Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,103

a plant this high”—she brings her hand down to her waist—“and it had a white rag tied to it. The rag wasn’t dirty. Everything is dirty here, even us, look at us.” She shows us her sooty hands.

“I was the one who found it,” the bead-necklace boy finally speaks. “I pulled up the plant and checked underneath. I thought the man had hidden something that cost a lot of money. Something he had stolen that he didn’t want his wife or mummy to see. And it was this—” He looks at the sack he’s holding.

Bottle-Badshah takes it from him and brings out a blue plastic box spattered with mud and filth. The box is the length of his forearm and less than a foot wide. He opens the lid, but it’s above my head. Aanchal’s papa gasps. Omvir’s papa screams. Kabir-Khadifa’s father cries.

“Is that…?” Papa asks.

Bottle-Badshah looks at me and brings the box down so that I can see. “Is this hairband…is this your didi’s?” he asks.

Inside there’s loads of stuff, a plastic ring that glows white, bead necklaces, black-and-yellow folded sunglasses, red bangles, anklets made of a silvery material that has turned black in parts, a headband with a red, papery rose to its side, an HTC phone and, underneath it, a white scrunchie. It could be didi’s but it could be someone else’s too.

“Jai?” Papa says, his voice stretched thin as if he is begging.

“The phone is Aanchal’s,” I say. “The glow-ring is Omvir’s.”

Aanchal’s papa picks up the mobile, turns it around. “It’s Aanchal’s,” he says.

“The sunglasses are my son’s,” Kabir-Khadifa’s abbu says. “And the red bangles could be Khadifa’s, I’m not sure.”

“All of you came here searching for your children,” Bottle-Badshah says and pauses as if he’s giving a speech. I wish he would hurry. “You told me what they were wearing.” He looks at Aanchal’s papa. “I remember you telling me about your daughter’s HTC phone. You asked me to call you if I saw something like that being sold second-hand in the bazaar. And little boy”—he looks at me now—“when you and your mother were here yesterday, she told me about your sister’s hairband. As soon as the children brought this box to me, and I saw what was inside, I knew something was wrong.”

“The man who buried it, where is he?” Papa asks.

“The children didn’t follow that man, regrettably, because it took them some time to find this box. By the time they brought it to me, he was gone.”

“Big he was,” the bead-necklace boy says. “Like a tree.”

“Very tall,” Helicopter-Girl agrees. “Looked like a fighter.”

My breath gets stuck in my throat. “Was he wearing a gold watch?” I manage to ask.

“Don’t know,” a scavenger boy says. He’s drinking from a crushed-up mango-juice box. I want to kick it out of his hands.

“Hatta-katta he was,” someone else says. Then I’m sure.

I turn to look at Quarter. He knows Wrestler-Man. But I can’t ask him anything because he has moved away and is speaking into his mobile, hand over his mouth. He doesn’t want us to hear what he’s saying.

Bahadur’s ma and Drunkard Laloo and my ma jostle through the crowd to reach us.

“What’s it, what’s it?” Ma asks.

“It’s a box with a few things that appear to belong to the missing children,” Bottle-Badshah explains.

Ma picks up the scrunchie.

“Put it back,” I tell her. “It’s evidence.”

“This is not your stupid show,” Ma screams at me. “What’s wrong with you? I cannot bear to listen to you for a second more.”

Ma knows it’s my fault Didi has disappeared. Hot tears spring out of my eyes. Papa pulls me close.

“Bahadur?” Bahadur’s ma asks. Bottle-Badshah gives her the box and she roots through it and says, “But there’s nothing of his here.”

“Something might have fallen out when the children were playing with it,” Bottle-Badshah says. “They didn’t mean to—they’re only children. They didn’t know what this was.”

The bead-necklace boy touches his necklace proprietarily.

“Where did you find this?” Bahadur’s ma asks the scavenger-children. “Take me there.”

Two of the children start walking through the rubbish. Bahadur’s ma lifts up the hem of her sari and follows them. Drunkard Laloo goes with her, but he collapses into the rubbish and she has to pull him up. This will take forever. We don’t have time. We have to find Wrestler-Man. He has Runu-Didi.

“Papa,” I say, “I have seen that man at Duttaram’s tea shop.” I look at Ma. She is getting ready to scream at me again, so I