“Like lion?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “Ridiculous.”
Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a moment. She climbed into the tiny white van and thanked Mma Potokwane for her hospitality.
“I shall think about this boy,” she said. “Maybe I shall be able to come up with an idea.”
They waved to one another as Mma Ramotswe drove down the dusty road, through the orphanage gates, with their large ironwork sign proclaiming: Children live here.
She drove slowly, as there were donkeys and cattle on the road, and the herd boys who looked after them. Some of the herd boys were very young, no more than six or seven, like that poor, silent boy in his little room.
What if a young herd boy got lost, thought Mma Ramotswe. What if he got lost in the bush, far from the cattle post? Would he die? Or might something else happen to him?
CHAPTER TEN
THE CLERK’S TALE
MMA RAMOTSWE realised that something would have to be done about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. It did not take long to move the contents of the old office to the new quarters at the back of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors; there was not much more than one filing cabinet and its contents, a few metal trays in which papers awaiting filing could be placed, the old teapot and its two chipped mugs, and of course the old typewriter—which had been given to her by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and was now going home. These were manhandled into the back of the tiny white van by the two apprentices, after only the most token complaint that this was not part of their job. It would appear that they would do anything requested of them by Mma Makutsi, who had only to whistle from the office to find one of them running in to find out what she needed.
This compliance was a surprise to Mma Ramotswe, and she wondered what it was that Mma Makutsi had over these two young men. Mma Makutsi was not beautiful in a conventional sense. Her skin was too dark for modern tastes, thought Mma Ramotswe, and the lightening cream that she used had left patches. Then there was her hair, which was often braided, but braided in a very strange way. And then there were her glasses, of course, with their large lenses that would have served the needs of at least two people, in Mma Ramotswe’s view. Yet here was this person who would never have got into round one of a beauty competition, commanding the slavish attentions of these two notoriously difficult young men. It was very puzzling.
It could be, of course, that there was something more than mere physical appearance behind this. Mma Makutsi may not have been a great beauty, but she certainly had a powerful personality, and perhaps these boys recognised that. Beauty queens were often devoid of character, and men must surely tire of that after a while. Those dreadful competitions which they held—theMiss Lovers Special Time Competition or theMiss Cattle Industry Competition —brought to the fore the most vacuous of girls. These vacuous girls then attempted to pronounce on all sorts of issues, and to Mma Ramotswe’s utter incomprehension, they were often listened to.
She knew that these young men followed the beauty competitions, for she had heard them talking about them. But now their main concern seemed to be to impress Mma Makutsi, and to flatter her. One had even attempted to kiss her, and had been pushed away with amused indignation.
“Since when does a mechanic kiss the manager?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Get back to work before I beat your useless bottom with a big stick.”
The apprentices had made short work of the move, loading the entire contents within half an hour. Then, with the two young men travelling in the back to hold the filing cabinet in place, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, complete with painted sign, made its way to its new premises. It was a sad moment, and both Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were close to tears as they locked the front door for the last time.
“It is just a move, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi, in an attempt to comfort her employer. “It is not as if we are going out of business.”
“I know,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking, for the last time perhaps, at the view from the front of the building, over the rooftops of the town and the tops of the thorn trees. “I have been very happy here.”
We are still in business. Yes, but only just. Over the last few days, with all the turmoil and the lists, Mma Ramotswe had devoted very little time to the affairs of the agency. In fact, she had devoted no time at all, when she came to think about it. There was only one outstanding case, and nothing else had come in, although it undoubtedly would. She would be able to charge the Government Man a proper fee for her time, but that would depend on a successful outcome. She could send him an account even if she found nothing, but she always felt embarrassed asking for payment when she was unable to help the client. Perhaps she would just have to steel herself to do this in the Government Man’s case, as he was a wealthy man and could well afford to pay. It must be very easy, she thought, to have a detective agency that catered only to the needs of rich people, the No. 1 Rich Person’s Detective Agency, as the charging of fees would always be painless. But that was not what her business was, and she was not sure that she would be happy with that. Mma Ramotswe liked to help everybody, no matter what their station was in life. She had often been out of pocket on a case, simply because she could not refuse to help a person in need. This is what I am called to do, she said to herself. I must help whomsoever asks for my help. That is my duty: to help other people with the problems in their lives. Not that you could do everything. Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help everybody; but you could at least help those who came into your life. That principle allowed you to deal with the suffering you saw. That was your suffering. Other people would have to deal with the suffering that they, in their turn, came across.
BUT WHAT to do, here and now, with the problems of the business? Mma Ramotswe decided that she would have to revise her list and put the Government Man’s case at the top. This meant that she should start making enquiries immediately, and where better to start than with the suspect wife’s father? There were several reasons for this, the most important being that if there really were a plot to dispose of the Government Man’s brother, then this would probably not be the wife’s idea, but would have been dreamed up by the father. Mma Ramotswe was convinced that people who got up to really serious mischief very rarely acted entirely on their own initiative. There was usually somebody else involved, somebody who would stand to benefit in some way, or somebody close to the perpetrator of the deed who was brought in for moral support. In this case, the most likely person would be the wife’s father. If, as the Government Man had implied, this man was aware of the social betterment which the marriage entailed, and made much of it, then he was likely to be socially ambitious himself. And in that case, it would be highly convenient for him to have the son-in-law out of the way, so that he could, through his daughter, lay hands on a substantial part of the family assets. Indeed, the more Mma Ramotswe thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the poisoning attempt was the clerk’s idea.
She could imagine his thoughts, as he sat at his small government desk and reflected on the power and authority which he saw all about him and of which he had only such a small part. How galling it must be for a man of this stripe to see the Government Man drive past him in his official car; the Government Man who was, in fact, the brother-in-law of his own daughter. How difficult it must be for him not to have the recognition that he undoubtedly felt that he would get if only more people knew that he was connected in such a way with such a family. If the money and the cattle came to him—or to his daughter, which amounted to the same thing—then he would be able to give up his demeaning post in the civil service and pursue the life of a rich farmer; he, who now had no cattle, would have cattle aplenty. He, who now had to scrimp and save in order to afford a trip up to Francistown each year, would be able to eat meat every day and drink Lion Lager with his friends on Friday evenings, generously buying rounds for all. And all that stood between him and all this was one small, beating heart. If that heart c
ould be silenced, then his entire life would be transformed.
The Government Man had given Mma Ramotswe the wife’s family name and had told her that the father liked to spend his lunch hour sitting under a tree outside the Ministry. This gave her all the information she needed to find him: his name and his tree.
“I am going to begin this new case,” she said to Mma Makutsi, as the two of them sat in their new office. “You are busy with the garage. I shall get back to being a detective.”
“Good,” said Mma Makutsi. “It is a demanding business running a garage. I shall continue to be very busy.”
“I am glad to see that the apprentices are working so hard,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You have them eating out of your hand.”
Mma Makutsi smiled conspiratorially. “They are very silly young men,” she said. “But we ladies are used to dealing with silly young men.”
“So I see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You must have had many boyfriends, Mma. These boys seem to like you.”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I have had almost no boyfriends. I cannot understand why these boys are like this to me when there are all these pretty girls in Gaborone.”
“You underestimate yourself, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are obviously an attractive lady to men.”
“Do you think so?” asked Mma Makutsi, beaming with pleasure.
“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some ladies become more attractive to men the older they get. I have seen this happen. Then, while all the young girls, the beauty queens, get less and less attractive as they get older, these other ladies become more and more so. It is a very interesting thing.”
Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. She adjusted her glasses, and Mma Ramotswe noticed her glancing surreptitiously at her reflection in the window pane. She was not sure if what she had said was true, but even if it were not, she would be glad that she had said it if it had the effect of boosting Mma Makutsi’s confidence. It would do her no harm at all to be admired by these two feckless boys, as long as she did not get involved with them, and it was clear to Mma Ramotswe that there was little chance of that—at least for the time being.
She left Mma Makutsi in the office and drove off in the tiny white van. It was now half past twelve; the drive would take ten minutes, which would give her time to find a parking place and to make her way to the Ministry and to start looking for the wife’s father, Mr Kgosi Sipoleli, ministry clerk and, if her intuitions were correct, would-be murderer.
She parked the tiny white van near the Catholic church, as the town was busy and there were no places to be had any closer. She would have a walk—a brief one—and she did not mind this, as she was bound to see people whom she knew and she had a few minutes in hand for a chat on her way.
She was not disappointed. Barely had she turned the corner from her parking place than she ran into Mma Gloria Bopedi, mother of Chemba Bopedi, who had been at school with Mma Ramotswe in Mochudi. Chemba had married Pilot Matanyani, who had recently become headmaster of a school at Selibi-Pikwe. She had seven children, the oldest of whom had recently become champion under-fifteen sprinter of Botswana.
“How is your very fast grandson, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
The elderly woman beamed. She had few teeth left, noticed Mma Ramotswe, who thought that it would be better for her to have the remaining ones out and be fitted with false teeth.
“Oh! He is fast, that one,” said Mma Bopedi. “But he is a naughty boy too. He learned to run fast so that he could get out of trouble. That is how he came to be so fast.”
“Well,” said Mma Ramotswe, “something good has come out of it. Maybe he will be in the Olympics one day, running for Botswana. That will show the world that the fast runners are not all in Kenya.”
Again she found herself reflecting on the fact that what she said was not true. The truth of the matter was that the best runners did all come from Kenya, where the people were very tall and had long legs, very suitably designed for running. The problem with the Batswana was that they were not very tall. Their men tended to be stocky, which was fine for looking after cattle, but which did not lend itself to athleticism. Indeed, most Southern Africans were not very good runners, although the Zulus and the Swazis sometimes produced somebody who made a mark on the track, such as that great Swazi runner, Richard “Concorde” Mavuso.
Of course, the Boers were quite good at sports. They produced these very large men with great thighs and thick necks, like Brahman cattle. They played rugby and seemed to do very well at it, although they were not very bright. She preferred a Motswana man, who may not be as big as one of those rugby players, nor as swift as one of those Kenyan runners, but at least he would be reliable and astute.
“Don’t you think so, Mma?” she said to Mma Bopedi.
“Don’t I think what, Mma?” asked Mma Bopedi.
Mma Ramotswe realised that she had included the other woman in her reverie, and apologised.
“I was just thinking about our men,” she said.
Mma Bopedi raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really, Mma? Well, to tell you the truth, I also think about our men from time to time. Not very often, but sometimes. You know how it is.”
Mma Ramotswe bade Mma Bopedi farewell and continued with her journey. Now, outside the optician’s shop, she came across Mr Motheti Pilai, standing quite still, looking up at the sky.
“Dumela, Rra,” she said politely. “Are you well?”
Mr Pilai looked down. “Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “Please let me look at you. I have just been given these new spectacles, and I can see the world clearly for the first time in years. Ow! It is a wonderful thing. I had forgotten what it was like to see clearly. And there you are, Mma. You are looking very beautiful, very fat.”
“Thank you, Rra.”
He moved the spectacles to the end of his nose. “My wife was always telling me that I needed new glasses, but I was always afraid to come here. I do not like that machine that he has which shines light into your eyes. And I do not like that machine which puffs air into your eyeball. So I put it off and put it off. I was very foolish.”
“It is never a good thing to put something off,” said Mma Ramotswe, thinking of how she had put off the Government Man’s case.
“Oh, I know that,” said Mr Pilai. “But the problem is that even if you know that is the best thing to do, you often don’t do it.”
“That is very puzzling,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it is true. It’s as if there were two people inside you. One says: do this. Another says: do that. But both these voices are inside the same person.”
Mr Pilai stared at Mma Ramotswe. “It is very hot today,” he said.
She agreed with him, and they both went about their business. She would stop no more, she resolved; it was now almost one o’clock and she wanted to have enough time to locate Mr Sipoleli and to have the conversation with him that would start her enquiry.
THE TREE was easily identified. It stood a short distance from the main entrance to the Ministry, a large acacia tree with a wide canopy that provided a wide circle of shade on the dusty ground below. Immediately beside the trunk were several strategically placed stones—comfortable seats for anyone who might wish to sit under the tree and watch the daily business of Gaborone unfold before him. Now, at five minutes to one, the stones were unoccupied.
Mma Ramotswe chose the largest of the stones and settled herself upon it. She had brought with her a large flask of tea, two aluminum mugs, and four corned beef sandwiches made with thickly cut slices of bread. She took out one of the mugs and filled it with bush tea. Then she leaned back against the trunk of the tree and waited. It was pleasant to be seated there in the shade, with a mug of tea, watching the passing traffic. Nobody paid the slightest attention to her, as it was an entirely normal thing to see: a well-built woman under a tree.
Shortly after ten past one, when Mma Ramotswe had finished her tea and was on the point of dozing off in her comfortable place, a figure emerged from the front of the Ministry and walke
d over towards the tree. As he drew near, Mma Ramotswe jolted herself to full wakefulness. She was on duty now, and she must make the most of the opportunity to talk to Mr Sipoleli, if that, as she expected, was the person now approaching her.
The man was wearing a pair of neatly pressed blue trousers, a short-sleeved white shirt, and a dark brown tie. It was exactly what one would expect a junior civil servant, in the clerical grade, to wear. And as if to confirm the diagnosis, there was a row of pens tucked neatly into his shirt pocket. This was clearly the uniform of the junior clerk, even if it was being worn by a man in his late forties. This, then, was a clerk who was stuck where he was and was not going any further.
The man approached the tree cautiously. Staring at Mma Ramotswe, it seemed as if he wanted to say something but could not quite bring himself to speak.
Mma Ramotswe smiled at him. “Good afternoon, Rra,” she said. “It is hot today, is it not? That is why I am under this tree. It is clearly a good place to sit in the heat.”
The man nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I normally sit here.”
Mma Ramotswe affected surprise. “Oh? I hope that I am not sitting on your rock, Rra. I found it here and there was nobody sitting on it.”
He made an impatient gesture with his hands. “My rock? Yes it is, as a matter of fact. That is my rock. But this is a public place and anybody can sit on it, I suppose.”
Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “But Rra, you must have this rock. I shall sit on that one over on that side.”
“No, Mma,” he said hurriedly, his tone changing. “I do not want to inconvenience you. I can sit on that rock.”
“No. You sit on this rock here. It is your rock. I would not have sat on it if I had thought that it was another person’s rock. I can sit on this rock, which is a good rock too. You sit on that rock.”
“No,” he said firmly. “You go back where you were, Mma. I can sit on that rock any day. You can’t. I shall sit on this rock.”
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