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

He sighed, a touch of melancholy in his smile. ‘Oddly, I get more pleasure from it all now than I did when she was alive.’ He followed her gaze to the collection of Buddhas. ‘You like the Buddhas?’

‘They’re beautiful,’ Lisa said. ‘Are you a Buddhist?’

‘A very bad one,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘I suppose there are bad Christians, too.’

Lisa returned the grin. ‘You’re talking to one.’ She rose and crossed to a tall, slender and pensive image sitting cross-legged on a stone pillow. She reached out a hand to touch it. ‘May I?’

‘Of course.’

It felt smooth and cold to the touch. ‘So many images to worship.’

‘The images are not for worship,’ he corrected her. ‘One worships Buddha, but merely venerates the image.’ He paused to sip his wine and watch her contemplatively. ‘Do you know anything of our religion?’

‘Nothing,’ Lisa said. ‘I’m afraid I’m really very ignorant.’

The General eased himself out of his chair and wandered across the polished teak floor to join her. ‘Buddha,’ he said, ‘gave us Four Noble Truths. Life is subject to sorrow; sorrow is caused by ignorance, which leads to desire; sorrow can be eliminated by eliminating desire; desire can be eliminated by following the Noble Eightfold Path.’

‘What is the noble eightfold path?’

He laughed. ‘No doubt as a child you learned the books of the Old Testament, or the Catechisms. Do you still remember them?’

‘No.’ She returned his laugh. ‘Probably not.’

He shrugged. ‘My problem has always been in eliminating desire.’ And he reached out and ran his hand through her thick, short, blonde hair. She took a step back, alarmed by the unexpectedness of his touch. ‘You mustn’t worry, my dear,’ he smiled. ‘It would be unnatural, even for an old man like me, not to have his desire aroused by your beauty.’

For the first time, Lisa felt a stab of doubt, followed by an acute sense of vulnerability. Was it a mistake to have come here alone with this man? And yet he was a friend of Grace. She searched for something appropriate to say, but nothing would come.

Somewhere in the depths of the house a phone rang. ‘My call,’ the General said. ‘Please make yourself comfortable, have some more wine. I should not be too long.’ And he hurried away to disappear down a dimly lit passage at the far side of the room.

Lisa took a deep breath and told herself she was in no danger. How could she be? She took another sip of wine and crossed back to the settee and perched herself gingerly on the edge of it. In a short while they would be heading back across the city to Grace’s house.

She sat for what seemed like a very long time looking idly around the large sprawling sitting room, oriental rugs scattered across the polished teak floor, black lacquer tables laden with ornaments, several beautifully painted lacquer screens. She was startled when the fan overhead suddenly hummed into life and began turning lazily. She glanced round to see the General’s houseboy emerge from the passageway and climb the open-slat staircase to the upper floor. He did not look in her direction. After a while she grew restless and more nervous. Her wine was finished and she laid her cup on a table and stood up to wander round the room, touching things distractedly.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you, my dear.’

She turned and saw, with a sense of shock, that the General was dressed only in a black silk robe with red trim and a red belt. On his feet he wore soft open slippers.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, with a sudden foreboding. But he remained relaxed and smiling.

‘I’m afraid I must wait for a further call. Thirty, forty minutes, no more. I have asked my boy to prepare a couple of pipes while we wait.’

Lisa picked up her purse, panic rising in her chest. ‘I think I’ll just get a taxi.’

‘I regret that will not be possible. It is already after twelve and the curfew is in force.’

‘I should phone Grace and let her know, then.’

The General smiled. ‘I have already done so.’ He held out a hand towards her. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Think of it as an education. The broadening of your experience.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Lisa said.

‘Nonsense.’ He crossed the room and took her hand. ‘You cannot come to the East without experiencing a little of its magic. You must grow up sometime.’

Reluctantly, because she did not know what else to do, she let him lead her to the stairs, and as they climbed slowly to the upper floor he said, ‘The Noble Eightfold Path leads to the abolition of suffering.’

‘I thought you’d forgotten.’ She was startled by this unexpected tangent.

‘I looked them up. For my own enlightenment as well as yours. Shall I go on?’

She nodded mutely as they reached a landing and turned down a narrow hallway with concealed lighting.

‘Right understanding,’ he said, ‘meaning an intellectual grasp of the Four Noble Truths; Right intention, meaning the extinction of revenge, hatred, and the desire to do harm . . .’ He opened the door into a large study bedroom. A bed draped with mosquito netting, a polished mahogany desk and leather swivel chair, two leather armchairs, a lacquer coffee table. One wall was lined with books, on another hung a huge map of South East Asia. Soft, deep-piled rugs covered the floor, and the only light came from a brass desk lamp with a green glass shade. The room was filled with a peculiar stale, musty smell, and the General’s houseboy knelt over the naked flame of an oil lamp on a low bedside table. In his hands he held the General’s pipe – more than two feet of straight bamboo with carved ivory at each end. About two-thirds of the way down, a small bowl was set into the bamboo, dark and polished by the frequent kneading of opium.

Lisa concentrated hard on the General’s words to still the fear that was growing in