The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “And then?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “And then there is the tea that goes with breakfast. I make that in a pot and put it on the table and drink maybe two cups of tea …”

  Mma Makutsi looked at her sideways, and Mma Ramotswe revised her account. “Maybe three, Mma. In fact, three. Always.”

  Mma Makutsi nodded at the admission. “And then, Mma, there is the office tea. We must not forget that.”

  “That is correct,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Morning tea—one cup only, though, Mma. You have seen that. Then at lunch there are two cups, and then there is afternoon tea.” She paused. “How many does that make, Mma?”

  “I think that makes eight,” said Mma Makutsi. “Call it ten.”

  “Ten cups,” said Mma Ramotswe thoughtfully. “And we haven’t counted the evening tea. That must be added. So maybe fourteen cups of tea in all.”

  “Fourteen cups,” intoned Mma Makutsi, making a rapid calculation before continuing. “That means seventy cups between Monday and Friday. What about the weekend?”

  “I do not think it is much different over the weekend,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I drink that office tea at home over the weekend.”

  Again Mma Makutsi performed a calculation. “Ninety-eight cups,” she said. “Call that one hundred. There is something called reporting error, Mma. I have read about it. It is all over the place. There are many, many reporting errors.” She looked out of the window on her side of the van, as if to scan the passing bush, the acacia trees, for reporting errors.

  “One hundred cups,” repeated Mma Ramotswe. “That will be doing me a lot of good. One hundred cups of red bush tea, Mma. That bush tea is full of good things. It will be making me very strong.” She paused. “I am not ashamed of all that tea, Mma.”

  “Of course not,” said Mma Makutsi. “There is nothing to be ashamed of in drinking one hundred cups of tea a week, Mma. Which is …” She paused again. “More than five thousand cups of tea a year, Mma. That is very impressive.”

  “Well, there you are, Mma Makutsi. Those are the figures. You cannot argue with figures, can you?”

  Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. “And ours is just a small business. We use all that red bush tea for you and all that ordinary tea for me, and we are just a tiny business. Imagine how much tea the Standard Bank drinks. Imagine all their tea, Mma. Just think of it. Or the Government. All those government people in their offices drinking tea.”

  “It is a miracle that there is any tea left for us, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “After the Government and the banks and people like that have taken all the tea they need, it is a miracle that there is any tea left for people like you and me, Mma, the tea-drinking public.”

  “You’re right, Mma Ramotswe. It is a miracle. The miracle of the tea.”

  “A good miracle, Mma Makutsi.”

  “A very good miracle, Mma Ramotswe.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE HABITS OF LIONS

  MMA RAMOTSWE seemed to find the turning without any difficulty. “I remember that tree,” she said to Mma Makutsi as she swung the van off onto the pitted dirt track. “When I came here with Mma Potokwane four years ago, we turned off at that tree. This is definitely the right place.”

  Mma Makutsi was impressed. “I could never remember a tree after four years,” she said. “Or after four days, really. You are very good at these things, Mma.”

  “Of course there was the signpost too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That helped. Did you not see it, Mma? There was a small sign that gave the name of the village that we pass through on this track.”

  Mma Makutsi had missed that. Looking out of the window, she gazed at the featureless bush. “It all looks the same to me,” she said. “All these trees. All the same. And the bushes. Also the same.”

  Mma Ramotswe gingerly but skilfully manoeuvred the van round a large pothole in the track ahead. “I would not like to drive on this road at night,” she said. “All these holes.”

  “And lions,” said Mma Makutsi, shivering at the thought. “We are very close to the Kalahari now, Mma, and there could be lions.”

  “The lions will keep their distance from Mma Potokwane,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It would be a very foolish lion who tried to eat her.”

  Mma Makutsi smiled. “A very brave lion, perhaps, Mma. But we should not talk about lions like this. It is very bad luck. Talk about lions brings lions—that is what I always say.”

  Mma Ramotswe considered this. It was true; the contemplation of misfortune undoubtedly attracted misfortune. Why this should be so, she was not sure; perhaps it had something to do with noticing things. If you thought of something, then you noticed it; if you did not think of it, then it might be there but you did not notice it. That was possible, but …

  She did not finish the thought. They had been travelling painfully slowly but had, for the last couple of hundred yards or so, been on a slightly better section of track, one that did not seem as badly potholed and eroded. Without intending to speed up, she had nonetheless done so, with the result that the tiny white van was now travelling almost at the pace it would have travelled on a much better, official road. That was safe enough, except for the sand, which had slowly been becoming deeper and had begun to encroach on the track itself. Now, with a fair degree of speed behind it, the van hit a section of track in which the sand covered the entire surface. For a four-wheel-drive vehicle, that would not perhaps have presented too much of a challenge; for the van, however, it was too much, and the front wheels, engaging only with sand that shifted and collapsed as the tyres tried to gain a hold, veered sharply and brought the van into a deep bank of fine white earth at the edge of the road.

  “We have stopped,” said Mma Makutsi, as they shuddered to a halt.

  “So it seems,” muttered Mma Ramotswe.

  “Maybe you can reverse out of this,” said Mma Makutsi. “If you reverse, then you can get back on the road. What do you think, Mma?”

  “It is the only thing to do,” said Mma Ramotswe, through clenched teeth. Sometimes Mma Makutsi’s advice was … how might one put it? Obvious.

  She put in the clutch and engaged reverse gear. The engine responded, but the wheels merely spun in the fine sand, sending up a cloud of dust on either side of the van.

  “It’s digging in, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The wheels are turning, but they have nothing to grip.”

  Mma Makutsi sighed. “I think we are stuck in the sand, Mma.”

  “I think you’re right, Mma Makutsi.”

  Mma Ramotswe turned off the engine. “We should get out and see what has happened,” she said. “I was stuck in sand once before. But I got out.”

  “Oh yes, Mma? How did you do that?”

  “I put two sacks under each front wheel. That gave the tyres a surface they could hold on to.”

  Mma Makutsi clapped her hands together. “That is a very clever idea, Mma. Sacks. We can put sacks under the tyres.”

  “If we had sacks …”

  “You don’t have any, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I thought about it, Mma. I even made a mental note to get some. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has a pile of old sacks back at Zebra Drive. If only I had remembered.”

  They climbed out of the van to inspect the situation, which was worse than Mma Ramotswe had feared. The two front wheels of the van had spun energetically into the sand, effectively burrowing deeper with each revolution. Now the sand came three-quarters of the way up each wheel, and any further movement would undoubtedly sink them further.

  “This is very bad,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe looked down the track. “How long will it take us to walk back to the main road, Mma? You are good at calculations.”

  Mma Makutsi stared in the direction from which they had come. “We’ve been travelling along here for about thirty minutes,” she said. “And we’ve been doing about fifteen kilometres an hour. That means we have come about seven kilometres. How fast do you think we walk, Mma?”


  Mma Ramotswe scratched her head. “Three kilometres an hour?” she ventured. “Maybe less in places where it is very sandy.”

  “Then we are at least two hours from that road,” said Mma Makutsi. She looked at her watch. “And now, Mma, it is almost four o’clock. We would get back to the road at about six o’clock, just as it is becoming dark.”

  Neither of them said anything. There had been a conversation about lions only a short time ago, and they were both thinking the same thing. Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Makutsi, who looked first at the ground and then at the sky.

  Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “People say that you should never leave your vehicle when it breaks down,” she said. “If you do, then when the search party arrives, the searchers find the car but they don’t find you.”

  “If there is a search party,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe looked around them. It was often the case that a landscape that appeared to be empty was not; human habitation could be found in unexpected places—a single hut tucked away here, a collection of dwellings there; and there were paths between such places, bringing life to the landscape as arteries do to the body.

  “Somebody may come along,” she said. “I think that we should stay in case that happens.”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “There will be nobody, Mma. Who is going to come along here this close to sunset? No, we will not see anybody for a long time. Maybe days, Mma.”

  As Mma Makutsi spoke, her voice faltered slightly, and Mma Ramotswe realised that her assistant was frightened.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “There is nothing that can harm us out here. All we shall have to do is to wait until help comes along.” She tried to sound cheerful. “And even if we spend the night out here, we shall be fine. We have water, and we also have food. And we shall be quite safe in the van. Lions cannot open doors, you know. They are not that clever.”

  Mma Makutsi did not appreciate this mention of lions. “Oh, please don’t talk about lions, Mma. I am trying not to think about lions, and you keep talking about them.”

  Mma Ramotswe laid a calming hand on Mma Makutsi’s arm. “I’m sorry, Mma, I should not have mentioned lions. I do not think that there are any lions round here. I shall not mention lions again.” She paused. “We could make a fire, Mma. I have some newspaper and some matches. We could get a fire going and then we could have tea. That would help, I think.”

  “Tea is always a big help,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’ll get some twigs and some wood and then we can make a fire. Maybe the smoke will attract attention and somebody will come.”

  “That is a real possibility,” said Mma Ramotswe, pleased that Mma Makutsi seemed to be cheering up.

  Mma Makutsi wandered off to retrieve a small branch that had fallen off an acacia tree. Part of the wood had been covered by a mud casing painstakingly put in place by termites; this she brushed off as she carried it back to the van. And it was while she was doing this that they heard the creaking sound of an approaching donkey cart.

  “You see!” shouted Mma Makutsi. “I told you that somebody would come.”

  Mma Ramotswe was on the point of reminding her that she had said exactly the opposite, but decided not to spoil the moment. “Well, there we are, Mma. We are no longer alone.”

  The donkey cart was a rickety affair, cobbled together with ancient painted boards and a chassis that had once belonged to a motor vehicle of some sort—an incongruous union of wood and metal, but serviceable enough. This cart was twenty or thirty years old, and could be expected to last another few decades at least. Out here, where the rainfall was so slight and inconstant, rust was not a problem. More dangerous were the ants, with their appetite for wood, but these could be watched for and dealt with easily enough.

  Riding in the cart, on a battered old red-leather seat saved from a car somewhere, was an elderly man. At the end of the reins he held were two donkeys, yoked side by side, pulling the cart with that somnolent acceptance—resignation, even—that marks their breed. Their steps, taken on small black hooves, were sure enough, but slow; they would be faster on the return journey, with the smell of home in their nostrils, but for the moment there was no rush.

  Mma Ramotswe stepped out onto the track and raised her hand in greeting. The man riding the cart pulled on the reins, took off his hat and wiped his brow. She caught her breath: the hat was so like the hat that her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, had worn every day of his life after he had returned from Mochudi—or so it had seemed to her. The hat that they had tucked into his coffin to accompany him on that final journey to the grave; the hat that he had once lost on the road and that had been rescued by some stranger and placed on a wall where its owner might see it; that same shapeless hat that she had felt embarrassed about as a small girl, other girls’ fathers having more modern hats, but that she had come to love as standing for everything that he, and indeed Botswana, stood for—decency, quiet, courtesy—the things that were slipping away in the world but that were remembered and pined for.

  The man replaced his hat, tied up the reins of the cart, and got down from his seat.

  “I think you’re stuck, Mma,” he said to Mma Ramotswe. “This bit of sand is well known for this. Every time anybody comes along here they find that this sand wants them to stay and talk.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Maybe it is lonely, Rra.”

  The man nodded. “That could be, Mma. But maybe it is just thinking that it will remind people that four-wheel-drive trucks are the only way to travel out here—four-wheeled or …,” and here he pointed to the donkeys, which were eyeing Mma Ramotswe lugubriously, “four-legged.”

  Mma Ramotswe accepted the implicit censure graciously. “You’re right, Rra. My husband would agree with you. But my friend over here and I were very anxious to see Mma Potokwane, and we came anyway. Now I have plenty of time to regret it.”

  “We always have plenty of time to regret things,” said the man. “I have been regretting everything for years and years.”

  Mma Makutsi, who had been standing to the side, now came forward and introduced herself. “I am this lady’s assistant … associate. Could you help us, Rra? Soon it will be dark and—”

  “My friend here is worried about lions,” interjected Mma Ramotswe.

  “Lions?” The man chuckled. “There are no lions here, Mma. You ask my donkeys—if they get a smell of a lion, even if the lion is far, far away, they run. No, there are no lions any more—not here. A day’s walk over that way—over towards the Kalahari, yes, you get one or two lions. But not here.”

  “A day or two’s walk for us, or for a lion?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe made light of the question. “It doesn’t matter, Mma. He says there are no lions.”

  “For us,” said the man, turning to Mma Makutsi. “For a lion, two hours, maybe. Lions are very fast runners. Have you seen them running, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. She had never seen a lion doing anything, not ever having come across one, but somehow she felt she knew how they ran.

  “I know how they go,” she said. “They lie down on their stomachs and creep along.”

  The man frowned. “No, that is only when they are stalking their prey, Mma. And that is a lioness. If you are walking through the bush, say, and a lioness sees you and decides that she will eat you, then she goes down like this and she walks on bended legs. That is so that her head doesn’t stick up over the top of the grass. It means that nobody can see her. That is what lions like.” He paused, and gestured to the bush that stretched out behind the van. “Over there, you see, that is a good place for a lioness to creep. Those little bushes would cover her and we wouldn’t know that she was there, while all the time she’s getting closer, closer.”

  He turned back to face Mma Ramotswe. “You said you were here to see Mma Potokwane, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “That is so, Rra. She is our old friend, and she has her lands along there.”

  “O
h, I know that,” said the man. “She is my old friend too. In fact, she is the cousin of my brother’s cousin, by a different mother. I have known her all my life.”

  “Is she here, Rra?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  The man pointed down the track. “Yes, she is here. She came out yesterday. Nobody had been expecting her, but there she was. There is something wrong, I think, but she won’t speak to the other ladies about it. My wife has asked her, and she says that everything is all right. But it isn’t.”

  “No, Rra, you’re right,” Mma Ramotswe. “There is something very wrong. It’s to do with her work.”

  The man absorbed this. “She can come back here. She has good fields. She could stay. She has many relatives out here, and they will look after her.” He turned to look at the van. “But you cannot get to her place in that van, Mma. You will have to leave it here and walk. It is not far to her place now—just half an hour or so along that way.”

  “But we can’t leave the van stuck in the sand,” objected Mma Makutsi. “How will we get back to Gaborone? We cannot walk.”

  “We won’t leave it in the sand,” said the man. “I will help you pull it out, and then we will leave it here. You can collect it when you have finished visiting Mma Potokwane. It will be perfectly safe.”

  Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi looked at the donkeys. One of them, clearly older than the other, grey about the muzzle and the eyes, appeared to be asleep on his feet, his head drooping, indifferent to the flies that buzzed about what looked like an open sore on one of his ears.

  “They are very strong,” said the man, intercepting the glance. “They have pulled bigger vans out of there. You needn’t worry, Mma.”

  “I have some rope,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Under the seat there is some rope that my husband put in there. We could use that, Rra.”

  The man shook his head. “I have my own, Mma. I always carry it because I know that I need it. We can use mine.”

  He walked round to the back of the cart and extracted a length of rope from a box nailed to the boards. Then he detached the yoke from the front of the cart and began to cajole the two donkeys into position in front of the tilting nose of the tiny white van. Mma Ramotswe was impressed by his businesslike manner—this was a man, she decided, who knew what he was doing. “You get in and steer, Mma,” he said to her. “Otherwise the wheels will point in the wrong direction and you’ll go further into the sand. Steer back into the middle of the road.”