Alexander McCall Smith - No 1 LDA 3 - Morality for Beautiful Girls

by Morality for Beautiful Girls(lit)

  "I asked him whether he had seen a doctor and he said that it was not serious enough for that. He would get better soon, he thought, even if he felt very ill at that point. I then went and spoke to my mother, who was sitting by herself on the verandah.

  "She beckoned me to sit beside her and, having checked to see that there was nobody else about, she told me what was on her mind.

  '"That new wife is trying to poison your brother,' she said. 'I saw her go into the kitchen before his meal was served. I saw

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  her. I told him not to finish his meat as I thought it was rottt If I hadn't told him that, he would have eaten the whole he: ing and would have died. She's trying to poison him.'

  "I asked her why she would do this. 'If she has just married a nice rich husband,' I said, 'why should she want to get rid of 'I him so quickly?'

  "My mother laughed. 'Because she'll be much richer as a widow than as a wife," she said. 'If he dies before she has children, then he has made a will which gives everything to her.l The farm, this house, everything. And once she has that, then she can throw us out and all the aunts. But first she has to kill; him.'

  "I thought at first that this was ridiculous, but the more I pondered it, the more I realised that it provided a very clear; motive for this new wife and that it could well be true. I could not talk to my brother about it, as he refuses to hear anything said against his wife, and so I thought that I had better get j somebody from outside the family to look into this matter and see what was happening."

  Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to interrupt him. "There's the police, Rra. This sounds like something for the police. They are used to dealing with poisoners and people like that. We are not that sort of detective. We help people with the problems in their lives. We are not here to solve crimes."

  As Mma Ramotswe spoke, she noticed Mma Makutsi look crestfallen. She knew that her assistant had a different vision of their role; that was the difference, thought Mma Ramotswe between being almost forty and being twenty-eight. At almost forty--or even forty, if one were fussy about dates--one was not on the lookout for excitement; at twenty-eight, if any

  itement was to be had, then one wanted to have it. Mma Ramotswe understood, of course. When she had married Note Vlokoti, she had yearned for all the glamour that went with being the wife of a well-known musician, a man who turned the heads of all when he entered a room, a man whose very voice seemed redolent of the thrilling notes of jazz that he coaxed out of his shining Selmer trumpet. When the marriage ended, after a pitifully short time, with its only memorial being that minute, sad stone that marked the short life of their premature baby, she had yearned for a life of stability and order. Certainly, excitement was not what she sought, and, indeed Clovis Andersen, author of her professional bible, The Principles of Private Detection, had clearly warned, on page two if not on page one itself, that those who became private detectives to find a more exciting life were gravely mistaken as to the nature of the work. Our job, he wrote, in a paragraph which had stuck in Mma Ramotswe's mind and which she had quoted in its entirety to Mma Makutsi when she had first engaged her, is to help people in need to resolve the unresolved questions in their lives. There is very little drama in our calling; rather a process of patient observation, deduction, and analysis. We are sophisticated watchmen, watching and reporting; there is nothing romantic in our job and those who are looking for romance should lay down this manual at this point and do something else.

  Mma Makutsi's eyes had glazed over when Mma Ramotswe had quoted this to her. It was obvious, then, that she thought of the job in a very different way. Now, with no less a person than the Government Man sitting before them talking about family intrigue and possible poisonings, she felt that at last here was an investigation which could allow them to get their

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  teeth into something worthwhile. And, just as this arose, Mrna" Ramotswe seemed intent on putting off the client!

  The Government Man stared at Mma Ramotswe. Her inter-1 vention had annoyed him, and it seemed that he was makingl an effort to control his displeasure. Mma Makutsi noticed that! the top of his lip quivered slightly as he listened.

  "I cannot go to the police," he said, struggling to keep hi$ voice normal. "What could I say to the police? The police would ask for some proof, even from me. They would say that they could hardly go into that house and arrest a wife who would say that she had done nothing, with the husband there, too, saying TJiis woman has not done anything. What are you talking about?" He stopped and looked at Mma Ramotswe as if he had! made out his case.

  "Well?" he said abruptly. "If I cannot go to the police, then it| becomes the job of a private detective. That's what you people'' are for, isn't it? Well, Mma?" i

  Mma Ramotswe returned his gaze, which in itself was a gesture. In traditional society, she should not have looked so hard into the eyes of a man of his rank. That would have been very rude. But times had changed, and she was a citizen of the modern Republic of Botswana, where there was a constitution which guaranteed the dignity of all citizens, lady private detectives among them. That constitution had been upheld from the very day in 1966 when the Union Jack had been taken down in the stadium and that wonderful blue flag had been raised to the ululating of the crowd. It was a record which no other country in Africa, not one, could match. And she was, after all, Precious Ramotswe, daughter of the late Obed Ramotswe, a man whose dignity and worth was the equal of any man, whether he was from a chiefly family or not. He had

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  been able to look into the eye of anyone, right to the day of his

  death, and she should be able to do so too.

  "It is for me to decide whether I take a case, Rra," she said.

  "I cannot help everybody. I try to help people as much as I can,

  but if I cannot do a thing, then I say that I am sorry but I cannot help that person. That is how we work in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. In your case, I just do not see how we could find out what we need to find out. This is a problem inside a family. I do not see how a stranger could find out anything

  about it."

  The Government Man was silent. He glanced at Mma

  Makutsi, but she dropped her eyes.

  "I see," he said after a few moments. "I think you do not want to help me, Mma. Well now, that is very sad for me." He paused. "Do you have a licence for this business, Mma?"

  Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. "A licence? Is there a law which requires a licence to be a private detective?"

  The Government Man smiled, but his eyes were cold. "Probably not. I haven't checked. But there could be. Regulation, you know. We have to regulate business. That's why we have things like hawkers' licences or general dealers' licences, which we can take away from people who are not suitable to be hawkers or general dealers. You know how that works."

  It was Obed Ramotswe who answered; Obed Ramotswe through the lips of his daughter, his Precious.

  "I cannot hear what you are saying, Rra. I cannot hear it." Mma Makutsi suddenly noisily shuffled the papers on her

  desk.

  "Of course, you're right, Mma," she said. "You could not simply go up to that woman and ask her whether she was planning to kill her husband. That would not work."

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  "No," said Mma Ramotswe. "That is why we cannot do any thing here." '|

  "On the other hand," said Mma Makutsi quickly. "I have at; idea. I think I know how this might be done."

  The Government Man twisted round to face Mma Makutsi; "What is your idea, Mma?"

  Mma Makutsi swallowed. Her large glasses seemed to shine* with brightness at the force of the idea.

  "Well," she began. "It is important to get into the house
and listen to what those people are talking about. It is important to watch that woman who is planning to do these wicked things. It is important to look into her heart." ;.

  "Yes," said the Government Man. "That is what I want you, people to do. You look into that heart and find the evil. Then, you shine a torch on the evil and say to my brother: See! See;' this bad heart in your wife. See how she is plotting, plotting all, the time!"

  "It wouldn't be that simple," said Mma Ramotswe. "Life is ; not that simple. It just isn't."

  "Please, Mma," said the Government Man. "Let us listen to I

  this clever woman in glasses. She has some very good ideas." I

  Mma Makutsi adjusted her glasses and continued. "There ]

  are servants in the house, aren't there?"

  "Five," said the Government Man. "Then there are servants for outside. There are men who look after the cattle. And there are the old servants of my father. They cannot work anymore, i but they sit in the sun outside the house and my father feeds them well. They are very fat."

  "So you see," said Mma Makutsi. "An inside servant sees everything. A maid sees into the bed of the husband and wife, does she not? A cook sees into their stomachs. Servants are

  Iwavs there, watching, watching. They will talk to another servant. Servants know everything."

  "So you will go and talk to the servants?" asked the Government Man. "But will they talk to you? They will be worried about their jobs. They will just be quiet and say that there is nothing happening."

  "But Mma Ramotswe knows how to talk to people," countered Mma Makutsi. "People talk to her. I have seen it. Can you not get her to stay in your father's house for a few days? Can you not arrange that?"

  "Of course I can," said the Government Man. "I can tell my parents that there is a woman who has done me a political favour. She needs to be away from Gaborone for a few days because of some troubles here. They will take her."

  Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi. It was not her assistant's place to make suggestions of this sort, particularly when their effect would be to railroad her into taking a case which she did not wish to take. She would have to speak to Mma Makutsi about this, but she did not wish to embarrass her in front of this man with his autocratic ways and his pride. She would accept the case, not because his thinly veiled threat had worked--that she had clearly stood up to by saying that she could not hear him--but because she had been presented with a way of finding out what needed to be found out.

  "Very well," she said. "We will take this on, Rra. Not because or anything you have said to me, particularly those things that ' did not hear." She paused, allowing the effect of her words to be felt. "But I will decide what to do once I am there. You must not interfere."

  The Government Man nodded enthusiastically. "That is hie, Mma. I am very happy with that. And I am sorry that I

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  said things which I should not have said. You must know that my brother is very important to me. I would not have said anything if it had not been for my fears for my brother. That is all."

  Mma Ramotswe looked at him. He did love his brother. It could not be easy to see him married to a woman whom he mistrusted so strongly. "I have already forgotten what was said, Rra," she said. "You need not worry."

  The Government Man rose to his feet. "Will you start tomorrow?" he said. "I shall make the arrangements."

  "No," said Mma Ramotswe. "I will start in a few days' time. I have much to do here in Gaborone. But do not worry, if there is anything that can be done for your poor brother, I shall do it. Once we take on a case, we do not treat it lightly. I promise you that."

  The Government Man reached across the desk and took her hand in his. "You are a very kind woman, Mma. What they say about you is true. Every word."

  He turned to Mma Makutsi. "And you, Mma. You are a clever lady. If you ever decide that you are tired of being a private detective, come and work for the Government. The Government needs women like you. Most of the women we have working in Government are no good. They sit and paint their nails. I have seen them. You would work hard, I think."

  Mma Ramotswe was about to say something, but the Government Man was already on his way out. From the window, they saw his driver open the car door smartly and slam it shut behind him.

  "If I did go to work for the Government," said Mma Makutsi, adding quickly, "and I'm not going to do that, of course. But I wonder how long it would be before I had a car like that, and a driver."

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. "Don't believe everything he says," she said. "Men like that can make all sorts of promises. And he is a very stupid man. Very proud too."

  "But he was telling the truth about the brother's wife?" asked Mma Makutsi anxiously.

  "Probably," said Mma Ramotswe. "I don't think he made that up. But remember what Clovis Andersen says. Every story has two sides. So far, we've only heard one. The stupid side."

  LIFE WAS becoming complicated, thought Mma Ramotswe. She had just agreed to take on a case which could prove far from simple, and which would take her away from Gaborone. That in itself was problematic enough, but the whole situation became much more difficult when one thought about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And then there was the question of the children; now that they had settled into her house at Zebra Drive she would have to establish some sort of routine for them. Rose, her maid, was a great help in that respect, but she could not shoulder the whole burden herself.

  The list she had begun to compose earlier that morning had been headed by the task of preparing the office for a move. Now she thought that she should promote the issue of the garage to the top of the list and put the office second. Then she could fit the children in below that: she wrote school in capital letters and a telephone number beneath that. This was followed by get man to fix fridge. take rose's son to the doctor for his asthma, and finally she wrote: do something

  ABOUT BAD WIFE.

  "Mma Makutsi," she said. "I think that I am going to take

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  you over to the garage. We cannot let Mr J.L.B. Matekonl down, even if he is behaving strangely. You must start yoiy duties as Acting Manager right now. I will take you in the van.1 Mma Makutsi nodded. "I am ready, Mma," she said. "I art ready to manage."

  S I X

  CHAPTER

  UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

  LOKWENG ROAD Speedy Motors stood a short distance off the road, half a mile beyond the two big stores that had been built at the edge of the district known as the Village. It was in a cluster of three buildings: a general dealer's shop that stocked everything from cheap clothing to paraffin and golden syrup, and a builder's yard which dealt in timber and sheets of corrugated iron for roofs. The garage was at the eastern end, with several thorn trees around it and an old petrol pump to the front. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had been promised a more modern pump, but the petrol company was not keen for him to sell petrol in competition with their more modern outlets and they conveniently forgot this promise. They continued to deliver petrol, as they were contractually bound to do, but they did it without enthusiasm and tended to forget when they had agreed to come. As a result, the fuel storage tanks were frequently empty.

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  None of that mattered very much. Clients came to TlokJ weng Road Speedy Motors because they wanted their cars tol be fixed by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni rather than to buy petrol. They were people who understood the difference between a good mechanic and one who merely fixed cars. A good mechanic! understood cars; he could diagnose a problem just by listenings to an engine running, in much the same way as an experienced! doctor may see what is wrong just by looking at the patient.

  "Engines talk to you," he explained to his apprentices. "Listen to them. They are telling you what is wrong with them, if
only you listen."

  Of course, the apprentices did not understand what he" meant. They had an entirely different view of machinery and,' were quite incapable of appreciating that engines might have moods, and emotions, that an engine might feel stressed or under pressure, or relieved and at ease. The presence of the apprentices was an act of charity on the part of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who was concerned that there should be enough properly trained mechanics in Botswana to replace his generation when it eventually retired.

  "Africa will get nowhere until we have mechanics," he once remarked to Mma Ramotswe. "Mechanics are the first stone in the building. Then there are other people on top. Doctors. Nurses. Teachers. But the whole thing is built on mechanics. That is why it is important to teach young people to be mechanics."