‘So you can beat her, is it? So you can abandon her for days? You know that lady you keep to look after her disappears as soon as you’re gone? She feeds her once and then goes and sees some fellow she has in the village. Poor child. Bathroom, everything, she has to do by herself, and she cannot manage. You know that. You think that lady feeds your precious dogs? You think she does anything the minute you go? You should have seen the state I found her in.’

‘What are you saying?’ I say. ‘Mallika always speaks well of you. Why are you talking like this?’

‘These children – can they say anything? Can they say that someone is abusing them, or taking advantage of them? How can you leave your house open there with your sister? And what? To go off and have fun in the city?’

‘What proof do you have?’ Kavitha says. ‘This is just talk, come on.’

‘Do you deny it?’ Teacher says, looking at me.

‘What?’

‘Do you deny that you hit your sister? Did you not beat her, poor thing, when your dogs were poisoned and she was grieving? Did you?’

I tear up with all the shouting. Everyone looks at me, including Kavitha and Praveen. But I cannot speak. I cannot be in this place any more.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Teacher says, turning away from us. ‘Don’t let them in.’

Days pass. All is subdued and hushed. The house feels different, larger somehow. I cannot remember how it used to feel when I lived here alone, before Lucia came to stay, but it did not feel like this.

Praveen and I drive to the government hospital in Cheyyur where Valluvan was taken after he was attacked. It had not been about land, as I had initially suspected. The perpetrators were from a neighbouring village. Valluvan had been speaking to their people, trying to get votes for the elections. We don’t know whether there had been a failed dialogue where they asked him to back off and he disagreed, or whether they thought it would just be easier to maim the man, but we knew that there had been three of them and they had used fish hooks.

There are rows of chairs cemented into the floor of the hospital waiting area and all of them are full. One woman is talking dramatically, slapping her chest, knots in her hair, sari in disarray. It’s some kind of plea for help. People sit around reading newspapers, playing games on their mobile phones, calmly ignoring her. The receptionist is wearing a burgundy sari and looks bored until Praveen goes up to her. He’s a man used to getting things done.