“What are you going to do, Mma?” he asked nervously as she unlocked the office door.
“I am going to put on the kettle, Rra,” she said. “The day must start with tea.”
“Yes, but after that, Mma? What are you going to do after that?”
Mma Ramotswe opened the door and gestured for him to follow her. “I am going to go to the police, Rra. And you’re coming with me. I have arranged an appointment.”
Mr. Polopetsi let out a groan. “Oh, Mma, I have not stolen anything…I would never steal anything. You know me—I am honest, Mma. You know that.”
She tried to calm him down. “I know you’re honest, Mr. Polopetsi. That is why I am doing what I am doing. If you were a dishonest man, would I bother to do this for you?” She answered her own question. “I would not. But since you are a good man, I will do everything I can, Rra—everything.”
He looked down at his shoes. “I do not deserve such a good friend, Mma. You are like Jesus Christ himself.”
She could not conceal her astonishment. “I do not think so, Rra. You are very kind, but I would never…”
“No, perhaps not. Maybe you are like his sister, Mma.”
She frowned. “There was no sister, Rra. We did not hear about a sister.”
“Perhaps they did not want to mention her,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “Perhaps she did not want any publicity.”
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. Mr. Polopetsi could say some very strange things, but then so could Mma Makutsi and, come to think of it, Charlie and Fanwell too. In fact, everybody, it seemed, could say odd things.
“But let’s not get involved in all that,” she said briskly. “The police are not going to arrest you…” She almost said yet, but stopped herself just in time. “We are going to help the police, you see, and in return I shall ask them to help us.”
Mr. Polopetsi looked doubtful. “I do not see how I can help the police, Mma. I do not see it.”
She explained it to him, and he listened gravely. “But will it work, Mma?”
She tried to sound confident. “I hope so, Rra.” She looked at him intently. “How much money have you got, Mr. Polopetsi? How much in total? In savings, cattle—the lot?”
He winced. “I have fifty cattle of my own, Mma. They belonged to my wife, but she has given them to me.”
She let out an exclamation. “Fifty, Rra! That’s a very good herd. And are they in good condition?”
He nodded, and inclined his head towards the window. “They are over that way—near the Limpopo. There is still water over there.”
She took out a calculator that she kept in her top drawer, and keyed in some figures. “In that case you can pay everybody back,” she said. “There will be enough to give all the people you recruited into the Fat Cattle Club their money back.”
Mr. Polopetsi’s mouth opened silently. He seemed to shrink even further, all but disappearing into his jacket. Soon there would just be clothes visible, and no man, and one would only know that he was there when the clothes started miraculously to move by themselves.
“I’m very sorry, Rra,” she said. “But there is no other way.” She paused. She felt for him—of course she did; the pain of selling cattle was something that any Motswana instinctively understood. It was like selling one’s children—not quite as bad as that, but approaching it.
They drank their tea in silence. Then Mma Ramotswe sighed, stood up, and announced that it was time to leave.
“I am ready,” came a voice from somewhere within the jacket. It was a thin, distant voice—rather like the voice of Mma Makutsi’s shoes. “I am very nervous,” it continued, “but I am ready.”
“You do not need to be nervous,” she said, trying to sound as cheerful as she could. She knew, though, that she sounded far from confident.
—
MMA RAMOTSWE HAD KNOWN Superintendent Mphapi Bogosi since childhood. He had been a keen tennis player as a boy although there had only been one racquet in the village at that time and he had been obliged to play against a wall. Later on, when he had graduated to a proper tennis court with a real opponent, his talent had come into its own. By the age of eighteen he was in the national team, and had remained there until a knee injury had obliged him to retire from competitions. By that time, he had joined the police on their rapid promotion scheme, and was now the head of the section devoted to drugs and vice. “I am not in charge of rock and roll yet,” he was quoted as saying. “But no doubt that will come.”
Their lives had touched at numerous points, although never professionally. He had been amused by her decision all those years ago to found the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and had expressed his doubts—not in a condescending way, but out of the belief that there would be nothing for her to do.
“People won’t pay good money to have their problems solved,” he warned. “They will take them to their friends and ask them to do it for nothing.”
He had been prepared to acknowledge his mistake, and often complimented her on the success of the agency.
“If you ever retire, Mma Ramotswe,” he said, “come to us. We will make a new post for you: ‘Head of Difficult Cases,’ or something like that.”
“I could not bring myself to arrest people,” she said. “I would feel too sorry for them. I would let them off with a warning.”
He laughed. “Even the really bad ones?”
She hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know. But of course the really bad ones are often just the unhappiest ones. People are bad for a reason, Rra.”
His answer came quickly. “Because they are made that way. They have a bad nature. That is their design, so to speak.”
She shook her head. “Were they bad babies?” she asked. “Are there any really bad babies?”
This required further thought, but he answered eventually. “Yes,” he said. “There must be bad babies. You see the way they look when they cry. They’re angry. They can’t do anything bad yet, but when they get round to doing things, then they are bad.” He paused, smiling. “Or perhaps not, Mma Ramotswe. Perhaps you have a point. Perhaps the badness comes a bit later.”
“Because bad things have been done to them. Bad upbringing. Parents drinking. Parents fighting. The baby watches all this and—”
“And thinks that’s the way to behave? Yes, you’re right, Mma Ramotswe.”
Now, standing before a door marked Superintendent P. Bogosi, she thought of the boy she had known in Mochudi and of what had become of him. Could she ever have imagined that the child knocking a tennis ball against that wall would one day have a door like this, with his name on, with uniformed officers at his beck and call and a secretary to say: “The superintendent will see you now, Mma”?
She led Mr. Polopetsi into the office with her. The superintendent stood up and smiled at her, extending his hand to shake hers, before he turned and did the same to Mr. Polopetsi. From within the crumpled jacket a hand came out, half hidden by a sleeve that caused the policeman to fumble as he searched for it.
“This is Mr. Polopetsi,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is the man I spoke to you about. He is the one with the information.”
Mr. Polopetsi looked about him nervously. The room was sparsely furnished, but there was a small bookshelf on which there was stacked a pile of copies of The Botswana Penal Code, a book entitled The Reality of Addiction, and a lever-arch box file labelled Zambia/Angola.
The superintendent invited them to sit down on the metal chairs in front of his desk. These were not chairs designed for comfort; these chairs were for those facing even harder and more uncomfortable furniture in the future.
“I would like to have more comfortable chairs in this place,” said the superintendent. “Maybe one day they’ll get round to improving things here.”
“I am quite comfortable,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Traditionally built people, you see…”
She did not finish, as the superintendent burst out laughing. Mr. Polopetsi, still looking frightened, merely glanced at Mma Ramotswe.
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“How’s the tennis?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
“I’m still coaching,” he replied. “We have some very good younger players coming up. There’s a young man from up north with a really powerful backhand. You remember that Swedish man who lived here? Mr. Ogren? He’s set up a tennis camp in Maun and he’s getting some strong players through.”
“That’s good work,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Tennis is…” She searched for what she wanted to say about tennis. What was tennis? What could one say about it?
“Good for you,” prompted the superintendent. “If everybody played tennis, I’d be out of a job. No crime. No drugs. No nothing. Tennis players don’t go in for things like that.”
There was a brief silence. Then the superintendent cleared his throat.
“Now then,” he said, turning to Mr. Polopetsi, “I understand from Mma Ramotswe that you have been approached by a certain gentleman. I understand that he proposed a trip to Zambia.”
Mr. Polopetsi nodded. “That is correct, sir,” he said. “I had no idea—”
The superintendent waved a hand. “Oh, I’m sure you didn’t. Mma Ramotswe has told me that you are not the sort to get mixed up in these things. I trust her judgement.” He paused briefly. “But you have obviously been drawn into bad company.”
Mr. Polopetsi looked miserable. “I did not know about these things, Rra. I was unaware.”
“Yes,” said the superintendent. “These people are very cunning. They get hold of people who are not suspicious of others. You are not alone, Mr. Polopetsi. There are many people who are sucked in that way.”
Mma Ramotswe leaned forward. “He will do everything to help,” she said. “He has agreed.”
The superintendent looked pleased. “Good. In that case we can—”
“But,” interjected Mma Ramotswe, “there is that other matter I mentioned. That commercial issue. All the people who invested because of Mr. Polopetsi are getting a full refund. They will not be complaining.”
“In that case,” said the superintendent, “we can disregard that. We are not interested in commercial issues unless there has been fraud.” He looked intensely at Mr. Polopetsi, as if to assess him as a possible fraudster.
“There has been no fraud,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “At least not by Mr. Polopetsi. There has only been a misunderstanding, and all the people he spoke to are, as I say, getting that refund.”
“Then we can get back to this other matter,” said the superintendent. “You have been asked by this man to bring a consignment of illegal drugs over the border.”
“I do not want to go to Zambia,” said Mr. Polopetsi.
The superintendent assured him that he would not have to go anywhere. “All we want from you is a statement about what he asked you to do—along with some details of where you were meant to go in Zambia and who you were meant to meet there. We have other evidence against this man, and once we have your statement then we will be able to proceed against him for attempted importation. That will be enough to put him behind bars.”
Mr. Polopetsi looked alarmed. “I will have to stand up in court?” he asked.
The superintendent nodded. “I shall be there. Don’t worry.”
“And I shall be there too,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“There you are,” said the superintendent. “It’ll be simple.”
“Mr. Polopetsi will do it,” said Mma Ramotswe firmly. “There will be no problem.”
The superintendent sat back in his seat. “Mma Ramotswe tells me you are a chemist, Mr. Polopetsi. Is that true?”
“I teach chemistry,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “I used to be a dispensing chemist, but I am no longer that.”
“Interesting,” said the superintendent. “We have a lab—you know, a police lab—but we can’t get anybody to run it. There’s not all that much work for it to do and the government won’t pay for a chemist. So it sits there unused and we have to send our samples off—at great expense, I might add—to a lab over the border. It’s a big waste of money, if you ask me. Now, if we could find somebody who could do the job part-time for us, and cheaply enough…well, it would be very convenient.” He looked at his fingernails. “Just a few hours a week, of course. Not very much. And not much pay, I’m afraid.”
Mr. Polopetsi suddenly brightened. “But I’d like to do that, Rra. I enjoy lab work.”
“My goodness,” exclaimed the superintendent. “These things sometimes arrange themselves in the strangest way. What a coincidence that I should talk about our lab problems and there you are, sitting right in front of me. That is very odd.”
“Very odd,” agreed Mma Ramotswe.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I WOULD LIKE SOME FAT CAKES, MMA
THE CORRUGATIONS on the road out to the Orphan Farm were worse than usual following the prolonged dry season, shaking Mma Ramotswe’s tiny white van with the unrelenting determination of a terrier with a rabbit. In the back of the van, holding on to Zebra’s collar, Fanwell bounced up and down, as did the dog.
“Slower, Mma!” shouted Fanwell, but his voice was drowned in the rattles and other protests rising from the van’s chassis, and Mma Ramotswe, a believer in the theory that a badly corrugated road was best tackled at speed—allowing one to fly across the top of the bumps without descending into the valleys between them—merely drove all the faster.
By the time they reached the gate, Fanwell had abandoned Zebra and was concentrating on supporting himself. The dog was lying on the floor of the van, apparently trying to sleep; now, as they drew to a halt under an acacia tree, Zebra sat up, sniffed at the air, and uttered a low bark.
“He obviously enjoyed the trip,” said Mma Ramotswe over her shoulder, as she turned off the engine. “Dogs like cars, don’t they?”
“I think he was knocked unconscious,” muttered Fanwell. “And so was I.”
They left the van and walked over to the small office building from which Mma Potokwane ran her domain. Two children, a boy and a girl both about five or six years old, sat on the cramped verandah outside the office, mutely staring at Zebra. As Mma Ramotswe approached, they looked up and gazed at her with wide, rheumy eyes. Around their eyes flies were crawling.
Mma Ramotswe frowned disapprovingly, and bent down to brush the flies away.
“You must not let those flies sit on your face,” she said gently in Setswana. “Why not find something to brush them away with?”
The children looked up at her uncomprehendingly. “They do not speak Setswana,” said a voice from inside the office. “They’ve just been brought in and they haven’t said a word.”
“Kalanga?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Potokwane shook her head. “We assumed that, but apparently not. One of the housemothers speaks a bit of Kalanga and she tried to get them to say something, but she said they did not understand her at all.”
Mma Ramotswe fished a handkerchief out of the pocket of her blouse and passed it to the girl. The child took it gingerly and dabbed at the boy’s eyes, then at her own.
“That’s better,” said Mma Ramotswe encouragingly. “Keep the flies away.”
“I think they both have an eye infection,” said Mma Potokwane. “The nurse is coming to take a look. She’ll give them some eyedrops. It usually clears it up.” She turned to Fanwell. “And here you are, Fanwell. We don’t see very much of you, do we? How is your auntie?”
Mma Potokwane and Fanwell’s aunt had been childhood friends, and Mma Potokwane always asked after her.
“She is very well, Mma,” said Fanwell. “She is getting fatter.”
“That’s good,” said Mma Potokwane. “She always enjoyed her food. I remember that. She was very fat when she was a girl—very fat.”
Mma Potokwane looked at Zebra. “And this dog?” she asked. “What does he want?”
“The same thing that all dogs want,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Somewhere to live. Some people to look after him and give him food.” She hesitated briefly before adding, “And children to play
with.”
Mma Potokwane did not respond for a few moments, but then she turned to Mma Ramotswe and shook a finger in admonition. “Are you trying to tell me something, Mma Ramotswe?”
Mma Ramotswe affected nonchalance. “Are we trying to tell Mma Potokwane something, Fanwell?”
Fanwell was more direct. “Yes, Mma. We’re asking her to—”
Mma Ramotswe cut him short. “What Fanwell means is that we were wondering whether one of the housemothers might like a dog to play with the children. He’s a very friendly dog.”
Mma Potokwane looked down at Zebra, who stared back up at her, his tail wagging to and fro.
“He likes you, Mma,” said Fanwell.
One of the children—the boy—now reached forward and patted Zebra on the head. The dog, surprised at first, moved towards him and licked eagerly at the child’s face. He licked around his eyes, making the boy chuckle with joy.
“That’s the first sound he’s made,” said Mma Potokwane. “The first sound since he came here.”
“See,” said Fanwell. “This dog is good at looking after children. He’s cleaning up that boy’s eyes.”
“Inja,” said the child.
“That’s Zulu,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Or Ndebele, or Siswati—one of those Zulu languages.”
“Then I can speak to them,” said Fanwell. “My grandfather went to the mines over there. He learned Zulu and he taught me. I practised it with him a lot. I am very good at languages, Bomma. You may think I’m useless, but I know a lot of words.”
“Ask them their names then,” said Mma Potokwane. “And we don’t think you’re useless.”
Fanwell handed Zebra’s lead to Mma Ramotswe and crouched down beside the children. They watched him solemnly.
He uttered a few words slowly, holding the boy’s hand as he spoke. The effect was immediate, the girl reaching over and taking his free hand while the boy gripped tightly. The girl whispered something to him, and Fanwell nodded.