Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

by Alexander McCall Smith

  And this Mr Charlie Gotso, with his expensive car and sinister ways—he’s a boy too. Just a little boy.

  HE WAS determined that Mma Ramotswe should not get away with it. She seemed to assume that he would do whatever she told him to do and very rarely asked him whether he wanted to take part in her schemes. And of course he had been far too meek in agreeing with her; that was the problem, really—she thought that she could get away with it because he never stood up to her. Well, he would show her this time. He would put an end to all this detective nonsense.

  He left the garage, still smarting, busy rehearsing in his mind what he would say to her when he reached the office.

  “Mma Ramotswe, you’ve made me lie. You’ve drawn me into a ridiculous and dangerous affair which is quite simply none of our business. I am a mechanic. I fix cars—I cannot fix lives.”

  The last phrase struck him for its forcefulness. Yes—that was the difference between them. She was a fixer of lives—as so many women are—whereas he was a fixer of machines. He would tell her this, and she would have to accept its truth. He did not want to destroy their friendship, but he could not continue with this posturing and deception. He had never lied—never—even in the face of the greatest of temptations, and now here he was enmeshed in a whole web of deceit involving the police and one of Botswana’s most powerful men!

  She met him at the door of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She was throwing the dregs from a teapot into the yard as he drew up in his garage van.

  “Well?” she said. “Did everything go as planned?”

  “Mma Ramotswe, I really think …”

  “Did he come round himself, or did he send one of his men?”

  “One of his men. But, listen, you are a fixer of lives, I am just …”

  “And did you tell him that I could get the thing back? Did he seem interested?”

  “I fix machines. I cannot … You see, I have never lied. I have never lied before, even when I was a small boy. My tongue would go stiff if I tried to lie, and I couldn’t.”

  Mma Ramotswe upended the teapot for a final time.

  “You’ve done very well this time. Lies are quite all right if you are lying for a good cause. Is it not a good cause to find out who killed an innocent child? Are lies worse than murder, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Do you think that?”

  “Murder is worse. But …”

  “Well there you are. You didn’t think it through, did you? Now you know.”

  She looked at him and smiled, and he thought: I am lucky. She is smiling at me. There is nobody to love me in this world. Here is somebody who likes me and smiles at me. And she’s right about murder. It’s far worse than lies.

  “Come in for tea,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Mma Makutsi has boiled the kettle and we can drink tea while we decide what to do next.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MR CHARLIE GOTSO, BA

  MR CHARLIE Gotso looked at Mma Ramotswe. He respected fat women, and indeed had married one five years previously. She had proved to be a niggling, troublesome woman and eventually he had sent her down to live on a farm near Lobatse, with no telephone and a road that became impassable in wet weather. She had complained about his other women, insistently, shrilly, but what did she expect? Did she seriously think that he, Mr Charlie Gotso, would restrict himself to one woman, like a clerk from a Government department? When he had all that money and influence? And a BA as well? That was the trouble with marrying an uneducated woman who knew nothing of the circles in which he moved. He had been to Nairobi and Lusaka. He knew what people were thinking in places like that. An intelligent woman, a woman with a BA, would have known better; but then, he reminded himself, this fat woman down in Lobatse had borne him five children already and one had to acknowledge that fact. If only she would not carp on about other women.

  “You are the woman from Matekoni?”

  She did not like his voice. It was sandpaper-rough, and he slurred the ends of the words lazily, as if he could not be bothered to make himself clear. This came from contempt, she felt; if you were as powerful as he was, then why bother to communicate properly with your inferiors? As long as they understood what you wanted—that was the essential thing.

  “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni asked me to help him, Rra. I am a private detective.”

  Mr Gotso stared at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.

  “I have seen this place of yours. I saw a sign when I was driving past. A private detective agency for ladies, or something like that.”

  “Not just for ladies, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We are lady detectives but we work for men too. Mr Patel, for example. He consulted us.”

  The smile became broader. “You think you can tell men things?”

  Mma Ramotswe answered calmly. “Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes men are too proud to listen. We can’t tell that sort of man anything.”

  He narrowed his eyes. The remark was ambiguous. She could have been suggesting he was proud, or she could be talking about other men. There were others, of course …

  “So anyway,” said Mr Gotso. “You know that I lost some property from my car. Matekoni says that you might know who took it and get it back for me?”

  Mma Ramotswe inclined her head in agreement. “I have done that,” she said. “I found out who broke into your car. They were just boys. A couple of boys.”

  Mr Gotso raised an eyebrow. “Their names? Tell me who they are.”

  “I cannot do that,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “I want to smack them. You will tell me who they are.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up at Mr Gotso and met his gaze. For a moment neither said anything. Then she spoke: “I gave them my word I would not give their names to anybody if they gave me back what they had stolen. It was a bargain.” As she spoke, she looked around Mr Gotso’s office. It was just behind the Mall, in an unprepossessing side street, marked on the outside with a large blue sign, GOTSO HOLDING ENTERPRISES. Inside, the room was simply furnished, and if it were not for the photographs on the wall, you would hardly know that this was the room of a powerful man. But the photographs gave it away: Mr Gotso with Moeshoeshoe, King of the Basotho; Mr Gotso with Hastings Banda; Mr Gotso with Sobhuza II. This was a man whose influence extended beyond their borders.

  “You made a promise on my behalf?”

  “Yes, I did. It was the only way I could get the item back.”

  Mr Gotso appeared to think for a moment; Mma Ramotswe looked at one of the pictures more closely. Mr Gotso was giving a cheque to some good cause and everybody was smiling; “Big cheque handed over for charity” ran the cut-out newspaper headline below.

  “Very well,” he said. “I suppose that was all you could do. Now, where is this item of property?”

  Mma Ramotswe reached into her handbag and took out the small leather pouch.

  “This is what they gave me.”

  She put it on the table and he reached across and took it in his hand.

  “This is not mine, of course. This is something which one of my men had. I was looking after it for him. I have no idea what it is.”

  “Muti, Rra. Medicine from a witch doctor.”

  Mr Gotso’s look was steely.

  “Oh yes? Some little charm for the superstitious?”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head.

  “No, I don’t think so. I think that is powerful stuff. I think that was probably rather expensive.”

  “Powerful?” His head stayed absolutely still as he spoke, she noticed. Only the lips moved as the unfinished words slid out.

  “Yes. That is good. I would like to be able to get something like that myself. But I do not know where I can find it.”

  Mr Gotso moved slightly now, and the eyes slid down Mma Ramotswe’s figure.

  “Maybe I could help you, Mma.”

  She thought quickly, and then gave her answer. “I would like you to help me. Then maybe I could help you in some way.”

  He had reached for a cigarette from a small box on his t
able and was now lighting it. Again the head did not move.

  “In what way could you help me, Mma? Do you think I’m a lonely man?”

  “You are not lonely. I have heard that you are a man with many women friends. You don’t need another.”

  “Surely I’m the best judge of that.”

  “No, I think you are a man who likes information. You need that to keep powerful. You need muti too, don’t you?”

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and laid it on a large glass ashtray.

  “You should be careful about saying things like that,” he said. The words were well articulated now; he could speak clearly when he wanted to. “People who accuse others of witchcraft can regret it. Really regret it.”

  “But I am not accusing you of anything. I told you myself that I used it, didn’t I? No, what I was saying was that you are a man who needs to know what’s going on in this town. You can easily miss things if your ears are blocked with wax.”

  He picked up the cigarette again and drew on it.

  “You can tell me things?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I hear some very interesting things in my business. For example, I can tell you about that man who is trying to build a shop next to your shop in the Mall. You know him? Would you like to hear about what he did before he came to Gaborone? He wouldn’t like people to know that, I think.”

  Mr Gotso opened his mouth and picked a fragment of tobacco from his teeth.

  “You are a very interesting woman, Mma Ramotswe. I think I understand you very well. I will give you the name of the witch doctor if you give me this useful information. Would that suit you?”

  Mma Ramotswe clicked her tongue in agreement. “That is very good. I shall be able to get something from this man which will help me get even better information. And if I hear anything else, well I shall be happy to let you know.”

  “You are a very good woman,” said Mr Gotso, picking up a small pad of paper. “I’m going to draw you a sketch-map. This man lives out in the bush not far from Molepolole. It is difficult to find his place, but this will show you just where to go. I warn you, by the way—he’s not cheap. But if you say that you are a friend of Mr Charlie Gotso, then you will find that he takes off twenty percent. Which isn’t at all bad, is it?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  MEDICAL MATTERS

  SHE HAD the information now. She had a map to find a murderer, and she would find him. But there was still the detective agency to run, and cases which needed to be dealt with—including a case which involved a very different sort of doctor, and a hospital.

  Mma Ramotswe had no stomach for hospitals; she disliked the smell of them; she shuddered at the sight of the patients sitting on benches in the sun, silenced by their suffering; she was frankly depressed by the pink day-pyjamas they gave to those who had come with TB. Hospitals were to her a memento mori in bricks and mortar; an awful reminder of the inevitable end that was coming to all of us but which she felt was best ignored while one got on with the business of life.

  Doctors were another matter altogether, and Mma Ramotswe had always been impressed by them. She admired, in particular, their sense of the confidential and she took comfort in the fact that you could tell a doctor something and, like a priest, he would carry your secret to the grave. You never found this amongst lawyers, who were boastful people, on the whole, always prepared to tell a story at the expense of a client, and, when one came to think of it, some accountants were just as indiscreet in discussing who earned what. As far as doctors were concerned, though, you might try as hard as you might to get information out of them, but they were inevitably tight-lipped.

  Which was as it should be, thought Mma Ramotswe. I should not like anybody else to know about my … What had she to be embarrassed about? She thought hard. Her weight was hardly a confidential matter, and anyway, she was proud of being a traditionally built African lady, unlike these terrible, stick-like creatures one saw in the advertisements. Then there were her corns—well, those were more or less on public display when she wore her sandals. Really, there was nothing that she felt she had to hide.

  Now constipation was quite a different matter. It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party—with a chance of government perhaps—but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail.

  She stopped her reverie, and turned to the business in hand. Her old friend, Dr Maketsi, had telephoned her from the hospital and asked if he could call in at her office on his way home that evening. She readily agreed; she and Dr Maketsi were both from Mochudi, and although he was ten years her senior she felt extremely close to him. So she cancelled her hair-braiding appointment in town and stayed at her desk, catching up on some tedious paperwork until Dr Maketsi’s familiar voice called out: Ko! Ko! and he came into the office.

  They exchanged family gossip for a while, drinking bush tea and reflecting on how Mochudi had changed since their day. She asked after Dr Maketsi’s aunt, a retired teacher to whom half the village still turned for advice. She had not run out of steam, he said, and was now being pressed to stand for Parliament, which she might yet do.

  “We need more women in public life,” said Dr Maketsi. “They are very practical people, women. Unlike us men.”

  Mma Ramotswe was quick to agree. “If more women were in power, they wouldn’t let wars break out,” she said. “Women can’t be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is—a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.”

  Dr Maketsi thought for a moment. He was thinking of Mrs Ghandi, who had a war, and Mrs Golda Meir, who also had a war, and then there was …

  “Most of the time,” he conceded. “Women are gentle most of the time, but they can be tough when they need to be.”

  Dr Maketsi was eager to change the subject now, as he feared that Mma Ramotswe might go on to ask him whether he could cook, and he did not want a repetition of the conversation he had had with a young woman who had returned from a year in the United States. She had said to him, challengingly, as if the difference in their ages were of no consequence: “If you eat, you should cook. It’s as simple as that.” These ideas came from America and may be all very well in theory, but had they made the Americans any happier? Surely there had to be some limits to all this progress, all this unsettling change. He had heard recently of men who were obliged by their wives to change the nappies of their babies. He shuddered at the thought; Africa was not ready for that, he reflected. There were some aspects of the old arrangements in Africa which were very appropriate and comfortable—if you were a man, which of course Dr Maketsi was.

  “But these are big issues,” he said jovially. “Talking about pumpkins doesn’t make them grow.” His mother-in-law said this frequently, and although he disagreed with almost everything she said, he found himself echoing her words only too often.

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Why have you come to see me?” she said. “Do you want me to find you a new wife, maybe?”

  Dr Maketsi clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. “I have come about a real problem,” he said. “Not just about a little question of wives.”

  Mma Ramotswe listened as the doctor explained just how delicate his problem was and she assured him that she, like him, believed in confidentiality.

  “Not even my secretary will get to hear what you tell me,” she said.

  “Good,” said Dr Maketsi. “Because if I am wrong about this, and if anybody hears about it, I shall be very seriously embarrassed—as will the whole hospital. I don’t want the Minister coming looking for me.”

  “I understand,” said Mma Ramotswe. Her curiosity was thoroughly aroused now, and she was anxious to hear what juicy matter was troubling her friend. She had been burdened with several rather mundane cases recent
ly, including a very demeaning one which involved tracing a rich man’s dog. A dog! The only lady detective in the country should not have to stoop to such depths and indeed Mma Ramotswe would not have done so, had it not been for the fact that she needed the fee. The little white van had developed an ominous rattle in the engine and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, called upon to consider the problem, had gently broken the news to her that it needed expensive repairs. And what a terrible, malodorous dog it had turned out to be; when she eventually found the animal being dragged along on a string by the group of urchins which had stolen it, the dog had rewarded its liberator with a bite on the ankle.

  “I am worried about one of our young doctors,” said Dr Maketsi. “He is called Dr Komoti. He’s Nigerian.”

  “I see.”

  “I know that some people are suspicious of Nigerians,” said Dr Maketsi.

  “I believe that there are some people like that,” said Mma Ramotswe, catching the doctor’s eye and then looking away again quickly, almost guiltily.

  Dr Maketsi drank the last of his bush tea and replaced his mug on the table.

  “Let me tell you about our Dr Komoti,” he said. “Starting from the time he first turned up for interview. It was my job to interview him, in fact, although I must admit that it was rather a formality. We were desperately short of people at the time and needed somebody who would be able to lend a hand in casualty. We can’t really be too choosy, you know. Anyway, he seemed to have a reasonable C.V. and he had brought several references with him. He had been working in Nairobi for a few years, and so I telephoned the hospital he was at and they confirmed that he was perfectly all right. So I took him on.