Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (21 page)

Dr Gulubane made an expression of distaste.

“These things shouldn’t be handed round like that,” he
said. “People show no respect.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded her
agreement. “But can you tell me anything more? Can you tell me when the
… when the child died?”

Dr Gulubane opened a drawer and
took out a magnifying glass, with which he examined the bone further, turning
it round in the palm of his hand.

“Not all that long ago,”
he said. “There’s a small amount of tissue here at the top. It
doesn’t look entirely dessicated. Maybe a few months, maybe less. You
can’t be sure.”

Mma Ramotswe shuddered. It was one thing to
handle bone, but to handle human tissue was quite a different matter.

“And another thing,” said Dr Gulubane. “How do you know
that the child whose bone this is is dead? I thought you were the
detective—surely you would have thought: this is an
extremity—people can lose extremities and still live! Did you think that,
Mrs Detective? I bet you didn’t!”

SHE CONVEYED the information to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni over dinner in her
house. He had readily accepted her invitation and she had prepared a large pot
of stew and a combination of rice and melons. Halfway through the meal she told
him of her visit to Dr Gulubane. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stopped eating.

“A child?” There was dismay in his voice.

“That’s what Dr Gulubane said. He couldn’t be certain
about the age. But he said it was about eight or nine.”

Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni winced. It would have been far better never to have found the bag.
These things happened—they all knew that—but one did not want to
get mixed up in them. They could only mean trouble—particularly if
Charlie Gotso was involved in them.

“What do we do?” asked
Mma Ramotswe.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni closed his eyes and swallowed
hard.

“We can go to the police,” he said. “And if we
do that, Charlie Gotso will get to hear about my finding the bag. And that will
be me done for, or just about.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed. The police
had a limited interest in pursuing crime, and certain sorts of crime interested
them not at all. The involvement of the country’s most powerful figures
in witchcraft would certainly be in the latter category.

“I
don’t think we should go to the police,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“So we just forget about it?” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni fixed Mma
Ramotswe with a look of appeal.

“No. We can’t do
that,” she said. “People have been forgetting about this sort of
thing for long enough, haven’t they? We can’t do that.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni lowered his eyes. His appetite seemed to have deserted
him now, and the stew was congealing on his plate.

“The first
thing we do,” she said, “is to arrange for Charlie Gotso’s
windscreen to be broken. Then you telephone him and tell him that thieves have
broken into his car while it was in the garage. You tell him that there does
not appear to have been anything stolen, but that you will willingly pay for a
new windscreen yourself. Then you wait and see.”

“To see
what?”

“To see if he comes back and tells you
something’s missing. If he does, you tell him that you will personally
undertake to recover this thing, whatever it is. You tell him that you have a
contact, a lady private detective, who is very good at recovering stolen
property. That’s me, of course.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s
jaw had dropped. One did not simply go up to Charlie Gotso just like that. You
had to pull strings to see him.

“And then?”

“Then I take the bag back to him and you leave it up to me.
I’ll get the name of the witch doctor from him and then, well,
we’ll think about what to do then.”

She made it sound so
simple that he found himself convinced that it would work. That was the
wonderful thing about confidence—it was infectious.

Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni’s appetite returned. He finished the stew, had a second helping,
and then drank a large cup of tea before Mma Ramotswe walked with him to his
car and said good-night.

She stood in the drive and watched the lights
of his car disappear. Through the darkness, she could see the lights of Dr
Gulubane’s house. The curtains of his living room were open, and the
doctor was standing at the open window, looking out into the night. He could
not see her, as she was in darkness and he was in the light, but it was almost
as if he was watching her.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A LOT OF LIES

O
NE OF the young mechanics tapped him on the shoulder,
leaving a greasy fingerprint. He was always doing this, that young man, and it
annoyed Mr J.L.B. Matekoni intensely.

“If you want to attract
my attention,” he had said on more than one occasion, “you can
always speak to me. I have a name. I am Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and I answer to
that. You don’t have to come and put your dirty fingers on
me.”

The young man had apologised, but had tapped him on the
shoulder the next day, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had realised that he was fighting
a losing battle.

“There’s a man to see you, Rra,”
said the mechanic. “He’s waiting in the office.”

Mr
J.L.B. Matekoni put down his spanner and wiped his hands on a cloth. He had
been involved in a particularly delicate operation—fine-tuning the engine
of Mrs Grace Mapondwe, who was well-known for her sporty style of driving. It
was a matter of pride to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that people knew that Mrs
Mapondwe’s roaring engine note could be put down to his efforts; it was a
free advertisement in a way. Unfortunately, she had ruined her car and it was
becoming more and more difficult for him to coax life out of the increasingly
sluggish engine.

The visitor was sitting in the office, in Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni’s chair. He had picked up a tyre brochure and was flipping
through it when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni entered the room. Now he tossed it down
casually and stood up.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni rapidly took in the other
man’s appearance. He was dressed in khaki, as a soldier might be, and he
had an expensive, snakeskin belt. There was also a fancy watch, with multiple
dials and a prominent second hand. It was the sort of watch worn by those who
feel that seconds are important, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

“Mr
Gotso sent me,” he said. “You telephoned him this
morning.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. It had been easy to break
the windscreen and scatter the fragments of glass about the car. It had been
easy to telephone Mr Gotso’s house and report that the car had been
broken into; but this part was more difficult—this was lying to
somebody’s face. It’s Mma Ramotswe’s fault, he thought. I am
a simple mechanic. I didn’t ask to get involved in these ridiculous
detective games. I am just too weak.

And he was—when it came to
Mma Ramotswe. She could ask anything of him, and he would comply. Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni even had a fantasy, unconfessed, guiltily enjoyed in which he helped
Mma Ramotswe. They were in the Kalahari together and Mma Ramotswe was
threatened by a lion. He called out, drawing the lion’s attention to him,
and the animal turned and snarled. This gave her the chance to escape, while he
dispatched the lion with a hunting knife; an innocent enough fantasy, one might
have thought, except for one thing: Mma Ramotswe was wearing no clothes.

He would have loved to save her, naked or otherwise, from a lion, but this
was different. He had even had to make a false report to the police, which had
really frightened him, even if they had not even bothered to come round to
investigate. He was a criminal now, he supposed, and it was all because he was
weak. He should have said no. He should have told Mma Ramotswe that it was not
her job to be a crusader.

“Mr Gotso is very angry,” said
the visitor. “You have had that car for ten days. Now you telephone us
and tell us that it is broken into. Where’s your security? That’s
what Mr Gotso says: where’s your security?”

Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. This was terrible.

“I’m very sorry, Rra. The panel-beaters took a long time. Then
I had to get a new part. These expensive cars, you can’t put anything in
them …”

Mr Gotso’s man looked at his watch.

“All right, all right. I know how slow these people are. Just show me
the car.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni led the way out of the office. The
man seemed less threatening now; was it really that easy to turn away
wrath?

They stood before the car. He had already replaced the
windscreen, but had propped what remained of the shattered one against a nearby
wall. He had also taken the precaution of leaving a few pieces of broken glass
on the driver’s seat.

The visitor opened the front door and
peered inside.

“I have replaced the windscreen free of
charge,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I will also make a big reduction
in the bill.”

The other man said nothing. He was leaning across
now and had opened the glove compartment. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni watched
quietly.

The man got out of the car and brushed his hand against his
trousers; he had cut himself on one of the small pieces of glass.

“There is something missing from the glove compartment. Do you know
anything about that?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his
head—three times.

The man put his hand to his mouth and sucked at
the cut.

“Mr Gotso forgot that he had something there. He only
remembered when you told him about the car being broken into. He is not going
to be pleased to hear that this item has gone.”

Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni passed the man a piece of rag.

“I’m sorry
you’ve cut yourself. Glass gets everywhere when a windscreen goes.
Everywhere.”

The man snorted. “It doesn’t matter
about me. What matters is that somebody has stolen something belonging to Mr
Gotso.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni scratched his head.

“The
police are useless. They didn’t even come. But I know somebody who can
look into this.”

“Oh yes? Who can do that?”

“There’s a lady detective these days. She has an office over
that way, near Kgale Hill. Have you seen it?”

“Maybe. Maybe
not.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “She’s an amazing
lady! She knows everything that’s going on. If I ask her, she’ll be
able to find out who did this thing. She might even be able to get the property
back. What was it, by the way?”

“Property. A small thing
belonging to Mr Charlie Gotso.”

“I see.”

The
man took the rag off his wound and flung it on the floor.

“Can
you ask that lady then,” he said grudgingly. “Ask her to get this
thing back to Mr Gotso.”

“I will,” said Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni. “I will speak to her this evening, and I am sure she will get
results. In the meantime, that car is ready and Mr Gotso can collect it
anytime. I will clear up the last bits of glass.”

“You’d better,” said the visitor. “Mr Gotso
doesn’t like to cut his hand.”

Mr Gotso doesn’t like
to cut his hand! You’re a little boy, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
You’re just like a truculent little boy. I know your type well enough! I
remember you—or somebody very like you—in the playground at Mochudi
Government School—bullying other boys, breaking things, pretending to be
tough. Even when the teacher whipped you, you made much about being too brave
to cry.

And this Mr Charlie Gotso, with his expensive car and sinister
ways—he’s a boy too. Just a little boy.

HE WAS determined that Mma Ramotswe should not
get away with it. She seemed to assume that he would do whatever she told him
to do and very rarely asked him whether he wanted to take part in her schemes.
And of course he had been far too meek in agreeing with her; that was the
problem, really—she thought that she could get away with it because he
never stood up to her. Well, he would show her this time. He would put an end
to all this detective nonsense.

He left the garage, still smarting,
busy rehearsing in his mind what he would say to her when he reached the
office.

“Mma Ramotswe, you’ve made me lie. You’ve
drawn me into a ridiculous and dangerous affair which is quite simply none of
our business. I am a mechanic. I fix cars—I cannot fix lives.”

The last phrase struck him for its forcefulness. Yes—that was the
difference between them. She was a fixer of lives—as so many women
are—whereas he was a fixer of machines. He would tell her this, and she
would have to accept its truth. He did not want to destroy their friendship,
but he could not continue with this posturing and deception. He had never
lied—never—even in the face of the greatest of temptations, and now
here he was enmeshed in a whole web of deceit involving the police and one of
Botswana’s most powerful men!

She met him at the door of the No.
1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She was throwing the dregs from a teapot into
the yard as he drew up in his garage van.