It takes hours to dig the holes. The sun is strong and a scratch of pain starts from my lower back and spreads into my shoulders. I plug on obstinately until the work is done. We wrap the dogs in plastic first, then sheets, and lay them in the ground. Lucia wants to say a prayer for each of them. ‘Oh Father,’ she starts, the rest of her words nonsensical, flowing out of her in some kind of litany.

‘Tell Valluvan I want to see him,’ I say to Mallika, and then I go back to the house to wash the death off me, leaving Lucia on a pile of mud in her pyjamas, rocking and singing.

Valluvan’s wife, Nila, offers me hot, ghee-soaked pongal on a steel plate and a tumbler of tea. Valluvan himself looks luminous in a shiny white new lungi and veshti. He’s fussing with the cows in the courtyard, whose horns have been painted red and black – the household’s political colours – in preparation for New Year. The daughters dart about like parakeets in bright green pavadas with heavy gold borders, saying, ‘Hi auntie,’ while the boy, Lenin, just nods shyly.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve brought nothing.’

‘Never mind,’ Valluvan says. ‘Come, sit.’

The jute stools have been moved so I sit on the floor, crossing my legs awkwardly, the blood at the top of my thighs choked and dizzy.

‘Someone has put poisoned food outside my house. Five of my dogs are dead.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘That man who came to see me about selling the land recently, do you think it could have been him? I’ve phoned my friend at the Blue Cross, you know? He says I can file a police complaint.’

‘There are so many bad elements in the village these days,’ Valluvan says. ‘They all want to become millionaires overnight. Not happy to be fishermen or farmers, no? They are only interested in this new gold, and we are sitting on it. I didn’t think they’d try anything with you, though.’

‘What can we do?’

‘If I ask here, they will say that your dogs are eating their chickens at night, which is the truth. Here, if someone kills your animals you kill theirs. But if it’s that broker you’re talking about, then it’s hard to say.’

‘But shouldn’t they lock up their chickens? There are so many packs of hungry dogs around here. It could have been any dog! What kind of person puts poisoned food by the gate? What if someone’s child picked it up?’