The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Charlie spoke defensively. “I didn’t have time to find anybody. I looked but there was nobody.”

  Mma Makutsi was about to say something, but Mma Ramotswe stopped her. “Never mind, Charlie,” she said. “At least you saw the house. Now you can take me there and we shall see what we can find out.”

  Charlie’s reaction was not what Mma Ramotswe had expected. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said quickly.

  Mma Ramotswe assured him that it would not be any trouble. “Mma Makutsi can look after the office while we go there,” she said. “We can make enquiries as to who lives in the house. We can easily do that.”

  Charlie glanced about him nervously. “I think we should wait,” he muttered. “I should do more observation.”

  “Yes, you can certainly do that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But there’s no need to wait to find out about the house. We can do that right now.” She rose from her seat, and Charlie also stood up, albeit reluctantly.

  Mma Makutsi busied herself with some task at her desk. “I hope you find something out,” she said. “It’s always more difficult later on, you know. That’s why I always follow through with my enquiries, even if it means I’ll be late home as a result …” She left the censure unfinished, indifferent to Charlie’s hostile stare.

  “Come along now, Charlie,” said Mma Ramotswe breezily. “No time like the present.”

  “No,” said Mma Makutsi. “Indeed not.”

  MMA RAMOTSWE tried to make conversation with Charlie as they drove in the tiny white van, but her every effort seemed to be met only with silence, or, at best, with monosyllabic replies. Eventually, when they stopped at a red light, she turned to him and said, “There’s something wrong, isn’t there, Charlie?”

  Charlie hesitated, and for a moment it seemed as if he was going to reply, but then the traffic light changed to green and the moment was lost.

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “You know you can talk to me, Charlie—you know that, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I know that, Mma.”

  “And you know that however much trouble you’re in,” she continued, “I won’t shake my finger at you and refuse to hear you out. You know that too?”

  “I know that too, Mma.”

  “Very well. Now, we’re almost there. When we arrive, you show me which way they went.”

  Charlie muttered something that she did not catch.

  “What was that, Charlie?”

  He raised his voice. He sounded peevish now. “I said that I don’t think there’s much point. Maybe they just went there for tea or something like that. That won’t give us any information we don’t know.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Charlie. In a case like this, where there is no information to begin with, every little fact, no matter how irrelevant it seems, may tell us something important.”

  They had reached the Senguptas’ road, and rather than turning into it, Mma Ramotswe drove down the adjacent road that Charlie now pointed out to her. Then at the corner, after a further turn, he told her to stop. “It is along there,” he said. “It is that house there.” Under his breath he added, “I think.” Mma Ramotswe did not hear.

  They drove towards the gate Charlie had pointed out. They could see that the garden behind it was large as there were several clumps of trees, including a palm tree, rising above the top of the surrounding high wall. Along the top of this wall was a double row of electrified wire. Mma Ramotswe made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Security,” she said. “Why are all these people so keen on security?”

  “Burglars,” said Charlie.

  Mma Ramotswe chuckled. “But if you put up an electric fence, then every burglar in town is going to say, ‘That’s the house we need to break into—that one with the electric fence. That means there are some very expensive things inside. They will be very well worth stealing.’ ”

  She peered again at the wall. “I think I know what to do. I shall go and speak to them.”

  “You can’t, Mma,” Charlie said with concern. “You can’t do that. You don’t know who they are.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled at him. “Since when have you had to know people to speak to them? This is Botswana, Charlie, and you don’t have to know people before you speak to them.”

  “But what are you going to say, Mma?”

  “I will say that I am looking for my friend who lives near here.”

  Charlie thought for a moment. He appeared uncomfortable. “And then when they say they do not know your friend—what then?”

  Mma Ramotswe was amused by Charlie’s embarrassment. That was a problem of the young, she thought: they were very conservative underneath it all; they were reluctant to stand out in any way.

  “We’ll see how things go,” she said, her finger poised above the bell set into the wall. “It will be simple, Charlie.”

  She pressed the bell, and almost immediately the electric gate began to open, revealing the paved driveway of the house beyond. Charlie said nervously, “These people are very rich, Mma.”

  “Yes, there are some rich people around,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But they are just like us, remember. They have two arms and two legs, same as us.” She paused. “I have never seen a rich person with four arms, Charlie, or two heads. Have you?”

  He did not reply.

  A woman had appeared on the verandah and was beckoning them to join her. “Up here, Mma,” she shouted. “Come up here.”

  They walked up the driveway. As they did so, Charlie glanced through the open garage door to the side of the house. “Look,” he whispered. “That must be the only Porsche in Botswana. Look, Mma Ramotswe!”

  “It is just a car, like any other car,” she replied. “Rich cars don’t have more than four wheels, do they? And do they have two steering wheels? I don’t think so. They are exactly the same as poor cars, Charlie.”

  The woman standing on the verandah now greeted them properly, according to custom, and Mma Ramotswe replied in the same way.

  The woman looked her up and down. She did not invite her in, but addressed her from where she stood.

  “Have you much experience, Mma?” she asked.

  Mma Ramotswe hesitated. “Quite a bit, Mma.”

  “That’s good. And you’re in a job at the moment?”

  Mma Ramotswe understood. Glancing at Charlie, she saw that he too had realised what was happening. “I am working,” she said.

  “Can you cook?” asked the woman.

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I have been working for Mr. Sengupta. Perhaps you know him, Mma.”

  The woman frowned. “Sengupta? Sengupta? Who is this Sengupta?”

  “He lives a few streets away, Mma. He is an Indian person, and there is his sister, who is called Miss Rose. Do you know her, Mma?”

  The woman made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Why are you asking me? I have no idea who these people are. It is not for you to ask me questions, you know.” She looked at Charlie. “And this young man is your son, I take it. There will not be enough room for him, I’m afraid. There is just one room for the maid.”

  Mma Ramotswe shifted her weight from one leg to another. She had had enough. “You are a rude lady,” she said.

  The woman took a moment to react. Then she shouted angrily, “What did you say, Mma? What did you say to me?”

  “I said that you are rude, Mma. And I have not come about a job. You must have been expecting somebody else. I am a detective, if you must know who I am.”

  This had an extraordinary effect. The bombastic, arrogant manner disappeared, to be replaced by an air of apprehension. “You …”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am a detective. But now, Mma, I think I have found out enough.”

  The woman reached out to steady herself on one of the verandah pillars. “We have nothing to hide here.” Her voice faltered. “It is all above board. All of it.” She looked about her wildly before continuing, “My husband has a very good lawyer, you know
. He will be here soon.”

  Mma Ramotswe could have enjoyed herself, but she did not. She turned to Charlie and gestured towards the still-open gate. “I think we should go, Charlie,” she said.

  They returned to the van. “I don’t think that was the house,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Charlie giggled. “Did you see how she changed? Like that! One minute as bossy as Mma Potokwane herself—sorry, Mma, I know Mma Potokwane is your friend—the next like a naughty child caught doing something wrong.”

  “I suspect they have done something wrong,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Many rich people have something to hide, I think. Not all of them, of course—but many.”

  Mma Ramotswe asked Charlie whether it was the gate next door that Miss Rose had driven through. He looked down the road. It was because of the accident that he found it hard to remember; everything had happened at once. He tried to reconstruct the sequence of events in his mind. He had turned and had not gone far; the green Mercedes-Benz must have been about three-quarters of the way along this road, and that meant that if it wasn’t this gate, it must have been the gate next door, or the one after that. He scratched his head.

  “I think that maybe it’s the one after that, Mma. I think that might be it.”

  Mma Ramotswe started the engine “Well, there is only one way to find out,” she said. “Let’s go there.”

  She drove the van a few hundred yards further along the road and then parked in the shade of a conveniently placed acacia tree.

  “Here we are,” she said. “We can try this place.”

  Charlie became anxious again. “But we can’t just go in, Mma. What will you say?”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at him teasingly. “I shall try something different. I shall ask them whether they have seen a cat.”

  “But you haven’t got a cat, Mma Ramotswe.”

  Mma Ramotswe was enjoying herself. “Well, they don’t know that, do they?”

  “You cannot lie,” said Charlie. “You told me that yourself. You keep saying it: don’t lie.”

  “But I will not lie,” Mma Ramotswe assured him. “I shall say, ‘Have you seen a stray cat?’ They will probably think that I am searching for my own cat, but the question I am actually asking them is quite different. I shall be asking them if they have seen a stray cat.”

  “But that’s ridiculous, Mma.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s worked before. You’d be surprised at the number of people who are very happy to start talking to you once you mention a cat—or a dog, for that matter. Off they go, and before you know it, you’ve learned all about them—who they are, what sort of dog or cat they themselves have, what they think of their neighbours’ dogs, and so on.”

  Charlie was unconvinced. “You can’t do that, Mma! You can’t go in like that and ask those silly questions …”

  “You can stay in the van if you like, Charlie, but I think it would be better if you came in with me. Part of your training, you see.”

  Charlie trailed behind her as she walked up to the gate. Once again, there was an intercom bell. As she pressed this, a blue light came on above the button. After a few seconds, a woman’s voice, tinny and crackly, sounded through the small loudspeaker. “Yes. What is it?”

  “It is me,” said Mma Ramotswe, winking at Charlie as she spoke.

  The voice came back immediately. “Me? Who is this me?”

  “I’ve come about a cat.”

  The voice sounded puzzled. “About your hat?”

  “A cat,” repeated Mma Ramotswe. “May I come in, please, Mma. It is hot standing here, and I am thirsty.”

  It was a direct plea for something that Mma Ramotswe knew could not be ignored in any Botswana household. To say to somebody that you were thirsty was to appeal to a most basic rule of the old Botswana morality: you could never refuse to give drinking water to another. This came from a time when water was even more precious than it is now; from a time before there were pipes and public water supplies; from a time when, out in the Kalahari, the desert people husbanded their water in buried vessels—calabashes tucked away under the sand. These could be retrieved and broached to yield their life-saving supplies. But if you took a sip, then you had to be prepared to let others take a sip too. You simply had to. And in villages, where there were wells, people similarly had to allow a stranger to quench his thirst, for that was the morality of a people who had always lived in a dry place, on the very edge of a great waterless expanse.

  The woman at the other end pressed a switch that cut off communication, and within a few seconds they heard the whirring of the electric motor controlling the gate.

  “We are invited in,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You see, Charlie.”

  The open gate revealed a surprisingly lush garden—a sign that the property had a good borehole. The house was markedly less opulent than the one they had just visited, being an older bungalow-style building, but it was clearly kept in good repair. A woman had emerged from the front door of the house and was coming down the drive to meet them.

  Once again Mma Ramotswe offered the usual polite greetings. These were reciprocated, although while she enquired after Mma Ramotswe’s health, the woman was looking suspiciously at Charlie.

  “This is my assistant,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He works with me.”

  The woman nodded but kept her eyes on Charlie, as if assessing him.

  “May we come in, Mma?” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is very hot.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the woman. “You may come in, Mma. I shall give you some water.”

  “You are kind,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  As they approached the house, they heard the electric gate closing behind them.

  “You have a fine garden,” said Mma Ramotswe conversationally. “You must be proud of it.”

  “Yes,” said the woman. “I set out this garden. My late husband was not interested in it.”

  “I am sorry to hear that your husband is late,” said Mma Ramotswe. “When did he become late, Mma?”

  “Two years ago,” said the woman, briskly. “He had a hole in his heart. He lived with it and then one day it became bigger and he became late. The Lord called him.”

  They had reached the front door, and the woman gestured to Mma Ramotswe to go inside. She glanced at Charlie, and then whispered to Mma Ramotswe. “Would you mind if your assistant stayed outside, Mma? He will be comfortable on the verandah here.”

  “Of course not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Charlie, will you stay out here, please?”

  Charlie said nothing, but made his way to the far end of the verandah, where he sat down on a chair. Mma Ramotswe accompanied her hostess inside.

  As soon as they were through the door, the woman turned to Mma Ramotswe and gripped her upper arm. “Why have you brought that … that young man?” she hissed. “Did they not tell you that we do not allow men here? Did you not know that, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe thought quickly. “No,” she said. “I knew nothing about it.”

  This answer seemed to irritate the woman. “That makes me very cross, Mma. We tell them and we tell them, and then some inexperienced person goes and spoils everything. We have to be confidential—we have to.”

  “I’m sorry, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I won’t do it again.”

  The woman seemed mollified. “I should give you my name, Mma. I am called Maria. That is not my Setswana name—obviously—but I have always been called that. My mother was a Catholic, you see. I am not, because my late husband was Anglican. He was a sidesman at our church, you know. And the treasurer too.”

  Mma Ramotswe inclined her head in recognition of the late husband’s achievements. And she felt a flush of shame—she had gained entrance to this woman’s house on false pretences. They were harmless false pretences, of course, and they had been made purely in the interests of a distressed client, but they were false pretences nonetheless. And she could tell that the woman to whom she was speaking was a good woman, and should not be deceived in any way.

 
What would her own father say—the late Obed Ramotswe, who would never have spoken anything but the truth, in any circumstances? What would he say, she asked herself, if he could see his own daughter going into the house of another with some ridiculous story about a stray cat? She put the thought out of her mind, but mentally she made her apology to him, in the same way, and same spirit, as she had apologised to him when she was a young woman and had deceived him once about seeing Note Mokoti. He had asked her whether she was seeing anybody and she had said that she was not—but she was: she was seeing Note Mokoti, trumpeter and fatal attraction to any woman who got close to him. That had been a lie—there was no other way of describing it. She had lied to her father. And later, when her marriage to Note had come to its disastrous end, she had tried to tell him that she had deceived him and the words had stuck in her throat and she had become silent. He had taken her hand and told her that it did not matter what had happened; that he understood. He had accepted an apology that had not even been made.

  Of course, that was the sort of thing we all did when we were young. You cannot judge somebody of eighteen by the standards of somebody of thirty, even less by the standards of somebody who was forty. And those things that we did when we were young were not so important, really, provided that we stopped doing them as we grew older and saw them for what they were. Which was what worried her now: she had no excuse for deceiving this woman. Her job as a private detective in itself gave no justification. She was a woman first and foremost, a citizen of this fine country, the wife of a respected mechanic, and, perhaps most importantly of all, the daughter of that great man, the late Obed Ramotswe. Those were all things that outweighed the requirements of her unusual and sometimes rather demanding job. They outweighed them. They just did.

  She looked at Maria. “I need to tell you something, Mma,” she began. “I did not come about a cat.”

  The woman did not seem surprised. “Of course you didn’t, Mma. I didn’t think that you did.”

  This took Mma Ramotswe by surprise. “Oh…,” she said.