Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,27

he seemed a bit”—her face scrunches up as she tries to find the right word—“bruised?”

“Papa slaps us a lot,” Bahadur’s brother says, like it’s nothing. “Bhaiyya would have run away a long time ago if that bothered him.”

“Was anyone else troubling Bahadur?” Pari asks.

“Any enemies?” I finally manage to ask a question.

“Bhaiyya never gets into trouble,” the boy says.

“Do you have a photo of him?” Pari asks.

I kick myself for not thinking of it first. Photos are the most important part of any investigation. Policemen are supposed to put up a missing-child’s photo on their computer from where the Internet will carry it to other police stations the same way our veins carry blood to our arms and legs and brain.

The safety pin holding up the girl’s trousers pops open. She starts crying. The boy grins. Three or four of his front teeth are missing.

Pari says “uff” like she has had enough, but she tells the girl, “Don’t cry. I’ll make it right in a minute. One minute only.” She pins it back in two seconds.

“Papa will have a photo,” the boy says, running his hand over his shirt-blouse ruffles.

We tiptoe into Bahadur’s house. It smells sour like sickness and sweet like rotting fruit. Bahadur’s brother and sister sit down on the floor, away from the bed. I want them to wake up Drunkard Laloo but their eyes are already on the rice, divided into two sections: one that has been cleared of stones, and the other yet to be inspected.

“You do it,” Pari whispers to me.

Only Drunkard Laloo’s face can be seen outside his blanket. His mouth is half-open and so are his eyes. It’s like he’s watching us in his sleep.

“Don’t be a wet cat,” Pari whispers.

Easy for her to say. She isn’t standing as close to him as I am.

There’s nothing else to do. I’m Byomkesh and Feluda and Sherlock and Karamchand all at once. I shake Drunkard Laloo’s blanket-covered right arm. It’s rough and spiky. The blanket slips down and, when I touch his hand, it’s too-warm, like he has a fever. He turns around and sleeps on his side.

I joggle Drunkard Laloo again, strongly this time.

Drunkard Laloo jumps up. “What’s it?” he shouts, his scared eyes popping out of his sunken face. “Bahadur? You came back?”

“His classmate,” I say. “You have a photo of him?”

“Who’s this?” a woman’s voice asks. It’s Bahadur’s ma, holding plastic bags in her hands that must be filled with the scrumptious food I have heard her nice hi-fi madam gives her every day. She switches on the light and Drunkard Laloo first blinks his eyes and then shades them with his hands as if the bulb’s rays are spears poking him.

“We’re Bahadur’s friends,” Pari says. “We were wondering if you have a photo of him. We’re going to ask at the bazaar if anyone has seen him. If we have a photo, it will be easier.”

Maybe Pari is so quick at coming up with lies because she has read many books and has all their stories in her head.

“I have already asked around at the bazaar,” Bahadur’s ma says. “He isn’t there.”

“What about the railway station?” Pari asks.

“Station?”

Bahadur’s sister and brother look up at us with terror sizzling in their eyes. I guess they haven’t told their ma about Bahadur’s plans, maybe because they are scared she’ll scold them for not ratting out Bahadur when he first stuttered about Mumbai-Manali.

“We’ll check again,” Pari says. “It’s good if we check again, right?”

I think Bahadur’s ma will chase us away, but she puts the plastic bags down, opens a cupboard, pulls a notebook out of its insides, and flips through the book until she finds a photo that she hands over to Pari. I move to the side to look at the photo. It’s Bahadur in a red shirt, his oiled hair neatly parted in the middle. The shirt’s red looks bright and happy against a dull cream background. He isn’t smiling.

“You’ll return it to me?” Bahadur’s ma asks. “I don’t have many photos of him.”

“Of course,” I say.

Pari touches a corner of Bahadur’s photo and moves her finger back and forth as if she wants to get a paper cut.

“People think he has run away,” Bahadur’s ma says, “but my boy, he’ll never give me a reason to worry. You know, he works at Hakim’s and buys sweets for us with the money he makes. If I’m too tired to cook, he’ll say, Ma, wait, and he’ll run