The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Phuti noticed her examining the gold-coloured sofa. “Do you like that one, Grace?” he said. “Why don’t you try sitting on it? See if it’s comfortable.”

  Mma Makutsi hesitated. “Oh, I was just looking, Phuti. We do not need a gold-coloured sofa …”

  “Try it out,” he said. “Sit on it.”

  She moved round to the front of the sofa and very slowly lowered herself onto it. She felt the cushion beneath her, at once firm and soft, supportive but yielding. She leaned back, and it was like giving oneself into the arms of a gentle, comforting lover. “Oh,” she muttered, and then, “oh,” again.

  “You look very good on that,” said Phuti. “That sofa is the right colour for you. Gold. That is your colour, Grace.”

  She felt the fabric with her fingers. It was as smooth as satin. Gold? Was that really her colour? She had always thought that red suited her very well, but perhaps gold was also suitable for people who looked good in red. If they bought this sofa, which of course they would not—not at that price—then she might perhaps buy a pair of gold-coloured shoes that she could wear when she was sitting on her sofa. She had seen a pair in the shoe shop at Riverwalk, and she could go back and see whether they were still available. “Would you like that one?” Phuti asked. “We can get it if you like.”

  She sat up and propelled herself off the sofa. “No,” she said. “It is very nice, Phuti, but it is not right for us.”

  He frowned. “Are you sure? You looked so comfortable.”

  “I am sure. And I can already see one over there—that brown one—that I think might be right for us.”

  They made their way over to the brown sofa—a much more low-key affair—and she sat down on it. It was considerably less physically comfortable than the gold-coloured sofa, but correspondingly more mentally comfortable. This was a sofa on which one might sit in casual clothes, on which one might eat a doughnut or drink a cup of tea without worrying about crumbs or splashes. This was a sofa entirely free of guilt.

  “I think that this will be a very good sofa,” she said to Phuti. “You try it.”

  Phuti sat down. “It is well made,” he said. “I know the people who make these sofas. They are honest people.”

  “Then I would like this one,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Phuti leaned across and whispered in her ear. “I am very happy, Grace. I am very happy that you have chosen this one rather than the gold one. That shows me that you are not one who is impressed with flashy things. You are gold inside, Grace, not just outside.”

  She turned and kissed him lightly. “That is the kindest thing anybody has ever said to me.” Gold inside, not just outside.

  Phuti called over the floor manager, who had been hovering in the background, and arrangements were made to transfer the sofa to the storage warehouse. Then they returned to the office before Phuti drove Mma Makutsi back to the agency. On the way, they stopped at a petrol station, and Phuti set about filling the car. As he instructed the attendant, a van drew up alongside the neighbouring pump and a man in blue overalls stepped out.

  Mma Makutsi watched. Phuti looked up and saw the man, whom he obviously recognised. For a moment or two they looked at one another before Phuti gave a nod of greeting. The other man turned away. Now he hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and then busied himself with the cap of the van’s fuel tank. It struck her as strange that the man should have so pointedly failed to respond to Phuti’s friendly overture; even a smile would have been polite—a smile or a nod of acknowledgement.

  “Who is that rude man?” she asked Phuti as they drove off a few minutes later.

  “He is one of the builder’s men,” he said. “I met him when I went to look at the house. Now he doesn’t seem to want to know me.”

  Mma Makutsi frowned. “Why?”

  “I have no idea,” replied Phuti. “There are some people who are very shy. Maybe he is one of those.”

  Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. “Shy, or rude, maybe. Rude like his boss,” she said. “He is rude too. Rude boss; rude men. Sometimes that is the way it happens.”

  That was possible, he said. His own father had drummed into him the lesson that the way you treat your staff is the way they will treat you. “That is something that some employers just do not understand,” Mr. Radiphuti Senior had said. “But in the Double Comfort Furniture Store we will never forget that, will we, Phuti?”

  He had not. He had remembered it.

  Mma Makutsi was silent for the rest of the brief journey back to the office. Silent; thinking.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HOW MANY CUPS OF TEA …

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Mma Ramotswe received a telephone call from the secretary at the orphan farm. This was a woman she knew only slightly—a woman who had been brought up in Lobatse and whose son was a promising athlete, a barefoot runner, whose prowess on the track was occasionally featured in the Botswana Daily News. They exchanged the customary greetings, and then Mma Ramotswe, vaguely remembering that there had been something in the papers about the son—what was his nickname?—had asked after the young man.

  “I’m sorry, Mma,” she said, “I cannot remember your son’s name, but I saw something in the papers and I wondered how he’s doing. You must be very proud of him.”

  The woman laughed. “Nobody remembers his real name. That is because they all call him by his nickname. They call him Lightning now, and we even use that at home. Yes, I am proud of him, Mma; I am very proud.”

  “Lightning is a good name, Mma. Very good.”

  “As long as it doesn’t go to his head,” said the secretary. “I heard him call one of the other runners Tortoise the other day. I told him that was very unkind and that one day his own legs would get slow—like mine.”

  Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic noise. “Everybody’s legs get slow, Mma. That is well known. But it doesn’t matter, as long as one can get about a little bit. That is all that is needed.”

  There was a moment of silence; the point of the call had not yet been revealed, but that was not so unusual. People often took some time to say what they needed to say—to rush a conversation could be considered rude, especially among old-fashioned people, and Mma Ramotswe remembered that the secretary was indeed a somewhat old-fashioned person.

  Then the silence was broken. “I am phoning about Mma Potokwane,” said the secretary.

  Mma Ramotswe felt a momentary stab of alarm. Was Mma Potokwane not well? “Is she ill …?” Mma Ramotswe stuttered.

  “I do not know whether or not she is sick,” said the secretary. “She never complains about herself, as you know. But I cannot tell because she is not here. She has gone.”

  “Where has she gone?”

  “She has gone somewhere else. I do not know where. All she did was leave a note to say that her deputy, Mma Paloi, is in charge now until the end of the month, when Mma Potokwane is due to go anyway. That is all she said.” The secretary paused, allowing this information to be absorbed. “I wondered if she was with you, Mma. You are her great friend. But obviously she is not.”

  “No, she is not here. And I am very shocked, Mma, to hear this news. Mma Potokwane would normally never leave her post. Never. You know what she’s like.”

  The secretary was quick to agree. “If she was on one of those big ships and it was going down, she would be the last one to jump off, Mma. That is very true.”

  Mma Ramotswe could not help but picture it: Mma Potokwane standing on the deck of a ship waiting for everybody else to clamber into lifeboats and cast off. And perhaps Mma Makutsi would be beside her, clinging on to her certificate from the Botswana Secretarial College, anxious to save that from the encroaching waters. And then Mma Potokwane would jump into the last lifeboat and … and it would tilt precariously because of her weight and perhaps begin to sink, and again she would make sure that she was the last one to abandon ship, or she would even go down with the lifeboat, dutiful to the last; and the waters would swirl around with odd bits of detritus—spars of b
roken wood, unoccupied lifebelts, the framed certificate from the Botswana Secretarial College …

  “Have you spoken to her husband?” she asked.

  The secretary explained that Rra Potokwane had gone to spend some time with a cousin who needed help with his cattle. “He has no phone with him,” she went on, “and I cannot find the name of the cousin. I do not know how to contact him.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought out loud. “I do not think she will have gone up to her husband. I do not think so.”

  “No?”

  “No, I do not think that she would do that. She does not like that cousin of her husband’s—she has spoken to me about that. She says he is a drunkard.”

  “I have heard her say that too,” said the secretary. “She says that he eats too much as well. She told me that that cousin eats all the meat in the household and leaves none for his wife. That is what she said, Mma: I am only repeating what she said.”

  Yes, she thought, there are men like that; men with fat bellies and thin wives and children.

  “I have an idea, Mma.”

  The secretary sounded relieved. “I knew that you would come up with something, Mma. I knew that you would know. You are the detective, you see …”

  This was not a time for flattery. “Thank you, Mma, but it is only an idea. There is a big difference between an idea and a solution.”

  “Oh, Mma, that is absolutely true. There is a very big difference.” The secretary cleared her throat. “And what is this idea, Mma?”

  “The lands,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that she will be out at her fields.”

  “Why do you think that, Mma?”

  “Because that is where she went once before.”

  Mma Ramotswe explained how there had been an occasion—not as serious as the current one—when Mma Potokwane had felt rather overburdened by her duties and had arranged to take a short break out at her fields, or lands, as they were called. “It was only for a weekend, but she said that it was the best place to go if one was feeling exhausted. So I think we could see if she’s there now.”

  The conversation came to an end, with Mma Ramotswe promising to contact the secretary as soon as she had any news. She would go out there herself, she said; she knew the way—roughly—and it was a journey of no more than four hours.

  The secretary was concerned. “That is a long way, Mma. And I don’t think you should go out into the bush by yourself.”

  Mma Makutsi, on the other side of the room, overheard this. “Tell her you will not be going by yourself,” she interjected. “You will be going with me.”

  Mma Ramotswe relayed this information. She was not sure that it was the best of ideas, but it was a generous offer, and no more than one would expect from Mma Makutsi, who, for all her faults—and they were not very big ones—was loyal and supportive through thick and thin … She paused for thought: Would all this be described as thick, or was it thin? She was not at all sure, but whatever it was, it would be good to have Mma Makutsi at her side.

  OF COURSE THERE were preparations to be made. A journey out into the Botswana bush was not something that could be undertaken lightly. Those tracks, pitted by use and eroded by rains, were a trial for any vehicle, even one accustomed to such roads, as was the tiny white van. You had to be careful: if you broke down, it could be many miles from help, and so you had to know where you were. You also needed to take water—there would be no supplies of that along the road—and enough fuel to get you to your destination and back, with a little bit left over for emergencies.

  At first, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was unwilling to allow her to go. “It is the middle of nowhere, that place,” he said. “And what if she isn’t there? You will have wasted a lot of time looking for somebody who may be at the opposite end of the country, for all you know.”

  “If she isn’t there,” countered Mma Ramotswe, “then at least we will have found out that she isn’t there. It will not be wasted.”

  He shook his head in exasperation. “That is no answer, Mma. And what if the van breaks down? That is a very old van, that one, and its engine—”

  “Its engine is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You serviced it two weeks ago, Rra, and you said that it was in good condition. Have things changed so quickly?”

  He sighed. “It is in good condition for a van of its age. But you cannot take an old vehicle like that into the bush without running some risk. I have known many cars that have died …” He lowered his eyes as he spoke, as if in respect for the souls of departed cars. “I have known many cars that have died out in the bush. And that has meant a very long walk for their drivers.”

  “That is a risk we shall take,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is the same with people. People can become late at any time—just like that. But that does not mean that we should not do anything and not go anywhere just because there is a possibility that we may suddenly become late.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sensed that there was no point in his arguing any further; he would never persuade Mma Ramotswe to act otherwise when a friend was in need. And in spite of his anxiety over this trip, he shared her concern for Mma Potokwane, whom he had always admired in spite of her tendency to ask him to fix something whenever she saw him. She had to do that, he understood; it was her job, and the children in her care had benefited a great deal over the years precisely because she took her job so seriously. Rather than waste his energy on trying to stop the expedition, he expended it on making sure that the van was as ready as it could be for the journey. He placed spare cans of fuel in the back and lashed them down for the bumpy ride, and stowed two plastic demijohns of water beside them. Then the oil was checked, the battery tested, and a coil of rope tucked underneath one of the seats. “You never know,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You never know, do you?”

  “I shall be very careful, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe, adding, “I always am, you know.”

  And as she said this, she gave him a look that implied that any dangers about which he was concerned were ones that she would be very careful about—whatever they were.

  THE LANDS TO WHICH Mma Potokwane was suspected of retreating lay to the west of Gaborone, some distance beyond Molepolole, hard against the edge of the Kalahari, the great semi-desert that made up the heart of the country. This was dry land at the limits of the inhabitable, and fields here, if they could be called fields, grew very little: a few melons and patches of sorghum—not much more than that. Yet the families who tilled them, scratching at the parched soil to coax growth out of what sometimes seemed little more than powdered stone, did so by ancient right. This is where their people had been as far back as anybody could remember, and they maintained this link with the land even after they had moved to towns and villages. Each year the women and children would trek off to their lands for weeks at a time, to plant and tend the crops. It was a ritual that survived growing prosperity, even when there was no real need to harvest these small crops; it was a way of showing children who they were and reminding adults of the same thing.

  “You do know the way, don’t you?” asked Mma Makutsi as they left Molepolole behind them and began to follow the smaller road west.

  Mma Ramotswe sounded confident. “Yes,” she said. “We follow this road to Takatokwane and then after that we go that way.” She pointed vaguely towards the north.

  Mma Makutsi glanced at her nervously. “That way, Mma?”

  “Yes. There is a road that goes like this …” She made a winding gesture. “We don’t follow that one.”

  “No?”

  “No. We follow the one that goes like this.” The gesture now was more up-and-down. “That’s the road we need to look out for. Then, after a while—quite a long time, because you have to go very slowly—there is a place where the road splits in two, or maybe three.”

  “Which is it, Mma? Two or three?”

  Mma Ramotswe shrugged. “I cannot remember everything, Mma. But I will know which way to go, I promise you. I have been taught these things.”

&nbs
p; Mma Makutsi remained silent while she digested this information. Then she asked what exactly Mma Ramotswe had been taught. The road system of Botswana?

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You cannot learn all the roads of Botswana, Mma. That would be a lifetime’s work because they are always changing roads and adding to them. They look at a map, those people in the Roads Department, and then they draw a line across it and say that is the best place for a new road. Let us build a new road soon. That is what they say.”

  “And then they have tea,” added Mma Makutsi.

  They both laughed. “Yes, Mma Makutsi, that is absolutely right. They are always drinking tea in those government offices. When you think of how much the Government must spend on tea …” She shook her head in disbelief at the unimaginable figures.

  “We spend quite a lot on tea,” mused Mma Makutsi. “If you add it up, Mma. You have … how many cups of tea do you have, Mma Ramotswe? Ten? Twelve?”

  “I haven’t counted, Mma Makutsi. And you yourself—”

  Mma Makutsi did not let her finish. “Well, let’s think, Mma. You have tea when you wake up, don’t you? You have told me about that.”

  “Of course I have tea when I wake up,” retorted Mma Ramotswe. “Is there anybody who doesn’t have tea when they wake up?”

  She received no answer to this question, and so she continued, “I sometimes have two cups of tea before breakfast. It depends. There are some days when I seem to drink my tea more quickly than others. Then there are days when I just sip my tea and it takes a bit longer. One cup will do on those days. One cup to start with, that is: there is more tea later on.”