Sonia Faleiro - The Good Girls - An Ordinary Killing

Grove Press

New York

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Copyright 2021 by Sonia Faleiro

Maps Emily Maffei

Jacket design by Ahlawat Gunjan

Jacket photograph Simon Wilkes/Unsplash

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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Bloomsbury Circus, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: February 2021

Printed in Canada

ISBN 978-0-8021-5820-8

eISBN 978-0-8021-5821-5

Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling [they may appear]; for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families.

The Laws of Manu

Index of Characters

The Village of Katra

Padma Shakya , sixteen years old

Her father Jeevan Lal , a farmer, and stepmother Sunita Devi

Ram Sakhi , Padmas biological mother who died when she was two years old

Lalli Shakya , fourteen years old

Her father Sohan Lal , the Shakya family patriarch and older brother to Jeevan Lal and Ram Babu, his wife Siya Devi and their four other children: daughter Phoolan and sons Virender , Parvesh and Avnesh . Lalli is their youngest daughter

Ram Babu , Padma and Lallis paternal uncle, his wife Guddo and their seven children

Ramdevi , Padma and Lallis paternal grandmother who lives with Jeevan Lal and family

Manju Shakya , a cousin spending her summer holidays with Lallis family, aged twelve

A first cousin of the Shakya brothers, Babu Nazru Ram , aged twenty-six. He lives with his family in the midst of the Katra fields

Rajiv Kumar Yadav , a neighbour who draws Nazrus attention to the girls behaviour in the fields

Yogendra Singh Shakya , a prosperous cousin of the Shakya brothers, who the brothers often turned to for help

Prem Singh Shakya , Yogendras brother. He saw Lalli talking on the phone on the day she disappeared

Their father, Neksu Lal

The Hamlet of Jati

Darvesh Pappu Yadav , aged nineteen, watermelon farmer

His father Veerpal Veere Yadav , mother Jhalla Devi and brothers Avdesh and Urvesh , both in their twenties

Avdeshs wife, Basanta , and their infant daughter Shivani

Pappus cousin and close friend Raju , in whose shack he often spent the night

The Village of Nabiganj

Ram Chander , Padmas oldest maternal uncle and her late mothers oldest brother

His son, Ram Avtar , aged eighteen

His younger brother Kanhaiya Lal , who had been told a dream that predicted what happened to the girls

Ram Chanders three other brothers, who, along with their families, comprise around thirty people living together

Police

Sub-Inspector Ram Vilas Yadav , aged fifty-seven, in charge of the police outpost located in Katra village

Chattrapal Singh Gangwar , aged fifty-six, recently promoted to Head Constable

Constable Sarvesh Yadav , aged thirty-nine, accused of dereliction of duty towards the Shakya villagers

Constable Raghunandan Singh Yadav , who assisted the family

Constable Satinder Pal Singh Yadav , a quiet man who did as he was told

Inspector Ganga Singh Yadav , Station Officer of the police station in Ushait and first Inspecting Officer on the case

Mukesh Kumar Saxena , a locally powerful police officer who went on to head a Special Investigation Team on the case

Maan Singh Chauhan , Superintendent of Police, highest-ranking officer present on the day the bodies were found

Post-Mortem Team

Lala Ram , the former sweeper who conducted the post-mortem

Dr Rajiv Gupta , general practitioner, District Hospital, Budaun, who oversaw the post-mortem

Dr Pushpa Panth Tripathi , gynaecologist and obstetrician, District Womens Hospital, Budaun

They were accompanied by Dr Avdhesh Kumar , a senior surgeon at the District Hospital and A. K. Singh , the hospital pharmacist

Politicians

Narendra Modi , the new Prime Minister of India who was sworn in on 26 May, two days before the children were found

Akhilesh Yadav , Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who was in control of the state police

Mayawati Prabhu Das , Dalit leader with cult status in Uttar Pradesh

Bhagwan Singh Shakya , a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a Shakya community leader

Sinod Kumar Shakya , a member of Mayawatis party and an elected member of the state legislative assembly. The Shakya family were his constituents and he was their confidant

Shareef Ahmed Ansari , Sinod Kumars close aide. He spoke on behalf of his boss and gave the Shakya family every possible assistance

Central Bureau of Investigation

Vijay Kumar Shukla , Investigating Officer

Anil Girdhari Lal Kaul , Supervising Officer

Medical Team

Dr Adarsh Kumar , Additional Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

He was accompanied by two others, Dr Manish Kumath and Dr Sunil Kumar

Contents

: Spring, 2014

: Summer, 2014

Good Days Are Coming Soon

People called them Padma Lalli like they were one person.

Padma Lalli?

Padma Lalli!

Have you seen Padma Lalli?

At sixteen Padma was the older cousin by two years. She was small, only five feet, but even so she was bigger than Lalli by three inches. Padma had oval eyes, smooth skin and collarbones that popped. She had long black hair that she knew to pat down with water and tightly plait or else there would be words.