How to Raise an Elephant

by Alexander McCall Smith

  But now Mma Makutsi was waiting for Mma Ramotswe to reveal what it was that Clovis Andersen had said that was relevant here. It came after a short delay: “You know what Clovis Andersen says—he says find the person who has the solution and then you will find the solution.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Ramotswe. “Did he say that, Mma? Are you sure?”

  Any further discussion of the source of this proposition was cut short by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s intervention. “That is very true, Mma,” he said. “And in this case, it means that there is only one way of preventing a disaster—and that is to take Charlie out of the picture.”

  This remark brought a gasp of astonishment from Fanwell. “Take Charlie out?” he stuttered. “Do you mean kill him, Boss?”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni rolled his eyes. “Kill Charlie? Don’t be ridiculous, Fanwell. You mustn’t talk like that.”

  “But I wasn’t talking like that,” protested Fanwell. “You were, Boss. You said—”

  Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to silence the debate. “I think there’s a misunderstanding here. I think that what Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni meant was that Charlie’s views have to be overridden. That is definitely not the same thing as killing him.” She looked nervously at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I am right, aren’t I, Rra…I hope.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “Of course you are, Mma. I’m a mechanic, not a gangster.”

  Mma Makutsi laughed. “That is very funny,” she said. “Fanwell has obviously been watching too many films about gangsters and so on. Those people talk about taking people out…”

  “Rubbing them out,” said Fanwell. “That also happens a lot. People rub other people out.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I do not like language like that. We do not speak like that in this country. There can be no rubbing out here.”

  “No,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You are right, Mma.”

  “So, what do we do?” asked Fanwell.

  Mma Ramotswe looked thoughtful. “I think we have no alternative but to get the elephant away from that place…”

  Mma Makutsi took over. “And take it to another place—to Mma Potokwane’s, in fact. And that means, I think, that we shall have to do it at night.” She smiled. “I can just see Charlie’s face when he wakes up and finds there is no elephant any longer.”

  “It would be for the best, I suppose,” said Mma Ramotswe. She felt uneasy, and it showed in her expression.

  “I don’t think we should do it at night,” said Fanwell. “The police often patrol Old Naledi at night. You see them driving about in their cars. That is because it’s a good place for criminals to walk around at night. They like walking around that place.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked doubtful. “But can we drive through the streets of Gaborone with an elephant in the back of the van? I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t think we should go behind Charlie’s back like this after all. I think it’s wrong.” He paused, letting his gaze dwell on Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe. “It’s just wrong to do something like that.”

  Fanwell looked uncomfortable. “I think you may be right, Boss. Maybe I should have another talk with Charlie. I could try to persuade him.”

  Mma Ramotswe made up her mind. “Yes,” she said. “Speak to him, Fanwell. I’ll lend you the van to go round there this evening. Get him to see sense.”

  The meeting came to an end. Mma Makutsi collected the mugs from which everybody attending the meeting had been drinking. As she washed them at the sink, she addressed Mma Ramotswe over her shoulder. “Why is it, Mma,” she asked, “that the best way of putting off a decision is to have a meeting about it?”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “That is a very interesting question, Mma Makutsi,” she said. And then something occurred to her. “And why is it,” she continued, “that the best way of not answering a question is to ask it in the first place?”

  Mma Makutsi stared at her, adjusting her new glasses at the end of her nose. “Did Clovis Andersen say that, Mma? It’s a very interesting thing to say.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, I said it, Mma Makutsi.” She paused. “But it is the sort of thing he says, I think.”

  They both laughed. Mma Ramotswe watched as Mma Makutsi took off her glasses and polished them with her handkerchief. That was the third time she had done that since the beginning of their extraordinary general meeting. Many people would not remark on that—perhaps not even notice it—but then Mma Ramotswe was a detective, and it was precisely the sort of thing that a detective would notice. And a detective, moreover, might be expected to have a theory as to why people do things more frequently than might normally be expected. Look for the irregular pattern, wrote Clovis Andersen…

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY SAY SHE IS SMART, SMART

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING Fanwell was waiting for Mma Ramotswe when she arrived at the office. She had travelled into work with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni in his recovery truck, having lent her van to Fanwell. This meant that she had been obliged to occupy the truck’s less than comfortable passenger seat and to tolerate, too, a window that rattled loudly, a floor that vibrated beneath her feet, and that curious smell of fuel and grease that was such a recognisable feature of her husband’s working space. Her van might not have been the most sophisticated of vehicles—indeed, it was a vehicle of no sophistication at all—but it had her things in it: her work-in-progress teapot cover, a crochet project to keep boredom at bay when she was parked somewhere in the course of an investigation; the small jar of salted peanuts that she kept topped up for dietary emergencies; and the spare pair of dark glasses that served both as protection for the eyes on a particularly sunny day and as an aid—of dubious efficacy, but still—for circumstances in which she felt the need to disguise herself. And, of course, the cab of her van had its own smell, the source of which she had never been able to trace, but that seemed, curiously, to be redolent of freshly baked bread—that enticing smell that drifted out of a bakery when they were taking a batch of loaves out of the oven. It was one of her favourite smells, but she had been unable to work out how it occurred in her van. Had a loaf of bread slipped out of her shopping bag and disappeared down the back of the seat? The back of any seat was a rich source of unexpected and delightful finds—frequently money—but it might also conceal a long-lost brooch, a watch, a pen that still had enough ink in it to write, or occasionally a wrapped and still edible tube of peppermints or some such treat. But a search had revealed no bread, and the smell remained a mystery—overtaken recently by the mystery, now solved, of the elephant smell.

  There was the van waiting for her, parked where she always parked it herself, under the acacia tree at the back of the building that housed both Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. And there were both Fanwell and Charlie standing beside it, Charlie wearing earphones and listening to the radio station that he would listen to constantly if given the chance. It was a particularly noisy station whose tinny outpourings could be heard escaping from the earphones like the chirrup of some tireless electronic cicada somewhere.

  Charlie took off his earphones as they approached.

  “No problem, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “All agreed. No problem, ya!”

  Fanwell explained. “Charlie says that the elephant can go to Mma Potokwane. He has spoken to his friend, and his friend says that is fine with him.”

  Charlie grinned broadly. “He’s pleased that you’ve found that place up north to take him,” he said. “He says to thank you very much for solving the problem. And me too—I was running out of milk formula stuff. That little creature drinks and drinks. Milk, more milk…Ow!”

  “We haven’t arranged a place yet,” Mma Ramotswe pointed out. “We are going to try. But there will be formalities.”

  Charlie sighed in an exaggerated way. “Formalities, Mma, formalities. There are too many formal
ities in this country. Soon there will be formalities before you’re allowed to breathe.”

  Mma Ramotswe took the keys of the van from Fanwell as she answered Charlie. “Things have to be done a certain way, Charlie. That is just one of these things.”

  “A pity,” said Charlie.

  It was one of those days when Charlie’s time was allocated to the garage rather than the agency, and so Mma Ramotswe spent the next twenty minutes alone in the office before Mma Makutsi arrived for work. Then the kettle was switched on and the first cup of tea of the day was prepared and served—if one did not count the two cups consumed at home before leaving for work. The excitement caused by the elephant had rather overshadowed other demands on Mma Ramotswe’s attention, and now it was time to deal with those. That meant the awkward issue of Blessing and her request for help—an issue that Mma Ramotswe wanted to get out of the way. It would have been simple enough to turn Blessing down and leave it at that, but Mma Ramotswe felt uncomfortable about acting in a way that was contrary to the Botswana tradition of helping a relative if it was remotely within one’s power to do so. Even Mma Makutsi, who had reached her own view on this case—and decided that Tefo was a fraud and Blessing was one of those people taken advantage of by a stronger, manipulative man—would acknowledge that a request of this nature had to be given due weight and looked into before being robustly rejected.

  Mma Ramotswe had, in fact, decided to ask Mma Makutsi to carry out the next stage of the investigation as she had a quite separate matter, a delicate issue of matrimonial property, with which she was required to deal. This involved a divorce in which the wife was convinced that the husband was concealing assets from the court so as to minimise the divorce settlement. It was an old and familiar issue: men were always trying to hide their business assets; in this case the husband was thought to be hiding an expensive Mercedes-Benz, a substantial number of cattle, and, of all things, a house. The Mercedes-Benz was believed to be parked at his girlfriend’s place—but when Mma Ramotswe had gone there, it was nowhere to be seen. There were, however, tyre tracks that, when measured, were the exact width of the wheelbase of the model of car he was alleged to be hiding. The cattle proved to be more difficult to track down, but Mma Ramotswe had managed to find a livestock agent who had handled some of them and arranged a transfer from one cattle post to another. The herdsman who had been in charge of that move had been underpaid by the owner and was only too happy to confirm ownership of the cattle. So that left only the house to be located, and she had a plan for that. She would phone the husband and offer to sell him property insurance at a markedly reduced rate. If he rose to the bait and took up her offer of a free insurance survey, then she might expect to be given the address of the missing property. It was a standard trick of the trade, but she believed that it might work. A man who was prepared to hide property on that scale in order to defeat the legitimate claim of a wife of fifteen years who was still looking after three of his young children might also be expected to be a man who would be interested in the prospect of saving money on insurance. But first she had to find his telephone number: he had recently changed it and had refused to notify his wife of the new number. That was her task that morning—to track down his known associates and see whether she might get the number from them.

  She explained to Mma Makutsi what was required. “I know you don’t trust that man, Tefo,” she began.

  “I certainly don’t, Mma. I don’t trust him even that much.” Mma Makutsi indicated a sliver of distance between her thumb and forefinger. “Not even that, Mma.”

  “You may be right,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But I’d feel more comfortable having some evidence.”

  Mma Makutsi took a more robust view of the need for evidence when something was as obvious as she thought Tefo’s dishonesty was. “If you’re pretending your leg’s sore, you should at least remember which leg it is,” she said dismissively.

  “Possibly,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “No, Mma, not possibly—definitely. I know that man’s lying. I knew it straightaway. And that Blessing too. She’s a number one big liar, Mma.”

  “Even so, Mma Makutsi, I’d like you to check on his story.” Mma Ramotswe paused, and looked at her colleague. Mma Makutsi had come a long way since those early days when she had joined the agency as a secretary, but she still had her impetuosity to conquer. “Now, Mma, do you remember my old friend Mma Phiri? Remember her? She was a magistrate, but then she became ill and they gave her early retirement. She was only forty-eight, but the government was very good to her. She lost a lung. One whole lung, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi frowned. There had been a Phiri at the college—a very quiet girl who was a prominent Seventh-Day Adventist. She recalled she had refused to drink tea for some reason, but she did not remember much else about her. It was a common enough name, but it was possible they were the same family, even if she did not remember a Phiri who was a magistrate.

  “She came to see me once in the office—after she had retired,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “Perhaps you were out at the time.”

  Mma Makutsi waited.

  “She retired out near Tlokweng,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Not far from Mma Potokwane, as it happens. I think she sees her from time to time. You know how she ropes people in to do things for the Orphan Farm. She used to get her to help her with the books—she has a very good memory, Mma. She remembers everything.”

  “She is very lucky,” said Mma Makutsi. “If you remember everything, then you’ll forget nothing.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought about this. It was undoubtedly true, although she was not sure that it really needed to be said. “I’d like you to go and see her,” she said. “See if she knows anything about Tefo. We’ve been told that he was convicted of stock theft. If that’s true, then she will know something about it. She knew exactly what everybody was up to. She saw them in court if they did anything illegal. She knew everything—she still does, I think.”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. “I’ll ask her about that man. We’ll see what she says. Mind you, I don’t really need any confirmation of what I already know, Mma Ramotswe.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought about what Clovis Andersen said about keeping an open mind, but she could not remember his precise words and she decided that this was not the time to extemporise.

  * * *

  —

  MMA MAKUTSI drove slowly down the dirt road that ran past the clinic at Tlokweng. The clinic was the reference point, Mma Ramotswe had told her: the third turning after the clinic, she had said, was the Phiri turning. The former magistrate’s house was one of several at the end of a track, the others being occupied by the families of her two brothers, both of whom were successful cattle traders.

  She slowed down as she drove past the clinic, noticing the handful of people seated on the waiting benches. They were lined up outside, shielded from the sun by an expanse of thick shade netting strung across supporting wooden posts; five of them, including a woman with a baby wrapped in a folded shawl across her back. Mma Makutsi stared at the woman from her car, and for a moment their eyes met, across yards of dusty foreground; and Mma Makutsi thought: my sister, my sister…She had no idea who the woman was, but she felt a sudden surge of feeling for her—a feeling of sympathy so intense that it surprised her. She was just a stranger—a woman whom she had never seen before and would never see again. All she had to do was to continue with her journey, to turn the corner ahead, and it would be as if the other woman had ceased to exist. That was what you could do with most people you encountered in this life: you just continued to do what you were already doing and you passed them by, because you simply could not stop at every moment and think: This is the only time I’m going to see this person on this earth and…You could not do that because you did not have enough time. There was not enough time, and you were only one person, one small person—because every person, even the largest of us, is still just a small thing when
you come to think of it—and there is only so much that one person can do about anything. So there she was, Mma Makutsi, who could have been where that other woman was, and instead was there in her car, with a fine house to return to, and a husband with cattle—and a furniture store—and a job that made her someone when previously she had been nobody in particular; and it had all started in Bobonong and there were plenty of people who were still stuck back there and would never be able to leave; never be able to go off to the Botswana Secretarial College and end up with ninety-seven per cent. For most of the world got nowhere near ninety-seven per cent in their examinations, they simply did not, and…That poor woman with her child—whatever number of children it was—whose life would be a constant battle, as likely as not. A battle against poverty, a battle to get enough food for her other children, a battle to wash the children’s clothes and keep the baby clean, and…

  She stopped her car. She was level with the clinic gate, and by reversing a few yards she was able to turn directly into the short drive that led up to the clinic. She parked the car next to another car that was already there—the doctor’s or the nurse’s, perhaps—and then she got out and walked up to the waiting patients. They watched her carefully—as if judging her. They would have seen the car, she realised—a new model, belonging to Phuti—and they would have made up their minds about her. These were not well-off people, and they would have decided that there was a wide gulf between them and her.

  She greeted them in the old-fashioned way, and they responded politely. She sat down on the bench, next to the woman with the baby.