Kingdom Read Free Page B

found far more puzzling had she not been so glad of the opportunity to leave New York. It was a big posting and she had never even set foot in India, but Dan told her she had powerful supporters on the paper, people who admired her writing and her investigative skill. And, of course, not having a partner might actually have been to her advantage – people with partners always found it so much more difficult to move. But she had big boots to fill, Dan had quipped as he shook her warmly by the hand. Anton was a legend – she would have to be at the top of her game. She had smiled gratefully, bewildered by the strange and fortunate turn of events, but it was a huge opportunity and she certainly wasn’t going to quibble about the unorthodox hiring procedure.
    As for poor old Anton, the rugged, sixty-year-old Argentine–American, everyone just hoped that he was off on one of his periodic jaunts and that sooner or later he would reappear. It was Anton who had first inspired Nancy to become a journalist, but despite her enormous admiration for him, she didn’t know him well. She had always loved his stories, and whenever she picked up a copy of the paper she always searched for them first, but the truth was she had only ever had the chance to meet him on a couple of occasions. He was rarely in the office, and when he was, Dan Fischer treated him like royalty and hardly let anyone else get near to him. On the couple of occasions when she had got to speak to him he had always been so kind and encouraging – and so modest – but she had been tantalized rather than satisfied by their meetings. She hoped that he would walk back into the Delhi office before too long, no doubt with a few more prize-winning tales under his belt, and this time she would be the first to get to hear them.
    But it was true that there were voices of disquiet. Some of Anton’s close friends, the other old stagers back in the New York office, were getting steadily more and more worried that something else might have happened. Normally someone would get a call, or a postcard, or something, but this time they had received no word at all. Anton had been a fine mountaineer in his youth, they said, and he was also a stubborn man. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that he could have overextended himself on a climb somewhere, no doubt underequipped, relying on his notorious intelligence and strength. He was an old-school correspondent; he spoke several Asian languages and he had a huge knowledge of India and China and Tibet. On countless occasions he had turned down promotions and pay rises to continue to do what he loved: being out in the field on his own, chasing stories and taking risks that reporters half his age would shy away from. He was a legend, that was for certain, and maybe this was why everyone was so unwilling to contemplate the worst.
    And now Nancy almost jumped out of her skin. The knocking had suddenly become much louder. An Indian voice was shouting her name through the letterbox. She tossed the phone onto the bed and stood up. Fumbling in her suitcase, she found a pair of khaki trousers and a clean shirt, which she slipped on. She grabbed a hairband and tied her thick shoulder-length brown hair into a loose ponytail. Glancing in a mirror, she noticed that she looked tired but that was hardly surprising, she thought.
    Stepping into the hall, she suddenly had a view of the main sitting room. She’d been too worn out to look around when she arrived, but what she saw now amazed her. The room was overflowing with antique stone statues and figurines. Literally every surface of every table – and there were lots of antique tables of every size and shape – was crammed with carved statues. Some were huge life-size stone sculptures of Buddha’s head, others were meticulous little carvings of merchants from the Silk Road mounted on camel back. The overall effect was astounding; it was like looking into a storeroom at Sotheby’s. Clearly, Anton Herzog