Chapter eleven

Big car guilt

It was three days after the satisfactory resolution of the Patel case. Mma Ramotswe had put in her bill for two thousand pula, plus expenses, and had been paid by return of post. This astonished her. She could not believe that she would be paid such a sum without protest, and the readiness, and apparent cheerfulness with which Mr Patel had settled the bill induced pangs of guilt over the sheer size of the fee.
It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty. Mma Pekwane fell into the former category, thought Mma Ramotswe. Note Mokoti fell into the latter.
Mma Pekwane had seemed anxious when she had come into the office of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Mma Ramotswe had given her a strong cup of bush tea, as she always did with nervous clients, and had waited for her to be ready to speak. She was anxious about a man, she thought; there were all the signs. What would it be? Some piece of masculine bad behaviour, of course, but what?
"I'm worried that my husband has done a dreadful thing," said Mma Pekwane eventually. "I feel very ashamed for him."
Mma Ramotswe nodded her head gently. Masculine bad behaviour.
"Men do terrible things," she said. "All wives are worried about their husbands. You are not alone."
Mma Pekwane sighed. "But my husband has done a terrible thing," she said. "A very terrible thing."
Mma Ramotswe stiffened. If Rra Pekwane had killed somebody she would have to make it quite clear that the police should be called in. She would never dream of helping anybody conceal a murderer.
"What is this terrible thing?" she asked. Mma Pekwane lowered her voice. "He has a stolen car." Mma Ramotswe was relieved. Car theft was rife, almost unremarkable, and there must be many women driving around the town in their husbands' stolen cars. Mma Ramotswe could never imagine herself doing that, of course, and nor, it seemed, could Mma Pekwane.
"Did he tell you it's stolen?" she asked. "Are you sure of it?" Mma Pekwane shook her head. "He said a man gave it to him. He said that this man had two Mercedes-Benzes and only needed one."
Mma Ramotswe laughed. "Do men really think they can fool us that easily?" she said. "Do they think we're fools?" "I think they do," said Mma Pekwane. Mma Ramotswe picked up her pencil and drew several lines on her blotter. Looking at the scribbles, she saw that she had drawn a car.
She looked at Mma Pekwane. "Do you want me to tell you what to do?" she asked. "Is that what you want?"
Mma Pekwane looked thoughtful. "No," she replied. "I don't want that. I've decided what I want to do."
"And that is?"
"I want to give the car back. I want to give it back to its owner."
Mma Ramotswe sat up straight. "You want to go to the police then? You want to inform on your husband?"
"No. I don't want to do that. I just want the car to get back to its owner without the police knowing. I want the Lord to know that the car's back where it belongs."
Mma Ramotswe stared at her client. It was, she had to admit, a perfectly reasonable thing to want. If the car were to be returned to the owner, then Mma Pekwane's conscience would be clear, and she would still have her husband. On mature reflection, it seemed to Mma Ramotswe to be a very good way of dealing with a difficult situation.
"But why come to me about this?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "How can I help?"
Mma Pekwane gave her answer without hesitation.
"I want you to find out who owns that car," she said. "Then I want you to steal it from my husband and give it back to the rightful owner. That's all I want you to do."

LATER THAT evening, as she drove home in her little white van, Mma Ramotswe thought that she should never have agreed to help Mma Pekwane; but she had, and now she was committed. Yet it was not going to be a simple matter—unless, of course, one went to the police, which she clearly could not do. It may be that Rra Pekwane deserved to be handed over, but her client had asked that this should not happen, and her first loyalty was to the client. So some other way would have to be found.
That evening, after her supper of chicken and pumpkin, Mma Ramotswe telephoned Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
"Where do stolen Mercedes-Benzes come from?" asked Mma Ramotswe.
"From over the border," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "They steal them in South Africa, bring them over here, respray them, file off the original engine number, and then sell them cheaply or send them up to Zambia. I know who does all this, by the way. We all know."
"I don't need to know that," said Mma Ramotswe. "What I need to know is how you identify them after all this has happened."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni paused. "You have to know where to look," he said. "There's usually another serial number somewhere—on the chassis—or under the bonnet. You can usually find it if you know what you're doing."
"You know what you're doing," said Mma Ramotswe. "Can you help me?"
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. He did not like stolen cars. He preferred to have nothing to do with them, but this was a request from Mma Ramotswe, and so there was only one answer to give.
"Tell me where and when," he said.
THEY ENTERED the Pekwane garden the following evening, by arrangement with Mma Pekwane, who had promised that at the agreed time she would make sure that the dogs were inside and her husband would be busy eating a special meal she would prepare for him. So there was nothing to stop Mr J.L.B. Matekoni from wriggling under the Mercedes-Benz parked in the yard and flashing his torch up into the bodywork. Mma Ramotswe offered to go under the car as well, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni doubted whether she would fit and declined her offer. Ten minutes later, he had a serial number written on a piece of paper and the two of them slipped out of the Pekwane yard and made their way to the small white van parked down the road.
"Are you sure that's all I'll need?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Will they know from that?"
"Yes," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "They'll know." She dropped him off outside his gate and he waved goodbye in the darkness. She would be able to repay him soon, she knew.

THAT WEEKEND, Mma Ramotswe drove her tiny white van over the border to Mafikeng and went straight to the Railway Cafe. She bought a copy of the Johannesburg Star and sat at a table near the window reading the news. It was all bad, she decided, and so she laid the paper to one side and passed the time by looking at her fellow customers.
"Mma Ramotswe!"
She looked up. There he was, the same old Billy Pilani, older now, of course, but otherwise the same. She could just see him at the Mochudi Government School, sitting at his desk, dreaming.
She bought him a cup of coffee and a large doughnut and explained to him what she needed.
"I want you to find out who owns this car," she said, passing the slip of paper with the serial number written on it in the handwriting of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "Then, when you've found out, I want you to tell the owner, or the insurance company, or whoever, that they can come up to Gaborone and they will find their car ready for them in an agreed place. All they have to do is to bring South African number plates with the original number on them. Then they can drive the car home."
Billy Pilani looked surprised. "All for nothing?" he asked. "Nothing to be paid?"
"Nothing," said Mma Ramotswe. "It's just a question of returning property to its rightful owner. That's all. You believe in that, don't you Billy?"
"Of course," said Billy Pilani quickly. "Of course."
"And Billy I want you to forget you're a policeman while all this is going on. There's not going to be any arrest for you."
"Not even a small one?" asked Billy in a disappointed tone.
"Not even that."
BILLY PILANI telephoned the following day.
"I've got the details from our list of stolen vehicles," he said. "I've spoken to the insurance company, who've already paid out. So they'd be very happy to get the car back. They can send one of their men over the border to pick it up."
"Good," said Mma Ramotswe. "They are to be in the African Mall in Gaborone at seven o'clock in the morning next Tuesday, with the number plates."
Everything was agreed, and at five o'clock on the Tuesday morning, Mma Ramotswe crept into the yard of the Pekwane house and found, as she had been expecting, the keys of the Mercedes-Benz lying on the ground outside the bedroom window, where Mma Pekwane had tossed them the previous night. She had been assured by Mma Pekwane that her husband was a sound sleeper and that he never woke up until Radio Botswana broadcast the sound of cowbells at six.
He did not hear her start the car and drive out onto the road, and indeed it was not until almost eight o'clock that he noticed that his Mercedes-Benz was stolen.
"Call the police," shouted Mma Pekwane. "Quick, call the police!"
She noticed that her husband was hesitating.
"Maybe later," he said. "In the meantime, I think I shall look for it myself."
She looked him directly in the eye, and for a moment she saw him flinch. He's guilty, she thought. I was right all along. Of course he can't go to the police and tell them that his stolen car has been stolen.
She saw Mma Ramotswe later that day and thanked her.
"You've made me feel much better," she said. "I shall now be able to sleep at night without feeling guilty for my husband."
"I'm very pleased," said Mma Ramotswe. "And maybe he's learned a lesson too. A very interesting lesson."
"What would that be?" asked Mma Pekwane.
"That lightning always strikes in the same place twice," said Mma Ramotswe. "Whatever people say to the contrary."

Chapter twelwe

Mma Ramotswe's house in Zebra drive

The house had been built in 1968, when the town inched out from the shops and the Government Buildings. It was on a corner site, which was not always a good thing, as people would sometimes stand on that corner, under the thorn trees that grew there, and spit into her garden, or throw their rubbish over her fence. At first, when she saw them doing that, she would shout from the window, or bang a dustbin lid at them, but they seemed to have no shame, these people, and they just laughed. So she gave up, and the young man who did her garden for her every third day would just pick up the rubbish and put it away. That was the only problem with that house. For the rest, Mma Ramotswe was fiercely proud of it, and daily reflected on her good fortune in being able to buy it when she did, just before house prices went so high that honest people could no longer pay them.
The yard was a large one, almost two-thirds of an acre, and it was well endowed with trees and shrubs. The trees were nothing special—thorn trees for the most part—but they gave good shade, and they never died if the rains were bad. Then there were the purple bougainvillaeas which had been enthusiastically planted by the previous owners, and which had almost taken over by the time Mma Ramotswe came. She had to cut these back, to give space for her pawpaws and her pumpkins.
At the front of the house there was a verandah, which was her favourite place, and which was where she liked to sit in the mornings, when the sun rose, or in the evenings, before the mosquitoes came out. She had extended it by placing an awning of shade netting supported by rough-hewn poles. This filtered out many of the rays of the sun and allowed plants to grow in the green light it created. There she had elephant-ear and ferns, which she watered daily, and which made a lush patch of green against the brown earth.
Behind the verandah was the living room, the largest room in the house, with its big window that gave out onto what had once been a lawn. There was a fireplace here, too large for the room, but a matter of pride for Mma Ramotswe. On the mantelpiece she had placed her special china, her Queen Elizabeth II teacup and her commemoration plate with the picture of Sir Seretse Khama, President, Kgosi of the Bangwato people, Statesman. He smiled at her from the plate, and it was as if he gave a blessing, as if he knew. As did the Queen, for she loved Botswana too, and understood.
But in pride of place was the photograph of her Daddy, taken just before his sixtieth birthday. He was wearing the suit which he had bought in Bulawayo on his visit to his cousin there, and he was smiling, although she knew that by then he was in pain. Mma Ramotswe was a realist, who inhabited the present, but one nostalgic thought she allowed herself, one indulgence, was to imagine her Daddy walking through the door and greeting her again, and smiling at her, and saying: "My Precious! You have done well! I am proud of you!" And she imagined driving him round Gaborone in her tiny white van and showing him the progress that had been made, and she smiled at the pride he would have felt. But she could not allow herself to think like this too often, for it ended in tears, for all that was passed, and for all the love that she had within her.
The kitchen was cheerful. The cement floor, sealed and polished with red floor paint, was kept shining by Mma Ramotswe's maid, Rose, who had been with her for five years. Rose had four children, by different fathers, who lived with her mother at Tlokweng. She worked for Mma Ramotswe, and did knitting for a knitting cooperative, and brought her children up with the little money that there was. The oldest boy was a carpenter now, and was giving his mother money, which helped, but the little ones were always needing shoes and new trousers, and one of them could not breathe well and needed an inhaler. But Rose still sang, and this was how Mma Ramotswe knew she had arrived in the morning, as the snatches of song came drifting in from the kitchen.

Chapter thirteen

Why don't you marry me?

Happiness? MMA Ramotswe was happy enough. With her detective agency and her house in Zebra Drive, she had more than most, and was aware of it. She was also aware of how things had changed. When she had been married to Note Mokoti she had been conscious of a deep, overwhelming unhappiness that followed her around like a black dog. That had gone now.
If she had listened to her father, if she had listened to the cousin's husband, she would never have married Note and the years of unhappiness would never have occurred. But they did, because she was headstrong, as everybody is at the age of twenty, and when we simply cannot see, however much we may think we can. The world is full of twenty-year-olds, she thought, all of them blind.
Obed Ramotswe had never taken to Note, and had told her that, directly. But she had responded by crying and by saying that he was the only man she would ever find and that he would make her happy.
"He will not," said Obed. "That man will hit you. He will use you in all sorts of ways. He thinks only of himself and what he wants. I can tell, because I have been in the mines and you see all sorts of men there. I have seen men like that before."
She had shaken her head and rushed out of the room, and he had called out after her, a thin, pained, cry. She could hear it now, and it cut and cut at her. She had hurt the man who loved her more than any other, a good, trusting man who only wanted to protect her. If only one could undo the past; if one could go back and avoid the mistakes, make different choices . . .
"If we could go back," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, pouring tea into Mma Ramotswe's mug. "I have often thought that. If we could go back and know then what we know now . . ." He shook his head in wonderment. "My goodness! I would live my life differently!"
Mma Ramotswe sipped at her tea. She was sitting in the office of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, underneath Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's spares suppliers' calendar, passing the time of day with her friend, as she sometimes did when her own office was quiet. This was inevitable; sometimes people simply did not want to find things out. Nobody was missing, nobody was cheating on their wives, nobody was embezzling. At such times, a private detective may as well hang a closed sign on the office door and go off to plant melons. Not that she intended to plant melons; a quiet cup of tea followed by a shopping trip to the African Mall was as good a way of spending the afternoon as any. Then she might go to the Book Centre and see if any interesting magazines had arrived. She loved magazines. She loved their smell and their bright pictures. She loved interior design magazines which showed how people lived in faraway countries. They had so much in their houses, and such beautiful things too. Paintings, rich curtains, piles of velvet cushions which would have been wonderful for a fat person to sit upon, strange lights at odd angles . . .
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni warmed to his theme.
"I have made hundreds of mistakes in my lifetime," he said, frowning at the recollection. "Hundreds and hundreds."
She looked at him. She had thought that everything had gone rather well in his life. He had served his apprenticeship as a mechanic, saved up his money, and then bought his own garage. He had built a house, married a wife (who had unfortunately died), and become the local chairman of the Botswana Democratic Party. He knew several ministers (very slightly) and was invited to one of the annual garden parties at State House. Everything seemed rosy.
"I can't see what mistakes you've made," she said. "Unlike me."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked surprised.
"I can't imagine you making any mistakes," she said. "You're too clever for that. You would look at all the possibilities and then choose the right one. Every time."
Mma Ramotswe snorted.
"I married Note," she said simply.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked thoughtful.
"Yes," he said. "That was a bad mistake."
They were silent for a moment. Then he rose to his feet. He was a tall man, and he had to be careful not to bump his head when he stood erect. Now, with the calendar behind him and the fly paper dangling down from the ceiling above, he cleared his throat and spoke.
"I would like you to marry me," he said. "That would not be a mistake."
Mma Ramotswe hid her surprise. She did not give a start, nor drop her mug of tea, nor open her mouth and make no sound. She smiled instead, and stared at her friend.
"You are a good kind man," she said. "You are like my Daddy ... a bit. But I cannot get married again. Ever. I am happy as I am. I have got the agency, and the house. My life is full."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sat down. He looked crestfallen, and Mma Ramotswe reached out to touch him. He moved it away instinctively, as a burned man will move away from fire.
"I am very sorry," she said. "I should like you to know that if I were ever to marry anybody, which I shall not do, I would choose a man like you. I would even choose you. I am sure of this."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took her mug and poured her more tea. He was silent now—not out of anger, or resentment—but because it had cost him all his energy to make his declaration of love and he had no more words for the time being.

Chapter fourteen

Handsome man

Alice Busang was nervous about consulting Mma Ramotswe, but was soon put at ease by the comfortable, overweight figure sitting behind the desk. It was rather like speaking to a doctor or a priest, she thought; in such consultations nothing that one could possibly say would shock.
"I am suspicious of my husband," she said. "I think that he is carrying on with ladies."
Mma Ramotswe nodded. All men carried on with ladies, in her experience. The only men who did not were ministers of religion and headmasters.
"Have you seen him doing this?" she asked.
Alice Busang shook her head. "I keep watching out but I never see him with other women. I think he is too cunning."
Mma Ramotswe wrote this down on a piece of paper.
"He goes to bars, does he?"
"Yes."
"That's where they meet them. They meet these women who hang about in bars waiting for other women's husbands. This city is full of women like that."
She looked at Alice, and there flowed between them a brief current of understanding. All women in Botswana were the victims of the fecklessness of men. There were virtually no men these days who would marry a woman and settle down to look after her children; men like that seemed to be a thing of the past.
"Do you want me to follow him?" she said. "Do you want me to find out whether he picks up other women?"
Alice Busang nodded. "Yes," she said. "I want proof. Just for myself. I want proof so that I can know what sort of man I married."

MMA RAMOTSWE was too busy to take on the Busang case until the following week. That Wednesday, she stationed herself in her small white van outside the office in the Diamond Sorting Building where Kremlin Busang worked. She had been given a photograph of him by Alice Busang and she glanced at this on her knee; this was a handsome man, with broad shoulders and a wide smile. He was a ladies' man by the look of him, and she wondered why Alice Busang had married him if she wanted a faithful husband. Hopefulness, of course; a naive hope that he would be unlike other men. Well, you only had to look at him to realise that this would not be so.
She followed him, her white van trailing his old blue car through the traffic to the Go Go Handsome Man's Bar down by the bus station. Then, while he strolled into the bar, she sat for a moment in her van and put a little more lipstick on her lips and a dab of cream on her cheeks. In a few minutes she would go in and begin work in earnest.

IT WAS not crowded inside the Go Go Handsome Man's Bar and there were only one or two other women there. Both of them she recognised as bad women. They stared at her, but she ignored them and took a seat at the bar, just two stools from Kremlin Busang.
She bought a beer and looked about her, as if taking in the surroundings of the bar for the first time.
"You've not been here before, my sister," said Kremlin Busang. "It's a good bar, this one."
She met his gaze. "I only come to bars on big occasions," she said. "Such as today."
Kremlin Busang smiled. "Your birthday?"
"Yes," she said. "Let me buy you a drink to celebrate."
She bought him a beer, and he moved over to the stool beside her. She saw that he was a good-looking man, exactly as his photograph had revealed him, and his clothes were well chosen. They drank their beers together, and then she ordered him another one. He began to tell her about his job.
"I sort diamonds," he said. "It's a difficult job, you know. You need good eyesight."
"I like diamonds," she said. "I like diamonds a lot."
"We are very lucky to have so many diamonds in this country," he said. "My word! Those diamonds!"
She moved her left leg slightly, and it touched his. He noticed this, as she saw him glance down, but he did not move his leg away.
"Are you married?" she asked him quietly.
He did not hesitate. "No. I've never been married. It's better to be single these days. Freedom, you know."
She nodded. "I like to be free too," she said. "Then you can decide how to spend your own time."
"Exactly," he said. "Dead right."
She drained her glass.
"I must go," she said, and then, after a short pause: "Maybe you'd like to come back for a drink at my place. I've got some beer there."
He smiled. "Yes. That's a good idea. I had nothing to do either."
He followed her home in his car and together they went into her house and turned on some music. She poured him a beer, and he drank half of it in one gulp. Then he put his arm around her waist, and told her that he liked good, fat women. All this business about being thin was nonsense and was quite wrong for Africa.
"Fat women like you are what men really want," he said.
She giggled. He was charming, she had to admit it, but this was work and she must be quite professional. She must remember that she needed evidence, and that might be more difficult to get.
"Come and sit by me," she said. "You must be tired after standing up all day, sorting diamonds."

SHE HAD her excuses ready, and he accepted them without protest. She had to be at work early the next morning and he could not stay. But it would be a pity to end such a good evening and have no memento of it.
"I want to take a photograph of us, just for me to keep. So that I can look at it and remember tonight."
He smiled at her and pinched her gently.
"Good idea."
So she set up her camera, with its delayed switch, and leapt back on the sofa to join him. He pinched her again and put his arm around her and kissed her passionately as the flash went off.
"We can publish that in the newspapers if you like," he said. "Mr Handsome with his friend Miss Fatty."
She laughed. "You're a ladies' man all right, Kremlin. You're a real ladies' man. I knew it first time I saw you."
"Well somebody has to look after the ladies," he said.

ALICE BUSANG returned to the office that Friday and found Mma Ramotswe waiting for her.
"I'm afraid that I can tell you that your husband is unfaithful," she said. "I've got proof."
Alice closed her eyes. She had expected this, but she had not wanted it. She would kill him, she thought; but no, I still love him. I hate him. No, I love him.
Mma Ramotswe handed her the photograph. "There's your proof," she said.
Alice Busang stared at the picture. Surely not! Yes, it was her! It was the detective lady.
"You . . ." she stuttered. "You were with my husband?"
"He was with me," said Mma Ramotswe. "You wanted proof, didn't you? I got the best proof you could hope for."
Alice Busang dropped the photograph.
"But you . . . you went with my husband. You . . ."
Mma Ramotswe frowned. "You asked me to trap him, didn't you?"
Alice Busang's eyes narrowed. "You bitch!" she screamed. "You fat bitch! You took my Kremlin! You husband-stealer! Thief!"
Mma Ramotswe looked at her client with dismay. This would be a case, she thought, where she might have to waive the fee.

Chapter fifteen

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's discovery

ALICE BUSANG was ushered out of the agency still shouting her insults at Mma Ramotswe.
"You fat tart! You think you're a detective! You're just man hungry, like all those bar girls! Don't be taken in everyone! This woman isn't a detective. No. 1 Husband Stealing Agency, that's what this is!"
When the row had died away, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi looked at one another. What could one do but laugh? That woman had known all along what her husband was up to, but had insisted on proof. And when she got the proof, she blamed the messenger.
"Look after the office while I go off to the garage," said Mma Ramotswe. "I just have to tell Mr J.L.B. Matekoni about this."
He was in his glass-fronted office cubicle, tinkering with a distributor cap.
"Sand gets everywhere these days," he said. "Look at this."
He extracted a fragment of silica from a metal duct and showed it triumphantly to his visitor.
"This little thing stopped a large truck in its tracks," he said. "This tiny piece of sand."
"For want of a nail, the shoe was lost," said Mma Ramotswe, remembering a distant afternoon in the Mochudi Government School when the teacher had quoted this to them. ''For want of a shoe, the . . ." She stopped. It refused to come back.
"The horse fell down," volunteered Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "I was taught that too."
He put the distributor cap down on his table and went off to fill the kettle. It was a hot afternoon, and a cup of tea would make them both feel better.
She told him about Alice Busang and her reaction to the proof of Kremlin's activities.
"You should have seen him," she said. "A real ladies' man. Stuff in his hair. Dark glasses. Fancy shoes. He had no idea how funny he looked. I much prefer men with ordinary shoes and honest trousers."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni cast an anxious glance down at his shoes—scruffy old suede boots covered with grease—and at his trousers. Were they honest?
"I couldn't even charge her a fee," Mma Ramotswe went on. "Not after that."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. He seemed preoccupied by something. He had not picked up the distributor cap again and was staring out of the window.
"You're worried about something?" She wondered whether her refusal of his proposal had upset him more than she imagined. He was not the sort to bear grudges, but did he resent her? She did not want to lose his friendship—he was her best
friend in town, in a way, and life without his comforting presence would be distinctly the poorer. Why did love—and sex— complicate life so much? It would be far simpler for us not to have to worry about them. Sex played no part in her life now and she found that a great relief. She did not have to worry how she looked; what people thought of her. How terrible to be a man, and to have sex on one's mind all the time, as men are supposed to do. She had read in one of her magazines that the average man thought about sex over sixty times a day! She could not believe that figure, but studies had apparently revealed it. The average man, going about his daily business, had all those thoughts in his mind; thoughts of pushing and shoving, as men do, while he was actually doing something else! Did doctors think about it as they took your pulse? Did lawyers think about it as they sat at their desks and plotted? Did pilots think about it as they flew their aeroplanes? It simply beggared belief.
And Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, with his innocent expression and his plain face, was he thinking about it while he looked into distributor caps or heaved batteries out of engines? She looked at him; how could one tell? Did a man thinking about sex start to leer, or open his mouth and show his pink tongue, or ... No. That was impossible.
"What are you thinking about, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?" The question slipped out, and she immediately regretted it. It was as if she had challenged him to confess that he was thinking about sex.
He stood up and closed the door, which had been slightly ajar. There was nobody to overhear them. The two mechanics were at the other end of the garage, drinking their afternoon tea, thinking about sex, thought Mma Ramotswe.
"If you hadn't come to see me, I would have come to see you," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "I have found something, you see."
She felt relieved; so he was not upset about her turning him down. She looked at him expectantly.
"There was an accident," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "It was not a bad one. Nobody was hurt. Shaken a bit, but not hurt. It was at the old four-way stop. A truck coming along from the roundabout didn't stop. It hit a car coming from the Village. The car was pushed into the storm ditch and was quite badly dented. The truck had a smashed headlight and a little bit of damage to the radiator. That's all."
"And?"
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sat down and stared at his hands.
"I was called to pull the car out of the ditch. I took my rescue truck and we winched it up. Then we towed it back here and left it round the back. I'll show it to you later."
He paused for a moment before continuing. The story seemed simple enough, but it appeared to be costing him a considerable effort to tell it.
"I looked it over. It was a panel-beating job and I could easily get my panel-beater to take it off to his workshop and sort it out. But there were one or two things I would have to do first. I had to check the electrics, for a start. These new expensive cars have so much wiring that a little knock here or there can make everything go wrong. You won't be able to lock your doors if the wires are nicked. Or your antitheft devices will freeze everything solid. It's very complicated, as those two boys out there drinking their tea on my time are only just finding out." "Anyway, I had to get at a fuse box under the dashboard, and while I was doing this, I inadvertently opened the glove compartment. I looked inside—I don't know why—but something made me do it. And I found something. A little bag."
Mma Ramotswe's mind was racing ahead. He had stumbled upon illicit diamonds—she was sure of it.
"Diamonds?"
"No," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "Worse than that."

SHE LOOKED at the small bag which he had taken out of his safe and placed on the table. It was made of animal skin—a pouch really—and was similar to the bags which the Basarwa ornamented with fragments of ostrich shell and used to store herbs and pastes for their arrows.
"I'll open it," he said. "I don't want to make you touch it."
She watched as he untied the strings that closed the mouth of the bag. His expression was one of distaste, as if he were handling something with an offensive smell.
And there was a smell, a dry, musty odour, as he extracted the three small objects from the bag. Now she understood. He need say nothing further. Now she understood why he had seemed so distracted and uncomfortable. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had found muti. He had found medicine.
She said nothing as the objects were laid out on the table. What could one say about these pitiful remnants, about the bone, about the piece of skin, about the little wooden bottle, stoppered, and its awful contents?
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, reluctant to touch the objects, poked at the bone with a pencil.
"See," he said simply. "That's what I found."
Mma Ramotswe got up from her chair and walked towards the door. She felt her stomach heave, as one does when confronted with a nauseous odour, a dead donkey in a ditch, the overpowering smell of carrion.
The feeling passed and she turned round.
"I'm going to take that bone and check," she said. "We could be wrong. It could be an animal. A duiker. A hare."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. "It won't be," he said. "I know what they'll say."
"Even so," said Mma Ramotswe. "Put it in an envelope and I'll take it."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. He was going to warn her, to tell her that it was dangerous to play around with these things, but that would imply that one believed in their power, and he did not. Did he?
She put the envelope in her pocket and smiled.
"Nothing can happen to me now," she said. "I'm protected."
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tried to laugh at her joke, but found that he could not. It was tempting Providence to use those words and he hoped that she would not have cause to regret them.
"There's one thing I'd like to know," said Mma Ramotswe, as she left the office. "That car—who owned it?"
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni glanced at the two mechanics. They were both out of earshot, but he lowered his voice nonetheless while he told her.
"Charlie Gotso," he said. "Him. That one."
Mma Ramotswe's eyes widened.
"Gotso? The important one?"
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. Everyone knew Charlie Gotso. He was one of the most influential men in the country. He had the ear of ... well, he had the ear of just about everyone who counted. There was no door in the country closed to him, nobody who would turn down a request for a favour. If Charlie Gotso asked you to do something for him, you did it. If you did not, then you might find that life became more difficult later on. It was always very subtly done—your application for a licence for your business may encounter unexpected delays; or you may find that there always seemed to be speed traps on your particular route to work; or your staff grew restless and went to work for somebody else. There was never anything you could put your finger on—that was not the way in Botswana, but the effect would be very real.
"Oh dear," said Mma Ramotswe.
"Exactly," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "Oh dear."

Chapter sixteen

The cutting of fingers and snakes

In the beginning, which in Gaborone really means thirty years ago, there were very few factories. In fact, when Princess Marina watched as the Union Jack was hauled down in the stadium on that windy night in 1966 and the Bechuanaland Protectorate ceased to exist, there were none. Mma Ramotswe had been an eight-year-old girl then, a pupil at the Government School at Mochudi, and only vaguely aware that anything special was happening and that something which people called freedom had arrived. But she had not felt any different the next day, and she wondered what this freedom meant. Now she knew of course, and her heart filled with pride when she thought of all they had achieved in thirty short years. The great swathe of territory which the British really had not known what to do with had prospered to become the best-run state in Africa, by far. Well could people shout Pula! Pula! Rain! Rain! with pride.
Gaborone had grown, changing out of all recognition. When she first went there as a little girl there had been little more than several rings of houses about the Mall and the few government offices—much bigger than Mochudi, of course, and so much more impressive, with the government buildings and Seretse Khama's house. But it was still quite small, really, if you had seen photographs of Johannesburg, or even Bulawayo. And no factories. None at all.
Then, little by little, things had changed. Somebody built a furniture workshop which produced sturdy living-room chairs. Then somebody else decided to set up a small factory to make breeze-blocks for building houses. Others followed, and soon there was a block of land on the Lobatse Road which people began to call the Industrial Sites. This caused a great stir of pride; so this is what freedom brought, people thought. There was the Legislative Assembly and the House of Chiefs, of course, where people could say what they liked—and did— but there were also these little factories and the jobs that went with them. Now there was even a truck factory on the Fran-cistown Road, assembling ten trucks a month to send up as far as the Congo; and all of this started from nothing!
Mma Ramotswe knew one or two factory managers, and one factory owner. The factory owner, a Motswana who had come into the country from South Africa to enjoy the freedom denied him on the other side, had set up his bolt works with a tiny amount of capital, a few scraps of secondhand machinery bought from a bankruptcy sale in Bulawayo, and a workforce consisting of his brother-in-law, himself, and a mentally handicapped boy whom he had found sitting under a tree and who had proved to be quite capable of sorting bolts. The business had prospered, largely because the idea behind it was so simple. All that the factory made was a single sort of bolt, of the sort which was needed for fixing galvanised tin roof sheeting onto roof beams. This was a simple process, which required only one sort of machine—a machine of a sort that never seemed to break down and rarely needed servicing.
Hector Lepodise's factory grew rapidly, and by the time Mma Ramotswe got to know him, he was employing thirty people and producing bolts that held roofs onto their beams as far north as Malawi. At first all his employees had been his relatives, with the exception of the mentally handicapped boy, who had subsequently been promoted to tea-boy. As the business grew, however, the supply of relatives dwindled, and Hector began to employ strangers. He maintained his earlier paternalistic employment habits, though—there was always plenty of time off for funerals as well as full pay for those who were genuinely sick—and his workers, as a result, were usually fiercely loyal to him. Yet with a staff of thirty, of whom only twelve were relatives, it was inevitable that there would be some who would attempt to exploit his kindness, and this is where Mma Ramotswe came in.
"I can't put my finger on it," said Hector, as he drank coffee with Mma Ramotswe on the verandah of the President Hotel, "but I've never trusted that man. He only came to me about six months ago, and now this."
"Where had he been working before?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "What did they say about him?"
Hector shrugged. "He had a reference from a factory over the border. I wrote to them but they didn't bother to reply. Some of them don't take us seriously, you know. They treat us as one of their wretched Bantustans. You know what they're like."
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She did. They were not all bad, of course. But many of them were awful, which somehow eclipsed the better qualities of some of the nice ones. It was very sad.
"So he came to me just six months ago," Hector continued. "He was quite good at working the machinery, and so I put him on the new machine I bought from that Dutchman. He worked it well, and I upped his pay by fifty pula a month. Then suddenly he left me, and that was that."
"Any reason?" asked Mma Ramotswe.
Hector frowned. "None that I could make out. He collected his pay on a Friday and just did not come back. That was about two months ago. Then the next I heard from him was through an attorney in Mahalapye. He wrote me a letter saying that his client, Mr Solomon Moretsi, was starting a legal action against me for four thousand pula for the loss of a finger owing to an industrial accident in my factory."
Mma Ramotswe poured another cup of coffee for them both while she digested this development. "And was there an accident?"
"We have an incident book in the works," said Hector. "If anybody gets hurt, they have to enter the details in the book. I looked at the date which the attorney mentioned and I saw that there had been something. Moretsi had entered that he had hurt a finger on his right hand. He wrote that he had put a bandage on it and it seemed all right. I asked around, and somebody said that he had mentioned to them that he was leaving his machine for a while to fix his finger which he had cut. They thought it had not been a big cut, and nobody had bothered any more about it."
"Then he left?"
"Yes," said Hector. "That was a few days before he left."
Mma Ramotswe looked at her friend. He was an honest man, she knew, and a good employer. If anybody had been hurt she was sure that he would have done his best for them.
Hector took a sip of his coffee. "I don't trust that man," he said. "I don't think I ever did. I simply don't believe that he lost a finger in my factory. He may have lost a finger somewhere else, but that has nothing to do with me."
Mma Ramotswe smiled. "You want me to find this finger for you? Is that why you asked me to the President Hotel?"
Hector laughed. "Yes. And I also asked you because I enjoy sitting here with you and I would like to ask you to marry me. But I know that the answer will always be the same."
Mma Ramotswe reached out and patted her friend on the arm.
"Marriage is all very well," she said. "But being the No. 1 lady detective in the country is not an easy life. I couldn't sit at home and cook—you know that."
Hector shook his head. "I've always promised you a cook. Two cooks, if you like. You could still be a detective."
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. "No," she said. "You can carry on asking me, Hector Lepodise, but I'm afraid that the answer is still no. I like you as a friend, but I do not want a husband. I am finished with husbands for good."

MMA RAMOTSWE examined the papers in the office of Hector's factory. It was a hot and uncomfortable room, unprotected from the noise of the factory, and with barely enough space for the two filing cabinets and two desks which furnished it. Papers lay scattered on the surface of each desk; receipts, bills, technical catalogues.
"If only I had a wife," said Hector. "Then this office would not be such a mess. There would be places to sit down and flowers in a vase on my desk. A woman would make all the difference."
Mma Ramotswe smiled at his remark, but said nothing. She picked up the grubby exercise book which he had placed in front of her and paged through it. This was the incident book, and there, sure enough, was the entry detailing Moretsi's injury, the words spelled out in capitals in a barely literate hand:
MORETSI CUT HIS FINGER.  NO. 2 FINGER COUNTING FROM THUMB. MACHINE DID IT. RIGHT HAND. BANDAGE PUT ON BY SAME. SIGNED: SOLOMON MORETSI. WITNESS: JESUS CHRIST
She reread the entry and then looked at the attorney's letter. The dates tallied: "My client says that the accident occurred on 10th May last. He attended at the Princess Marina Hospital the following day. The wound was dressed, but osteomyelitis set in. The following week surgery was performed and the damaged finger was amputated at the proximal phalangeal joint (see attached hospital report). My client claims that this accident was due entirely to your negligence in failing adequately to fence working parts of machinery operated in your factory and has instructed me to raise an action for damages on his behalf. It would clearly be in the interests of all concerned if this action were to be settled promptly and my client has accordingly been advised that the sum of four thousand pula will be acceptable to him in lieu of court-awarded damages."
Mma Ramotswe read the remainder of the letter, which as far as she could make out was meaningless jargon which the attorney had been taught at law school. They were impossible, these people; they had a few years of lectures at the University of Botswana and they set themselves up as experts on everything. What did they know of life? All they knew was how to parrot the stock phrases of their profession and to continue to be obstinate until somebody, somewhere, paid up. They won by attrition in most cases, but they themselves concluded it was skill. Few of them would survive in her profession, which required tact and perspicacity.
She looked at the copy of the medical report. It was brief and said exactly what the attorney had paraphrased. The date was right; the headed note paper looked authentic; and there was the doctor's signature at the bottom. It was a name she knew.
Mma Ramotswe looked up from the papers to see Hector staring at her expectantly.
"It seems straightforward," she said. "He cut his finger and it became infected. What do your insurance people say?"
Hector sighed. "They say I should pay up. They say that they'll cover me for it and it would be cheaper in the long run. Once one starts paying lawyers to defend it, then the costs can very quickly overtake the damages. Apparently they'll settle up to ten thousand pula without fighting, although they asked me not to tell anybody about that. They would not like people to think they're an easy touch."
"Shouldn't you do what they say?" asked Mma Ramotswe. It seemed to her that there was no real point in denying that the accident had happened. Obviously this man had lost a finger and deserved some compensation; why should Hector make such a fuss about this when he did not even have to pay?
Hector guessed what she was thinking. "I won't," he said. "I just refuse. Refuse. Why should I pay money to somebody who I think is trying to cheat me? If I pay him this time, then he'll go on to somebody else. I'd rather give that four thousand pula to somebody who deserved it."
He pointed to the door that linked the office to the factory floor.
"I've got a woman in there," he said, "with ten children. Yes, ten. She's a good worker too. Think what she could do with four thousand pula."
"But she hasn't lost a finger," interrupted Mma Ramotswe. "He might need that money if he can't work so well anymore."
"Bah! Bah! He's a crook, that man. I couldn't sack him because I had nothing on him. But I knew he was no good. And some of the others didn't like him either. The boy who makes the tea, the one with a hole in his brain, he can always tell. He wouldn't take tea to him. He said that the man was a dog and couldn't drink tea. You see, he knew. These people sense these things."
"But there's a big difference between entertaining suspicions and being able to prove something," said Mma Ramotswe. "You couldn't stand up in the High Court in Lobatse and say that there was something about this man which was not quite right. The judge would just laugh at you. That's what judges do when people say that sort of thing. They just laugh."
Hector was silent.
"Just settle," said Mma Ramotswe quietly. "Do what the insurance people tell you to do. Otherwise you'll end up with a bill for far more than four thousand pula."
Hector shook his head. "I won't pay for something I didn't do," he said through clenched teeth. "I want you to find out what this man is up to. But if you come back to me in a week's
time and say that I am wrong, then I will pay without a murmur. Will that do?"
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She could understand his reluctance to pay damages he thought he didn't owe, and her fee for a week's work would not be high. He was a wealthy man, and he was entitled to spend his own money in pursuit of a principle; and, if Moretsi was lying, then a fraudster would have been confounded in the process. So she agreed to act, and she drove away in her little white van wondering how she could prove that the missing finger had nothing to do with Hector's factory. As she parked the van outside her office and walked into the cool of her waiting room, she realised that she had absolutely no idea how to proceed. It had all the appearances of a hopeless case.

THAT NIGHT, as she lay in the bedroom of her house in Zebra Drive, Mma Ramotswe found that sleep eluded her. She got up, put on the pink slippers which she always wore since she had been stung by a scorpion while walking through the house at night, and went through to the kitchen to make a pot of bush tea.
The house seemed so different at night. Everything was in its correct place, of course, but somehow the furniture seemed more angular and the pictures on the wall more one-dimensional. She remembered somebody saying that at night we are all strangers, even to ourselves, and this struck her as being true. All the familiar objects of her daily life looked as if they belonged to somebody else, somebody called Mma Ramotswe, who was not quite the person walking about in pink slippers.
Even the photograph of her Daddy in his shiny blue suit seemed different. This was a person called Daddy Ramotswe, of course, but not the Daddy she had known, the Daddy who had sacrificed everything for her, and whose last wish had been to see her happily settled in a business. How proud he would have been to have seen her now, the owner of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, known to everybody of note in town, even to permanent secretaries and Government ministers. And how important he would have felt had he seen her that very morning almost bumping into the Malawian High Commissioner as she left the President Hotel and the High Commissioner saying: "Good morning, Mma Ramotswe, you almost knocked me down there, but there's nobody I would rather be knocked down by than you, my goodness!" To be known to a High Commissioner! To be greeted by name by people like that! Not that she was impressed by them, of course, even high commissioners; but her Daddy would have been, and she regretted that he had not lived to see his plans for her come to fruition.
She made her tea and settled down to drink it on her most comfortable chair. It was a hot night and the dogs were howling throughout the town, egging one another on in the darkness. It was not a sound you really noticed anymore, she thought. They were always there, these howling dogs, defending their yards against all sorts of shadows and winds. Stupid creatures!
She thought of Hector. He was a stubborn man — famously so — but she rather respected him for it. Why should he pay? What was it he had said: If I pay him this time then he'll go on to somebody else. She thought for a moment, and then put the mug of bush tea down on the table. The idea had come to her suddenly, as all her good ideas seemed to come. Perhaps Hector was the somebody else. Perhaps he had already made claims elsewhere. Perhaps Hector was not the first!
Sleep proved easier after that, and she awoke the next morning confident that a few enquiries, and perhaps a trip up to Mahalapye, would be all that was required to dispose of Moretsi's spurious claim. She breakfasted quickly and then drove directly to the office. It was getting towards the end of winter, which meant that the temperature of the air was just right, and the sky was bright, pale blue, and cloudless. There was a slight smell of wood-smoke in the air, a smell that tugged at her heart because it reminded her of mornings around the fire in Mochudi. She would go back there, she thought, when she had worked long enough to retire. She would buy a house, or build one perhaps, and ask some of her cousins to live with her. They would grow melons on the lands and might even buy a small shop in the village; and every morning she could sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn't do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all, and yet they did not know it. Every so often you met a white person who understood, who realised how things really were; but these people were few and far between and the other white people often treated them with suspicion.
The woman who swept her office was already there when she arrived. She asked after her family, and the woman told her of their latest doings. She had one son who was a warder at the prison and another who was a trainee chef at the Sun Hotel. They were both doing well, in their ways, and Mma Ramotswe was always interested to hear of their achievements. But that morning she cut the cleaner short—as politely as she could— and got down to work.
The trade directory gave her the information she needed. There were ten insurance companies doing business in Gaborone; four of these were small, and probably rather specialised; the other six she had heard of and had done work for four of them. She listed them, noted down their telephone numbers, and made a start.
The Botswana Eagle Company was the first she telephoned. They were willing to help, but could not come up with any information. Nor could the Mutual Life Company of Southern Africa, or the Southern Star Insurance Company. But at the fourth, Kalahari Accident and Indemnity, which asked for an hour or so to search the records, she found out what she needed to know.
"We've found one claim under that name," said the woman on the other end of the line. "Two years ago we had a claim from a garage in town. One of their petrol attendants claimed to have injured his finger while replacing the petrol pump dispenser in its holder. He lost a finger and they claimed under their employer's policy."
Mma Ramotswe's heart gave a leap. "Four thousand pula?" she asked.
"Close enough," said the clerk. "We settled for three thousand eight hundred."
"Right hand?" pressed Mma Ramotswe. "Second finger counting from the thumb?"
The clerk shuffled through some papers.
"Yes," she said. "There's a medical report. It says something about. . . I'm not sure how to pronounce it... osteomy . . ."
"Elitis," prompted Mma Ramotswe. "Requiring amputation of the finger at the proximal phalangeal joint?"
"Yes," said the clerk. "Exactly."
There were one or two details to be obtained, and Mma Ramotswe did that before thanking the clerk and ringing off. For a few moments she sat quite still, savouring the satisfaction of having revealed the fraud so quickly. But there were still several loose ends to be sorted out, and for these she would have to go up to Mahalapye. She would like to meet Moretsi, if she could, and she was also looking forward to an interview with his attorney. That, she thought, would be a pleasure that would more or less justify the two-hour drive up that awful Francistown Road.
The attorney proved to be quite willing to see her that afternoon. He assumed that she had been engaged by Hector to settle, and he imagined that it would be quite easy to browbeat her into settling on his terms. They might try for a little bit more than four thousand, in fact; he could say that there were new factors in the assessment of damages which made it necessary to ask for more. He would use the word quantum, which was Latin, he believed, and he might even refer to a recent decision of the Court of Appeal or even the Appellate Division in Bloemfontein. That would intimidate anyone, particularly a woman! And yes, he was sure that Mr Moretsi would be able to be there. He was a busy man, of course; no, he wasn't in fact, he couldn't work, poor man, as a result of his injury, but he would make sure that he was there.
Mma Ramotswe chuckled as she put down the telephone.
The attorney would be going to fetch his client out of some bar, she imagined, where he was probably already celebrating prematurely the award of four thousand pula. Well, he was due for an unpleasant surprise, and she, Mma Ramotswe, would be the agent of Nemesis.
She left her office in the charge of her secretary and set off to Mahalapye in the tiny white van. The day had heated up, and now, at noon, it was really quite hot. In a few months' time it would be impossible at midday and she would hate to have to drive any distance through the heat. She travelled with her window open and the rushing air cooled the van. She drove past the Dry Lands Research Station and the road that led off to Mochudi. She drove past the hills to the east of Mochudi and down into the broad valley that lay beyond. All around her there was nothing — just endless bush that stretched away to the bounds of the Kalahari on the one side and the plains of the Limpopo on the other. Empty bush, with nothing in it, but some cattle here and there and the occasional creaking windmill bringing up a tiny trickle of water for the thirsty beasts; nothing, nothing, that was what her country was so rich in — emptiness.
She was half an hour from Mahalapye when the snake shot across the road. The first she saw of it was when its body was about halfway out onto the road — a dart of green against the black tar; and then she was upon it, and the snake was beneath the van. She drew in her breath and slowed the car, looking behind her in the mirror as she did so. Where was the snake? Had it succeeded in crossing the road in time? No, it had not; she had seen it go under the van and she was sure that she had heard something, a dull thump.
She drew to a halt at the edge of the road, and looked in the mirror again. There was no sign of the snake. She looked at the steering wheel and drummed her fingers lightly against it. Perhaps it had been too quick to be seen; these snakes could move with astonishing speed. But she had looked almost immediately, and it was far too big a snake to disappear just like that. No, the snake was in the van somewhere, in the works or under her seat perhaps. She had heard of this happening time and time again. People picked up snakes as passengers and the first thing they knew about it was when the snake bit them. She had heard of people dying at the wheel, as they drove, bitten by snakes that had been caught up in the pipes and rods that ran this way and that under a car.
Mma Ramotswe felt a sudden urge to leave the van. She opened her door, hesitantly at first, but then threw it back and leaped out, to stand, panting, beside the vehicle. There was a snake under the tiny white van, she was now sure of that; but how could she possibly get it out? And what sort of snake was it? It had been green, as far as she remembered, which meant at least it wasn't a mamba. It was all very well people talking about green mambas, which certainly existed, but Mma Ramotswe knew that they were very restricted in their distribution and they were certainly not to be found in any part of Botswana. They were tree-dwelling snakes, for the most part, and they did not like sparse thorn bush. It was more likely to be a cobra, she thought, because it was large enough and she could think of no other green snake that long.
Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. The snake could have been watching her at that very moment, ready to strike if she approached any closer; or it could have insinuated itself into the cab of the van and was even now settling in under her seat. She bent forward and tried to look under the van, but she could not get low enough without going onto her hands and knees. If she did that, and if the snake should choose to move, she was worried that she would be unable to get away quickly enough. She stood up again and thought of Hector. This was what husbands were for. If she had accepted him long ago, then she would not be driving alone up to Mahalapye. She would have a man with her, and he would be getting under the van to poke the snake out of its place.
The road was very quiet, but there was a car or a truck every so often, and now she was aware of a car coming from the Mahalapye direction. The car slowed down as it approached her and then stopped. There was a man in the driver's seat and a young boy beside him.
"Are you in trouble, Mma?" he called out politely. "Have you broken down?"
Mma Ramotswe crossed the road and spoke to him through his open window. She explained about the snake, and he turned off his engine and got out, instructing the boy to stay where he was.
"They get underneath," he said. "It can be dangerous. You were right to stop."
The man approached the van gingerly. Then, leaning through the open door of the cab, he reached for the lever which released the bonnet and he gave it a sharp tug. Satisfied that it had worked, he walked slowly round to the front of the van and very carefully began to open the bonnet. Mma Ramotswe joined him, peering over his shoulder, ready to flee at the first sight of the snake.
The man suddenly froze.
"Don't make any sudden movement," he said very softly. "There it is. Look."
Mma Ramotswe peered into the engine space. For a few moments she could make out nothing unusual, but then the snake moved slightly and she saw it. She was right; it was a cobra, twined about the engine, its head moving slowly to right and left, as if seeking out something.
The man was quite still. Then he touched Mma Ramotswe on the forearm.
"Walk very carefully back to the door," he said. "Get into the cab, and start the engine. Understand?"
Mma Ramotswe nodded. Then, moving as slowly as she could, she eased herself into the driving seat and reached forward to turn the key.
The engine came into life immediately, as it always did. The tiny white van had never failed to start first time.
"Press the accelerator," yelled the man. "Race the engine!"
Mma Ramotswe did as she was told, and the engine roared throatily. There was a noise from the front, another thump, and then the man signalled to her to switch off. Mma Ramotswe did so, and waited to be told whether it was safe to get out.
"You can come out," he called. "That's the end of the cobra."
Mma Ramotswe got out of the cab and walked round to the front. Looking into the engine, she saw the cobra in two pieces, quite still.
"It had twined itself through the blades of the fan," said the man, making a face of disgust. "Nasty way to go, even for a snake. But it could have crept into the cab and bitten you, you know. So there we are. You are still alive."
Mma Ramotswe thanked him and drove off, leaving the cobra on the side of the road. It would prove to be an eventful journey, even if nothing further were to happen during the final half hour. It did not.

"NOW," SAID Mr Jameson Mopotswane, the Mahalapye attorney, sitting back in his unprepossessing office next to the butchery. "My poor client is going to be a little late, as the message only got to him a short time ago. But you and I can discuss details of the settlement before he arrives."
Mma Ramotswe savoured the moment. She leaned back in her chair and looked about his poorly furnished room.
"So business is not so good these days," she said, adding: "Up here."
Jameson Mopotswane bristled.
"It's not bad," he said. "In fact, I'm very busy. I get in here at seven o'clock, you know, and I'm on the go until six."
"Every day?" asked Mma Ramotswe innocently.
Jameson Mopotswane glared at her.
"Yes," he said. "Every day, including Saturdays. Sometimes Sundays."
"You must have a lot to do," said Mma Ramotswe.
The attorney took this in a reconciliatory way and smiled, but Mma Ramotswe continued: "Yes, a lot to do, sorting out the lies your clients tell you from the occasional—occasional—truth."
Jameson Mopotswane put his pen down on his desk and glared at her. Who was this pushy woman, and what right did she have to talk about his clients like that? If this is the way she wanted to play it, then he would be quite happy not to settle. He could do with fees, even if taking the matter to court would delay his client's damages.
"My clients do not lie," he said slowly. "Not more than anybody else, anyway. And you have no business, if I may say so, to suggest that they are liars."
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow.
"Oh no?" she challenged. "Well, let's just take your Mr Moretsi, for example. How many fingers has he got?" Jameson Mopotswane looked at her disdainfully. "It's cheap to make fun of the afflicted," he sneered. "You know very well that he's got nine, or nine and a half if you want to split hairs."
"Very interesting," said Mma Ramotswe. "And if that's the case, then how can he possibly have made a successful claim to Kalahari Accident and Indemnity, about three years ago, for the loss of a finger in an accident in a petrol station? Could you explain that?"
The attorney sat quite still. "Three years ago?" he said faintly. "A finger?"
"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "He asked for four thousand— a bit of a coincidence—and settled for three thousand eight hundred. The company have given me the claim number, if you want to check up. They're always very helpful, I find, when there's any question of insurance fraud  being uncovered. Remarkably helpful."
Jameson Mopotswane said nothing, and suddenly Mma Ramotswe felt sorry for him. She did not like lawyers, but he was trying to earn a living, like everybody else, and perhaps she was being too hard on him. He might well have been supporting elderly parents, for all she knew.
"Show me the medical report," she said, almost kindly. "I'd be interested to see it."
The attorney reached for a file on his desk and took out a report.
"Here," he said. "It all seemed quite genuine."
Mma Ramotswe looked at the piece of headed paper and then nodded.
"There we are," she said. "It's just as I thought. Look at the date there. It's been whited out and a new date typed in. Our friend did have a finger removed once, and it may even have been as a result of an accident. But then all that he's done is to get a bottle of correction fluid, change the date, and create a new accident, just like that."
The attorney took the sheet of paper and held it up to the light. He need not even have done that; the correction fluid could be seen clearly enough at first glance.
"I'm surprised that you did not notice that," said Mma Ramotswe. "It doesn't exactly need a forensic laboratory to see what he's done."
It was at this point in the shaming of the attorney that Moretsi arrived. He walked into the office and reached out to shake hands with Mma Ramotswe. She looked at the hand and saw the stub of the finger. She rejected the proffered hand.
"Sit down," said Jameson Mopotswane coldly.
Moretsi looked surprised, but did as he was told.
"So you're the lady who's come to pay . . ."
The attorney cut him short.
"She has not come to pay anything," he said. "This lady has come all the way from Gaborone to ask you why you keep claiming for lost fingers."
Mma Ramotswe watched Moretsi's expression as the attorney spoke. Even if there had not been the evidence of the changed date on the hospital report, his crestfallen look would have convinced her. People always collapsed when confronted with the truth; very, very few could brave it out.
"Keep claiming . . . ?" he said limply.
"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "You claim, I believe, to have lost three fingers. And yet if I look at your hand today I see that two have miraculously grown back! This is wonderful! Perhaps you have discovered some new drug that enables fingers to grow back once they have been chopped off?"
"Three?" said the attorney, puzzled.
Mma Ramotswe looked at Moretsi.
"Well," she said. "There was Kalahari Accident. Then there was . . . Could you refresh my memory? I've got it written down somewhere."
Moretsi looked to his attorney for support, but saw only anger.
"Star Insurance," he said quietly.
"Ah!" said Mma Ramotswe. "Thank you for that."
The attorney picked up the medical report and waved it at his client.
"And you expected to be able to fool me with this . . . crude alteration? You expected to get away with that?"
Moretsi said nothing, as did Mma Ramotswe. She was not surprised, of course; these people were utterly slippery, even if they had a law degree to write after their names.
"Anyway," said Jameson Mopotswane, "that's the end of your tricks. You'll be facing fraud charges, you know, and you'll have to get somebody else to defend you. You won't get me, my friend."
Moretsi looked at Mma Ramotswe, who met his gaze directly.
"Why did you do it?" she asked. "Just tell me why you thought you could get away with it?"
Moretsi took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose.
"I am looking after my parents," he said. "And I have a sister who is sick with a disease that is killing everybody these days. You know what I'm talking about. She has children. I have to support them."
Mma Ramotswe looked into his eyes. She had always been able to rely on her ability to tell whether a person was telling the truth or not, and she knew that Moretsi was not lying. She thought quickly. There was no point in sending this man to prison. What would it achieve? It would merely add to the suffering of others—of the parents and of the poor sister. She knew what he was talking about and she understood what it meant.
"Very well," she said. "I will not tell the police about any of this. And my client will not either. But in return, you will promise that there will be no more lost fingers. Do you understand?"
Moretsi nodded rapidly.
'You are a good Christian lady," he said. "God is going to make it very easy for you in heaven."
"I hope so," said Mma Ramotswe. "But I am also a very nasty lady sometimes. And if you try any more of this nonsense with insurance people, then you will find that I will become very unpleasant."
"I understand," said Moretsi. "I understand."
"You see," said Mma Ramotswe, casting a glance at the attentive attorney, "there are some people in this country, some men, who think that women are soft and can be twisted this way and that. Well I'm not. I can tell you, if you are interested, that I killed a cobra, a big one, on my way here this afternoon."
"Oh?" said Jameson Mopotswane. "What did you do?"
"I cut it in two," said Mma Ramotswe. "Two pieces."

Chapter seventeen

The third metacarpl

All that was a distraction. It was gratifying to deal with a case like that so quickly, and to the clear satisfaction of the client, but one could not put out of one's mind the fact that there was a small brown envelope in the drawer with contents that could not be ignored.
She took it out discreetly, not wanting Mma Makutsi to see it. She thought that she could trust her, but this was a matter which was very much more confidential than any other matter they had encountered so far. This was dangerous.
She left the office, telling Mma Makutsi that she was going to the bank. Several cheques had come in, and needed to be deposited. But she did not go to the bank, or at least not immediately. She drove instead to the Princess Marina Hospital and followed the signs that said pathology.
A nurse stopped her.
"Are you here to identify a body, Mma?"
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. "I have come to see Dr Gulubane. He is not expecting me, but he will see me. I am his neighbour."
The nurse looked at her suspiciously, but told her to wait while she went to fetch the doctor. A few minutes after she returned and said that the doctor would be with her shortly.
"You should not disturb these doctors at the hospital," she said disapprovingly. "They are busy people."
Mma Ramotswe looked at the nurse. What age was she? Nineteen, twenty? In her father's day, a girl of nineteen would not have spoken to a woman of thirty-five like that—spoken to her as if she was a child making an irritating request. But things were different now. Upstarts showed no respect for people who were older, and bigger too, than they were. Should she tell her that she was a private detective? No, there was no point in engaging with a person like this. She was best ignored. Dr Gulubane arrived. He was wearing a green apron— heaven knows what awful task he had been performing—and he seemed quite pleased to have been disturbed.
"Come with me to my office," he said. "We can talk there." Mma Ramotswe followed him down a corridor to a small office furnished with a completely bare table, a telephone, and a battered grey filing cabinet. It was like the office of a minor civil servant, and it was only the medical books on a shelf which gave away its real purpose.
"As you know," she began, "I'm a private detective these days."
Dr Gulubane beamed a broad smile. He was remarkably cheerful, she thought, given the nature of his job.
"You won't get me to talk about my patients," he said. "Even if they're all dead."
She shared the joke. "That's not what I want," she said. "All I would like you to do is to identify something for me. I have it with me." She took out the envelope and spilled its contents on the desk.
Dr Gulubane immediately stopped smiling and picked up the bone. He adjusted his spectacles.
"Third metacarpal," he muttered. "Child. Eight. Nine. Something like that."
Mma Ramotswe could hear her own breathing.
"Human?"
"Of course," said Dr Gulubane. "As I said, it's from a child. An adult's bone would be bigger. You can tell at a glance. A child of about eight or nine. Possibly a bit older."
The doctor put the bone down on the table and looked up at Mma Ramotswe.
"Where did you get it?"
Mma Ramotswe shrugged. "Somebody showed it to me. And you won't get me to talk about my clients either."
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

One 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.
"Well?" she said. "Did everything go as planned?" "Mma Ramotswe, I really think . . ."
"Did he come round himself, or did he send one of his men?"
"One of his men. But, listen, you are a fixer of lives, I am just . . ."
"And did you tell him that I could get the thing back? Did he seem interested?"
"I fix machines. I cannot. . . You see, I have never lied. I have never lied before, even when I was a small boy. My tongue would go stiff if I tried to lie, and I couldn't."
Mma Ramotswe upended the teapot for a final time.
"You've done very well this time. Lies are quite all right if you are lying for a good cause. Is it not a good cause to find out who killed an innocent child? Are lies worse than murder, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Do you think that?"
"Murder is worse. But. . ."
"Well there you are. You didn't think it through, did you? Now you know."
She looked at him and smiled, and he thought: I am lucky. She is smiling at me. There is nobody to love me in this world. Here is somebody who likes me and smiles at me. And she's right about murder. It's far worse than lies.
"Come in for tea," said Mma Ramotswe. "Mma Makutsi has boiled the kettle and we can drink tea while we decide what to do next."

Chapter nineteen

Mr Charlie Gotso, Ba

Mr CHARLIE Gotso looked at Mma Ramotswe. He respected fat women, and indeed had married one five years previously. She had proved to be a niggling, troublesome woman and eventually he had sent her down to live on a farm near Lobatse, with no telephone and a road that became impassable in wet weather. She had complained about his other women, insistently, shrilly, but what did she expect? Did she seriously think that he, Mr Charlie Gotso, would restrict himself to one woman, like a clerk from a Government department? When he had all that money and influence? And a BA as well? That was the trouble with marrying an uneducated woman who knew nothing of the circles in which he moved. He had been to Nairobi and Lusaka. He knew what people were thinking in places like that. An intelligent woman, a woman with a BA, would have known better; but then, he reminded himself, this fat woman down in Lobatse had borne him five children already and one had to acknowledge that fact. If only she would not carp on about other women.
"You are the woman from Matekoni?"
She did not like his voice. It was sandpaper-rough, and he slurred the ends of the words lazily, as if he could not be bothered to make himself clear. This came from contempt, she felt; if you were as powerful as he was, then why bother to communicate properly with your inferiors? As long as they understood what you wanted—that was the essential thing.
"Mr J.L.B. Matekoni asked me to help him, Rra. I am a private detective."
Mr Gotso stared at her, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"I have seen this place of yours. I saw a sign when I was driving past. A private detective agency for ladies, or something like that."
"Not just for ladies, Rra," said Mma Ramotswe. "We are lady detectives but we work for men too. Mr Patel, for example. He consulted us."
The smile became broader. "You think you can tell men things?"
Mma Ramotswe answered calmly. "Sometimes. It depends. Sometimes men are too proud to listen. We can't tell that sort of man anything."
He narrowed his eyes. The remark was ambiguous. She could have been suggesting he was proud, or she could be talking about other men. There were others, of course . . .
"So anyway," said Mr Gotso. "You know that I lost some property from my car. Matekoni says that you might know who took it and get it back for me?"
Mma Ramotswe inclined her head in agreement. "I have done that," she said. "I found out who broke into your car. They were just boys. A couple of boys."
Mr Gotso raised an eyebrow. "Their names? Tell me who they are."
"I cannot do that," said Mma Ramotswe. "I want to smack them. You will tell me who they are." Mma Ramotswe looked up at Mr Gotso and met his gaze. For a moment neither said anything. Then she spoke: "I gave them my word I would not give their names to anybody if they gave me back what they had stolen. It was a bargain." As she spoke, she looked around Mr Gotso's office. It was just behind the Mall, in an unprepossessing side street, marked on the outside with a large blue sign, gotso holding enterprises. Inside, the room was simply furnished, and if it were not for the photographs on the wall, you would hardly know that this was the room of a powerful man. But the photographs gave  it away:  Mr Gotso with  Moeshoeshoe,  King of the Basotho; Mr Gotso with Hastings Banda; Mr Gotso with Sobhuza II. This was a man whose influence extended beyond their borders.
"You made a promise on my behalf?" "Yes, I did. It was the only way I could get the item back." Mr Gotso appeared to think for a moment; Mma Ramotswe looked at one of the pictures more closely. Mr Gotso was giving a cheque to some good cause and everybody was smiling; "Big cheque handed over for charity" ran the cut-out newspaper headline below.
"Very well," he said. "I suppose that was all you could do. Now, where is this item of property?"
Mma Ramotswe reached into her handbag and took out the small leather pouch.
"This is what they gave me."
She put it on the table and he reached across and took it in his hand.
"This is not mine, of course. This is something which one of my men had. I was looking after it for him. I have no idea what it is."
"Muti, Rra. Medicine from a witch doctor."
Mr Gotso's look was steely.
"Oh yes? Some little charm for the superstitious?"
Mma Ramotswe shook her head.
"No, I don't think so. I think that is powerful stuff. I think that was probably rather expensive."
"Powerful?" His head stayed absolutely still as he spoke, she noticed. Only the lips moved as the unfinished words slid out.
"Yes. That is good. I would like to be able to get something like that myself. But I do not know where I can find it."
Mr Gotso moved slightly now, and the eyes slid down Mma Ramotswe's figure.
"Maybe I could help you, Mma."
She thought quickly, and then gave her answer. "I would like you to help me. Then maybe I could help you in some way."
He had reached for a cigarette from a small box on his table and was now lighting it. Again the head did not move.
"In what way could you help me, Mma? Do you think I'm a lonely man?"
"You are not lonely. I have heard that you are a man with many women friends. You don't need another."
"Surely I'm the best judge of that."
"No, I think you are a man who likes information. You need that to keep powerful. You need muti too, don't you?"
He took the cigarette out of his mouth and laid it on a large glass ashtray.
"You should be careful about saying things like that," he said. The words were well articulated now; he could speak clearly when he wanted to. "People who accuse others of witchcraft can regret it. Really regret it."
"But I am not accusing you of anything. I told you myself that I used it, didn't I? No, what I was saying was that you are a man who needs to know what's going on in this town. You can easily miss things if your ears are blocked with wax."
He picked up the cigarette again and drew on it.
"You can tell me things?"
Mma Ramotswe nodded. "I hear some very interesting things in my business. For example, I can tell you about that man who is trying to build a shop next to your shop in the Mall. You know him? Would you like to hear about what he did before he came to Gaborone? He wouldn't like people to know that, I think."
Mr Gotso opened his mouth and picked a fragment of tobacco from his teeth.
"You are a very interesting woman, Mma Ramotswe. I think I understand you very well. I will give you the name of the witch doctor if you give me this useful information. Would that suit you?"
Mma Ramotswe clicked her tongue in agreement. "That is very good. I shall be able to get something from this man which will help me get even better information. And if I hear anything else, well I shall be happy to let you know."
"You are a very good woman," said Mr Gotso, picking up a
small pad of paper. "I'm going to draw you a sketch-map. This man lives out in the bush not far from Molepolole. It is difficult to find his place, but this will show you just where to go. I warn you, by the way—he's not cheap. But if you say that you are a friend of Mr Charlie Gotso, then you will find that he takes off twenty percent. Which isn't at all bad, is it?"

Chapter twenty

Medical matters 

She had  the information now. She had a map to find a murderer, and she would find him. But there was still the detective agency to run, and cases which needed to be dealt with—including a case which involved a very different sort of doctor, and a hospital.
Mma Ramotswe had no stomach for hospitals; she disliked the smell of them; she shuddered at the sight of the patients sitting on benches in the sun, silenced by their suffering; she was frankly depressed by the pink day-pyjamas they gave to those who had come with TB. Hospitals were to her a memento mori in bricks and mortar; an awful reminder of the inevitable end that was coming to all of us but which she felt was best ignored while one got on with the business of life.
Doctors were another matter altogether, and Mma Ramotswe had always been impressed by them. She admired, in particular, their sense of the confidential and she took comfort in the fact that you could tell a doctor something and, like a priest, he would carry your secret to the grave. You never found this amongst lawyers, who were boastful people, on the whole, always prepared to tell a story at the expense of a client, and, when one came to think of it, some accountants were just as indiscreet in discussing who earned what. As far as doctors were concerned, though, you might try as hard as you might to get information out of them, but they were inevitably tight-lipped.
Which was as it should be, thought Mma Ramotswe. I should not like anybody else to know about my . . . What had she to be embarrassed about? She thought hard. Her weight was hardly a confidential matter, and anyway, she was proud of being a traditionally built African lady, unlike these terrible, stick-like creatures one saw in the advertisements. Then there were her corns—well, those were more or less on public display when she wore her sandals. Really, there was nothing that she felt she had to hide.
Now constipation was quite a different matter. It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party—with a chance of government perhaps—but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail.
She stopped her reverie, and turned to the business in hand. Her old friend, Dr Maketsi, had telephoned her from the hospital and asked if he could call in at her office on his way home that evening. She readily agreed; she and Dr Maketsi were both from Mochudi, and although he was ten years her senior she felt extremely close to him. So she cancelled her hair-braiding appointment in town and stayed at her desk, catching up on some tedious paperwork until Dr Maketsi's familiar voice called out: Ko! Ko! and he came into the office.
They exchanged family gossip for a while, drinking bush tea and reflecting on how Mochudi had changed since their day. She asked after Dr Maketsi's aunt, a retired teacher to whom half the village still turned for advice. She had not run out of steam, he said, and was now being pressed to stand for Parliament, which she might yet do.
"We need more women in public life," said Dr Maketsi. "They are very practical people, women. Unlike us men."
Mma Ramotswe was quick to agree. "If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is—a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers."
Dr Maketsi thought for a moment. He was thinking of Mrs Ghandi, who had a war, and Mrs Golda Meir, who also had a war, and then there was . . .
"Most of the time," he conceded. "Women are gentle most of the time, but they can be tough when they need to be."
Dr Maketsi was eager to change the subject now, as he feared that Mma Ramotswe might go on to ask him whether he could cook, and he did not want a repetition of the conversation he had had with a young woman who had returned from a year in the United States. She had said to him, challengingly, as if the difference in their ages were of no consequence: "If you eat, you should cook. It's as simple as that." These ideas came from America and may be all very well in theory, but had they made the Americans any happier? Surely there had to be some limits to all this progress, all this unsettling change. He had heard recently of men who were obliged by their wives to change the nappies of their babies. He shuddered at the thought; Africa was not ready for that, he reflected. There were some aspects of the old arrangements in Africa which were very appropriate and comfortable—if you were a man, which of course Dr Maketsi was.
"But these are big issues," he said jovially. "Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow." His mother-in-law said this frequently, and although he disagreed with almost everything she said, he found himself echoing her words only too often.
Mma Ramotswe laughed. "Why have you come to see me?" she said. "Do you want me to find you a new wife, maybe?"
Dr Maketsi clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. "I have come about a real problem," he said. "Not just about a little question of wives."
Mma Ramotswe listened as the doctor explained just how delicate his problem was and she assured him that she, like him, believed in confidentiality.
"Not even my secretary will get to hear what you tell me," she said.
"Good," said Dr Maketsi. "Because if I am wrong about this, and if anybody hears about it, I shall be very seriously embarrassed—as will the whole hospital. I don't want the Minister coming looking for me."
"I understand," said Mma Ramotswe. Her curiosity was thoroughly aroused now, and she was anxious to hear what juicy matter was troubling her friend. She had been burdened with several rather mundane cases recently, including a very demeaning one which involved tracing a rich man's dog. A dog! The only lady detective in the country should not have to stoop to such depths and indeed Mma Ramotswe would not have done so, had it not been for the fact that she needed the fee. The little white van had developed an ominous rattle in the engine and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, called upon to consider the problem, had gently broken the news to her that it needed expensive repairs. And what a terrible, malodorous dog it had turned out to be; when she eventually found the animal being dragged along on a string by the group of urchins which had stolen it, the dog had rewarded its liberator with a bite on the ankle.
"I am worried about one of our young doctors," said Dr Maketsi. "He is called Dr Komoti. He's Nigerian."
"I see."
"I know that some people are suspicious of Nigerians," said Dr Maketsi.
"I believe that there are some people like that," said Mma Ramotswe, catching the doctor's eye and then looking away again quickly, almost guiltily.
Dr Maketsi drank the last of his bush tea and replaced his mug on the table.
"Let me tell you about our Dr Komoti," he said. "Starting from the time he first turned up for interview. It was my job to interview him, in fact, although I must admit that it was rather a formality. We were desperately short of people at the time and needed somebody who would be able to lend a hand in casualty. We can't really be too choosy, you know. Anyway, he seemed to have a reasonable C.V. and he had brought several references with him. He had been working in Nairobi for a few years, and so I telephoned the hospital he was at and they confirmed that he was perfectly all right. So I took him on.
"He started about six months ago. He was pretty busy in casualty. You probably know what it's like in there. Road accidents, fights, the usual Friday evening business. Of course a lot of the work is just cleaning up, stopping the bleeding, the occasional resuscitation—that sort of thing.
"Everything seemed to be going well, but after Dr Komoti had been there about three weeks the consultant in charge had a word with me. He said that he thought that the new doctor was a bit rusty and that some of the things he did seemed a bit surprising. For example, he had sewed several wounds up quite badly and the stitching had to be redone.
"But sometimes he was really quite good. For example, a couple of weeks ago we had a woman coming in with a tension pneumothorax. That's a pretty serious matter. Air gets into the space round the lungs and makes the lung collapse, like a popped balloon. If this happens, you have to drain the air out as quickly as you can so that the lung can expand again.
"This is quite a tricky job for an inexperienced doctor. You've got to know where to put in the drain. If you get it wrong you could even puncture the heart or do all sorts of other damage. If you don't do it quickly, the patient can die. I almost lost somebody myself with one of these a few years ago. I got quite a fright over it.
"Dr Komoti turned out to be pretty good at this, and he undoubtedly saved this woman's life. The consultant turned up towards the end of the procedure and he let him finish it. He was impressed, and mentioned it to me. But at the same time, this is the same doctor who had failed to spot an obvious case of enlarged spleen the day before."
"He's inconsistent?" said Mma Ramotswe.
"Exactly," said Dr Maketsi. "One day he'll be fine, but the next day he'll come close to killing some unfortunate patient."
Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment, remembering a news item in The Star. "I was reading the other day about a bogus surgeon in Johannesburg," she said. "He practised for almost ten years and nobody knew that he had no qualifications. Then somebody spotted something by chance and they exposed him."
"It's extraordinary," said Dr Maketsi. "These cases crop up from time to time. And these people often get away with it for a long time—for years sometimes."
"Did you check up on his qualifications?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "It's easy enough to forge documents these days with photocopiers and laser printers—anybody can do it. Maybe he's not a doctor at all. He could have been a hospital porter or something like that."
Dr Maketsi shook his head. "We went through all that," he said. "We checked with his Medical School in Nigeria—that was a battle, I can tell you—and we also checked with the General Medical Council in Britain, where he did a registrar's job for two years. We even obtained a photograph from Nairobi, and it's the same man. So I'm pretty sure that he's exactly who he says he is."
"Couldn't you just test him?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Couldn't you try to find out how much he knows about medicine by just asking him some tricky questions?"
Dr Maketsi smiled. "I've done that already. I've taken the opportunity to speak to him about one or two difficult cases. On the first occasion he coped quite well, and he gave a fairly good answer. He clearly knew what he was talking about. But on the second occasion, he seemed evasive. He said that he wanted to think about it. This annoyed me, and so I mentioned something about the case we had discussed before.
This took him off his guard, and he just mumbled something inconsequential. It was as if he had forgotten what he'd said to me three days before."
Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling. She knew about forgetfulness. Her poor Daddy had become forgetful at the end and had sometimes barely remembered her. That was understandable in the old, but not in a young doctor. Unless he was ill, of course, and in that case something could have gone wrong with his memory.
"There's nothing wrong with him mentally," said Dr Maketsi, as if predicting her question. "As far as I can tell, that is. This isn't a case of pre-senile dementia or anything like that. What I'm afraid of is drugs. I think that he's possibly abusing drugs and that half the time he's treating patients he's not exactly there."
Dr Maketsi paused. He had delivered his bombshell, and he sat back, as if silenced by the implications of what he had said. This was almost as bad as if they had been allowing an unqualified doctor to practise. If the Minister heard that a doctor was treating patients in the hospital while high on drugs, he might begin to question the closeness of supervision in the hospital.
He imagined the interview. "Now Dr Maketsi, could you not see from the way this man was behaving that he was drugged? Surely you people should be able to spot things like that. If it's obvious enough to me when I walk down the street that somebody has been smoking dagga, then surely it should be obvious enough to somebody like you. Or am I fondly imagining that you people are more perceptive than you really are . . ."
"I can see why you're worried," said Mma Ramotswe. "But I'm not sure whether I can help. I don't really know my way around the drug scene. That's really a police matter."
Dr Maketsi was dismissive. "Don't talk to me about the police," he said. "They never keep their mouths shut. If I went to them to get this looked into, they'd treat it as a straightforward drugs enquiry. They'd barge in and search his house and then somebody would talk about it. In no time at all word would be all about town that he was a drug addict." He paused, concerned that Mma Ramotswe should understand the subtleties of his dilemma. "And what if he isn't? What if I'm wrong? Then I would have as good as killed his reputation for no reason. He may be incompetent from time to time, but that's no reason for destroying him."
"But if we did find out that he was using drugs," said Mma Ramotswe. "And I'm not sure how we could do this, what then? Would you dismiss him?"
Dr Maketsi shook his head vigorously. "We don't think about drugs in those terms. It isn't a question of good behaviour and bad behaviour. I'd look on it as a medical problem and I'd try to help him. I'd try to sort out the problem."
"But you can't 'sort out' with those people," said Mma Ramotswe. "Smoking dagga is one thing, but using pills and all the rest is another. Show me one reformed drug addict. Just one. Maybe they exist; I've just never seen them."
Dr Maketsi shrugged. "I know they can be very manipulative people," he said. "But some of them get off it. I can show you some figures."
"Well, maybe, maybe not," said Mma Ramotswe. "The point is: what do you want me to do?"
"Find out about him," said Dr Maketsi. "Follow him for a few days. Find out whether he's involved in the drug scene. If he is, find out whether he's supplying others with drugs while you are about it. Because that will be another problem for us.
We keep a tight rein on drugs in the hospital, but things can go missing, and the last thing we want is a doctor who's passing hospital drug supplies to addicts. We can't have that."
"You'd sack him then?" goaded Mma Ramotswe. "You wouldn't try to help him?"
Dr Maketsi laughed. "We'd sack him good and proper."
"Good," said Mma Ramotswe. "And proper too. Now I have to tell you about my fee."
Dr Maketsi's face fell. "I was worried about that. This is such a delicate enquiry, I could hardly get the hospital to pay for it."
Mma Ramotswe nodded knowingly. "You thought that as an old friend . . ."
"Yes," said Dr Maketsi quietly. "I thought that as an old friend you might remember how when your Daddy was so ill at the end ..."
Mma Ramotswe did remember. Dr Maketsi had come unfailingly to the house every evening for three weeks and eventually had arranged for her Daddy to be put in a private room at the hospital, all for nothing.
"I remember very well," she said. "I only mentioned the fee to tell you that there would be none."

SHE HAD all the information she needed to start her investigation of Dr Komoti. She had his address in Kaunda Way; she had a photograph, supplied by Dr Maketsi; and she had a note of the number of the green station wagon which he drove. She had also been given his telephone number, and the number of his postal box at the Post Office, although she could not imagine the circumstances in which she might need these. Now all she had to do was to start to watch Dr Komoti and to learn as much as she could about him in the shortest possible time.
Dr Maketsi had thoughtfully provided her with a copy of the duty rota in the casualty department for the following four months. This meant that Mma Ramotswe would know exactly when he might be expected to leave the hospital to return home and also when he might be on night duty. This would save a great deal of time and effort in sitting waiting in the street in the tiny white van.
She started two days later. She was there when Dr Komoti drove out of the staff car park at the hospital that afternoon and she followed him discreetly into town, parking a few cars away from him and waiting until he was well away from the car park before she got out of the van. He visited one or two shops and picked up a newspaper from the Book Centre. Then he returned to his car, drove straight home, and stayed there— blamelessly, she assumed—until the lights went out in the house just before ten that evening. It was a dull business sitting in the tiny white van, but Mma Ramotswe was used to it and never complained once she had agreed to take on a matter. She would sit in her van for a whole month, even more, if asked to do so by Dr Maketsi; it was the least she could do after what he had done for her Daddy.
Nothing happened that evening, nor the next evening. Mma Ramotswe was beginning to wonder whether there was ever any variety to the routine of Dr Komoti's life when suddenly things changed. It was a Friday afternoon, and Mma Ramotswe was ready to follow Dr Komoti back from work. The doctor was slightly late in leaving the hospital, but eventually he came out of the casualty entrance, a stethoscope tucked into the pocket of his white coat, and climbed into his car.
Mma Ramotswe followed him out of the hospital grounds, satisfied that he was not aware of her presence. She suspected that he might go to the Book Centre for his newspaper, but this time instead of turning into town, he turned the other way. Mma Ramotswe was pleased that something at last might be happening, and she concentrated carefully on not losing him as they made their way through the traffic. The roads were busier than usual, as it was a Friday afternoon at the end of the month, and this meant payday. That evening there would be more road accidents than normal, and whoever was taking Dr Komoti's place in casualty would be kept more than occupied stitching up the drunks and picking the shattered windscreen glass out of the road accident cases.
Mma Ramotswe was surprised to find that Dr Komoti was heading for the Lobatse Road. This was interesting. If he was dealing in drugs, then to use Lobatse as a base would be a good idea. It was close enough to the border, and he might be passing things into South Africa, or picking things up there. Whatever it was, it made him a much more interesting man to follow.
They drove down, the tiny white van straining to keep Dr Komoti's more powerful car in sight. Mma Ramotswe was not worried about being spotted; the road was busy and there was no reason why Dr Komoti should single out the tiny white van. Once they got to Lobatse of course, she would have to be more circumspect, as he could notice her in the thinner traffic there.
When they did not stop in Lobatse, Mma Ramotswe began to worry. If he was going to drive straight through Lobatse it was possible that he was visiting some village on the other side of the town. But this was rather unlikely, as there was not much on the other side of Lobatse—or not much to interest somebody like Dr Komoti. The only other thing, then, was the border, some miles down the road. Yes! Dr Komoti was going over the border, she was sure of it. He was going to Mafikeng. As the realisation dawned that Dr Komori's destination was out of the country, Mma Ramotswe felt an intense irritation with her own stupidity. She did not have her passport with her; Dr Komoti would go through, and she would have to remain in Botswana. And once he was on the other side, then he could do whatever he liked—and no doubt would—and she would know nothing about it.
She watched him stop at the border post, and then she turned back, like a hunter who has chased his prey to the end of his preserve and must now give up. He would be away for the weekend now, and she knew as little about what he did with his time as she did about the future. Next week, she would have to get back to the tedious task of watching his house by night, in the frustrating knowledge that the real mischief had taken place over the weekend. And while she was doing all this, she would have to postpone other cases—cases which carried fees and paid garage bills.
When she arrived back in Gaborone, Mma Ramotswe was in a thoroughly bad mood. She had an early night, but the bad mood was still with her the following morning when she went into the Mall. As she often did on a Saturday morning, she had a cup of coffee on the verandah of the President Hotel and enjoyed a chat with her friend Grace Gakatsla. Grace, who had a dress shop in Broadhurst, always cheered her up with her stories of the vagaries of her customers. One, a Government Minister's wife, had recently bought a dress on a Friday and brought it back the following Monday, saying that it did not really fit. Yet Grace had been at the wedding on Saturday where the dress had been worn, and it had looked perfect.
"Of course I couldn't tell her to her face she was a liar and that I wasn't a dress-hire shop," said Grace. "So I asked her if she had enjoyed the wedding. She smiled and said that she had. So I said I enjoyed it too. She obviously hadn't seen me there. She stopped smiling and she said that maybe she'd give the dress another chance."
"She's just a porcupine, that woman," said Mma Ramotswe. "A hyena," said Grace. "An anteater, with her long nose."
The laughter had died away, and Grace had gone off, allowing Mma Ramotswe's bad mood to settle back in place. It seemed to her that she might continue to feel like this for the rest of the weekend; in fact, she was worried that it could last until the Komoti case was finished—if she ever finished it.
Mma Ramotswe paid her bill and left, and it was then, as she was walking down the front steps of the hotel, that she saw Dr Komoti in the Mall.

FOR A moment Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. Dr Komoti had crossed the border last night just before seven in the evening. The border closed at eight, which meant that he could not possibly have had time to get down to Mafikeng, which was a further forty minutes' drive, and back in time to cross again before the border closed. So he had only spent one evening there and had come back first thing that morning.
She recovered from her surprise at seeing him and realised that she should make good use of the opportunity to follow him and see what he did. He was now in the hardware store, and Mma Ramotswe lingered outside, looking idly at the contents of the window until he came out again. Then he walked purposefully back to the car park and she watched him getting into his car.
Dr Komoti stayed in for the rest of the day. At six in the evening he went off to the Sun Hotel where he had a drink with two other men, whom Mma Ramotswe recognised as fellow Nigerians. She knew that one of them worked for a firm of accountants, and the other, she believed, was a primary schoolteacher somewhere. There was nothing about their meeting which seemed suspicious; there would be many such groups of people meeting right at this moment throughout the town— people thrown together in the artificial closeness of the expatriate life, talking about home.
He stayed an hour and then left, and that was the extent of Dr Komoti's social life for the weekend. By Sunday evening, Mma Ramotswe had decided that she would report to Dr Maketsi the following week and tell him that there was unfortunately no evidence of his moving in drug-abusing circles and that he seemed, by contrast, to be the model of sobriety and respectability. There was not even a sign of women, unless they were hiding in the house and never came out. Nobody had arrived at the house while she was watching, and nobody had left, apart from Dr Komoti himself. He was, quite simply, rather a boring man to watch.
But there was still the question of Mafikeng and the Friday evening dash there and back. If he had been going shopping down there in the OK Bazaars—as many people did—then he would surely have stayed for at least part of Saturday morning, which he clearly did not. He must have done, then, whatever it was he wanted to do on Friday evening. Was there a woman down there—one of those flashy South African women whom men, so unaccountably, seemed to like? That would be the simple explanation, and the most likely one too. But why the hurry back on Saturday morning? Why not stay for Saturday and take her to lunch at the Mmbabatho Hotel? There was something which did not seem quite right, and Mma Ramotswe thought that she might follow him down to Mafikeng next weekend, if he went, and see what happened. If there was nothing to be seen, then she could do some shopping and return on Saturday afternoon. She had been meaning to make the trip anyway, and she might as well kill two birds with one stone.

DR KOMOTI proved obliging. The following Friday he left the hospital on time and drove off in the direction of Lobatse, followed at a distance by Mma Ramotswe in her van. Crossing the border proved tricky, as Mma Ramotswe had to make sure that she did not get too close to him at the border post, and that at the same time she did not lose him on the other side. For a few moments it looked as if she would be delayed, as a ponderous official paged closely through her passport, looking at the stamps which reflected her coming and going to Johannesburg and Mafikeng.
"It says here, under occupation, that you are a detective," he said in a surly tone. "How can a woman be a detective?"
Mma Ramotswe glared at him. If she prolonged the encounter, she could lose Dr Komoti, whose passport was now being stamped. In a few minutes he would be through the border controls, and the tiny white van would have no chance of catching up with him.
"Many women are detectives," said Mma Ramotswe, with dignity. "Have you not read Agatha Christie?"
The clerk looked up at her and bristled.
"Are you saying I am not an educated man?" he growled. "Is that what you are saying? That I have not read this Mr Christie?"
"I am not," said Mma Ramotswe. "You people are well educated, and efficient. Only yesterday, when I was in your Minister's house, I said to him that I thought his immigration people were very polite and efficient. We had a good talk about it over supper."
The official froze. For a moment he looked uncertain, but then he reached for his rubber stamp and stamped the passport.
"Thank you, Mma," he said. "You may go now."
Mma Ramotswe did not like lying, but sometimes it was necessary, particularly when faced with people who were promoted beyond their talents. An embroidering of the truth like that—she knew the Minister, even if only very distantly— sometimes gingered people up a bit, and it was often for their own good. Perhaps that particular official would think twice before he again decided to bully a woman for no good reason.
She climbed back into the van and was waved past the barrier. There was now no sight of Dr Komoti and she had to push the van to its utmost before she caught up with him. He was not going particularly fast, and so she dropped back slightly and followed him past the remnants of Mangope's capital and its fantouche Republic of Bophuthatswana. There was the stadium in which the president had been held by his own troops when they revolted; there were the government offices that administered the absurdly fragmented state on behalf of its masters in Pretoria. It was all such a waste, she thought, such an utter folly, and when the time had come it had just faded away like the illusion that it had always been. It was all part of the farce of apartheid and the monstrous dream of Verwoerd; such pain, such long-drawn-out suffering—to be added by history to all the pain of Africa.
Dr Komoti suddenly turned right. They had reached the outskirts of Mafikeng, in a suburb of neat, well-laid-out streets and houses with large, well-fenced gardens. It was into the driveway of one of these houses that he turned, requiring Mma Ramotswe to drive past to avoid causing suspicion. She counted the number of houses she passed, though—seven— and then parked the van under a tree.
There was what used to be called a sanitary lane which ran down the back of the houses. Mma Ramotswe left the van and walked to the end of the sanitary lane. The house that Dr Komoti entered would be eight houses up—seven, and the one she had had to walk past to get to the entrance to the lane.
She stood in the sanitary lane at the back of the eighth house and peered through the garden. Somebody had once cared for it, but that must have been years ago. Now it was a tangle of vegetation—mulberry trees, uncontrolled bougainvillaea bushes that had grown to giant proportions and sent great sprigs of purple flowers skywards, paw-paw trees with rotting fruit on the stems. It would be a paradise for snakes, she thought; there could be mambas lurking in the uncut grass and boomslangs draped over the branches of the trees, all of them lying in wait for somebody like her to be foolish enough to enter.
She pushed the gate open gingerly. It had clearly not been used for a long time, and the hinge squeaked badly. But this did not really matter, as little sound would penetrate the vegetation that shielded the back fence from the house, about a hundred yards away. In fact, it was virtually impossible to see the house through the greenery, which made Mma Ramotswe feel safe, from the eyes of those within the house at least, if not from snakes.
Mma Ramotswe moved forward gingerly, placing each foot carefully and expecting at any moment to hear a hiss from a protesting snake. But nothing moved, and she was soon crouching under a mulberry tree as close as she dared to get to the house. From the shade of the tree she had a good view of the back door and the open kitchen window; yet she could not see into the house itself, as it was of the old colonial style, with wide eaves, which made the interior cool and dark. It was far easier to spy on people who live in modern houses, because architects today had forgotten about the sun and put people in goldfish bowls where the whole world could peer in through large unprotected windows, should they so desire.
Now what should she do? She could stay where she was in the hope that somebody came out of the back door, but why should they bother to do that? And if they did, then what would she do?
Suddenly a window at the back of the house opened and a man leaned out. It was Dr Komoti.
"You! You over there! Yes, you, fat lady! What are you doing sitting under our mulberry tree?"
Mma Ramotswe experienced a sudden, absurd urge to look over her shoulder, as if to imply that there was somebody else under the tree. She felt like a schoolgirl caught stealing fruit, or doing some other forbidden act. There was nothing one could say; one just had to own up.
She stood up and stepped out from the shade.
"It is hot," she called out. "Can you give me a drink of water?"
The window closed and a moment or two later the kitchen door opened. Dr Komoti stood on the step wearing, she noticed, quite different clothes from those he had on when he left Gaborone. He had a mug of water in his hand, which he gave to her. Mma Ramotswe reached out and drank the water gratefully. She was, in fact, thirsty, and the water was welcome, although she noticed that the mug was dirty.
"What are you doing in our garden?" said Dr Komoti, not unkindly. "Are you a thief?"
Mma Ramotswe looked pained. "I am not," she said.
Dr Komoti looked at her coolly. "Well, then, if you are not a thief, then what do you want? Are you looking for work? If so, we already have a woman who comes to cook in this house. We do not need anybody."
Mma Ramotswe was about to utter her reply when somebody appeared behind Dr Komoti and looked out over his shoulder. It was Dr Komoti.
"What's going on?" said the second Dr Komoti. "What does this woman want?"
"I saw her in the garden," said the first Dr Komoti. "She tells me she isn't a thief."
"And I certainly am not," she said indignantly. "I was looking at this house."
The two men looked puzzled.
"Why?" one of them asked. "Why would you want to look at this house? There's nothing special about it, and it's not for sale anyway."
Mma Ramotswe tossed her head back and laughed. "Oh,
I'm not here to buy it," she said. "It's just that I used to live here when I was a little girl. There were Boers living in it then, a Mr van der Heever and his wife. My mother was their cook, you see, and we lived in the servants' quarters back there at the end of the garden. My father kept the garden tidy ..."
She broke off, and looked at the two men in reproach.
"It was better in those days," she said. "The garden was well looked after."
"Oh, I'm sure it was," said one of the two. "We'd like to get it under control one day. It's just that we're busy men. We're both doctors, you see, and we have to spend all our time in the hospital."
"Ah!" said Mma Ramotswe, trying to sound reverential. "You are doctors here at the hospital?"
"No," said the first Dr Komoti. "I have a surgery down near the railway station. My brother . . ."
"I work up that way," said the other Dr Komoti, pointing vaguely to the north. "Anyway, you can look at the garden as much as you like, mother. You just go ahead. We can make you a mug of tea."
"Ow!" said Mma Ramotswe. "You are very kind. Thank you."

IT WAS a relief to get away from that garden, with its sinister undergrowth and its air of neglect. For a few minutes, Mma Ramotswe pretended to inspect the trees and the shrubs—or what could be seen of them—and then, thanking her hosts for the tea, she walked off down the road. Her mind busily turned over the curious information she had obtained. There were two Dr Komotis, which was nothing terribly unusual in itself; yet somehow she felt that this was the essence of the whole matter. There was no reason, of course, why there should not be twins who both went to medical school—twins often led mirrored lives, and sometimes even went so far as to marry the sister of the other's wife. But there was something particularly significant here, and Mma Ramotswe was sure that it was staring her in the face, if only she could begin to see it.
She got into the tiny white van and drove back down the road towards the centre of town. One Dr Komoti had said that he had a surgery in town, near the railway station, and she decided to take a look at this—not that a brass plate, if he had one, would reveal a great deal.
She knew the railway station slightly. It was a place that she enjoyed visiting, as it reminded her of the old Africa, the days of uncomfortable companionship on crowded trains, of slow journeys across great plains, of the sugarcane you used to eat to while away the time, and of the pith of the cane you used to spit out of the wide windows. Here you could still see it—or a part of it—here, where the trains that came up from the Cape pulled slowly past the platform on their journey up through Botswana to Bulawayo; here, where the Indian stores beside the railway buildings still sold cheap blankets and men's hats with a garish feather tucked into the band.
Mma Ramotswe did not want Africa to change. She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa. She would not be anything but an African, never, even if somebody came up to her and said "Here is a pill, the very latest thing. Take it and it will make you into an American." She would say no. Never. No thank you.
She stopped the white van outside the railway station and got out. There were a lot of people about; women selling roasted maize cobs and sweet drinks; men talking loudly to their friends; a family, travelling, with cardboard suitcases and possessions bundled up in a blanket. A child pushing a homemade toy car of twisted wire bumped into Mma Ramotswe and scurried off without an apology, frightened of rebuke.
She approached one of the woman traders and spoke to her in Setswana.
"Are you well today, Mma?" she said politely.
"I am well, and you are well too, Mma?"
"I am well, and I have slept very well."
"Good."
The greeting over, she said: "People tell me that there is a doctor here who is very good. They call him Dr Komoti. Do you know where his place is?"
The woman nodded. "There are many people who go to that doctor. His place is over there, do you see, where that white man has just parked his truck. That's where he is."
Mma Ramotswe thanked her informant and bought a cob of roasted maize. Then, tackling the cob as she walked, she walked across the dusty square to the rather dilapidated tin-roofed building where Dr Komoti's surgery was to be found.
Rather to her surprise, the door was not locked, and when she pushed it open she found a woman standing directly in front of her.
"I am sorry, the doctor isn't here, Mma," said the woman, slightly testily. "I am the nurse. You can see the doctor on Monday afternoon."
"Ah!" said Mma Ramotswe. "It is a sad thing to have to tidy up on a Friday evening, when everybody else is thinking of going out."
The nurse shrugged her shoulders. "My boyfriend is taking me out later on. But I like to get everything ready for Monday before the weekend starts. It is better that way."
"Far better," Mma Ramotswe answered, thinking quickly. "I didn't actually want to see the doctor, or not as a patient. I used to work for him, you see, when he was up in Nairobi. I was a nurse on his ward. I wanted just to say hallo."
The nurse's manner became markedly more friendly.
"I'll make you some tea, Mma," she offered. "It is still quite hot outside."
Mma Ramotswe sat down and waited for the nurse to return with the pot of tea.
"Do you know the other Dr Komoti?" she said. "The brother?"
"Oh yes," said the nurse. "We see a lot of him. He comes in here to help, you see. Two or three times a week."
Mma Ramotswe lowered her cup, very slowly. Her heart thumped within her; she realised that she was at the heart of the matter now, the elusive solution within her grasp. But she would have to sound casual.
"Oh, they did that up in Nairobi too," she said, waving her hand airily, as if these things were of little consequence. "One helped the other. And usually the patients didn't know that they were seeing a different doctor."
The nurse laughed. "They do it here too," she said. "I'm not sure if it's quite fair on the patients, but nobody has realised that there are two of them. So everybody seems quite satisfied."
Mma Ramotswe picked up her cup again and passed it for refilling. "And what about you?" she said. "Can you tell them apart?"
The nurse handed the teacup back to Mma Ramotswe. "I can tell by one thing," she said. "One of them is quite good— the other's hopeless. The hopeless one knows hardly anything about medicine. If you ask me, it's a miracle that he got through medical school."
Mma Ramotswe thought, but did not say: He didn't.

SHE STAYED in Mafikeng that night, at the Station Hotel, which was noisy and uncomfortable, but she slept well nonetheless, as she always did when she had just finished an enquiry. The next morning she shopped at the OK Bazaars and found, to her delight, that there was a rail of size 22 dresses on special offer. She bought three—two more than she really needed—but if you were the owner of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency you had to keep up a certain style.
She was home by three o'clock that afternoon and she telephoned Dr Maketsi at his house and invited him to come immediately to her office to be informed of the results of her enquiry. He arrived within ten minutes and sat opposite her in the office, fiddling anxiously with the cuffs of his shirt.
"First of all," announced Mma Ramotswe, "no drugs."
Dr Maketsi breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he said. "That's one thing I was really worried about."
"Well," said Mma Ramotswe doubtfully. "I'm not sure if you're going to like what I'm going to tell you."
"He's not qualified," gasped Dr Maketsi. "Is that it?"
"One of them is qualified," said Mma Ramotswe.
Dr Maketsi looked blank. "One of them?"
Mma Ramotswe settled back in her chair with the air of one about to reveal a mystery.
"There were once two twins," she began. "One went to medical school and became a doctor. The other did not. The one with the qualification got a job as a doctor, but was greedy and thought that two jobs as a doctor would pay better than one. So he took two jobs, and did both of them part-time. When he wasn't there, his brother, who was his identical twin, you'll recall, did the job for him. He used such medical knowledge as he had picked up from his qualified brother and no doubt also got advice from the brother as to what to do. And that's it. That's the story of Dr Komoti, and his twin brother in Mafikeng."
Dr Maketsi sat absolutely silent. As Mma Ramotswe spoke he had sunk his head in his hands and for a moment she thought that he was going to cry.
"So we've had both of them in the hospital," he said at last. "Sometimes we've had the qualified one, and sometimes we've had the twin brother."
"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe simply. "For three days a week, say, you've had the qualified twin while the unqualified twin practised as a general practitioner in a surgery near Mafikeng Railway Station. Then they'd change about, and I assume that the qualified one would pick up any pieces which the unqualified one had left lying around, so to speak."
"Two jobs for the price of one medical degree," mused Dr Maketsi. "It's the most cunning scheme I've come across for a long, long time."
"I have to admit I was amazed by it," said Mma Ramotswe. "I thought that I'd seen all the varieties of human dishonesty, but obviously one can still be surprised from time to time."
Dr Maketsi rubbed his chin.
"I'll have to go to the police about this," he said. "There's going to have to be a prosecution. We have to protect the public from people like this."
"Unless . . ." started Mma Ramotswe. Dr Maketsi grabbed at the straw he suspected she might be offering him.
"Can you think of an alternative?" he asked. "Once this gets out, people will take fright. We'll have people encouraging others not to go to hospital. Our public health programmes rely on trust—you know how it is."
"Precisely," said Mma Ramotswe. "I suggest that we transfer the heat elsewhere. I agree with you: the public has to be protected and Dr Komoti is going to have to be struck off, or whatever you people do. But why not get this done in somebody else's patch?"
"Do you mean in Mafikeng?"
"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "After all, an offence is being committed down there and we can let the South Africans deal with it. The papers up here in Gaborone probably won't even pick up on it. All that people here will know is that Dr Komoti resigned suddenly, which people often do—for all sorts of reasons."
"Well," said Dr Maketsi. "I would rather like to keep the Minister's nose out of all this. I don't think it would help if he became . . . how shall we put it, upset?"
"Of course it wouldn't help," said Mma Ramotswe. "With your permission I shall telephone my friend Billy Pilani, who's a police captain down there. He'd love to be seen to expose a bogus doctor. Billy likes a good, sensational arrest."
"You do that," said Dr Maketsi, smiling. This was a tidy solution to a most extraordinary matter, and he was most impressed with the way in which Mma Ramotswe had handled it.
"You know," he said, "I don't think that even my aunt in Mochudi could have dealt with this any better than you have."
Mma Ramotswe smiled at her old friend. You can go through life and make new friends every year—every month practically—but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
She reached out and touched Dr Maketsi on the arm, gently, as old friends will sometimes do when they have nothing more to say.