now and Prachak left. Tuk moved out of sight but did not come back into the room. She heard soft footsteps above the hum and rattle of the fan, a phone being lifted and a number dialled. Then Tuk’s voice talking softly to someone on the other end. She gave up trying to hear and looked around this large impersonal study with its cold, tiled floor and marble ashtrays on glass tables. Shiny hard surfaces, austere and lacking in comfort or warmth. Even the chairs were unyielding. She wondered what kind of man Tuk really was, and in what way the truth was reflected in the nature of this room. Despite the temperature outside, she shivered. Cold, she thought. In spite of all his smiles and words of comfort, he was cold. Like the room.

She heard the receiver being replaced and then soft footsteps again. Tuk appeared, smiling, in the doorway. ‘Good news,’ he said. She raised an eyebrow. He came and sat beside her and took her hand in both of his. ‘I know you are uncomfortable with the idea of staying here. A young woman living alone in a house with a man she barely knows . . .’

She began a half-hearted protest which he brushed aside.

‘No, no. I understand. And so a very good friend of mine has agreed to take you in for a few days, just until we get things sorted out. You’ll like her, I’m sure. She knows your father quite well, I believe.’

After she had gone up to her room to lie down for a few hours, Tuk sat for a long time in satisfied contemplation. From his inside pocket he took out the small black book Captain Prachak had given him. He looked at the elaborate gold crest on the cover and thought how pretentious the British were. Inside, Lisa’s innocence stared back at him from a cheap colour photograph. A very pretty girl, he thought. When the bruising was gone . . .

He snapped the passport shut, held it for a moment, then crossed the room to lock it away in his desk drawer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Lisa awoke to the gentle touch of fingers on her bruised cheek. The room glowed with the muted light of the early morning sun, shutters still drawn, sunlight burning in bright sharp lines around their edges, trying to insinuate its way inside. She turned, still cloudy with sleep, to look up into Grace’s soft smile.

‘The swelling is down a little this morning,’ Grace said.

And Lisa remembered arriving the night before on Tuk’s arm, delivered into this sumptuous colonial villa in East Bangkok, still bewildered, a little frightened. The gentle warmth in the sympathy and welcome of this woman who knew her father had comforted her. Fear melting with the reassuring touch of her hand, the gentle kiss on her forehead. ‘Poor child,’ she had said, and led her into a soft-cushioned room that seemed heady and seductive after the cold austerity of Tuk’s house.

‘It’s very good of you,’ Lisa had mumbled.

Grace, smiling, had brushed the hair back from Lisa’s face with delicate fingers and tilted her jaw, turning the bruising to the light. Shaking her head, she’d said, ‘Men can be such animals.’ And Lisa had caught the look that flashed darkly in her eyes as she glanced at Tuk.

When Tuk had gone Grace had given her a hot sweet drink laced with the taste of alcohol, and sat with her for what seemed like a very long time, holding her hand in one of hers, gently stroking the back of it with the fingers of her other. The soft murmur of her voice, the silky quality of her touch, had been reassuring. Lisa had heard the words without listening. Instead she let the alcohol and the gently undulating waves of fatigue wash over her with a grateful relief. And, now, as she gazed up into the delicate oriental beauty in the face of this older woman, she had no recollection of having come to this room, or of falling asleep in this bed. But there was something safe in the smile, comforting after all the uncertainty of the past few weeks and the traumas of the last few days. She returned the smile. ‘What time is it?’

‘Early. I thought a little waterborne breakfast might restore you. The floating market gets up early. And so must you if we are to catch it at its best.’

Grace’s car took them to the landing stage at the Oriental Hotel, and Lisa was surprised to find it driven by an attractive young girl in uniform. She glanced at Grace, realizing how little she knew of her. Although clearly many years older than Lisa, old enough possibly to be her mother, her beauty was still startling. She was dressed casually in a long white wraparound skirt and white blouse, cool and radiant in the early morning heat, her skin the colour of milky coffee. Her gleaming dark hair was drawn back in a white-ribboned bow. She caught Lisa looking at her and smiled. ‘We should get you some clothes,’ she said. ‘Perhaps when we get back from the market.’

‘I’ve got clothes with me,’ Lisa said, a little uncertainly.

‘Hardly a wardrobe for every occasion,’ said Grace. ‘And who knows how long you might have to wait for your father’s return. There are places I should like to take you where you might feel a little out of place in jeans.’

Lisa found