The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The large round glasses caught the light; flashed. The contrariness evaporated—at least to an extent. Yes. Clovis Andersen. Oh yes!

  SHE DROVE OUT to Tlokweng along one of the back roads—a roundabout way that gave her time to get over the tension that Mma Makutsi’s odd mood had injected into the day. Driving, she found, always helped her to unwind, and as she made her way slowly along the winding dirt road she found herself smiling again. The one thing you could not say about Mma Makutsi was that she was dull; far from it—Mma Makutsi was what her friend Mma Moffat would have described as a character. And it was better to be a character, she felt, than to be one of those people who spoke about nothing at all, and probably thought about nothing too; such people were soporific and could be marketed by some enterprising person as walking sleeping pills. Yes, that was a good idea: if you had difficulty sleeping you could phone up one of these people and, for a small charge, they would come to your house and sit and look at you, and you would gradually nod off to sleep. You would have to pay them first, though, as otherwise they would have to wake you up to collect their fee, and that would defeat the purpose of calling them in the first place … And there could be another service for people who felt sleepy but for some reason needed to keep awake. They could phone for Mma Makutsi, and she would come and talk about this and that and make the sort of remarks that would keep people on their toes, puzzling over what she meant, or getting irritated and hot under the collar because they disagreed with what she was saying. Makutsi Wake-up Services would be a good name for such a concern. There were so many possible businesses …

  She turned a corner, and there was another small business, set back from the road—one she had not seen before. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. She slowed down. The premises was a tin shed—not much more than a shack—topped with a freshly painted notice announcing the name of the concern and laying claim to national pre-eminence in the field. Famous throughout Botswana, the notice claimed. First consultation free. No appointment necessary.

  She stopped on impulse. Mma Ramotswe did not patronise beauty salons, although she knew many who did, including, she suspected, Mma Makutsi. There was something about this salon that intrigued her, though, and she had time on her hands. Mma Potokwane was not expecting her, and so it did not matter when she arrived at the orphan farm. If the initial consultation was free, then it would be interesting to see what they suggested. And there was another reason for stopping: as a private detective, Mma Ramotswe was acutely aware of the importance of contacts, who might provide information at some point in the future. The people who ran beauty salons were known to be repositories of gossip, and the owner of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon would probably be no exception to that general rule. There would be no harm, she thought, in making a new acquaintance who was so placed.

  As she parked the van, she became aware of a face and then a pair of eyes peering out at her from the dark interior of the building. She stepped out of the van and closed the door behind her, which was the signal for the face and eyes to emerge too; now she saw a woman in a blue dress, rather like a nurse’s tunic, standing in the doorway watching her. The woman greeted her as she approached.

  “Dumela, Mma.” An outstretched hand.

  The greetings over, the woman gave her name. “I am Mma Soleti. I am the owner here.”

  Mma Ramotswe inclined her head. “I am Precious Ramotswe.” There was a moment’s hesitation; it did not always help to say that one was a detective, but honesty, she felt, required it. “I have a small business, the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.”

  Mma Soleti smiled, exposing strikingly white teeth. “I know that place. I sometimes drive past it. There is a garage too.”

  “That is Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The mechanic is my husband.”

  Mma Soleti nodded. “I hear he is very good.”

  Mma Ramotswe beamed with pleasure. She never tired of hearing compliments paid to her husband. “I am very lucky to be married to such a man,” she said. “He is kind.”

  “That is very good, Mma.”

  A brief silence ensued before Mma Ramotswe spoke again. “A consultation … I was wondering …”

  Mma Soleti clapped her hands together. “And I was hoping! I said to myself, ‘This is a lady who will do very well with a bit of guidance and adjustment.’ You have made a very good decision, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe drew back involuntarily. “Just an initial consultation, Mma. I don’t know if I want to do too much. I am traditionally built, you see, and I am not normally one who bothers too much about these matters of fashion.”

  Mma Soleti considered this for a moment, turning her head slightly as if to assess Mma Ramotswe from a different angle. “Really, Mma? But being traditionally built is a positive advantage, in my view. You see, if a lady is one of these modern …”

  “Stick insects,” Mma Ramotswe supplied.

  Mma Soleti burst out laughing. “Yes, that is what they are, Mma. Stick insects. It’s very difficult to do much with those ladies because … well, there’s so little of them. But with a traditionally built lady like yourself, it’s like painting a big wall—there’s much more room for the artist.” She paused. “And I do think of myself as an artist, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe found herself warming to this woman. Following her into the tin building, she saw that there was a plastic-covered couch, rather like those used by doctors to examine their patients, a desk, and a glass-fronted cupboard full of bottles and jars. Mma Soleti gestured for her to sit on the edge of the couch. “There is no need to lie down, Mma. Not at this stage. I shall be mostly concerned with the face in this consultation. We can deal with the rest of you some other time.”

  Mma Ramotswe perched on the edge of the couch. It was of such a height that her feet barely touched the ground, and one of her shoes, her flat walking shoes that were such a contrast to Mma Makutsi’s more fashionable footwear, began to slip off. Mma Soleti paid no attention to this. She had picked up a large magnifying glass and had begun to peer closely at her new client’s face. It was a disconcerting experience; the beautician’s eyes, viewed from the other side of the glass, were large, like the eyes of a fish, Mma Ramotswe thought.

  “Mmm,” said Mma Soleti, adding: “Aahh.”

  “You have seen something?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “Nothing,” said Mma Soleti, moving the focus of her gaze across to the other side of Mma Ramotswe’s face. “I have seen nothing that I didn’t think I’d see.”

  Mma Ramotswe wondered what that meant, and was on the point of enquiring when Mma Soleti said, “Oh.”

  “Is there anything wrong, Mma?”

  “There is nothing wrong. This is a very good face, Mma. There can be no arguing about that. This is a good Botswana face.”

  Mma Ramotswe was not sure what to make of that. She frowned, only to provoke an immediate warning from Mma Soleti. “Try not to frown, Mma. That makes lines on the face, and if you go on frowning, those lines will be there forever, even when you aren’t frowning inside.”

  “I was just wondering about what it meant to say that I have a good Botswana face.”

  “It means that you have the best sort of face,” said Mma Soleti, finishing her examination. “Botswana faces are honest faces. There are some faces that are very different, I’m afraid. Those people have faces that are full of anger or anxiety or all those things—negative things.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes, Mma. That is what I meant.” She lowered the magnifying glass and sat down opposite Mma Ramotswe. “Now, Mma,” she continued, “we need to talk about your skin. There are some big holes in it.”

  Mma Ramotswe gasped. “Holes in my skin?”

  Mma Soleti reached out and took her hand. “Don’t worry, my sister. They are just what we call enlarged pores. They are normal. Most people have some enlarged pores. They let grease out. Very greasy people have many of them; people who are not so greasy do not have so many.”

  “That’s a relief
, Mma.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Soleti. “You need not worry. Your skin is actually very good. But we can do something to make those enlarged pores go away. There are some cleansers that we can use to get all the impurities out, and then the skin will take care of itself.”

  The beautician rose from her chair and opened the cupboard behind her. Leaning forward to read the labels, after a few minutes she chose a jar with a white and silver label. “This is very good,” she said. “If you apply this at night before you go to bed, it will do its work while you are asleep. Many of my customers have been made very happy by this cream.”

  Mma Ramotswe took the open jar from Mma Soleti and sniffed at it. She liked the smell. “I suppose there’s no harm in trying …”

  “No harm at all,” said Mma Soleti, taking the jar back from her and slipping it into a paper bag. “You are very wise, Mma. That will last you for maybe one month. Then you can get some more.”

  The cream was less expensive than Mma Ramotswe had feared. She paid, and then accepted Mma Soleti’s offer of a cup of tea. Her favourable impression of the beautician had grown stronger, and she did not resent the purchase she had been rather press-ganged into making. But now, she decided, she might get her share of benefit from the encounter.

  “You have many clients, Mma?” she asked.

  Mma Soleti nodded. “More than ever, Mma. This month was busier than last month, and last month was busier than the month before.”

  “You must see everything, Mma. In this job of yours you must see everything.”

  Mma Soleti looked at her sideways. “Are you asking me that as a private detective, Mma? Is that why you are asking?”

  She’s clever, thought Mma Ramotswe; this woman understands. “As a detective,” she confessed.

  “You’re very honest, Mma. I like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited for her question to be answered.

  “So, I see everything? Well, yes, I think I do. I see and hear a lot.” She paused. “Is there anything in particular you want to know, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe was not prepared for this. She had not intended to ask any direct questions—at least not at this stage—and she was not sure what to say. But then she thought: Mr. Ditso.

  “There’s a man we’re interested in at the moment,” she said. “He’s called Ditso. You will have heard of him, Mma?”

  The effect of the question was immediate, and Mma Ramotswe wondered whether she had inadvertently asked about Mma Soleti’s cousin. There was a presumption in Botswana, she had discovered, that if you talked to one person about another, then the two persons in question would be cousins, or even brother and sister; she had proved that time and time again. And that meant you had to be very careful.

  “Are you related to that man?” she asked Mma Soleti.

  The beautician shook her head vigorously. “I have never met him. But I know one thing about him, Mma. I know one thing that maybe I shouldn’t talk about.”

  Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic noise. “It’s generally better to talk, Mma. It’s not good to bottle things up.”

  Mma Soleti seemed only too ready for this advice. “I shall tell you then, Mma. My sister is a beautician too, Mma. Actually, she is my half-sister, and she does sessions at that nail place, you know, near the post office. She is very good. She has a diploma in nail care from Durban. She went down there to get it. It was very expensive going all the way to South Africa, but she said it was worthwhile. Now she does very well.”

  “Time spent on getting qualifications is never wasted,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “You have qualifications in detection, no doubt,” said Mma Soleti. “Are they hard to get? I can imagine they would be.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I have no qualifications, Mma.”

  Mma Soleti stared at her in surprise. “You mean any old person can go and put a sign up saying that she is a private detective? Is that true, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “But I have done a lot of studying,” she said. “There is a very good book, you see. The Principles of Private Detection.” She paused; she was not boastful, but there were some temptations that were irresistible, and this, she decided, was one. “I know the author, you see, Mma.” Immediately she regretted it, and added: “Not very well, though. I could not really call him a friend.”

  She need not have worried. If Mma Soleti were to be impressed, then it was not to be by the mention of a mere author. “People write books,” she said casually. “I have had people in here who are thinking of writing a book.”

  Mma Ramotswe gently nudged the conversation back in the direction that she wanted it to follow. “Your sister, Mma …”

  Mma Soleti remembered. “Of course, yes, my sister: she has that nail place near the post office in town. She is very busy with people’s nails, and gets many people coming in to see her. Sometimes it is almost too late to do much for them, as they have neglected their nails.” Her gaze moved to Mma Ramotswe’s nails, and was noticed. Mma Ramotswe glanced down too: she did not use nail varnish, although there was a bottle of it somewhere, unless Motholeli had been playing with it, which was very likely. But there was nothing essentially wrong with her nails, she believed; they did what they were supposed to do, which was … What were nails meant to do?

  “So all sorts of people come in,” continued Mma Soleti. “And she says that one of the women who come in to have their nails done is the secret sweetheart of that man, that rich man you mentioned. She is secret because he has a wife, and the wife comes in to have her nails done too! My sister has to make sure that their appointments don’t overlap. Can you imagine that, Mma? That would not be very good, I think.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. She wanted to hear more of this story, but she did not want to probe too obviously; in her experience, people could suddenly dry up if you became too insistent in your questioning. “Oh well,” she said. “Men are often doing that, Mma.”

  “They are, my sister,” said Mma Soleti. “But I do not always blame men, you know. They are very weak, and there are some women who are prepared to take advantage of that weakness.” She looked knowingly at Mma Ramotswe, as if to imply that should she wish it, she could provide a long list of such women.

  “That is very true,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have known some bad women in my work.” She paused, and looked out of the tin building’s small window—a patch of sky, cloudless and innocent, blue. There was no glass between her and that sky; the window must be secured by a shutter that had been opened. There had to be a shutter: you could not leave all those potions and creams unguarded, she thought; greasy people, open-pored, walking past, might seize the opportunity to help themselves to skin cleansers … “Who is this woman, Mma? Do you know her?”

  Mma Soleti shook her head. “She did not give my sister her name. She just calls herself by some name that my sister thinks she has invented. She actually forgot one time what she had called herself before.”

  “I do not think you forget your own name,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Not normally.”

  “No.”

  “Even if you are very busy …”

  “No. Not even then.”

  Mma Ramotswe asked a final question. “And you know nothing else about her, Mma?”

  Mma Soleti appeared to consider this for a few moments. “The only thing my sister said is that she is one of those women who are always looking out for men. You know the type? She is not interested in talking to women.”

  Mma Ramotswe knew exactly what Mma Soleti meant. There was a certain sort of woman who was always aware of which men were in the vicinity and was always very attentive to them, but who would neither notice women nor bother to speak to them. Women like Violet Sephotho, for instance …

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE WAS LIKE A DEFLATED BALLOON

  MMA POTOKWANE was not in her office when Mma Ramotswe arrived at the orphan farm. This was not unusual: the matron was often to be found in one of the outlying buildings, attending to one of the numerous minor,
or sometimes major, problems that might be expected to crop up in the day-to-day life of an orphanage. Most of these she resolved herself, dispensing advice, fixing something, or simply wiping away tears; all of which she did with the same brisk confidence that she applied to any task that confronted her. Not for nothing had Mma Potokwane previously been appointed as matron of a small but well-run hospital, and the skills she had learned in the wards there—dealing with unhappy or nervous patients, keeping nurses and others on their toes—she now applied in the rather different circumstances of the orphan farm.

  Mma Ramotswe, still thinking of her conversation with her new acquaintance, Mma Soleti, parked her tiny white van under the tree that always shaded it on her visits: a towering jacaranda tree on the lower limbs of which the children had climbed, rubbing the bark bare with their legs. We should all have a tree in our childhood, she thought—a tree one might explore, a tree from which one might learn how to fall. She had fallen out of just such a tree as a girl and winded herself, while the children who were with her stood in a circle about her and laughed; they were boys, of course, and found misfortune funny in a way in which girls did not. She had never forgotten the sensation of being winded: of having all the breath knocked out of you and waiting for your lungs to draw it back in—but it was as if your lungs were stunned and were waiting for instructions from you …

  She made her way to the verandah that lined the building in which Mma Potokwane had her office. The door leading off into the office was open, and she could see that nobody was within. A fan had been left on, though, and was whirring away industriously. That meant that Mma Potokwane would not be far away—a counter of thebes every bit as much as pula, she would not waste electricity for long. Many of the goods supplied to the orphan farm she begged and borrowed from businessmen in the town, but you could not do that with electricity. There was no human face to the electricity board, no manager whom one could negotiate a lower price with or sweet-talk with a promise of some future favour. The electricity board charged a set amount for electricity, and if you used it, you had to pay for it. There was no way round that, as there was with other bills. You can’t be charging the poor orphans that much was one of Mma Potokwane’s favourite lines, regularly invoked against traders who supplied the orphan farm with its needs, and it was often highly successful. But you could not say that to an electricity board that had no shame, no sense of what it was like to be an orphan.