The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Ramotswe took her eyes off the road to give Clovis Andersen a look of admiration.

  “Be careful, Mma Ramotswe. There is a car coming.”

  She swerved—just in time to avoid a car approaching from the other direction. The other driver waved; a friendly wave, for some reason, not an ill-tempered one.

  “There certainly are nice people on the road in this country,” said Clovis Andersen.

  “I think that driver was my cousin,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It looked like her.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  GOLD INSIDE, NOT JUST OUTSIDE

  THERE WAS STILL a general sense that everything was going wrong. It was a strange feeling—shared not only by Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, but by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as well—and it seemed to be there all the time, like ominous background music to some unsettling drama; always playing, filled with foreboding. Mma Ramotswe tried to get things in perspective, tried to project her usual optimism, and to an extent she succeeded—only to find that her efforts at cheering up herself and others would weaken after a while and the memory would return of the sheer bleakness of both Mma Potokwane’s and Fanwell’s positions: unemployment in Mma Potokwane’s case, and the destruction of a world that goes with it, and criminal charges in Fanwell’s, and all that such proceedings entail—although the less one thought about the consequences of that the better.

  “I hear the food in prison is not too bad,” remarked Charlie over tea one morning. Fanwell was not present, having been sent by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to collect a part from the spares depot. “I have heard that from a friend who was sent to prison for hitting somebody too hard.”

  Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni all looked at Charlie balefully.

  “You should not talk about such things,” scolded Mma Makutsi. “Fanwell will not go to prison.”

  “He might,” said Charlie. “I’m only talking about what could happen. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Sometimes it’s better not to think about bad things that are not definitely going to happen,” Mma Ramotswe said mildly.

  Mma Makutsi looked cross. “And you said that this friend of yours hit somebody too hard. So that means that you can hit people just the right amount? Not too soft but not too hard?”

  Charlie defended himself. “I did not say that. I did not say that you could hit people. All I said is that he hit somebody too hard.”

  Mma Ramotswe sought to end the argument. Mma Makutsi and Charlie rubbed each other up the wrong way even at the best of times; when there was tension in the air, as there was now, it was considerably worse. “I think that we should not talk about prison,” she said. “Nor about hitting people. We all know that Fanwell is innocent. What we must do now is hope that the lawyer will do a good job and make sure that the magistrate sees that.”

  Charlie stared down into his tea. “That is a very useless lawyer, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe frowned. “You should not say that, Charlie.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  Charlie looked up. “But I do, Mma. He is the lawyer who defended my friend who hit somebody too … who hit somebody.”

  For a few moments nobody said anything. Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling, her attention seized by a small white gecko that was clinging upside down to the ceiling board. The gecko was stalking a fly that was only a leap away; and as she watched he leaped, bringing the little conflict to a rapid end. It was so unlike our own dramas, she thought: they can drag on and on, can take so long. Fanwell was forced to wait a long, nerve-racking time before he knew his fate; in the world of the fly and the gecko it was seconds. The lawyer … She remembered the lawyer’s attitude of resignation and the way she had felt about it; and here was Charlie, confirming the fears that she had tried to suppress within her.

  She looked at Charlie. “What happened, Charlie? What did your friend tell you?”

  “He said that the lawyer came to court late. He said that—”

  “Traffic,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “The traffic can be very bad in the mornings, as we all know. You cannot blame a lawyer for being late at court just because there is too much traffic on the road.”

  It was a valiant attempt to paint the lawyer in the best light, but Charlie simply shook his head. “He was late because he had left the papers at the office,” he said. “He had to go back to collect them. My friend told me that. He said that the magistrate was cross and this made him worried. It is not good to have an angry magistrate dealing with your case. ‘That is very bad news,’ he said.”

  “And then?” Mma Makutsi prompted. If there was to be bad news, then she, at least, was in favour of facing it.

  “And then he said that he—the lawyer, that is—stood up and my friend realised that he thought he was somebody else.”

  “The lawyer thought he was somebody else?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “The lawyer didn’t know who he was?” He looked at Mma Ramotswe in dismay. “That doesn’t sound like a very good lawyer, Mma.”

  “No,” said Charlie. “It was not like that, Boss. The lawyer knew he was the lawyer. He thought that my friend—”

  “The one who hit somebody too hard,” interjected Mma Makutsi.

  Charlie glanced at her. “Him, yes, him. He thought my friend was another person—”

  “Who had not hit anybody at all?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  Charlie showed his irritation. “I’m trying to tell the story,” he complained. “And she keeps interrupting me.”

  Mma Ramotswe urged him to go on. “Mma Makutsi is only trying to help,” she said. “Carry on, Charlie.”

  Finishing his tea, Charlie put his mug down on the filing cabinet. “This lawyer—who is also going to be Fanwell’s lawyer—had got his clients mixed up. So my friend had to whisper to him that he was not the person he thought he was, but another person. And the lawyer got all flustered and began to mumble all sorts of things. So the magistrate told him to sit down and drink a glass of water.”

  Charlie paused.

  “Go on,” said Mma Ramotswe faintly.

  “Then he stood up again and asked some questions. My friend said they were stupid questions, and the magistrate eventually said to him that he was to shut up.”

  “That cannot be true,” Mma Makutsi interjected. “Magistrates don’t tell people to shut up. It is not how they talk.”

  “You weren’t there, Mma,” snorted Charlie.

  “Nor were you,” countered Mma Makutsi.

  “My friend was. And he told me everything that happened. He said that that was why he got three weeks in prison. It was all that lawyer’s fault.”

  Mma Makutsi was not prepared to let this pass. “Excuse me, did the lawyer hit the person? Did I get something wrong? Maybe the lawyer should have gone to prison for hitting somebody too hard.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked at his watch. “We should get back to work,” he said to Charlie. “There are cars out there needing attention. They won’t get fixed if we stay in here talking to the ladies.”

  “You’re right, Boss,” said Charlie. “Particularly talking to one lady …” He glanced at Mma Makutsi, who smiled sweetly in response.

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “All right,” she said, “but this business with the lawyer, Charlie, I don’t think you should say anything to Fanwell about that. I don’t think it will help him to know. And just because the lawyer did not do a very good job with that friend of yours doesn’t necessarily mean that he will not do a good job for Fanwell.”

  “No,” said Mma Makutsi. “So don’t tell Fanwell about this, Charlie. I know how you talk. Just don’t mention it to him. It’s much better that he doesn’t know.”

  The door that linked the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to the courtyard of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors had been slightly ajar during the tea-break. Now it was suddenly pushed fully open, to reveal Fanwell standing on the step, holding in his left hand the car part that he h
ad been sent to collect from the depot.

  “Better for me not to know what?” he asked.

  THERE ARE AWKWARD moments from which one can retreat, and awkward moments from which there is no escape. This was one of the latter, as Mma Makutsi explained to Phuti Radiphuti when she met him that lunch time in his office at the Double Comfort Furniture Store.

  “We couldn’t lie to him,” she said. “He had heard a bit of what was said and so we just had to tell him everything. He’s got a no-good lawyer, you see, and Charlie said that …”

  She narrated the story of Charlie’s friend, of his inadequate defence, and of the unfortunate consequences that followed. Phuti Radiphuti listened gravely. “They should get another lawyer,” he said. “Surely there are better people around. That man with the big nose—you know the one—they say that he’s very good. The judges can’t take their eyes off his nose, and so they always decide in his favour.”

  Mma Makutsi wondered why a large nose should be an advantage in a lawyer, and decided that perhaps it had something to do with authority. Was it more difficult to argue with a large-nosed person? She had not considered the question before, but now it occurred to her that perhaps it was. But it was too late now to look for a lawyer with a more convincing nose, even if one were to be found. Money, she explained, had already been paid to the inadequate lawyer, and Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who were footing the bill for Fanwell’s defence, could not afford to pay a second time.

  “How did he take it?” asked Phuti.

  “He was very worried,” she replied. “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni tried to tell him that it would be all right; that he would speak to the lawyer and make sure that he handled it properly.”

  “And was Fanwell reassured?”

  “No.”

  Phuti Radiphuti shook his head sadly. “It is a very sad business. And if they send him to prison, you can imagine the men he will mix with there. He is just a young man, and they will corrupt him with their bad talk and their bad stories. It is very worrying.”

  They looked at one another despairingly, but they had work to do that lunch time, and life, as Phuti Radiphuti pointed out, had to go on. “There are many sad things,” he said. “They are all around us, but we have to get on with our lives, don’t we? And that means that we must get on with choosing those things, Grace.”

  Mma Makutsi agreed. The rapid progress with their new house meant that in a couple of months they would have to furnish it. At present Phuti had no furniture of his own, as the house they were occupying, which belonged to the wider Radiphuti family, was filled with family furniture: chairs that had been left in the house by various aunts, tables that had belonged to grandmothers and were now of uncertain ownership, beds that belonged to nobody in particular but had simply always been there.

  Of course, to Mma Makutsi and Phuti the task of furnishing a house was considerably less daunting than it would be to most young couples. Not only was money not an issue in the same way that it was for average newlyweds, but Phuti’s expertise when it came to choosing items would be invaluable. “Everything we sell,” he said, “is of the highest quality and built to last. But some things are of higher quality than others, and also built to last longer.”

  Mma Makutsi considered this. “That means that some of your things are better than others?”

  “You could say that,” said Phuti. “Although we do not say that ourselves, or people would then ask us which was the better furniture and they would buy that and leave the stuff that’s not so good. That is always a big problem for people who have shops. So you have to say that everything’s first class.”

  “And this is true, isn’t it?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “Yes,” said Phuti. “Only some first-class items are more first class than others.”

  “I see.”

  That afternoon they were to look at sofas and beds. They had already identified a dining-room table and a set of eight matching chairs: these had been ordered from a trade catalogue and would arrive from over the border a few weeks later. The sofa and the bed would be chosen from the large stock that the Double Comfort Furniture Store, the largest furniture store in the country, already had in the showroom.

  They left Phuti’s office and made their way into the cavernous warehouse that was the Double Comfort Furniture Store. As they entered the store itself, they passed one of the employees, a middle-aged woman wearing a smock and carrying a bag of what looked like polishing equipment. The woman stopped, smiled at Phuti, and then turned to Mma Makutsi.

  “It is you, Mma,” she said. “I’m very happy to see you.”

  Phuti introduced her. “This is Mma Rosemary. She has worked here for a long, long time.”

  “Every day,” said Mma Rosemary. “Same job.”

  Mma Makutsi greeted her in the traditional way. She had noticed the courteous way in which Phuti dealt with his employees and had once mentioned the fact to Mma Ramotswe, who had commented that if that was so, then she could be sure that he would make a good husband. “A man who is polite to the people he is in authority over will always be a good man,” she said. “Look at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni; he is always polite to the apprentices. And he is a very fine husband, Mma.” She paused. “He is even polite to Charlie, Mma—even when Charlie is being … well, you know how Charlie can be.”

  Mma Makutsi swallowed. She knew that she had to be kinder to Charlie and she was trying, she really was. But how should a woman—any woman—react to a young man who said some of the things that Charlie said? Who had said, for example, that women could not fly aeroplanes because they would always be looking in the mirror to check that their lipstick was all right? Yes, Charlie had said that; those were his exact words, and she had exploded and said that he needed to wake up to the fact that women were flying aeroplanes right over his head at that very moment. Charlie had gone to the window and looked up at the sky and said that he could not see any aeroplanes being flown by women, and was this because they had perhaps already crashed? Mma Ramotswe had intervened then and politely taken Charlie to task, while Mma Makutsi calmed down. Those occasions were difficult. She knew Charlie would grow up eventually, but what if he grew up from a young man who held opinions like that into an older man who thought exactly the same way? That was the trouble with growing up: people did not always grow up in the way in which you might like them to grow up. And that, as Mma Ramotswe would put it, was a well-known fact.

  Now Mma Rosemary reached out and took Mma Makutsi’s hand in hers. It was an entirely natural gesture—one of acceptance, one of solidarity. “You are now with us,” she said.

  Mma Makutsi saw Phuti break into a smile, and she smiled too. “It is very good,” she said.

  “And you have chosen such a beautiful woman,” Mma Rosemary said to Phuti. “You are a lucky man to have a beautiful wife like this. We are all very proud of you, Rra.”

  Mma Makutsi felt her hands being gently squeezed as this compliment was paid; it showed, she thought, that it was meant. You did not squeeze hands when you lied; it could not be done.

  “You are very kind to me, Mma Rosemary,” she said.

  The other woman beamed up at her; she was considerably shorter than Mma Makutsi. “That is because you have made our Phuti so happy, Mma Radiphuti,” she said. “And that has made us all happy.”

  They moved off. Mma Makutsi thought: Mma Radiphuti—that is me; I am Mma Radiphuti. I am the wife of this wonderful, kind man and I am not dreaming. This has happened. I am Mma Radiphuti.

  “She is the best polisher in all Botswana,” remarked Phuti as they continued on their way into the store. “She can make tables glow like the sun. People come in, you see, and they touch the tables after they have been eating fat cakes or doughnuts. And so the tables have fingerprints all over them. Mma Rosemary sorts that out with her tins of polish and her rags.”

  Mma Makutsi listened to this. “People can be very dirty,” she said. “They have dirty hands. Not all people, but quite a lot of people do.” />
  Phuti agreed with this. “It must be very difficult if you are a person who has to shake hands with people all day. A president, maybe, or a big film star. All those people come up to you and say, Please shake my hand, and you want to ask them if they’ve washed their hands. But you can’t do that, can you—not if you’re one of these politicians or film stars. You have to shake hands first and then you must think afterwards: Have they washed their hands?”

  They passed one of the tables that had been freshly polished by Mma Rosemary. “See that?” said Phuti, pointing at the gleaming hardwood surface. “That is like a mirror. If you had a table like that, you could use it to shave with in the morning. You could look at your face in the surface and shave.”

  The sofas were next, and there they stopped. Mma Makutsi gazed out over the large array of highly stuffed, opulent-looking couches. Many of them were made of leather, most of it black, but in some cases cream or highly coloured reds and greens. She wondered what it would be like to have a red leather sofa, and for a moment she saw herself seated on such a thing, fanned perhaps by one of those large electric fans, drinking tea and eating some rich morsel. If one had a sofa like that, one might sit on it all day, supported in the utmost comfort, reflecting on one’s good fortune though not, she hoped, without a thought for those whose own sofas were less comfortable, or indeed for those who had no sofa at all.

  She bent down to examine a large four-seater covered in a gold-coloured material to which a fringe had been attached. She hardly dared look at the price tag, but did so and recoiled in shock. Surely no single sofa could cost anything like that? How many cattle did that represent? She did a quick calculation. Were there people who would actually pay such a price, and if they did, would they not feel permanently uncomfortable knowing that they were sitting on so expensive a piece of furniture? Would one simply admire such an item and not sit on it? Could one perhaps leave the price tag on it after purchase, so that visitors to the house could see what you had paid for it and marvel? An ostentatious person would probably do that, but she, Mma Makutsi, would never want to flaunt her wealth. Or Phuti’s wealth, she reminded herself; for I am still Mma Makutsi from Bobonong, and I shall never—never—indulge myself in a sofa like that when there are people in villages in the country for whom even a chair, a modest wooden chair, is a luxury, well nigh unaffordable.