The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (13)

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Ramotswe decided to go in search of the matron rather than stay in her office and wait for her to return. She did not like to sit unattended in another’s office—even if invited, explicitly or implicitly. There was always the feeling, she thought, that the person whose office it was would think that you had sneaked a look at the papers on the desk, which was what some inquisitive people did, no matter how hard it was to read upside down. And that notion reminded her of Clovis Andersen, who had written—had he not?—in The Principles of Private Detection, something about learning to read upside down. It came back to her now, from that section of the book that dealt with the skills that a good detective should try to master. “Being able to read in a poor light puts one at a great advantage over those who cannot,” he wrote. “There have been many occasions when I have been able to glean information from a document which would be too poorly lit to be legible to most. And the same ability has seen me safely through a number of tricky, not to say perilous, situations.” And what, she wondered, were those? Now she could ask him, of course, although he would only be able to tell her about them as long as disclosure on his part would not compromise the strict rules of confidentiality that he set out elsewhere in the book.

  Then had come the section on reading upside down. “Now there can be no doubt,” he wrote—and how she loved that phrase, there can be no doubt; how assured it was, how definitive—“Now there can be no doubt but that being able to read upside down is extremely useful and is, in fact, a skill well worth mastering. It enables you to read a document that lies before the person on the other side of the desk from you. They may think that you cannot read it; they may think that they can tell you what is in the document without your being able to verify their version. But they reckon without your ability to read upside down!”

  Indeed they do, thought Mma Ramotswe.

  “And it also enables you,” Clovis Andersen continued, “to read papers lying about on a suspect’s desk. These are usually facing the wrong way, and you cannot necessarily turn them round. Nor will it do to turn your head.”

  Mma Ramotswe had imagined the contortions such a manoeuvre would entail and had decided that it was impossible to angle one’s head and neck in such a way as to be able to read satisfactorily. It could not be done, she decided, unless one were somehow to upend oneself—to do a handstand, so to speak—which would be difficult and self-defeating, as one’s dress would drop down over one’s head and eyes and effectively prevent one from seeing anything, let alone reading. And it would be difficult to explain what was happening if the suspect returned to his office and found a visitor with her legs pointing up to the ceiling. Anything you might say in such circumstances would surely sound somewhat weak. “I was practising my handstands—I hope you don’t mind.” Nobody would believe that, not even the normally gullible. They would suspect that something untoward was happening—and they would be right about that.

  There were few matters on which she disagreed with Clovis Andersen’s advice, but this, perhaps, was one of them. She was not sure that it was ever right to read somebody else’s letters or private papers unless you were certain that it was the only way of averting some very serious consequence. Or … and there were other exceptions. Errant husbands, for instance, could hardly complain if a wife, or somebody acting for the wife, read the letters they might write to their mistresses. That was because a wife has a right to read her husband’s letters, in Mma Ramotswe’s view, because he agreed to that in the marriage ceremony; not that those exact words were used, but they were surely implied. Perhaps it might be better to spell it out in the wedding service, where it might be put tactfully, along with the general promise to share. I promise to share all my worldly goods—including letters, parcels, and other items of correspondence, opened or unopened. Perhaps that sounded a bit too formal, but no doubt there were ways of saying the same thing in a warmer, more romantic way.

  No, she would not wait in Mma Potokwane’s office but would go in search of her. As she stepped off the verandah into the hot sun, she saw one of the house-mothers standing at the door of one of the small buildings that served as home for eight or so children. These were busy women, who cooked and cleaned all day, and made a home that each child could regard as his or her own. They were not necessarily educated women, but that was not the point; what they had was far more valuable than any formal education, and that thing was love, vast wells of it, enough for ten children, for twenty if need be.

  This house-mother, who knew Mma Ramotswe well—having come from Mochudi—greeted her warmly as she approached.

  “I am not just standing here,” she said to Mma Ramotswe after the traditional greetings had been exchanged. “Don’t think that I’m being lazy. I’m thinking about what I have to do next.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I would never think you lazy, Mma,” she said. “I know how hard you work.”

  The house-mother sighed. “Our work is never done, Mma, but there we are. That is just one of the things that God has said must be. He said: mothers must work hard. That is a firm rule.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “But he also wants mothers to have a bit of a rest sometimes. That is why he said: men must not be lazy, and must help ladies.”

  The house-mother grinned. “Were men listening when the Lord said that?”

  “I think that some were,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But others did not hear too well.”

  That led to further mirth. Then Mma Ramotswe asked if the house-mother had seen Mma Potokwane. “She has gone over to her house, Mma,” came the reply. And then, after a short pause, “She is not happy, I think.”

  Mma Ramotswe frowned. That was very unlike Mma Potokwane, who had a reputation for a certain breeziness and optimism. “Not happy? Are you sure, Mma?”

  The woman nodded. “I spoke to her about my fridge and told her that it was not working very well. I told her that some of the meat I had for the children had turned bad, and that this was a waste. You should not waste good meat, Mma.”

  “And?” pressed Mma Ramotswe.

  “And she said something that was really nothing. You know how it is when a person says something but it is really nothing very much at all?”

  “I do, Mma. But, tell me, why should Mma Potokwane be unhappy?”

  The house-mother said that she did not know. She agreed that it was unusual; perhaps she was not feeling well—there had been a few cases of flu recently, and when you had flu you did not feel inclined to be cheerful.

  “No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is hard to smile when your head is splitting.”

  The house-mother nodded. “She was like a balloon with all the air taken out of it,” she said. “You know how that looks, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe did. She exchanged a few more comments with the house-mother, and then took her leave. Mma Potokwane’s house was at the far end of the orphan-farm grounds, beyond the vegetable patches that the children worked, beyond the scrap of ground that the smaller boys used as their soccer pitch: a square of dusty, baked earth devoid of so much as a blade of grass, but the scene of many a tiny sporting triumph, a ball sent shooting past the goalkeeper, a clever pass—things that were in their transience quickly forgotten but for a short time meant so much in a young life that had not known much triumph or even, until now, much love.

  SHE STOOD AT the door of the Potokwane house and called out Ko, ko! Inside, somewhere within the cool interior of the house, the voice of Radio Botswana broke the silence: a discussion about a new power station and the problems of building it. Was that the sort of thing that Mma Potokwane listened to, or was she dozing somewhere, catching up on lost sleep, having left the radio on? Discussion of power stations could easily send people off to sleep, although some people—mostly men, she imagined—might be woken up by such things.

  She repeated the traditional request for admission. “Ko, ko, Mma! Ko, ko!”

  There was no reply. “We must be careful that we have enough power in future,” intoned a voice on the radio. �
�We cannot always buy our power from our neighbours, who have a shortage themselves. What is it they said? Enough’s enough: no more power for you, Botswana, or you, Swaziland. You go and buy candles.”

  Mma Ramotswe was not interested in that. She was thinking of what the house-mother had said: She was like a balloon with all the air taken out of it. She felt a tinge of alarm. Sometimes people had a stroke without realising what had happened, and then they became confused and could fail to reply when somebody came to their door and called Ko, ko! Could Mma Potokwane be lying unconscious, in the kitchen perhaps, or on the cold floor of the bathroom? Her husband was often away for days, she had said: he had cattle somewhere. If that were so, then it might be a long time before anybody thought to look for her, and by then it could be too late. A floor was no place to lie for very long, even in warm weather.

  She pushed the door fully open and entered the house, calling out Mma Potokwane’s name as she did so. Her voice seemed so loud; even louder than the voice of the engineer who was expressing a view on coal-fired power stations on Radio Botswana. “These stations are much better than they used to be,” he said. “Like so many things.”

  Like so many things, thought Mma Ramotswe. Like medicines, like supplies of vegetables in the supermarkets, like electric fans, like the road to Lobatse, like … She entered the sitting room, and there, on the couch before her, was Mma Potokwane, sitting as motionless as a figure in a painting or a photograph—clearly not dead, but not herself. Like a balloon that has had the air taken out of it. Yes, just like that.

  Mma Potokwane’s eyes registered the arrival of Mma Ramotswe and she moved slightly, as if beginning to get up to welcome her but then thinking better of it.

  “Mma, are you all right? You didn’t answer. I called out and …”

  Mma Potokwane raised a hand to point to a chair. “You should sit down, Mma. Yes, I am all right, but not all right really. I’ll tell you. You sit down.”

  Mma Ramotswe did as she was bade. “But you do not look very well, Mma. Are you sure you’re not ill?”

  Mma Potokwane shook her head. “I’m not ill,” she said. “No, that is not the problem.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue, and she did.

  “I am shocked, Mma; that is all. I shall be better soon, I think, but now I am shocked.”

  “You’ve had bad news?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “I have had bad news. Not bad news that somebody has become late—not that sort of bad news. No, the bad news is that I have been dismissed. As from the end of this month. Dismissed.”

  It took Mma Ramotswe some time to absorb this. You did not dismiss Mma Potokwane. You did not tell her that she was no longer going to be the matron of the orphan farm. You did not do it because it was simply inconceivable. You did not dismiss the sun from the sky. You did not tell the Limpopo River to flow the other way. You did not say to the great Kalahari that it was not wanted; that its winds, its dry, desert winds should blow somewhere else, in another quarter, beneath another sky. You did not do that because it was against the order of things. And it was quite against the order of things that Mma Silvia Potokwane, matron, matriarch, scourge of businessmen slow to open their wallets for charity, defender of children, citizen of Botswana, should be dismissed from her position like some young and incompetent girl. You did not do that. Nobody did that. It was impossible.

  “Has this thing really happened?” Mma Ramotswe stuttered.

  Mma Potokwane nodded. No words were needed; just a nod was sufficient to signify the end of an era, the end of a world.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AN INNOCENT MAN, A FIRST OFFENDER

  IT WOULD HAVE been bad enough if that was all that had happened that day, but there was something else. Later, when Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi would survey their list of days—happily few in number—when things appeared to go seriously wrong, then this day would seem egregious.

  It was while Mma Ramotswe was on her visit to the orphan farm that Mma Makutsi heard raised voices outside the office. This was not altogether unusual: the apprentices sometimes engaged in rowdy banter with one another—so much so that she had occasionally gone into the garage or the yard to ask them to bear in mind that there were at least some people in the vicinity who needed to concentrate on their work, and that was very difficult, was it not, if there were other people who insisted on shouting at the top of their voices about some matter of no interest to anybody else, namely, which girls were particularly friendly towards boys and which were not, or the prospects of the Zebras in the forthcoming football finals, or semi-finals, or whatever they were.

  This time, though, it was a bit different. She recognised the voices of the apprentices but there was another voice too, a deeper, more mature voice, and a woman’s voice behind that. And was that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni joining the fray, saying something about somebody making a big mistake? He at least talked calmly, unlike the others, who seemed to be becoming increasingly shrill in expressing their view about whatever it was that lay behind the argument; for it was now clear that it was an argument, and not just a disagreement about some unimportant matter of girls or soccer.

  Mma Makutsi put down the document she was reading and went into the small courtyard that separated the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency from the premises of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. She stood in the doorway, quite still, in shock as she realised that the two strangers involved in the row, a man and a woman, were both police officers. As she appeared, everybody turned to look at her, and it was then that she saw the handcuffs that had been placed on Fanwell’s wrists.

  Mma Makutsi gasped. “What is this? What’s happening?”

  Charlie pointed at the police officers. “They have arrested Fanwell,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “This is a very bad mistake.”

  The male police officer, the older of the two, gave him a glance. “We have a warrant,” he said patiently. “It’s perfectly in order. All signed. Official. We’re arresting him for handling stolen goods.”

  Mma Makutsi shrieked, “No, no. You cannot do that. That is Fanwell. He is a very honest young man. He is not a thief, Rra!” She looked pleadingly at the policewoman. “Mma, you cannot let this big mistake happen. You cannot take this young man.” She moved forward to plead with the police officers. “Listen, Rra. Listen, Mma. I am a detective and I can tell you: this young man would never do anything like that. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. I am a detective. I’m telling you, this is not right.”

  The policeman looked at her doubtfully. “You’re a detective, Mma? CID? Which office—Gaborone? Where is your card?”

  “I’m not that sort of detective,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’m a private detective. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.”

  The policewoman smiled. “Sorry, my sister, but you should keep quiet. This is proper police business. This is not play detectives.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at Fanwell. “What is all this, Fanwell? Do you know what these people are saying?”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni answered the question. “They say that he was repairing a stolen car for resale. Some friend of his had it. That is what they’re saying.”

  “I didn’t know it was stolen, Mma,” said Fanwell, his voice shaking with fear. “I just did it as a favour for Chobie. He’s a friend of mine. I did not know it was stolen.”

  “That friend,” muttered Charlie, and spat, “I’m going to get him.”

  The policeman threw Charlie a warning glance. “Look, we can’t stand here forever,” he said. “If this young man has a story, then he can make a statement at the charge office. Then he can go in front of the magistrate, who will look at that statement and decide whether it is true or whether it is all lies. I’m sorry to say this, but sometimes people tell lies, and this young man may well be doing that.”

  “You cannot say that, Rra,” protested Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Surely he is still innocent until the magistrate has decided that he is guilty. This is Botswana, you kn
ow.”

  The policeman turned to face Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Out of deference to the mechanic’s dignity and bearing, he did not speak roughly, but there was nonetheless an edge to his voice. “Yes,” he said, “you’re right, Rra. This is Botswana. And in Botswana we do not take kindly to young men who take other people’s cars and then sell them to unsuspecting members of the public. We do not like that either.”

  “What are you going to do with him?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “He will stay in the cells,” said the policewoman. “He’ll be all right there. He’ll get a blanket at night. You needn’t worry about him, Mma. I’ll see that he’s all right.”

  The policeman now took Fanwell by the arm and began to lead him away.

  The young man stumbled, but was kept on his feet by the policeman. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Did you hear that?” exploded Charlie. “Did you hear what he said?”

  “Calm down,” said the policeman. “It doesn’t help if people shout.”

  “Just keep quiet, Charlie.” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni put a restraining hand on the young man. “We’ll speak to a lawyer.”

  Charlie shook his head. “These people …”