weeks before the bank, before the room upstairs became a place officers were sent to, grahan stopped for dinner beside a road that had not quieted for the night.

it was twenty-five past eight.

the shop had four plastic stools and a steel counter that caught the light from a tube above it. a man stood behind a flat iron griddle, working a spatula under the edge of a dosa. batter hissed. a bus pulled away from the stop ahead and left the smell of its exhaust among the cooking smells.

grahan's constable had gone to order. grahan stayed beside the patrol car, smoking, his phone resting in one hand.

he had opened a message from home and was deciding whether to answer it when he looked across the road.

a woman stood beyond the traffic, a little back from the curb.

his thumb stopped on the screen.

she was trying to gather her hair off her neck. one hand held a cloth bag against her side; the other lifted the hair, lost some of it, tried again. the light above the closed shop behind her reached one side of her face. a motorcycle passed between them. grahan waited for it to clear.

then a bus.

he had been looking long enough for the cigarette to burn nearly to his fingers.

sir.

his constable was beside him, looking at him, waiting for an answer.

two dosas. is that all right.

as he asked, a luxury car slowed beside the woman across the road. light ran in a narrow line above its headlamps.

grahan dropped the cigarette and pressed it out.

get them packed.

the constable went back inside the shop, where the man was lifting another dosa from the griddle. grahan put his phone in his pocket.

she bent toward the driver's side, lowering her head to the car. her mouth moved. from across the road, she seemed to be answering someone inside.

grahan could not see the person.

then she straightened.

her head moved once. no.

the car stayed.

she looked toward the auto stand. adjusted the bag on her shoulder. stayed there a moment longer, then took a step backward, close enough to the shutter behind her that there was nowhere useful left to step.

grahan took his phone out again. held it toward the other side of the road long enough for a few photographs, then lowered it.

a share auto slowed beyond the car. she lifted her hand and went around the rear of the car to reach it. held the rail, bent her head, and got in beside the other passengers.

the car waited for the auto to pull out, then moved back into the traffic.

grahan watched it go.

his constable returned with a parcel in each hand. he had spent the whole time at the counter, waiting for the man to finish wrapping them.

where shall we eat, sir.

here, grahan said.

he took one parcel and rested it on the bonnet. by the time he opened it, the paper had gone soft underneath.

he saw her again three evenings later.

this time it was earlier, in another part of the city. the light was still on the upper floors of the buildings. grahan had pulled over near a pharmacy so his constable could collect a prescription. he was taking a call beside the car when a share auto stopped at the mouth of a narrow street across the road.

she got out last. passed some folded notes forward to the driver and waited for her change.

he recognized her before she turned.

the same bag. the hair pinned up now, loose at the sides. she stood clear of the other passengers while the driver counted coins into her palm.

she put the change into her bag and stepped into the street.

the same car came from the junction. turned in behind her.

grahan lowered his phone a little. the person on the call was still talking.

the car stopped just inside the street, beside her. she lowered her head toward the driver's side. the angle hid the person inside.

grahan could see her mouth move, but the traffic between them took the words. she straightened and shook her head.

he ended the call and took a few more photographs before she moved away.

her hand closed around the strap of her bag. she moved it to the shoulder away from the car and walked on.

the car stayed where it was.

grahan knew the street. no camera at the mouth, none along the compound wall inside. no way through at the far end.

the car reversed into the main road, straightened, and drove away. she was still walking down the street.

twice now. the same car, the same woman moving away from it.

grahan let the phone hang at his side. he thought of the money he owed, of asking for more time and being told he had already had it.

someone who could afford a car like that might pay well to keep those two evenings out of a complaint.

the photographs were in his phone.

he was still looking down the street when his constable came out.

the constable had a small packet from the pharmacy and a bill folded around it. he asked whether they were going back to the station.

grahan put the phone away.

yes, he said.

another early evening, grahan saw the car waiting near the junction. the same narrow headlamps. the pavement beside it was empty.

a traffic officer he knew was having tea outside the booth a little further along. grahan walked over to him.

the officer wore a white handkerchief tucked into the back of his collar. the sun was on the side of the booth and he had moved his chair into the small strip of shade on the other side.

grahan asked about his shift. about the road work. waited for him to complain about the road work.

grahan nodded toward the car.

whose car is that. looks expensive.

the officer followed his glance.

you don't know this one.

should i.

the magic millionaire. ranav. you've seen him on television.

grahan had seen the name. a face above it on a screen somewhere. he had not kept either long enough to join them to the car.

you're sure.

that's his car. we stopped it one night. drink-driving check.

the officer smiled into his paper cup.

ten thousand. i'd barely said anything. the glass came down and he put it straight into my hand.

grahan looked at him.

didn't even have to ask. generous fellow. most of these people make three phone calls before they'll give you anything.

ten thousand, grahan said.

the officer nodded, still smiling. he looked toward the car again, then back at grahan, as if the amount might be worth saying once more.

grahan made the small sounds required of him.

i should ask for a traffic posting, he said.

the officer laughed. grahan smiled with him.

he was thinking about the girl bending her head toward the car. then stepping back against the shutter.

ten thousand for being allowed to drive home.

he had been right about the money.

now he had a name.

after that, he began stopping at the junction when his work brought him anywhere near it.

then his work began bringing him near it more often.

he could have crossed the road the first night. could have asked her whether she needed help. even now, he could stop her in daylight and ask what the person in the car had said.

he did none of those things.

a conversation might put an end to it. she might complain, or the man might become careful, and then the matter would go where matters went. a name in a register. someone else asking questions.

grahan wanted time with it first.

he learned which side of the road she got down on. where she waited to cross. the two autos whose drivers knew to stop for her without being waved over.

one evening he followed at a distance far enough to be doing something else. she went down the lane, past the compound wall, to the building at the end.

the downstairs door was padlocked. she climbed the outside staircase with her bag held against her hip to keep it from touching the railing.

a light came on upstairs.

he went back to the main road.

the times changed.

at first he thought he had missed her. then, passing the junction well before six, he saw her already turning into the lane.

another day, earlier still.

the car still came. it stopped near the auto stand one evening and waited with its lights on. by then she had been home for almost an hour.

another evening it left a few minutes before her auto arrived.

grahan watched it in the pharmacy glass when it passed. the reflection gave him the car, nothing of the person inside.

there were stretches when it did not come at all. long enough for him to think the person had stopped trying. then he would see the narrow headlamps at the junction again, the car waiting beside an empty pavement.

after those first two evenings, he never saw it draw alongside her again.

she came home in the remaining daylight, sometimes with vegetables in a thin bag looped around two fingers.

twice she was late.

he went back over them on the drive home. what had come before each late return. whether she had been early the evening after. he could bring back the way the light had fallen on the shutter, the traffic he had sat through before she arrived.

the following week gave him one of those evenings again. then another, where he had begun to expect it. he stayed with the ones he had got wrong.

after a while he stopped waiting through whole evenings.

he knew when to be there before six. when there was no reason to come until after seven. the times moved a little, but he had learned how much room to leave them.

he tried arriving only for those windows. she came while he was there.

then again.

the car kept returning at the hours she no longer kept. when he saw it waiting on his way past, he checked his phone. sometimes he still had an hour before he needed to turn back.

at home, his wife asked about the school.

i'm seeing to it, he said.

she was sitting at the table with a form and a pen that had stopped working. she drew small circles in the margin until the ink came back.

when.

soon.

she looked up at him, then down at the form.

he went into the other room and sat on the edge of the bed.

the figure he had first had in mind was no longer enough.

he had begun with what he owed. then the fees. then a little left over, so there would not be another conversation like the one at the table.

now, each time he pictured the car, a larger amount seemed just as possible.

he sat there a little longer.

he had already tried the opening words in his head. quiet words. almost friendly. words that would let the man understand what was being offered without grahan having to say it plainly.

the call came a few mornings later.

an address. a woman missing. two officers already at the flat.

grahan said he was on his way.

at ten past eleven he climbed the outside stairs and angled his shoulders through the door at the top.

a bed. a table. the window behind its curtain. a charger on the tabletop with nothing at the end of it.

he stood in the middle of the room while his constable began.

the girl's name is yaatri. twenty-nine. works at a digital marketing firm in the city.

the constable held out his phone. her office had sent the photograph from her employee id with the complaint. a plain background. her shoulders square to the camera. her hair drawn back from her face.

grahan took the phone.

there she was.

the face beyond the traffic. the woman getting down from the share auto, closing her hand around her change.

he passed the phone back.

when was she last seen.

the constable told him about the neighbor's child. seven thirty in the evening, five days ago. walking toward this building.

after that.

nothing, sir.

grahan looked around the room as the constable continued.

the luxury car. her hand moving the bag to the other shoulder. the two evenings he had seen her turn away from it.

he was still listening when the old plan began to change.