The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The verandah of the President Hotel is not a place in which a great deal happens. This is not in any way to disparage it: it is important that there should be places where not a great deal happens because such places remind us that life is not entirely and exclusively made up of exciting or significant events. Every life needs spells of calm, every life needs expanses of time when nothing much occurs, when one may sit for several hours in the same place and gaze upon static things, upon some waxen-leafed desert plant, perhaps, or a patch of dry grass. Or a group of cattle standing under a tree for the shade, the slow, flicking movement of their tails the only indication that they are animate beasts, not rocks; or a sky across which no clouds, or perhaps only the merest wisp of white, move. Now, seated at her table on the verandah of the President Hotel, Mma Ramotswe had nothing much to look at while she waited. Down below, beyond the parapet, there were people in the square: sellers of clothes and dried herbs, carvers of wooden ornaments, sunglasses merchants, purveyors of potions to put on one’s hair. All these were there, as were their customers, but Mma Ramotswe chose not to watch this market scene; rather, she looked up at the sky and wondered what it would be like not to have a sky above one’s head—to be a prisoner, perhaps, or one who could not take the sun and had to remain indoors. She had known one such person when she was at school in Mochudi; a girl afflicted by albinism, whose pale, patchy skin, as brittle and translucent, it seemed, as the bark of what they called the paper tree, was so sensitive to the rays of the sun that she would burn painfully if she spent more than a few minutes outside. And that poor girl had been unable to go to school as she could not walk those miles from the family’s village outside Mochudi, and they could not afford the creams that could protect her skin from the sun. And the other children had stared at her on the occasions that they saw her and had whispered among themselves. Mma Ramotswe felt the shame still that she had not done anything for that girl, and now she had heard that she was late, having died giving birth to her first child, and there had been no husband. There were so many lives, she thought, that could only be led with difficulty, with pain, and because we were so bound up in our own lives, so many of these were invisible to us until suddenly we saw, and knew, and felt that sudden pang of human sympathy that comes with knowing.

  It was strange that the girl should come into her mind, the memory triggered by no more than looking up at the sky. But that, she told herself, was how memory worked; one would see something and then it would make one think of one thing and then of another; snatches of conversation would come back, images of things one had seen, memories that one thought one had forgotten, but that had been filed away in the back of the head, in those recesses where such things are tucked away. Clovis Andersen and his Principles of Private Detection … When had she first seen that book? Right at the beginning of her life as a private detective; and she had held it in her hand and opened it at the title page with all the excitement that you feel when opening a new book and there are the words on the page, ready for you, as if the author himself is standing in front of you, clearing his throat, ready to engage you in conversation. And she had seen the name Clovis Andersen little thinking that years later, after so much had happened, she would be meeting the very man, that he would address her as Mma Ramotswe; that she would, for a short time, have the attention of the world’s greatest authority on private detection … Such a miracle, such an extraordinary development … such a privilege.

  “Mma Ramotswe?”

  She gave a start, and turned in her seat to see Clovis Andersen standing behind her. He was dressed in rather baggy khaki trousers with an olive-green shirt on to which far too many pockets had been stitched—the sort of outfit that people thought was standard dress for Botswana but was really only worn by visitors. It was a practical enough outfit, she supposed, but she wondered what people could possibly do with so many pockets. Did they imagine that one needed to carry penknives and compasses and the like, even when going to Mochudi?

  “This is a very fine view you get from here,” said Clovis Andersen as he sat down.

  Mma Ramotswe glanced at the square and remembered how, long ago, she had once asked the dress-seller down below for information because she knew that such people missed very little of what happened around them. And Clovis Andersen himself had said …

  “You see that woman,” said Mma Ramotswe as Clovis Andersen settled himself into his chair. “I asked her for information once. She knows everything, I think. And you say in your book Always ask somebody who knows. That is what you wrote, Rra, and I have always followed that advice.”

  Clovis Andersen smiled. “I remember writing that. And I suppose it’s true, isn’t it? If you ask somebody who doesn’t know anything, then you won’t get much of an answer. At least, that’s the way I look at it.”

  “But you’re so right, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I have always wondered how you know all these things. It must be experience, I think.”

  Clovis Andersen looked away. “Experience and common sense,” he said. “There are so many jobs that are just a matter of common sense. Most jobs, in fact. They look complicated, but when you look closely you’ll see that all you really need is common sense.”

  Mma Ramotswe considered this. It was true that private detection involved a great deal of common sense, and undoubtedly there were many other professions in which common sense would get you by, but surely there were those where the limits of common sense would very soon be revealed—being a dentist, for example, or an airline pilot …

  She toyed with the idea of pointing this out to him, but decided not to. The traditional ways of Botswana were clear about correcting a person who was senior to you, or a stranger, and on both of these counts she should not directly contradict Clovis Andersen. You did not have to remain silent, of course, if such a person was wrong, but you should be careful how you voiced your disagreement. So she simply said, “Common sense is very useful. Yes.”

  There was a brief silence. Then she said, “You must have seen so many things, Rra. In your career as a detective, you must have seen so many things.”

  Clovis Andersen nodded. “There are many things to be seen in this life, Mma. All one has to do is keep one’s eyes open.”

  Mma Ramotswe voiced her agreement. “Oh, you are so right, Rra. The big mistake is to close your eyes. There are so many who have closed eyes. You look at them, of course, and you think that they have open eyes, but then you look more closely and you realise that although their eyes are open, there is nothing going in.”

  “That’s because they aren’t looking,” said Clovis Andersen. “If you do not look, you do not see.”

  “That is so true, Rra,” enthused Mma Ramotswe. “That is so true.”

  He went on. “There are some people who have their eyes open and are looking, but do not see anything because they are looking for something that is not there. That can happen, I believe.”

  “Oh, I believe that too, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have always believed that—all along.”

  “That is not to say there’s nothing there,” continued Clovis Andersen. “There may be something there, but because nobody’s looking for it, it won’t be seen. So we should always ask ourselves: are we looking for the right thing?”

  Mma Ramotswe agreed again. “That is definitely the thing to do,” she said.

  The waitress appeared, notebook at the ready, to take their order. Clovis Andersen ordered coffee, which made Mma Ramotswe smile; she had heard about the American weakness for coffee, but again she said nothing; people cannot help liking the things that are liked where they are born. At some point in the future she would introduce him to the pleasures of tea; there would be plenty of time for that.

  The waitress moved off, and their conversation continued.

  “Your cases must be much bigger ones than mine,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am always dealing with very small things. Is that man cheating on this woman; is that woman cheating on this man? Who is stealing cattle he
re, or taking money there? Who is using the company truck for private business when the rule is that it must not be used for such things? That sort of thing—very different from the big cases you must have every day. Who has shot this person? Who has shot that person? Who has taken the million-dollar necklace from the neck of this big film star? Big things like that.”

  Clovis Andersen looked at the floor. “Not really,” he muttered.

  “And one day I can see them making a big film about your life,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “It will be very popular throughout the world, and I will say to Mma Makutsi, ‘That is our friend, Mma—that is all about our friend.’ ”

  Clovis Andersen shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think so, Mma Ramotswe. I don’t think I’ll be of sufficient interest for that.”

  Sensing his reluctance to talk about it—an admirable modesty, she thought—she changed the subject. She asked him about his plans to see the country, and he told her that he had organised a trip to Ghanzi over the next few days. For now, though, he was keen to see the area around Gaborone. “Mochudi, then,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is the place, Rra.” They should start the drive up to the village immediately after their tea—or tea and coffee—as it would be better to arrive there before the noonday heat made it uncomfortable to sit in the van, in spite of its ancient, if valiant, fan.

  “I am looking forward to seeing it, Mma Ramotswe,” said Clovis Andersen. “I come from a similar place, you know—a small town in the Midwest. And my wife too, she comes … came from such a place. She always said …”

  He faltered, and she watched him.

  “It is good to talk about late people, Rra,” she said quietly. “It is what they want us to do. Late people would be happy if they knew we were talking about them.”

  He looked up, as if he had heard some important piece of news.

  “Do you think that’s true, Mma Ramotswe? Do you think they can hear us?”

  She wanted to say yes. She wanted to reassure this man who was obviously still so full of grief. But could she? She did not know—not in her heart of hearts—whether her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, could hear her. She addressed him often enough, drawing his attention to some unusual sight she encountered along the road; she addressed him as if he were sitting there in the van with her, but she thought that it was just wishful thinking, nothing more than that. She did not think that he had altogether ceased to exist, but of where exactly he was, where that place to which he had gone was located, she had no idea, other than it was somewhere above Botswana, or on the same level as Botswana but around some corner that one day we all must turn. Beyond that, she could not be certain. All she knew was that it would be a place of cattle bells and gentle, life-giving rain; a place in which all our tears would be wiped tenderly away.

  “I am not sure about these things, Rra,” she said quietly. “But I think that they are watching over us somehow—the people who have gone before.” She fixed him with a gaze; the poor man in his sorrow. “Your late wife will know that you still love her, Rra. She will know that.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT OWN THE AIR

  MMA RAMOTSWE had planned to spend the following day carrying out a number of minor tasks that for one reason or another she had been putting off. There were bills to be paid—a painful process for both her and Mma Makutsi, who had a special expression she adopted as she folded the cheques and placed them in their envelopes. “You have your bill-paying face on,” Mma Ramotswe remarked. “It is as if you were swallowing some bitter medicine, Mma. Or eating an aloe, maybe.”

  Mma Makutsi acknowledged that she found the whole business of paying bills a difficult one. “There are just too many bills,” she complained. “If there were only one or two, then I could pay them without looking as if I had vinegar on my tongue. But look at them, Mma … electricity bills, the book-keeper’s bill, the stationery bill, the water bill … How much water do we use here, Mma? How can they charge us this much when all we do is take a little bit of water to make tea? And a little bit of water for the bathroom? That is all. But they charge us as if we’re the Victoria Falls. Look at that bill! Just look at it.”

  “Water is very precious,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is not cheap.”

  Mma Makutsi was unimpressed. “And soon there will be a bill for air,” said Mma Makutsi. “They will be saying: you have used so much of the Government’s oxygen this month—please pay us. Terms: thirty days net.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I do not think so, Mma—”

  Mma Makutsi, sticking down an envelope flap with perhaps slightly more force than was strictly necessary, cut her short. “And who says the air belongs to the Government, anyway?”

  “I don’t think the Government says that, Mma.”

  “Oh, don’t they? I think they do, Mma. If they didn’t say that the air belongs to them, then why do they say that you need their permission to fly through it? Phuti knows a pilot, and he told him that he has to speak on the radio to some government people called Air Traffic Control and ask their permission to fly through the air above Gaborone. That means that they think they own it—as if it’s their own yard, or something like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “They do not say they own the air, Mma. All that those people are doing is making sure that planes don’t fly into one another. If you’ve got one plane going this way and another plane flying from the other direction and they meet, then that would not be very good, would it?”

  Mma Makutsi hesitated for a moment; but no, she was not convinced. “They are just interfering,” she said. “The pilots can see exactly where they’re going. They’re not asleep.”

  “It happens very quickly,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And there are clouds, Mma. You cannot see what is happening in a cloud.”

  “Then you shouldn’t fly through them,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “You see a cloud and you go round it. That is all you need to do. Phuti says that it’s not a good thing to fly through clouds. You can get struck by lightning and then that will be the end.”

  Mma Ramotswe was silent. She had great admiration for Mma Makutsi, but not when she was in one of these contrary moods. When that happened, she would dig in over some matter and become quite unreasonable, even if it was plain that she was arguing a lost cause. There were so many examples of her doing this, and Mma Ramotswe had learned that the best response was to change the subject.

  “Lightning is very dangerous,” she said. “Not just in the air. That poor man in Molepolole—did you read about him, Mma? He was struck by lightning when he was walking home across a field. He is late now.”

  “It was very sad,” said Mma Makutsi. “I read that the lightning hit his hat. Perhaps he should have had a lightning conductor on the top of it, with a wire going down his back to the earth. Do you think that would work, Mma?”

  “I do not think so, Mma Makutsi,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is safer to stay indoors.”

  “Oh no, it isn’t,” came the quick rebuttal. “One of the men who worked for Phuti—one of the men who loaded furniture—he fell over in his own house and broke his leg. They took him to hospital, but that stuff you have in the middle of your bones …”

  “Bone marrow.”

  “Yes, that stuff. It leaked into his blood and blocked one of his pipes …”

  “Blood vessels.”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head solemnly. “Exactly. It blocked it up and now he is late too.”

  There was a silence. Mma Ramotswe looked at the clock. She had things to do outside the office, and she thought that it was a good time, perhaps, to get out and about and leave Mma Makutsi to attend to the office tasks. By the time she got back, Mma Makutsi might be in a less difficult mood.

  “I have to go and see Mma Potokwane,” Mma Ramotswe announced, rising from her chair. “This business with Mr. Ditso. I must get some more details from her.”

  “That one’s not going to end well,” said Mma Makutsi. “We’ll never find out anything about that man
, Mma. He’s far too clever for us …” She looked across the room at Mma Ramotswe. “I’ll tell you something, Mma. You know how they say money talks? Well, I say the opposite is true: money doesn’t talk. And I say that because money never tells you where it has come from. Never. So if Mma Potokwane thinks that she will find out that this rich man of hers has got his money from some bad place, she is going to be very disappointed. Money has no mouth, Mma. It cannot speak.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “Don’t give up before we’ve started, Mma.” She paused. “And remember: we have a secret weapon.”

  Mma Makutsi frowned. “And what would that be, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe waited for a few moments before she answered. “Clovis Andersen,” she said simply.