The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency)

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Makutsi was not so sure. ‘How do you know that, Mma?’

  ‘Do you remember what I said about her brushing fluff off Mr Sengupta’s shoulder? Remember what I said, Mma Makutsi?’

  ‘You said that they knew one another well.’

  ‘Yes. I think they may know one another very well. I think Mrs may be their sister. They want her to live with them but there is something that makes it impossible for her to apply for a residence permit here.’

  ‘Why should there be anything like that, Mma? And what exactly would it be?’

  Mma Ramotswe had no idea – yet. ‘That’s what we have to find out,’ she said.

  ‘And how will we do that, Mma?’ asked Mma Makutsi.

  ‘That’s what we have to find out,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘There are some occasions on which you have to find out how to find out. That is well known, Mma.’

  It is not well known, thought Mma Makutsi, but decided not to press the point. There were times that points should not be pressed – and that, everyone agreed, was well known.

  Charlie drove the tiny white van past the university, past the Sun Hotel, and then turned across the traffic into the street where Mr Sengupta lived. It was a long street and almost all of the houses were surrounded by walls high enough to prevent anything but a glimpse of their roofs and, in the case of those houses with two storeys, a sight of the first-floor windows. The road itself was a bit broader than many around it, and vegetation had grown up along the edges: thorn bushes, high tufts of grass, acacia trees. Among this growth were the paths that were always there in Africa, following some inexpressible logic of their own, winding this way and that, sometimes seeming to go nowhere at all. You rarely saw people on these paths, yet they were always well trodden, flattened into hard earth and dust, small hand-made features that took no notice of the more formal constructions around them: the tarred roads, the bridges, the car parks.

  Charlie slowed as he passed the large gates of the Sengupta house, and then continued to the end of the street: as this was a cul-de-sac there was a turning circle, and Charlie stopped there briefly before proceeding back down the road. He had seen his spot – a place at the side of the road, backed by a plot of land that had yet to be built upon. This plot was to all intents and purposes thick bush: acacias had seeded themselves in profusion and those vicious arresting thorns, the wag-’n-bietjie, the wait-a-bit thorn, the mokgalo, famous for its ability to latch onto the clothing – or flesh – of the incautious passer-by, had taken firm root. At the edge of this plot there was a place for the van to be parked, shaded by the canopy of a large jacaranda, concealed from most of the houses and from the road itself, and yet affording a view both of the Sengupta gate and, because of slightly increased elevation, of part of the garden beyond the gate.

  It was the ideal spot to begin the task of surveillance and Charlie quickly settled down to it, lowering the rather shaky-looking sun visor in front of the driver’s seat. On the other side of the visor was a mirror, fixed there by Mr J. L. B. Matekoni after Mma Ramotswe had complained that the makers of vans seemed to forget that many drivers were ladies and might have need of such a mirror. Removing his sunglasses, he glanced at his reflection and said to himself: very smart, very smart. Then he straightened his jeans so that the fabric was pulled tight across his thigh muscles, and finally, replaced his sunglasses. I am on duty, watching, he thought. They may come out at any moment and I will be ready to see where they go.

  An hour went past, during which nothing happened. Charlie had begun his watch at nine, and now, at ten, the sun was climbing steadily in the sky. The screech of cicadas, the accompaniment to any stretch of Botswana bush no matter how small, intensified as the day heated up. So familiar was this sound that few people noticed it, but Charlie did now as he sat in the small cab of the van, the sound filling the air with the density, it seemed to him, of a buzz saw – a ceaseless drone, rising in pitch and then descending before picking up again.

  At the end of the first hour, he saw a figure emerge from the side of the house. It was a woman, who stood still for a moment before glancing over her shoulder and going back into the house. He did not have time to work out whether it was Mrs; Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi had provided him with a fairly detailed description of her and it was easy, they said, to distinguish her from Miss Rose, as Miss Rose was tall and Mrs was below average height. ‘And another thing,’ Mma Makutsi had said. ‘Miss Rose wears Indian clothes – those saris – while Mrs wears ordinary clothes.’

  ‘Or she did when we saw her,’ pointed out Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Makutsi paused, and then said, ‘That’s true.’

  Mma Ramotswe wondered whether she should quote the relevant section of The Principles of Private Detection to Mma Makutsi, but decided against it. She recollected that Clovis Andersen had written: Before describing people by what they are wearing, remember that they can always change their clothes. That was true, and yet she felt that there were people who could be described very well by reference to their clothes because they never wore anything different. So if Mr J. L. B. Matekoni were ever to go missing – and some husbands did – she could give a good description to the police. A man of reliable appearance wearing khaki trousers and khaki shirt, possibly with a khaki overall on top, and oil-stained suede desert boots. That would be accurate because that was how he always looked. And if for any reason he changed his clothes before going missing, he could be described as A man who looks as if he should be wearing khaki trousers and khaki shirt…

  Then there was Mma Makutsi. She at least had a number of different outfits, but there were always her shoes. Again, there were many pairs now, but they all had a certain look to them and, if mentioned alongside her characteristic round glasses, would provide a perfectly adequate description. A lady in large round glasses (very large) and brightly coloured shoes, often with bows. That would point very well to Mma Makutsi, and one need not even mention her slightly troublesome complexion or her general air of having come from Bobonong. It was difficult to put one’s finger on the Bobonong factor, but it could always be spotted if one were attuned to such things. Nor would one have to mention that the shoes had a tendency to speak – a very unusual attribute, and one that defied rational explanation, but nonetheless one that set Mma Makutsi apart from most people; from everybody, in fact.

  But now the woman, whoever she was, had returned inside and Charlie, sitting in the increasingly hot and stuffy cab, was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He opened the door, hoping to cool the cab that way, but found that this simply let the sun beat directly down on his Cool Jules jeans, making his legs unpleasantly warm.

  He got out of the van altogether and made for the shade of a nearby tree. At the foot of this tree was a stone, and Charlie sat down on that, stretching out his legs before him. From his seated position he could no longer see into the Sengupta garden but he still had a good view of the gate, and he watched that from his new position.

  The street was quiet, and because it led nowhere, only the occasional car passed by. Nobody took any notice of the young man under the tree or of his half-concealed van – why would they? Botswana was a country where people could still sit under a tree and look up at the sky if they so wished, or watch cattle as they moved slowly across the veld, or even just close their eyes and look at nothing because they had seen everything there was to see on their local patch of earth and did not need to see anything more. And even if the young man was dressed a bit loudly, that did not matter, as people could dress loudly if they wanted to, and it was no business of others to pass comment on what they were wearing.

  An elderly man came past, and he paused and studied Charlie for a full minute or two before he spoke. ‘Are you well, young man?’

  ‘I am very well, Rra. And you are well too?’

  ‘Oh, I am well. I used to be more well than I am now, but I am still well. And we should always remember that there are some people who are not well. We must remember them.’

  Ch
arlie nodded. ‘Yes, Rra, we must remember them. I do not forget them, I can tell you.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was a silence. Then the man spoke again. ‘Where is your village, Rra?’

  Charlie pointed over towards the east. ‘I come from that side. It is not a big place and I never go there any more. My father is late, and so I live with my uncle here in Gaborone.’

  The man lowered his eyes. ‘I am sorry that your father is late. There are many people who are late these days.’ He paused. ‘But then, we all become late when it is time for us to go. Do I know your uncle?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘It’s possible, Rra. He is working at that supermarket, that Pick and Pay. He works with the vegetables there.’

  The man knew the place. ‘I have been inside, but I did not buy anything.’

  ‘That is a pity, Rra. It has very good food, that place…’

  They looked at one another. It seemed to Charlie that the man wanted to tell him something but could not find the words. What was it? That he was lonely? That the world he knew had somehow been lost. Old people could be like that, Charlie thought, but there was nothing he could do to bring their world back; they shouldn’t look at him and hope.

  The old man suddenly seemed to remember something. ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘I shall be late getting to the house of my son.’

  ‘Then you must go,’ said Charlie. ‘Go well, father.’

  Now he was alone again under this hot sun and with the sweat beginning to make his Cool Jules outfit damp and rumpled. He was no longer sure whether he really wanted to train as a detective now that he saw how mundane the work was. Anybody, he said to himself, could sit in a car and wait for somebody to come out of a house; anybody could follow another car and note where it stopped and who got out of it. There was no special expertise in that – indeed there was far less skill involved than in changing the oil filter on a car. And to think that Mma Makutsi sat there and put on airs and graces about how complicated her work was and how you needed to have ninety-seven per cent, or whatever it was, to do it. Nonsense! You could do this sort of work even if you didn’t have your school certificate – a twelve-year-old could do it. And you didn’t need to be smartly dressed either. It was all very well putting on your best clothes, your Cool Jules jeans and the like, but nobody saw you and anybody who did would be indifferent to what you wore. It was all a waste of time – a complete waste of time, and he would hand in his notice if it continued like this… No, he would not do that. He had to live. He had to pay rent for his room – or his bit of a room. And that was another thing: how could you be taken seriously as a detective if you had to share a room with your cousins, including one who was a small boy who sometimes had nightmares and woke you up with his crying? How could a detective entertain the ladies that detectives needed to entertain if you had a small boy in the room who would want to cuddle up with the lady in question and thereby prevent the detective from having the discussions that he needed to have? It was all very upsetting, and all the more so because Charlie saw no way out. He would never get anywhere as a detective with those ladies sitting on all the available work.

  He suddenly became aware that in the distance somebody was walking down the road towards him, and almost at the same time realised that this was a woman. It was the walk: Charlie was an expert in the way women walked – or so he believed.

  He waited. As the figure came closer, he realised that not only was she indeed a woman, but she was a young woman – and smartly dressed.

  He took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. He adjusted the crease of his Cool Jules trousers so that it ran straight down the middle of the leg. When the young woman drew level with him, he cleared his throat. She had been studiously avoiding looking at him, but now she could hardly ignore him.

  ‘Going anywhere special, honey?’

  She gave him a scornful glance. ‘I am not your honey.’

  He laughed. ‘Just an expression. I didn’t know your name, you see. Honey is friendly.’

  He could see that she was scrutinising him, as if weighing something up.

  ‘My name is Charles,’ he said. ‘They call me Charlie.’

  She allowed herself a flicker of a smile. ‘Hello, Mr Charlie.’

  ‘Not Mr Charlie – just Charlie. And you… your name?’

  She hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘I am Alice.’

  He gave a soft whistle of admiration. ‘That is very nice. Alice… Alice. That is a really good name.’

  They regarded one another. He could tell that she was interested in him – and who wouldn’t be, he thought, with the Cool Jules look?

  ‘Alice who?’ he asked.

  ‘Alice Bombwe.’

  He let out another low whistle. ‘That’s some name!’

  She looked at her watch. ‘I’m glad you like it.’

  ‘Alice, can I help you to get where you want to go? If you’re going to see your husband…’

  ‘There is no husband,’ she snapped. ‘I am going shopping.’

  Charlie smiled. ‘Shopping? I am a big expert in shopping. Let me take you.’

  She hesitated once more, but again not for long. She named a collection of stores near Kgale Hill. ‘Could you drive me there?’

  ‘Alice, I could take you wherever you wanted to go. Johannesburg, even. You name it – I can go there.’

  They moved towards the van. Alice opened the door and lowered herself into the passenger seat. From behind his dark glasses, Charlie inspected his new friend. She was about his age – perhaps slightly younger. The perfume she was wearing was quite strong, even after she had been walking out in the sun. He breathed it in – he knew that scent. It was called Miss Glamour, or something like that; he had seen it being promoted outside one of the clothes shops and he and his friends had laughingly insisted that a sample be dabbed on their wrists.

  ‘You’re wearing Miss Glamour,’ he said. ‘That is very good.’

  She did not conceal her surprise. ‘Ow! How can you tell that?’

  Charlie affected a careless sophistication. ‘That is what I am trained to do. You see… I shouldn’t really tell you this, but I’m a detective – a private investigator.’

  Her expression was one of complete admiration. ‘A detective!’

  ‘Yes. I’m on a case at the moment, actually. Surveillance, you know.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Surveillance?’

  ‘That means watching somebody. An international criminal.’

  Her eyes widened even further. ‘There are international criminals right here in Gaborone?’

  ‘You better believe it, doll,’ said Charlie. ‘You want to watch with me? We can go to the shops a bit later.’

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘You keep your head down,’ he said. ‘If things get tough, just do as I say, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I use this van for cover. Nobody pays attention to it, you see. If I drove my Mercedes they’d look at me.’

  Alice was impressed. ‘A sort of disguise, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Charlie. ‘A disguise. You see, one of the things you learn when you’re a detective —’ He broke off. The gate of the Sengupta house, operated by remote control, was beginning to slide open. A car was nosing out of the driveway – a green Mercedes-Benz. There was a woman at the wheel, and another woman beside her in the passenger seat. It could only be Miss Rose and Mrs.

  ‘Something’s happening,’ he said to Alice.

  She gave a muffled gasp. ‘It’s them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘We’re going to start following. Hold on tight, okay?’

  Swinging out onto the road, he began to follow the other car, his heart thumping within him at the thought of what he was doing. Those women in the office had said no car chases – well, what was this? This was a car chase, and he was participating in it! He adjusted his sunglasses and took a quick glance at Alice. It was clear that she was impressed.


  ‘We just drive normally,’ he said. ‘We never draw attention to ourselves – never. You see these guys in the movies driving like they are crazy but that would alert the suspect. Easy does it – that’s what we pros say.’

  But the car carrying the two women had accelerated rapidly, and Charlie was obliged to speed up to ensure that he kept them in sight. The van’s engine strained as it was pushed to its limits and an alarming rattle developed somewhere under the floor.

  ‘They’re going to get away,’ said Alice. ‘We’re going to lose them.’

  ‘No chance,’ said Charlie. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet, let me tell you.’

  At the end of the road, the other car slowed, but did not stop altogether. Charlie slowed down too, and then followed his quarry into its left turn. After a few hundred yards the car turned again, into another long residential road of whitewashed garden walls and high gates. He was aware of the fact that the brake lights of the car ahead were signalling another slowing down, this time before a driveway. He accelerated to keep up and did not see the large black car suddenly appear from a side road.