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

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Ramotswe watched the lawyer, who hesitated momentarily. She realised that he had no idea, but she did not want to spoil his moment of victory. This, she thought, was probably the first case he had won for a long time—if ever.

  “You just thank your lawyer,” she said to Fanwell. “The important thing is that he has won your case for you. That is what counts.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, reaching out to shake the lawyer’s hand. “Well done, Rra.”

  The lawyer beamed. “Thank you, Rra. These cases can be difficult, but I am very glad that this young man can return to his work without a spot on his reputation.”

  They made their way to the vehicles. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Charlie, and Fanwell drove back in the truck, followed by Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi in the tiny white van. It was a small procession, but no great march, no Roman triumph could have matched it for sheer joy, or relief.

  Once back at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, they tried to get back to work, but it was hard, and eventually Mma Ramotswe simply brought forward the tea-break so that they could all calm down and get back to normal.

  “One thing I cannot work out,” she said, looking at Charlie, “is why Chobie suddenly changed his story. Why would he decide to take the blame?”

  “Because he did it,” blurted out Mma Makutsi. “He said he was guilty, and he was.”

  “But he had been planning to try to shift everything on to Fanwell,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And then it all changed.”

  Mma Ramotswe was still staring at Charlie. “I wonder whether he was frightened of something,” she mused. “What do you think, Charlie?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  She watched him. There was the slightest hint of a smile playing about his lips. Of course he knew. Of course he did.

  “I think that he might have been frightened of you, Charlie. I don’t know why I think that, but I think that’s what happened.”

  Charlie was now clearly struggling not to laugh.

  “It’s not funny, Charlie,” reprimanded Mma Makutsi.

  Suddenly Charlie put down his mug of tea and pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of his overalls. Now smiling broadly, he passed the paper to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “What’s this, Charlie?”

  “It’s a newspaper cutting, Rra. Or rather it’s a piece of paper that I had somebody make up as a newspaper cutting. You know that printing place at Riverwalk? I have a friend there who can print anything from his computer. Driving licence? No problem. Birth certificate? No problem too. And in this case, an article from a newspaper over in Johannesburg.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who used reading glasses, took these out of his pocket and unfolded the piece of paper and read out loud. “ ‘Police search for dangerous hit-woman. The public is warned that the convicted murderess, Bella Dlamini, is on the loose and may be looking for further contracts. This woman is dangerous and has been known to carry out contract killings for as little as one thousand rand.’ ” He looked up from the paper. “What is all this, Charlie?” He looked down again. “And this …” He stopped, and held up the paper. “My goodness, this Bella Dlamini looks exactly like you, Mma Ramotswe.”

  Charlie let out a hoot of laughter. “But it is Mma Ramotswe. It’s her photograph.”

  “Why have you made that rubbish?” asked Mma Makutsi. “This is not funny, Charlie.”

  Mma Ramotswe, though, was looking at Charlie through narrowed eyes. “Charlie,” she said. “Did you show that to Chobie?”

  He beamed with self-satisfaction. “Yes. Two days ago. I found him and I showed it to him.”

  “And?”

  “And I told him …” Charlie looked about him, as if for support. They were all staring at him intently. “I told him that we had arranged something. If he didn’t tell the truth in court, then …” He pointed to the cutting. “Then he would be seeing this lady.”

  There was complete silence.

  “And she was there in court,” Charlie continued. “So he decided to tell the truth after all. And who wouldn’t?”

  SHE TOOK CHARLIE OUTSIDE.

  “Come for a little walk with me, Charlie.”

  “I don’t see what the fuss is about, Mma Ramotswe.”

  “Just come with me, Charlie, so we can talk.”

  He went reluctantly, dragging his heels in the sand like a surly schoolboy. Mma Ramotswe took his arm. She would not be cross with him; she knew that this never worked with Charlie. You had to try to reason with Charlie; you had to be gentle.

  “You do know how serious it is?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “How serious it is to threaten a witness. Especially to threaten to have them killed.”

  He said nothing.

  “You could go to jail if the police found out. You know that, don’t you?”

  Charlie defended himself. “He wasn’t a witness, Mma. He was the one who did it. I just told him to tell the truth.”

  She increased the pressure on his arm. “You threatened him, Charlie. And you brought me into it. You made him think I was that lady, that …”

  “Bella Dlamini,” he prompted. “It’s a good name, isn’t it, Mma Ramotswe?”

  “Charlie, you have to take this seriously. You have done a very bad thing.”

  “With a good result.”

  She had to admit that this was the case. Truth, it seemed, had triumphed—by means of a lie.

  “Yes,” she said carefully. “It may be a good result, but never forget, Charlie, that you should not try to get good results by doing bad things.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” She looked up at the sky. She was not sure how she could explain it to this young man, and then she decided that she could not. Not just yet.

  “Because it’s not right, Charlie. Sometimes we have to see bad things happen because we can’t do another bad thing to stop them. Do you see that?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I’m very pleased that Fanwell is back with us, of course.”

  “So am I. He is like a brother to me, Mma.”

  “I know, Charlie.”

  “And you have to help your brother, Mma.”

  “I understand that, Charlie, but … but be careful what you do.”

  Charlie looked at his watch. “We should get back to work, Mma.”

  She nodded. “All right, Charlie, let’s get back to work.”

  They retraced their steps, as friends now, or at least as those who have established an understanding, even if the understanding is about just what one of them understands and the other does not.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  YOU ARE A VISITOR TO OUR COUNTRY

  WITH THE REMOVAL of the threat hanging over Fanwell, Mma Ramotswe found herself with more energy to help Mma Potokwane. Clovis Andersen had at least given a lead in suggesting that the contract for the building of the new hall should be investigated, and she felt that this could now be tackled. The great authority had offered to accompany her to Mma Potokwane’s office to see what could be uncovered, and now they were approaching the gates and the large, shady tree under which Mma Ramotswe habitually parked her van on these visits.

  “This is a very fine place,” commented Clovis Andersen, looking about him as the van came to a halt. “We had an orphanage in Muncie, Indiana, back when I was a boy.”

  “Your place in America, Rra?”

  “Yes. Muncie. The orphans’ home was a place made of a curious yellow brick and its windows were painted red round the edges. It’s odd how you remember these little details years later.”

  “We all do that,” said Mma Ramotswe. I remember, she thought.

  I remember my late daddy, and how he took me on his shoulders and we walked along the road outside our house and I was proud, so proud that I thought my heart would burst.

  “The boys and girls from the orphanage went to school—same as
us. We had three or four in my class. There was a boy called Lance. He had freckles and ginger hair. I remember asking him what had happened to his parents, and he told me that they had been Arctic explorers and had drifted off on an ice floe. He said that there had been an article about them in the National Geographic. He said that he used to have the issue the article was in, but another boy in the orphanage had stolen it.”

  They were standing outside the van now; standing in the morning sun, which was gentle on them. It seemed to Mma Ramotswe that they were in no particular hurry and that they could talk, if that was what Clovis Andersen wanted. “That is very sad, Rra,” she said. “That is stealing that boy’s past.”

  He smiled at the memory. “Of course it wasn’t true. A couple of years later I was told by some other kid that his parents had committed suicide together and that the story of the ice floe was all invention. I asked my own parents about that. They never lied to me, and so they had to admit that it was true: the suicide had taken place in the dry-goods store that the boy’s parents used to run. The father had shot his wife and then himself.”

  Mma Ramotswe gasped. “And left that little boy …”

  “Yes. But they probably weren’t thinking straight, poor people. They were in debt, I imagine—a lot of those small storekeepers got into terrible debt.”

  “And the boy?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “What happened to the boy?”

  “He went to college in Bloomington. As I did. He was a great football player. He taught high school, I think. Things went well for him.”

  “I am pleased to hear that ending,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It would have been a very sad story otherwise.”

  “There are plenty of sad stories, Mma Ramotswe.”

  “Of course there are.” She pointed to the scattered cottages in which the children lived with their house-mothers. “Every one of those houses has sad stories in it.”

  “I guess that’s right,” said Clovis Andersen.

  “But Mma Potokwane tries to write a happy ending for them,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “That is what she does.”

  She held Clovis Andersen’s gaze as she said this, and he knew immediately what she meant: this was not an idle enquiry they were about to embark upon—there was a great deal at stake here.

  “I think we should go in,” he said softly. “Is that the office over there?”

  “Yes. That is where she works.”

  Mma Potokwane was briefly out of her office, her secretary explained, but she would be back soon; one of the house-mothers had sprained an ankle and she was attending to that. In the meantime they were welcome to sit down in the office, where it was cool.

  They had talked in the van earlier about what they should do, and now Mma Ramotswe tackled the secretary. “Are you the secretary, Mma, to the board as well as to Mma Potokwane?”

  The secretary nodded. “I do both, Mma. When the board has its meetings I am always there to bring papers and do things like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked about the room, at the array of filing cabinets. “You keep the board papers here, Mma?”

  The secretary confirmed that this was the case.

  “So that means you have the tenders for the new hall?”

  The secretary glanced in the direction of one of the filing cabinets. “They are all there,” she said.

  “Could you show me something, Mma?”

  The reply came quickly. “Certainly not, Mma. The board’s papers are confidential. They have that typed on the top of them. I cannot show them even to you, Mma Ramotswe. It would be improper.”

  “Of course it would be,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “It would be improper. But it’s a pity, really.”

  The secretary looked at her suspiciously. “Why, Mma?”

  “I take it that you are fond of Mma Potokwane, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “Of course I am, Mma. She is the best matron this place has ever had. She is the best boss I am ever likely to get.”

  “So you’ll miss her?”

  “Of course I’ll miss her, Mma.”

  “And I can imagine how the children will miss her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Oh, they’ll be so sad, those children. First they lose their parents, and then they lose Mma Potokwane. They will be very sad, I think.”

  “Yes, they will be.”

  “And there will be a lot of crying.”

  The secretary lowered her gaze. “We shall all cry, Mma. All of us.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited a moment or two. Clovis Andersen, who felt as if he were an intruder into a private family moment, studied his hands.

  “Then I take it that you would be very pleased to have her dismissal set aside?”

  The secretary’s reply was vehement. “I would do anything to make that happen, Mma.”

  “Anything?” probed Mma Ramotswe.

  “Yes, anything at all.”

  Mma Ramotswe glanced at Clovis Andersen before she next spoke. “Then please show us the tender documents that the board received for the new hall,” she said.

  The secretary hesitated. “They are confidential,” she said.

  “Then we can do nothing for Mma Potokwane.”

  “However, if it is in the interests of the children,” went on the secretary, “then I shall overlook the confidentiality issue.”

  She rose from her chair and unlocked one of the filing cabinets. Thereafter it took a few minutes before she found what she was looking for: a brown manila file on which Hall had been inscribed in thick black lettering. She turned to face Mma Ramotswe.

  “This has the quotes received from the builders,” she said. “And it also has the report that went back from the tender committee to the main board.”

  Mma Ramotswe was intrigued. “The tender committee?”

  The secretary explained. “That was the committee that decided who should get the job of building the hall.”

  “And who was on that?”

  “Only two people, I think,” came the reply. “Mr. Ditso Ditso—you know him, Mma?—and that lady from the Ministry, I am always forgetting her name. But she never went to the meetings, I believe. She is a very lazy woman—everybody knows that.”

  “So the meetings of the tender committee just consisted of Mr. Ditso Ditso?”

  “Yes. And he said something to me about it once. He joked that it was very pleasant being on a committee where nobody disagreed with you because there were no other members. He said he wished all committees were like that.”

  Clovis Andersen now intervened. “I’ll bet he does!” he said.

  The secretary handed the file to Mma Ramotswe, who put it on the table in front of her and began to look through the documents it contained. “Here,” she said, passing four stapled pages to Clovis Andersen. “Those are the estimates from the builders.”

  Clovis Andersen looked at the papers. “They aren’t too far apart,” he said. “It means that the builders wanted this job. If you get one that’s much higher, then it usually means that the builder who put it in didn’t really want the job but would take it if his excessive price got it.”

  “And here’s Mr. Ditso’s letter of recommendation to the board saying that the job should be awarded to …” She looked up. “Kalahari Forward Construction.”

  Clovis Andersen consulted the papers in front of him and frowned. “They’re not on the tender list,” he said.

  “That is the firm,” said the secretary. “They are the ones who are going to do the job. You will find a copy of the letter of appointment from the board in there.” She gestured to the file. “I copied it myself. It is all in order.”

  “All in order, not in order,” muttered Clovis Andersen. “Can you find that one, Mma Ramotswe?”

  Mma Ramotswe paged through the remaining papers in the file. “Here,” she said. “This is the one.” She examined it more closely. “It is an agreement to build the hall and kitchen for three million and six hundred thousand pula.”

  “That’s right,” said the secretary. “That is a lot of
money, Mma.”

  Clovis Andersen took the letter from Mma Ramotswe and read through it quickly. “Interesting,” he said at last. “The highest tender from the list was just over two million.”

  “So the contract was not awarded to the lowest bid,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “No,” said Clovis Andersen. “Of course that sometimes happens. There may be some reason why a more expensive contractor is preferred. For example, he may do better quality work. Or … or he may be a relative.” His tone became more ominous. “Or the contractor may be paying a kickback to the person awarding the contract. There are many possible reasons.”

  The secretary drew in her breath. “That is very bad,” she hissed. “I did not know anything about it, Mma Ramotswe.”

  Mma Ramotswe reassured her. “Of course you didn’t, Mma. Nobody is blaming you.”

  The secretary looked satisfied. “I know about those people,” she said. “They came round to look at the site.”

  “Kalahari Forward Construction?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “They came here?”

  “Yes, they came here, Mma. Their boss came. My brother knows who he is. He used to drive a taxi for him when he was in the taxi business. Then he became a builder and did quite well. My brother did not like him.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked interested. “And what was this man’s name, Mma? Do you remember?”

  “He is called Sephotho,” said the secretary. “He is a tall man who has lost a finger on his left hand. It looks like this.” She held up a hand with one digit tucked back.

  Mma Ramotswe felt her heart pound within her. “Sephotho?” she said. “And has he got a sister, this man?”

  “Yes. My brother says she is not a very nice woman …”

  “Called Violet?”

  “I think so,” said the secretary. “Violet, or Rose. Something like that. He said that she should really have a name like Thorn or Cabbage.”

  Mma Ramotswe shuffled the papers back into the file and handed it to the secretary. “I think we are going to go and look for Mma Potokwane,” she said, indicating to Clovis Andersen that he should follow her. “We have some very interesting news to give her.”