THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA Read Online Free PDF

Mehrunisa had worked as a docent at the Vatican museums after majoring in Renaissance studies. Her twin qualifications in Renaissance studies and Mughal art baffled her colleagues. They were further bemused when they discovered that she was a natural linguist, fluent in six languages. Adding to the strangeness was the fact that, at five-foot nine, with straight black hair, grey-green eyes and a marmoreal complexion, she was a striking beauty. To Mehrunisa, however, the idiosyncratic data points were all irrefutable parts of her self, a self she had been attempting to comprehend. Nevertheless, the answers she was looking for when she came to India were still elusive. She was aware of a persistent sense of discontent and guilt – one that climaxed every year with the approach of the anniversary of her father’s disappearance.
    ‘Red Fort,’ the housekeeper remarked as he pottered about the living room. He shook his head in mute remonstration as he peered at the soil of the bonsai in the window, estimating if it needed watering. Mehrunisa did not mind. She had known Mangat Ram as long as she had known Uncle Kaul. It was Mangat Ram who had initiated her into kite flying and playing marbles during the long days of her vacations.
    ‘You should stop living in the past,’ Mangat Ram said. ‘Look what it did to him.’ He indicated the professor with a lift of his chin.
    Mehrunisa could not mask her grin. If the professor were his lucid self he would have ended Mangat Ram’s dissing with a wave of his hand and the command to stop fussing like an old hen. He’d occasionally scold him: If I needed a wife, I would have married, right? But Mangat Ram had taken it in his stride. In the years he had been in Professor Vishwanath Kaul’s service he had developed the temperament of a traditional spouse in a long marriage, ignoring Kaul when needed, otherwise delivering good food and keeping house in a steadfast manner. The professor’s debilitation had changed nothing.
    Mehrunisa finished breakfast and leaned across to hug her godfather. Pushing her chair back, she slid her iPhone into the inside pocket of her voluminous Birkin bag, and withdrew her wallet to ensure it had enough cash. It did, and as she was about to flip the cover back, she paused. Her gaze lingered on the slightly fading photograph in one of the plastic pockets of the wallet. A man, woman and a girl sat in the shade of a fig tree, a picnic basket on a chequered cloth in front of them. Lush grass dotted the ruins. Mehrunisa’s hand strayed to the picture, taken in the Roman Forum when she was twelve. Two years before Papa disappeared. She moved her fingers gently over the picture.
    The housekeeper, getting no response, clucked his annoyance.
    Mehrunisa shrugged. ‘Sometimes the past is unfinished business.’
    Mangat Ram straightened up and looked at her with kindly rheumy eyes. But he was not in a yielding mood. ‘What we need in the house are little children – they keep you in the present. And,’ he nodded, a cheeky smile rippling over his wrinkles, ‘since I am too old to have any, someone in this house should be getting married!’
    Mehrunisa rolled her eyes.

     
     

 
    Srinagar, India
    Monday 8:30 a.m.
    Jag Mishra stood at the foot of the hospital bed and scrutinized the patient. Harry was heavily bandaged and sedated. The bomb blast in Dras had knocked him unconscious and caused a concussion. However, the CAT scan had revealed no bleeding in the brain or under the skull. The thorough examination that the surgeons at the Army Hospital in Srinagar had done indicated that Harry’s faculties – mental and physical – were intact, and except for lacerations on his arms and several gashes on his legs, he was fine. Despite the bandage swathed around his head, Jag Mishra knew that Harry had come out of the blast relatively unscathed. The falling slurry had buffeted the knockout, one from which Harry had awoken with a heightened sense of