Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,64
today, so I can see them clearly.
* * *
I scold Faiz on our way to school. “You aren’t doing any detective work,” I say.
“When did that become my job?” Faiz asks.
“You aren’t helping either,” I say to Pari. “Nobody is. Even Samosa, all he does is eat.”
“Just like you,” Pari says.
Faiz laughs with his knuckles in his mouth.
“I asked you to keep an eye on the TV-repair chacha. Where are your case reports?” I bark at Faiz.
“Chacha is always at his shop, from nine in the morning till nine at night. He’s not a criminal-type.”
“You watched him yesterday?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“But you said you were going to work,” Pari says. “That’s why you didn’t come with us to talk to the auto-wallahs.”
“Yes.”
“So you didn’t watch him?” I ask.
“Not yesterday.”
“Will you watch him today?”
“Sure.”
“It’s Friday. Don’t you have to go to the mosque?” Pari asks.
“True, I have to pray.”
“Our case will never be solved at this rate,” I say. I stamp my feet.
“Cool it,” Pari says.
“Tariq-Bhai gave me a good idea yesterday that might help you,” Faiz says.
I don’t believe it. Faiz is trying to make me not-mad.
“Tariq-Bhai said every phone is given a special number called an IMEI number. And what happens is that even when you put in a new SIM card, the IMEI number stays the same. The police can track that number with the help of Airtel or Idea or BSNL or Vodafone.”
“He’s sure?” I ask, though I have seen the police track phones with IMEI numbers on TV. I just didn’t remember it until now.
“Tariq-Bhai knows everything about mobiles,” Faiz says. “He’s smart. The only reason he’s working in an Idea shop instead of doing an engineer job is because he had to drop out of school when our abbu died.”
“The police need to find out what the special number for Aanchal’s phone is,” Pari says. “We know the kidnapper is using the phone. He answered when Aanchal’s papa called.”
“If it’s a kidnapper,” I say, “why hasn’t he asked for a ransom?”
“We basti-people can’t pay ransoms, everybody knows,” Pari says. “Snatchers will make more money by selling the children they have snatched.”
“Djinns don’t need ransoms,” Faiz says. “Or mobiles.”
* * *
I became a detective not even a month ago, but I feel old and wise like a baba from the Himalayas as I push open the door of Shine beauty parlor after school that day.
The beautician tells Pari that yes, she’s Naina. She looks only a little older than Runu-Didi, but she’s fancy; her eyebrows are thin, high arches that make her look constantly surprised and her hair is soft and straight like it has been pressed with a charcoal-iron.
“You came here for a haircut?” Naina asks Pari while also brushing a white paste onto the cheeks of her only customer, a woman reclining on a black chair.
Pari touches her half-dome protectively. “Of course not,” she says, insulted someone even dared to suggest such a thing.
I say, “We—”
“Don’t talk,” Naina says, but she’s saying that to the woman on the chair. “Keep your eyes closed.”
The customer-lady is getting bleached. Ma says Runu-Didi will need a hundred bleaches before someone will agree to marry her. Didi has ruined her color by running in the sun.
“If you feel like it’s burning, tell me,” Naina says to the customer-lady.
Faiz inspects the lotions and sprays on a counter, humming with happiness. My scolding has had zero effect; he’s not doing any detectiving. Pari explains to Naina that we are looking for Bahadur and Omvir.
“I said Aanchal was with me when she wasn’t, but so what?” Naina says to Pari. “Don’t you lie to your parents? Do they know you are here now? And boy, you keep your dirty hands away from my products.”
Faiz puts a can that he’s been sniffing back on the counter, but slowly.
“Aanchal’s father is strict, na?” Pari says.
“Did Aanchal have a bearded friend?” I ask. I know I have done the right thing by not saying Muslim-boyfriend.
“How is that any of your business?” Naina asks, applying the paste on the woman’s forehead briskly.
“We want to find out if the person who took Aanchal also took our friends,” Pari says.
Naina puts the brush down and wipes her hands with a light-green towel stained white in parts. “Aanchal’s friend isn’t a kidnapper,” she says.
“Does he do TV repair?” I ask.
Naina’s strange eyebrows arch even higher. “Stop this nonsense,” she says, swatting at us with her towel. “Go now, I have to work.”