The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

The murmur of voices in the hall, tones and cadences indistinguishable as words, rose and fell like mumbled prayers. But she detected anger in them. Then footsteps receded towards the back of the house and she felt relief at the postponement of their meeting. A drowning man will grasp at anything to delay the moment of death. And yet, surely, death itself could not be worse than the fear of it? She sat for long minutes of patient anxiety, listening for a footfall in the hall. When, eventually, it came, she felt herself stiffen, a chill spreading through her from an icy core. She turned her head as the door opened and he walked into the small front bedroom.

He seemed taller than she remembered, his hair redder, his skin paler. Whatever he had prepared himself for, whatever he had expected, he could not disguise his shock. His lips moved, but no words came. He took a moment to regain his composure.

‘How are you?’ The banality of his question, the strained politeness in his voice, spared her the burden of having to play a role.

‘As you see.’

He stared at her for a long time. ‘Why didn’t you call?’

She sighed and turned back to the mirror. His reproach was like the memory of a bad dream. ‘What do you want, David?’

A gasp of exasperation escaped his lips. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’

‘Have you?’

‘Yes, I have! If I hadn’t called Blair . . .’

‘What has he told you?’

‘Enough.’

She remembered that he had once wanted to marry her, and tried to imagine what that would be like. A semi-detached existence somewhere in the commuter belt; keeping his house, raising his children, barbecues in the garden with the neighbours on summer evenings. She had no idea, now, what she wanted from life. But it wasn’t that. Perhaps it never had been. She shook her head. ‘Then you know that I’m not who I was.’ She turned to meet his eye but found him staring at a spot on the floor. Perhaps he had already realized that. Perhaps, after what Blair had told him, he was simply going through the motions ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘not to have lived up to your expectations.’

He darted her a look, and she saw real pain behind his eyes, though she could never have been certain it wasn’t just the pain of failure.

‘But thank you for your concern,’ she added cruelly.

*

Blair heard the front door closing, and shortly after a car started and drove off down the street. The slow, tick of the clock grew thunderous in the silence that followed. He was surprised at the boy leaving so soon, and wondered if he should go through to her. But he did not stir from his armchair. She would need time and space to recover, if such scars as she must carry inside would ever heal. He let his head fall back on the rest and felt a kind of despair. It seemed that everything in Elliot’s life was destined to be touched by tragedy.

The room was warm and bright, filled with the reflected light of the sun on the river. He closed his eyes and flirted with sleep, drifting in a netherworld of waking dreams, not quite asleep, not quite awake. A sound came to him from the conscious world and he opened his eyes with a start. Lisa stood by the window, staring out across the river. He had not heard her come in. She turned as he stirred.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘You didn’t. I just – I’m tired, I guess.’

She nodded. ‘He’s gone.’

‘I heard. He didn’t stay long.’

‘There wasn’t much point.’

‘What happened? What did you say to him?’

She shrugged. ‘I told him it was over, that’s all.’

‘He didn’t strike me as the type to give up so easily.’

She moved away from the window and eased herself into a chair. ‘What did you tell him – about what happened in Bangkok?’

‘Not much. That you’d fallen foul of some unscrupulous individuals who had tried to harm you. He wasn’t very sympathetic, then?’

‘David has never sympathized with anything or anyone in his life, except himself. He never really knew or understood me. I took his fancy, an object to be desired and possessed. I think he’d begun to realize, even before I left, that I wasn’t really up for sale. And now that the goods are shop-soiled . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

‘I didn’t go into detail.’

‘You didn’t have to. And, anyway, I don’t think he’d have wanted to know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. To be honest, I’m relieved. I might have felt in his debt. He was there for me when my mother died and I needed a shoulder to cry on.’

Blair raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘And now you don’t?’

‘I don’t need anyone.’ Her voice was defiant – the defiance, Blair thought, of disillusion. She would recoil from warmth, as a puppy which has been beaten shrinks from the approach of even a friendly hand. She had lost her trust, along with her innocence. And mistrust was always a crude defence against further hurt. It precluded the possibility of love.

‘You make me think of your father,’ he said.

‘My father’s dead,’ she said dully. She looked up to meet his gaze. ‘Isn’t he?’

His mouth set in a grim line. It was something he had not admitted, even to himself. ‘Yes. I suppose he is.’ He reached for his pipe and lit it. He did not feel like smoking, but it was something to do. Blue ribbons rose in the still air. The silence lay uneasily between them. Finally he said, ‘I never told you what happened. At the end, when we got you out of that place.’

‘We?’

‘I’d never have found you if it hadn’t been for her. You’d be dead.’

She frowned. ‘If it hadn’t been for who?’

‘Grace.’

She looked away quickly and he was unprepared for the venom in her voice. ‘I hated her!’

‘Maybe you had good reason, I don’t know. I don’t want