The Cleverness Of Ladies Part 1

The Cleverness of Ladies.

1.

It was a slack time at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, the only detective agency in Botswana. It would be wrong to say that nothing was going on Mma Ramotswe, who had founded the agency to deal with the problems of ladies (and others), knew that something was always happening. People were always getting themselves into unfortunate sc.r.a.pes; they had always done this, and human nature showed no sign of changing. No, the reason why things were quiet was that n.o.body was bringing anything to the attention of the small detective agency at the back of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

The garage business was owned by Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, who everyone agreed was the finest mechanic in Botswana. She had been engaged to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni for rather a long time, and eventually he had married her. But some say this was only as a result of clever plotting by the cunning matron of the Tlokweng Orphan Farm, Mma Potokwani.

Yet such a view was uncharitable. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was sometimes a bit indecisive, and marriage proved to be only one of the things that he was indecisive about. The important thing was that he did marry Mma Ramotswe eventually, and he had now moved into her house on Zebra Drive, a fine house with a shady veranda and a good vegetable garden to the rear.

They were very fortunate, and not a day went by without Mma Ramotswe reminding herself of this good fortune. When things were slack in the office, as they now were, she reminded herself of her good fortune rather more frequently. It was a very good way of preventing feelings of frustration, especially when there was nothing to do but look at the small white gecko which ran up the office wall and then, defying gravity, across the ceiling boards. But the trouble with thinking about one's good fortune was that, after a while, one began to wish to do something else, and that, of course, depended on the arrival of a client.

'Mma Ramotswe?' The voice which interrupted her was that of her a.s.sistant, Mma Makutsi. She had been busying herself filing papers, and was now looking intently at her employer. 'You look as if you're daydreaming.'

Mma Ramotswe nodded. 'I was, I suppose.'

'There is nothing wrong with that,' said Mma Makutsi. 'When you have nothing better to do.'

'Well,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'I don't.'

'Except now you do,' said Mma Makutsi. 'There is somebody coming, Mma. I can see him out there. He is coming to the door.'

Mma Ramotswe picked up a piece of paper and began to look at it closely. It did no harm for clients to think that one was busy, even when one was not. If the client thought that one had nothing to do, his confidence in the agency might be dented and that, in the long run, would not help. In the giving of advice to other people which was what being a private detective was usually all about it was important that the client believe in the detective. So there was nothing wrong, she felt, in picking up a piece of paper and pretending to be very busy reading it. Even if the paper was no more than a letter from one of Mr J. L. B. Matekoni's suppliers, saying that a set of spark plugs which he had ordered for the garage had now been received and was awaiting collection.

Mma Makutsi ushered in the client and pointed to the visitors' chair. 'That is where you must sit, Rra,' she said to the smartly dressed, middle-aged man. He had given her his name, but she had not caught it and did not wish to ask him again. There was something about this man which suggested authority. When he had introduced himself, he had had a look about him which implied that she should know exactly who he was in any case. There was something familiar about him, Mma Makutsi thought. Was he a politician? They often had that air of a.s.surance that comes with the exercise of power, and they usually expected people to know who they were.

Mma Ramotswe looked at her visitor. She, too, was having difficulty placing him. With her detective's eye, always ready to pick up visual clues, she took in the expensive shoes and the gold buckle on his belt. These were not items that one could buy locally; they came from over the border from Johannesburg, at the least, possibly from somewhere even more exotic such as London or New York. Was he a businessman? There was a number of prosperous businessmen in Gaborone these days, but most of them were reasonably well known because they had their photographs in the papers from time to time doing things like attending charity concerts or giving prizes. She could not remember seeing this man before in any such photographs, and yet ...

'You are wondering who I am, Mma,' the visitor said. 'You are thinking, who is this man? That is what you are thinking, is it not?'

Mma Ramotswe was momentarily taken aback. She glanced at Mma Makutsi, who was busying herself with the kettle. Mma Makutsi grinned.

'Well, yes, Rra,' Mma Ramotswe said. 'I think that I know you, but I don't, if you see what I mean. You have one of those faces ...'

'Which are very common,' said the man. 'Yes, that is true. I have a very ordinary face.'

'That is not what I was going to say, Rra,' Mma Ramotswe said quickly. 'You are a very elegant man.'

The visitor took the compliment with a nod of his head. 'My name,' he said, 'is Motalhodi Gefeli.' He paused, as if waiting for a reaction. But the name meant nothing to Mma Ramotswe, who smiled at him politely.

'Of the Gaborone Comets,' he continued.

At this, Mma Ramotswe clapped her hands together. 'Of course, Rra! Of course!'

Mr Gefeli smiled. 'I am glad to see that you are a football fan, Mma,' he said. 'Some women ...' He shrugged, as if to comment on the inability of women to understand a male mystery.

'Oh, I am not a football fan,' said Mma Ramotswe. 'In fact, Rra, I know nothing about football. Nothing at all!'

Mr Gefeli raised an eyebrow. 'But you know about me?'

Mma Makutsi had made a pot of red-bush tea, and now she brought two cups on a tea tray and offered one to Mr Gefeli. 'I know about you, Rra,' she said. 'I have read all about you in the newspapers. You are the man who bought the Comets and have been making them so strong.'

Mr Gefeli accepted the cup of tea. 'You are very kind to say that, Mma,' he said. 'Yes, I am the man who bought the Comets. I am that man.'

Mma Makutsi handed the other cup of tea to Mma Ramotswe. 'Yes, and everybody,' she continued, 'is happy with what you did, because the Comets are doing so well now. You have that very good goalkeeper, don't you?'

Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi. This was strange. Mma Makutsi had never before expressed any interest in football, and here she was talking about a goalkeeper with none other than Mr Motalhodi Gefeli of the Gaborone Comets. She had once told Mma Makutsi that a good detective should be able to merge with his surroundings, and this involved being able to talk about the things that other people talked about. Surely the opposite effect would be achieved by a woman talking about football? Women simply did not talk about a thing like that, Mma Ramotswe reflected. But then the thought struck her: am I being old-fas.h.i.+oned?

'I didn't know that you were interested in football, Mma Makutsi,' she said suddenly. 'That is quite a surprise.'

For a moment, Mma Makutsi hesitated; then she smiled, a shy smile, thought Mma Ramotswe. 'I do not know a great deal about it,' she said, adding, 'but then there are some people who know even less about it than I do.' This last comment was clearly directed at Mma Ramotswe, who took it in good spirit. She knew that it was sometimes hard for Mma Makutsi, being only an a.s.sistant detective when she had gained very high marks from the Botswana Secretarial College. Mma Makutsi had achieved the previously unheard-of mark of 97 per cent in the final examinations at the college, and never hesitated to remind people of this achievement. But she should be allowed and deserved her little morsel of pride.

We are all proud of something, thought Mma Ramotswe. Mma Makutsi was proud of her 97 per cent. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was proud of the fact that he had been chosen to maintain the British High Commissioner's official white vehicle. Mma Potokwani, the matron of the orphan farm, was proud of the fact that so many of the children who pa.s.sed through the orphanage did well at school, found good jobs and came back to visit her with their own children. As for the two apprentices at the garage, they must be proud of something although Mma Ramotswe found it a bit difficult to think of exactly what that might be.

Mr Gefeli was looking at Mma Makutsi with appreciation. 'Well, that is very true, Mma,' he said. 'We have that fine goalkeeper. He is called James Pikani and he is very, very good at keeping that goal. He is like a lion!' He paused, as if savouring the image. 'Yes, he is like a lion watching over the entrance to his cave.'

Like a lion, thought Mma Ramotswe. At the back of her mind there was a rather sinister story that she had heard somewhere one of those traditional stories that grandmothers used to tell their grandchildren about a girl who married a lion. What exactly had happened? The girl's brothers had suspected that the man who had married their sister was really a lion, and they had devised a test to see if this was true. They had been right, of course, and they had seen off their false brother-inlaw, who had left lion paw marks in the sand as he ran away. Now here was this goalkeeper, James Pikani, who might really be a lion in disguise ...

Mma Ramotswe picked up her teacup and sipped at the hot red liquid. Red-bush tea was not to everybody's liking, but it certainly was to hers, and from the way Mr Gefeli now drank his in deep, thirsty gulps it appeared that he approved of it too. Mma Ramotswe signalled to Mma Makutsi to refill their visitor's cup.

'This tea is very good,' said Mr Gefeli. He paused, and dabbed at his mouth with a white handkerchief that he took from the breast pocket of his suit. It was an oddly fussy gesture for a man of his build. Nor was it what one would have expected from the owner of a major football team.

Mma Ramotswe now decided that enough time had been spent on chit-chat. It was not polite, of course, to rush straight into business, but it was equally rude to keep somebody waiting.

'Is there something you would like to talk to us about, Rra?' she asked. 'Is there something that we can do to help?'

Mr Gefeli tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. 'Well, Mma,' he began, 'there is something. You see, I have been losing football matches.'

Mma Ramotswe sighed. She was not a sportswoman her traditional build had always made that somewhat unlikely but she knew enough about sports to know that somebody won, and somebody lost. There were no sports, as far as she could make out, where everybody won. If this were the case, then why should people complain if they occasionally lost?

'Somebody has to lose, Rra,' she said quietly. 'You can't have two winners. One side will win and the other will lose.'

Mr Gefeli shook his head impatiently. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'of course I understand that. But whenever one loses, there is a reason for it. You don't lose for no reason at all. There will be some player who does not perform as well as he normally does. You will see this, and you can speak to the player and tell him where he has been going wrong. If he doesn't improve, then you can get rid of him. That is the way it's done.'

Mma Ramotswe thought about this for a moment. 'So, who is this player?' she asked. 'Who is this player who has been making you lose?'

For a moment, Mr Gefeli said nothing. He looked down at his hands, which were folded over his lap. 'James,' he muttered. 'James Pikani, our goalkeeper.'

Mma Ramotswe frowned. 'Then he isn't so good after all,' she said.

Mr Gefeli became animated. 'But he is,' he said. 'It's just that he ...' He stopped and looked at his hands again.

'Yes?' said Mma Ramotswe.

'He lets goals through,' said Mr Gefeli. 'Not all the time. Most of the time he's a brilliant goalkeeper, but then, in certain matches, he goes to pieces. I'm sure he's doing it on purpose.'

Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath sharply. Even with her scant knowledge of sports, she knew that this was the very worst thing a player could do. It was a sort of treason, she thought; the player was letting down the whole team. Of course, the reason for it was usually money.

'Somebody must be paying him,' she said. 'Don't you think that is the most likely reason, Rra?'

Mr Gefeli nodded his head. 'Yes,' he said. 'I a.s.sume that somebody is paying him, Mma. But how can I tell? How can I prove it?'

Mma Ramotswe suddenly felt more confident. This was not a matter of sport; this was a matter of simple human greed, and that was something of which she had seen a great deal. Now she was on familiar ground the ground of the private detective.

'Would you like me to find out about this, Rra?' she said. 'Would you like me to find out whether he's getting money? I've done this sort of thing before, you know. There are ways of finding out.' Indeed there were most of them straightforward. People who were bribed with large sums usually gave themselves away by spending those same large sums. Such people were, by nature, spenders rather than savers. Their spending was often very obvious flashy cars, for instance.

'Yes,' said Mr Gefeli. 'I would like you to find out for me, Mma. Once I have proof, then I can act. Before that, I can do nothing he is far too popular.'

Mma Ramotswe nodded. 'Does he drive a car?' she asked.

Mr Gefeli seemed surprised by the question. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, he does drive.'

'What sort of car is that?' asked Mma Ramotswe.

'An old one,' said Mr Gefeli. 'Nothing special.'

Mma Ramotswe looked disappointed. Perhaps it would not be as simple as she had thought.

2.

'Well now, Mma Ramotswe,' said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, her husband, that evening. 'You had a very important visitor this morning, didn't you?'

Mma Ramotswe did not normally discuss her clients' business. It was different, though, with Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. Although he was not exactly staff, all the same he owned Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, in a spare room of which the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency had its office. This meant that he always had a fairly good idea of what was going on in the agency, even if n.o.body told him anything. So now Mr J. L. B. Matekoni listened closely as she told him about the problem of the Comets' goalkeeper, James Pikani, whose erratic playing had cost the team several games.

'Letting goals through?' asked Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, shaking his head in disapproval. 'That is very bad.'

Mma Ramotswe agreed. 'Money is very corrupting,' she said. 'People will do anything for money. Not everybody, of course, but some will.' As she spoke, she thought of those people who would never accept a bribe, under any circ.u.mstances, and at the head of that list, of course, was Mr J. L. B. Matekoni.

She reflected on the case that night, lying awake in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. If James Pikani was being bribed to let goals through, then there were two ways of tackling the problem. One was to find out who benefited from the resulting victory, and to try to trap them in the act of bribing, and the other was to follow the money. The first of these would be very difficult. The obvious suspect was the management of the winning team, but there was a feature which complicated the case.

In the course of their conversation earlier that day, Mr Gefeli had made it clear that there had been several occasions on which James appeared to let goals through, and, in each case, the Comets had been playing against a different team. Why would one person want the Comets to lose a series of games, rather than just the one game in which they were playing against the briber's team? Or would it be in somebody's interest that the Comets should be less successful all round?

The more Mma Ramotswe thought about it, the more complicated it became. And the more complicated it became, the less likely it seemed to her that she would come up with a simple answer. This might take weeks, even months of investigation, and even then she might not come up with a solution.

She felt more confident the next day when she sat on her veranda shortly after sunrise, drinking her early morning cup of red-bush tea. It was her favourite time of day, a time when the world was new, when the air was sharp and fresh, with just a hint of woodsmoke from somebody's fire. She had decided that the best way to tackle this case was the way in which she tackled every case: head on.

It would be far too difficult, she felt, to find out who might be bribing the goalkeeper. So instead she would get to know James Pikani himself; that was what she would do today. She would go and see the man. She would think of a reason for visiting him, and once she found him she would rely on her greatest weapon intuition to work out what to do next. She would have to tread carefully, of course; one could hardly ask him outright whether he was being bribed. But there were ways of finding these things out. You could find out whether somebody was honest or not by watching his or her eyes. It was not difficult.

In the office that morning, as she and Mma Makutsi were dealing with the day's post, Mma Ramotswe asked her a.s.sistant what she knew about James. 'You're the one who seems to know everything about football,' she began. 'At least, you knew all about this James Pikani. Or so you said.'

'I did not say that I knew everything,' corrected Mma Makutsi. 'I just said that I knew that he was the goalkeeper. I know a girl who was his girlfriend once. That is how I knew.'

Mma Ramotswe leaned forward. This remark of Mma Makutsi's, this casual reference to a girlfriend, was a possible way in to the meeting that she needed with the footballer.

'This girlfriend, Mma,' she said. 'Who is she?'

Mma Makutsi adjusted her spectacles the large, round spectacles that she wore. She enjoyed imparting knowledge, and she did so with the air of a schoolteacher spelling out the obvious to a cla.s.s of none-too-bright pupils. 'She is called Alice,' she replied. 'She works in a shoe shop in town. It is a very good shop, and they brought in these new shoes the other day. You should have seen them, Mma Ramotswe, they were-'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted Mma Ramotswe. Mma Makutsi's weakness for fas.h.i.+onable shoes was well known, and she could talk for hours on the subject. 'But this Alice what has she said about James? Has she told you much about him?'

Mma Makutsi looked out of the window. 'A little,' she said. She paused. 'Very little, in fact. She said that he comes from Lobatse.' She paused. 'She said that he was not a good boyfriend, and that she was pleased when she got rid of him. Just a little sad, maybe. You know how it is when a man goes away. You feel a bit sad, and then you get better.'

Mma Ramotswe nodded. 'Is that all she said about him that he came from Lobatse?'

Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. 'I think so,' she said.

'Do you think you could find out anything else, Mma?' she asked. 'Could you phone Alice and ask her?'

Mma Makutsi nodded. 'She likes to talk,' she said. 'I don't think that she would mind being phoned at work.'

While Mma Makutsi dialled the number of the shoe shop, Mma Ramotswe busied herself with pen and paper. At the top of a page she wrote: James Pikani, and underneath that she wrote: Comes from Lobatse; had girlfriend called Alice; drives old car (according to Mr Gefeli). That, she thought, is all we know about him, apart from the fact that he is a very fine goalkeeper (sometimes).

Mma Ramotswe tried to make sense of what was said on the phone between Mma Makutsi and Alice, but it was difficult to reconstruct the conversation when she could only hear one side of it. There were plenty of ahs and ohs from Mma Makutsi and at one point a sharp intake of breath, but that was all. It was clear, though, that a good deal of information was being gathered.

'Well?' she said to her a.s.sistant at the end of the call. 'What did she say?'

'Nothing much,' said Mma Makutsi airily. 'Most of the time she was talking about his brother, whom Alice has her eye on. He's quite a ladies' man, it would seem.'

'And James?' asked Mma Ramotswe. 'What about James?'

Mma Makutsi shrugged. 'All she said was that he was very vain. She said that he was the vainest man she had ever met. He always looked at himself in mirrors. Even in the car he would look at himself in the mirror, just to check that he was still handsome.'

Mma Ramotswe sighed. It was not very much information to go on. Many men were vain these days, she thought. It was something to do with women being free to look at men in the same way in which men had always looked at women. Women had not realised it, but all that this new freedom led to was the creation of a lot of vain men.

She wrote down the word vain on her sheet of paper and then put it to one side, tucked into a file that she had opened under James Pikani's name. The post had brought one or two letters to be answered, and she decided that she would attend to these now, dictating her responses to Mma Makutsi. Later on, she would come back to the question of how she might find out more about James Pikani before she sought him out.

She finished dictating the letters by the mid-morning tea break. It was a fine morning, not too hot, and she thought that she would drink her tea with Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and his two apprentices. They liked to sit at the side of the garage and have their tea there, and it was an ideal spot on a day like this.

Her teacup in hand, Mma Ramotswe surveyed the scene. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni was sitting, legs stretched out, on an old car seat that he had placed against the garage wall, while the two apprentices were perched on top of two upturned oil drums. Mma Ramotswe joined them, lowering herself on to a box which she used as a seat when she took her tea with the mechanics.

She looked at Charlie, the elder of the two apprentices. He was looking up into the sky, smiling at something, and she wondered what it was. Probably some football victory, she imagined ... Then a thought occurred to her.

'Charlie,' she said, 'have you heard of a goalkeeper called James Pikani?'

His daydream interrupted, Charlie looked at Mma Ramotswe in surprise. 'Of course I have,' he said. 'Everybody knows James. He's a really good player. Although recently he's been useless. Maybe he's getting too old. Maybe he's lost interest.'

'He's finished,' chipped in the younger apprentice. 'The crowd sometimes gets angry with him, you know. They call out rude names. They shout that he's an old man, that he needs gla.s.ses or that he's forgotten how to play. They make it very tough for him.'