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

the border have been well briefed. If your father succeeds in crossing back into Thailand he will be in safe hands.’

If she’d had a little less to drink, Lisa might just have detected the subtly ambiguous stress placed by the General on the word safe. She might also have noticed the envy in the eyes of his companions across the table. But as it was, she felt nothing but gratitude towards this benevolent father figure who had steered her with such gentle assurance through the evening. He pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, holding out a hand towards her. ‘Dance?’

Startled out of her reverie, brief thoughts about her father and why she was here, Lisa glanced towards the dance floor and saw that several other couples were already dancing. ‘Yes, of course.’ She took his hand and he led her on to the floor. He held her firmly, but formally, not too close, and guided her in a slow shuffle around the floor to the dreamy music of the small jazz band. Lisa noticed that most of the other couples danced with bodies pressed close, hands and arms entwined, and felt that she and the General seemed very out of place.

‘Are you not married?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I was married for nearly twenty-five years. My wife died eighteen months ago. Cancer of the throat.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

The General smiled sadly. ‘We had not been close for many years. It was important to me that she give me sons. We tried for a long time. Then the doctor told us she could not have children and gradually we grew apart.’ He stared off somewhere over her shoulder, eyes glazed. ‘My fault really. I suppose I blamed her. As I blamed her for dying and leaving me, finally, on my own.’

It was a sentiment Lisa understood only too well, and she gave the General’s hand a squeeze of sympathy. ‘But if you weren’t close . . .’

‘It is strange,’ the General mused, ‘how we grow to depend on people. Just her presence had always been a comfort to me. Now my house seems cold and empty without her. Even yet.’ He seemed to return from some distant place, and he smiled as his eyes flickered back to meet hers. ‘Of course, my life, as it always has been, is consumed by the army. And these are demanding times. Although in my few moments of relaxation I always have my . . .’ he hesitated a moment ‘. . . my books and my pipe.’

Lisa laughed. ‘Your pipe?’

The General acknowledged her misunderstanding with a small secret smile. ‘Not as you understand it, my dear.’

It was a moment before realization dawned. ‘You mean opium?’ she asked, horrified.

‘A small vice, commonly practised in the East. Harmless in moderation and wonderful therapy for a troubled spirit.’

Lisa remained unconvinced. ‘But – isn’t opium just like heroin?’

The General laughed. ‘Heroin is merely a derivative, processed for Western tastes, cheap and nasty like American junk food. The experienced smoker uses his opium, is not used by it.’ He glanced around the room. ‘I doubt if there is a single one of my colleagues here who does not enjoy the occasional pipe.’

‘Isn’t it illegal?’

But the General’s smile only widened. ‘You have, I think, a lot to learn, my pretty little English rose.’ Which left Lisa feeling very foolish and very young.

She turned at a touch on her arm to find Grace there, radiant and with a little smile of apology. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Grace said. ‘I’m afraid I have been called away to attend to some business. I don’t want to break up the party, so please carry on for as long as you wish.’

‘When will you be back?’ Lisa asked.

‘I shall go straight back to the house,’ said Grace. ‘I have invited a few of my guests there for drinks. General, could you see that Lisa is delivered safely home?’

‘It would give me great pleasure, La Mère Grace.’ The General made a formal bow of apology. ‘Unfortunately I have to return home. I am expecting an important phone call around twelve.’

‘Then perhaps Lisa could go with you, and you could bring her to my house after your call. I am sure the midnight curfew does not extend to army generals.’

‘Well, of course. I should be only too happy to oblige.’ He turned to Lisa. ‘Assuming you have no objections, my dear.’

‘No. No, of course not,’ Lisa said a little uncertainly.

‘Good, that’s settled, then. Thank you, General.’ Grace beamed and kissed Lisa on the cheek. ‘À toute à l’heure, ma chérie.’ And she drifted away through the dancers towards the table, where a waiter hovered with her shawl.

‘Well,’ said the General as Lisa turned back to him, ‘at least I shall have the pleasure of your company for a little longer than I expected.’ He raised his arm to look at his watch. ‘We should leave soon. My home is on the other side of the city.’

*

The General’s house lay at the end of a dark soi off Rama I Road, next to the Klong San Saep. It was built in traditional Thai style, mostly from teak, and was set in beautiful floodlit gardens. The General had to negotiate an elaborate security system to let them in. He clapped his hands and called for his houseboy to fetch drinks, and then switched off the floodlights in the garden. The houseboy – he could have been no more than fifteen – brought warmed rice wine, and Lisa sank back into a comfortable settee and let her eyes wander over the collection of Asian art and artefacts that filled the sitting room: Japanese watercolours, a series of paintings depicting scenes from the Buddhist Jataka tales, Chinese and Thai porcelain, and literally dozens of Buddha images from all over south-east Asia. She sipped the warm, slightly bitter wine. ‘You have quite a collection,’ she said.

‘It was my wife who collected,’ said the General. ‘Something to fill her days.’