She felt the girl’s shoulder heave beneath her and she felt the warm tears of the child against her own skin.
“You mustn’t cry,” she said. “You mustn’t be unhappy. She would not want you to be unhappy, would she?”
“She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what happens to me.”
Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. “But you mustn’t say that. That is not true. It is not. Of course she cares.”
“That is not what this girl is telling me at school,” said Motholeli. “She says that I am a girl who has no mother because my mother did not like me and left. That is what she says.”
“And who is this girl?” asked Mma Ramotswe angrily. “Who is she to tell you these lies?”
“She is a very popular girl at school. She is a rich girl. She has many friends, and they all believe what she says.”
“Her name?” said Mma Ramotswe. “What is the name of this popular girl?”
Motholeli gave the name, and Mma Ramotswe immediately knew. For a moment she said nothing, then, wiping the tears away from Motholeli’s cheek, she spoke to her.
“We will talk about this more later on,” she said. “For now, you just remember that everything that this girl has said to you—everything—is just not true. It doesn’t matter who she is. It doesn’t matter one little bit. You lost your mother because she was sick. She was a good woman, I know that. I have asked about her, and that is what Mma Potokwani told me. She said she was a strong woman who was kind to people. You remember that. You remember that and be proud of it. Do you understand what I am saying?”
The girl looked up. Then she nodded.
“And there is something else you must remember,” Mma Ramotswe said. “There is something else that you must remember for the rest of your life. Sir Seretse Khama said that every person in Botswana, every person, is of equal value. The same. That means you, too. Everyone. You may be an orphan girl, but you are as good as anybody else. There is nobody who can look at you and say, I am better than you. Do you understand that?”
Mma Ramotswe waited until Motholeli had nodded before she rose to her feet. “And in the meantime,” she said, “we should start cooking this fine pumpkin so that when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni comes to have dinner with us this evening, we shall have a good meal ready for him on the table. Would you like that?”
Motholeli smiled. “I would like that very much, Mma.”
“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe.
MR. J.L.B. Matekoni left the garage at five o’clock and drove straight to the house in Zebra Drive. He liked the early evening, when the heat had gone out of the sun and it was pleasant to walk about in the last hour or so before dusk set in. This evening he was planning to spend some time clearing Mma Ramotswe’s vegetable garden at the back of the house before he would join her for a cup of bush tea on the verandah. There they would catch up on the day’s events before going in for dinner. There was always something to discuss; information which Mma Ramotswe had picked up while doing her shopping or items from that day’s Botswana Daily News (except for football news, in which Mma Ramotswe had no interest). They always agreed with one another; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni trusted Mma Ramotswe’s judgement on matters of human nature and local politics, while she deferred to him on business issues and agriculture. Was the price of cattle too low at the moment, or was it reasonable enough, given the price that the canning factory and the butchers were prepared to pay? Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would know the answer to that, and in Mma Ramotswe’s experience he was always right on these issues. What about that new politician, the one who had just been made a junior minister; was he to be trusted, or was he interested only in himself or, at a pinch, in the welfare of his own people in the town he came from? Only in himself, Mma Ramotswe would say without hesitation; look at him, just look at the way that he holds his hands clasped in front of him when he talks. That’s always a sign; always.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni parked his car just inside the gate. He liked to leave it there, allowing ample room for Mma Ramotswe to drive past in her tiny white van, if she needed to go out. Then, changing from his garage shoes, which were always covered in oil, to the scuffed and dusty suede veldschoens that he liked to wear outside, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made his way to the back of the yard where he had planted several rows of beans under an awning of shade netting. In a dry country like Botswana, shade netting made all the difference to a plant’s chances, keeping the drying rays of the sun off the vulnerable green leaves and allowing the earth to retain a little of any precious moisture left over from watering. The ground was always so thirsty; water poured upon it was soaked up with a parched eagerness that left little trace. But people persisted in spite of this and tried to make small patches of green amid the brown.
The yard in Zebra Drive was considerably larger than neighbouring plots. Mma Ramotswe had always intended to clear it entirely but had never got round to cutting back the tangle of bush—stunted thorn trees, high grass, and sundry shrubs—which overgrew the back section of her plot. Behind it was a small stretch of wasteland, also overgrown, across which an informal path wound its way. People liked to use this as a shortcut to town, and in the morning one might hear whistling or singing from men on bicycles as they rode along the path. Babies were conceived here, too, especially on Saturday evenings, and Mma Ramotswe had often thought that at least some of the children whom she saw playing games there had been drawn back by some strange homing instinct to revisit the place where they had started out.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni filled an old watering can from the stand-pipe at the side of the house. Inside the kitchen, Mma Ramotswe heard the tap running and looked out of the window. She waved to her fiancé, who waved back, mouthing a few words of greeting to her, before he carried the can off to the vegetable plot. Mma Ramotswe smiled to herself, and thought, Here I am at last, with a good man, who is prepared to work in the garden and grow beans for me. It was a comforting thought, and it made her feel warm with pleasure as she watched his retreating form disappear behind the clump of acacias that masked the rear portion of the yard.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stooped under the shade netting and began to pour water, gently, almost dribbling it, against the lower stem of each bean plant. Every drop of water was precious in Botswana, and one would have to be foolhardy to use a hose to splash water all over the place. It was even more effective, if one had the resources, to set up a drip feed system, in which the water would travel down from a central reservoir on a thin line of cotton thread which would dip down into the ground at the plant’s roots. That was the best water husbandry of all: tiny trickles of water delivered to the roots, minuscule drop by minuscule drop. Perhaps one day I shall do that, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Perhaps I shall do that when I am too old to fix cars anymore and have sold Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Then I shall be a farmer, as all my people have been before me. I shall go back to my lands, way out there on the edge of the Kalahari, and sit under a tree and watch my melons grow in the sun.
He bent down to examine one of the bean plants, which had become entangled in the string up which it grew. As he gently redirected the plant’s stem, there was a sudden noise behind him; a little thud, as of a stone hitting something, and then a dry, scrabbling noise, and he spun round immediately. A noise like that could easily be a snake; one had to be constantly on the watch for snakes, which might be lying anywhere and might suddenly rear up and strike. A cobra would be bad enough—and he had experienced several rather-too-close encounters with them—but what if it was a mamba, angered by a disturbance? Mambas were aggressive snakes which did not like people treading on their ground, and which would attack with real anger. A bite from a mamba was rarely survivable, as their poison travelled so quickly through the body and paralysed the lungs and the heart.
It was not a snake but a bird, which had fluttered down from the bough of a tree and had flown, at a strange angle, down against the shade netting. Now it had fallen to the ground and was beating its wings against the sand, raising a small cloud o
f dust. After a few struggling movements, it lay still, a hoopoe, with its gorgeous striped plumage and its tiny crown of black and white feathers sticking up like the headdress of some miniature chieftain.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni reached down to the bird, which watched his approaching hand with a liquid stare, but which seemed unable to move any longer. Its breast rose under the feathers, almost imperceptibly, and then was still. He picked it up still warm but now limp, and he turned it over. On its other side, the tiny eye—a black speck like the pip of a papaw—was hanging out of its socket, and there was a red patch in the plumage where the bird had been struck by a stone.
“Oh,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and then again, “oh.”
He laid the bird down on the ground and looked about him, out into the scrub bush.
“You skellums,” he shouted. “I saw this! I saw you kill this bird!”
Boys, he thought. It would be boys with their catapults, hiding in the bushes and killing birds, not to eat, of course, but just killing them. Killing doves or pigeons was one thing; they could be eaten, but nobody could eat a hoopoe, and who could possibly wish to kill such a friendly little bird? You simply did not kill hoopoes.
Of course it would be impossible to catch the boys in question; they would have run away by now, or they would be hiding in the bush laughing at him behind their hands. There was nothing to be done but to toss the little carcass away. Rats would find it, or maybe a snake, and make a meal of it. This little death would be a windfall for somebody.
WHEN MR. J.L.B. Matekoni went back to the house, discouraged by the hoopoe’s death, and by the condition of the beans, and by everything, he found Mma Ramotswe waiting for him at the kitchen door.
“Have you seen Puso?” she asked. “He was playing out in the yard. But now it is dinnertime and he has not come back. You may have heard me calling him.”
“I have not seen him,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have been out at the back.…” He stopped.
“And?” said Mma Ramotswe. “Is he back there?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni hesitated for a moment.
“I think he is,” he said gravely. “I think he is using a catapult out there.”
They both went out to the vegetable patch and peered into the bush on the other side of the fence.
“Puso,” called out Mma Ramotswe. “We know that you are hiding. You come out or I shall come and get you myself.”
They waited for a few moments. Then Mma Ramotswe called out again.
“Puso! You are there! We know you are there!”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought he saw a movement in the high grass. It was a good place for a boy to hide, but it would be easy enough to go and get him out if they had to.
“Puso!” shouted Mma Ramotswe. “You are there! Come out!”
“I am not here.” The boy’s voice was very clear. “I am not.”
“You are a rascal,” said Mma Ramotswe. “How can you say you are not there? Who is speaking if it is not you?”
There was a further silence, and then the branches of a bush parted and the small boy crawled out.
“He killed a hoopoe with his catapult,” whispered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I saw it.”
Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath as the boy approached her, his head down, looking steadfastly at the ground.
“Go to your room, Puso,” she said. “Go to your room and stay there until we call you.”
The boy looked up. His face was streaked with tears.
“I hate you,” he said. Then he turned to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And I hate you, too.”
The words seemed to hang in the air between them, but the boy now dashed past the two astonished adults, running back towards the house, not looking back at Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as he ran.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRUST YOUR AFFAIRS TO A MAN
NOTHING SEEMED to be going well for Mma Ramotswe. Firstly, there was that distressing evening with the children—Motholeli being bullied and the boy behaving in that troubling way, shooting a hoopoe and then remaining mute for the rest of the evening. There were matters still to be sorted out for Motholeli, of course, but at least she had cheered up after their talk; with the boy it had been different. He had just shut them out, refusing to eat, and it seemed that nothing they could say would make any difference. They had not attempted to punish him over the hoopoe, and one might have thought that he would be grateful for that, but he was not. Did he really hate them? And, if he did, why should he do so when all they had offered him was love and support? Was this how orphan children behaved? Mma Ramotswe knew that children who were damaged in their early years could be very difficult; and this boy, when all was said and done, had actually been buried alive as a baby. Something like that could leave a mark; indeed, it would have been surprising had it not. But why should he suddenly turn on them like that when he had seemed to be quite happy before? That was puzzling. She would have to go and see Mma Potokwani at the orphan farm and seek her advice. There was nothing that Mma Potokwani did not know about children and their behaviour.
But that was not all. There had been a development which could threaten the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency itself, unless something was done; and nothing, it seemed, could be done. It was Mma Makutsi who broke the news on the morning after the disturbing events at Zebra Drive.
“I have very bad news,” said Mma Makutsi when Mma Ramotswe arrived at the office. “I have been sitting here for the last hour, wanting to cry.”
Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant. She was not sure if she could take more trauma after last night; she felt raw from her engagement with the children’s problems, and she had been looking forward to a quiet day. It would not matter if there were no clients that day; in fact, it would be better if there were no clients at all. It was difficult enough having one’s own problems to sort out, let alone having to attend to the problems of others.
“Do you really have to tell me?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “I am not in a mood for problems.”
Mma Makutsi pursed her lips. “This is very important, Mma,” she said severely, as if lecturing one who was being completely irresponsible. “I cannot pretend that I have not seen what I have seen.”
Mma Ramotswe sat down at her desk and looked across at Mma Makutsi.
“In that case,” she said, “you had better tell me. What has happened?”
Mma Makutsi took off her spectacles and polished them on the hem of her skirt.
“Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon, as you may remember, Mma, I left a little bit early. At four o’clock.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “You said that you had to go shopping.”
“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “And I did go shopping. I went up to the Broadhurst shops. There is a shop there that sells stockings very cheaply. I wanted to go there.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “It is always best to go after bargains. I always do that.”
Mma Makutsi acknowledged the remark but pressed on. “There is a shop there—or there used to be a shop there—that sold cups and saucers. You may remember it. The owner went away and they closed it down. Do you remember?”
Mma Ramotswe did. She had bought a birthday present for somebody there, a large cup with a picture of a horse on it, and the handle had fallen off almost immediately.
“That place was empty for a while,” said Mma Makutsi. “But when I went up there yesterday afternoon and walked past it, just before half past four, I saw a new person putting up a sign outside the shop. And I saw some new furniture through the window. Brand-new office furniture.”
She glanced around at the shabby furniture with which their own office was filled: the old grey filing cabinet with one drawer that did not work properly; the desks with their uneven surfaces; the rickety chairs. Mma Ramotswe intercepted the glance and anticipated what was coming. There was going to be a request for new furniture. Mma Makutsi must have spoken to somebody up there at Broadhurst and had been told of bargains to be had. But it would b
e impossible. The business was losing money as it was; it was only because of the connection with Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the paying of Mma Makutsi’s salary through that side of the business that they managed to continue trading at all. If it were not for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, they would have had to close down some months ago.
Mma Ramotswe raised a hand. “I’m sorry, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “We cannot buy new equipment here. We simply don’t have the money.”
Mma Makutsi stared at her. “That was not what I was going to say,” she protested. “I was going to say something quite different.” She paused, so that Mma Ramotswe might feel suitably guilty for her unwarranted assumption.
“I’m sorry,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Tell me what you saw.”
“A new detective agency,” said Mma Makutsi. “As large as life. It calls itself the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency.”
Mma Makutsi folded her arms, watching the effect of her words upon her employer. Mma Ramotswe narrowed her eyes. This was dramatic news indeed. She had become so used to being the only private detective in town, indeed in the whole country, that it had never occurred to her there would be competition. This was the news that she least wished to hear, and for a moment she was tempted to throw her hands in the air and announce that she was giving up. But that was a passing thought, and no more than that. Mma Ramotswe was not one to give up that easily, and even if it was discouraging to have orphan problems at home and a shortage of work at the agency, this was no reason to abandon the business. So she squared her shoulders and smiled at Mma Makutsi.
“Every business must expect competition,” she said. “We are no different. We cannot expect to have it all our own way forever, can we?”
Mma Makutsi looked doubtful. “No,” she said at last. “We learned about that at the Botswana Secretarial College. It’s called the principle of competition.”