To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) (11 page)

Mma Ramotswe thought about this. The thought of diamond theft had occurred to her, but she wondered whether it was feasible or likely. The security surrounding the handling of diamonds was legendary for its strictness. It could safely be assumed that nobody would get away with any attempt to circumvent it. And if that was the case, then Nametso must have bought the Mercedes-Benz with the proceeds of some other activity.

She raised this possibility with Mma Makutsi and Charlie. They listened attentively.

“We need to follow her,” said Charlie when Mma Ramotswe had finished. “Follow somebody, and you find out the truth.”

Even Mma Makutsi was impressed with this observation. “That is very good, Charlie,” she said. “You are becoming rather a good
assistant
detective. Follow somebody down the track and at the end of the track you will find the truth.”

“What track?” asked Charlie.

“Mma Makutsi is thinking of no particular track,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Actually, I am thinking of the track marked
private life,
” said Mma Makutsi, examining her fingernails. “That is the track to follow, I think.”

C
HARLIE MET QUEENIE-QUEENIE
that night at The Gaborone Dance Studio, a bar that prided itself on its dance floor.
The best music south of the Zambezi,
the club claimed on the lurid hoarding above its entrance. Below that boast, in somewhat less florid lettering, was the more practical advertisement:
Good drinks, plenty food
. No geographical distinction was asserted for these; certainly not that they were better than anything else obtainable south of any river. The place was popular, though, particularly among younger, more affluent government officials—it was not far from the headquarters of several ministries—and among aspiring socialites.

Charlie was wary of meeting there, on the grounds of expense, but had been assured by Queenie-Queenie that since the purpose of their tryst was a meeting with her brother, Hector, who had suggested it, he would pay for the drinks. “He has an account there,” she said. “He always goes there to speak to his business associates.”

Charlie had enquired as to what Hector’s business was, and who the associates were. Queenie-Queenie had not answered directly, but had waved a hand airily. “He does business deals,” she said. “With this person, then with that person. Then with somebody down in Mozambique, even. He sometimes goes there, Maputo. He says they have great seafood there. Big prawns. You like prawns, Charlie?”

Charlie had never tasted seafood of any description. He shook his head. “I do not eat prawns,” he said.

“When we’re married, Charlie, I’ll cook you prawns. They have frozen prawns in the supermarket—you don’t have to go to Mozambique, although we could go if we liked.”

Charlie had never been anywhere, not even to Johannesburg. Would it ever be possible to go to Mozambique—with somebody like Queenie-Queenie? Dancing? Eating prawns? Staying in a
hotel
?

“And peri-peri chicken,” Queenie-Queenie went on. “You must like peri-peri chicken, Charlie? Everybody likes peri-peri chicken—even vegetarians. They have a vegetarian version of it.”

Yes, he liked peri-peri chicken.

“That comes from those Portuguese,” said Queenie-Queenie. “When they were in Mozambique, they liked to eat peri-peri chicken. They said to people: ‘You will eat peri-peri chicken.’ And you did not argue with the Portuguese.”

“No,” said Charlie. “They were not very nice.”

“There were some nice Portuguese,” said Queenie-Queenie. “But they have all gone home now. That is African history, you see. People come and take what they want, and then they go home.”

Charlie shook his head. “That was very bad. But it is finished now.”

“I don’t know,” said Queenie-Queenie. “There are others. They are always looking for their chance.”

Now Charlie sat in a booth at The Gaborone Dance Studio, nursing his drink—a small soft drink, mostly ice, served to him by a disdainful waitress who had looked at his trousers with what seemed close to contempt. And there was indeed an old oil stain that he had tried, and failed, to remove; how that had happened, he had no idea, as his work trousers were kept rigorously separate from his social trousers, but there it was—Queenie-Queenie had never said anything about his clothes, and he thought she probably did not notice. Women, thought Charlie, are keen for you to notice what
they
are wearing but are often not particularly interested in what
you
are wearing, which was just as well, he thought, because his clothes had a thin, scrappy look to them, like the skin of an undernourished cow, perhaps, or the cheap upholstery of an old car seat. It will be different, he told himself; it will be different in the future when I am somebody to reckon with: a leading private investigator, with offices in Gaborone and Lobatse, and possibly Francistown; with a secretary—no, two secretaries—and a switchboard to put calls in from one line to the other, and a room of his own, not one shared with two younger cousins, one of whom currently had a dry, rasping cough. You could not be angry with a cough, nor with the indignities visited on the other poor little boy, but you could yearn for freedom from such things, for escape from need, from the limitations of a world made small by poverty.

And he was looking down at his trousers when Queenie-Queenie came in with Hector, her brother, whose hobby was body-building and whose clothes clung to his body, tight and shining, safe from the condescension of any waitress.

Queenie-Queenie did not kiss him, but reached out briefly and touched his hand before she sat down beside him, all the while watching her brother, Charlie noticed, as if she were anxious that he should approve of her demeanour.

“Hector drove me here,” she said. “He has been very busy, but he is happy that he can be here.”

Hector had greeted Charlie formally. Now, still standing, he said, “Come with me to the bar, Charlie. I need a drink.”

“The waitress will come,” said Charlie. “They have a waitress here.”

“That woman is no good,” said Hector. “She knows nothing.”

Queenie-Queenie nudged Charlie. “You should go with Hector,” she whispered. “Then come back and we can talk.”

Charlie rose obediently, and walked across the dance floor to the bar with the other young man. There was no band yet—just a tired recording from somewhere behind the bar, marred by a faulty lead to the speaker.

“This place needs a kick in the pants,” said Hector. “They are no good, but this is where everyone comes. Have you been here before, Charlie?”

Charlie shook his head.

“You should come,” said Hector. “As I said, everyone comes here. This is where all the big deals are done. Right here. This is where people see who’s who, you know.”

Charlie nodded. He had no idea who was who. I am really just a mechanic, he said to himself. I am not even a proper detective. I am not a big man who can walk about The Gaborone Dance Studio as if he owns it. This is not my place.

They reached the bar, where Hector offered him a beer while ordering himself a vodka and lime.

“Vodka goes with anything,” he said. “You can have it with soda, with Coke if you like, with orange juice. Anything. You should try it some time. One vodka and you think: Problems? No problems any more. No problems.”

“That must be very good,” said Charlie. “Who hasn’t got problems?”

Hector raised his glass. “Who hasn’t got problems? Too true, Charlie. Too true.” He reached out and poked Charlie gently in the chest. “You’ve got problems, I’d say. Big problems too.”

Charlie said nothing. Hector was right: he had problems.

Hector took a sip of his vodka and lime. “Queenie says you’ve asked her to marry you? Is that true?”

Charlie thought that it was not strictly true. He could not remember actually proposing to her; it seemed to him that she had simply assumed that he was about to do so, and had saved him the effort. But he would not say that now.

“That’s true. We are hoping to get married.”

Hector nodded. “Then that’s where your problem lies,” he said.

Charlie looked down at the floor. Money. Everything was reduced to money. At the end of the day, that was how the important decisions were made. Money.

Hector continued, “Because I think you have no money at all—correct?”

Charlie looked up briefly and nodded. “I have no money. I am very poor.”

Hector made a noise with his tongue that was hard to interpret. It was not an encouraging sound. “You see, Charlie, you’re basically nothing, aren’t you? Mr. Nothing—big-time.”

Charlie was about to nod again, but stopped himself. He was beginning, though, to feel angry. That was not the way things were meant to be—not here in Botswana, where every person had a right to have their dignity acknowledged and respected. The government said that all the time. And when the government spoke, it spoke with all the authority of the ancestors, way back, all the way back.

He summoned up his courage. “I am not Mr. Nothing,” he said.

Hector’s tone was mocking. “No? Then who are you?”

“Same as you,” said Charlie. “Same as anybody else.”

This momentarily deflected Hector. But he soon returned. “Okay,” he said. “So you’re not nothing in the sense of…of not being here at all, but…but don’t you see a big problem here? You go to my uncles, my father even, and you say, ‘I want to marry Queenie-Queenie,’ and they say, ‘You want to marry Queenie-Queenie?’ And then they start to think about the money, Charlie, the money. And they say, ‘We were thinking of fifty cattle, maybe one hundred, who knows?’ And then they ask you how many cattle you have, and I don’t know the answer to that, Charlie, but I think I can guess. I think you are Mr. Zero Cattle. Is that correct?”

“I have no cattle. It is true.”

“You see,” said Hector. “When I said you were Mr. Nothing, that’s what I meant. And so you can’t marry Queenie unless there’s a big change in your life, Charlie.”

Charlie looked away. The waitress was staring at him from the end of the counter. She seemed puzzled as to why Charlie was with Hector. Noticing this, Charlie felt some satisfaction; she had written him off, and now here he was, talking to this well-dressed and impressive body-builder—Mr. Something to his Mr. Nothing.

Hector leaned forward. He lowered his voice. “I can help you, Charlie.”

Charlie drew in his breath. “Yes?”

“Yes. I can see my sister thinks a lot of you.” He paused. “I can’t see why. No offence, Charlie, but you know what I mean. Women are funny that way, aren’t they? They go for useless men sometimes.”

Charlie lowered his gaze.
I am not useless. I am an assistant detective. I have almost solved a big case today. The ladies congratulated me.
There was so much he could say to this person—if only he had the courage.

“So they insist on marrying some guy who’s never going to get anywhere,” Hector continued. “You ask them why, and they say—love. Would you believe it? That’s what they say.”

“Maybe that’s what they want.”

Hector ignored this. “And then, after a few years, they wake up one day and they have three children, maybe four, and they can’t see why they married him and they say, ‘Oh dear, look at me now, with all these children and this useless man—what can I do?’ And the answer, of course, is nothing, because they’re stuck with him.” He shook his head. “It’s very sad.”

“Perhaps—”

“Let me tell you, Charlie. I have some business interests and I need people to help me. And I think I might have just the job for you.”

Charlie pointed out that he already had a job. “I am an assistant detective.”

Hector brushed this aside. “Of course, of course. You work for that fat lady. But this would not be a full-time job—it would be an evening job, for after work. You go to work and do your investigations or whatever, then you come to my place and you do some things for me.”

Charlie asked what things these were.

“I am a partner in a money-lending firm,” said Hector. “I used money that the old man gave me—he has this big transport company, you know. Anyway, he advanced me some money and I invested with this guy called Freddy, who has a money-lending company. We make small loans to people who’ve spent all their money and need something to keep them going until payday.” He looked at Charlie. “You’ll know what it’s like to be short of money, won’t you?” He rubbed two fingers together while looking pained.

Charlie nodded. “It’s not easy.”

“Yes,” said Hector. “We make small loans, and then they pay us back when they get their pay. That’s the theory.”

“It doesn’t work?”

“It works most of the time, but not always. Out of one hundred loans, you get paid back no problem in eighty of them. Then there are ten that are late, and then there are ten who don’t pay back at all. Those are the ones you have to go and see—to remind them.”

Charlie waited.

“And that’s where you come in, Charlie,” said Hector. “We need a new reminder. The last one…well, he had an accident. We need people who will go to visit these people and persuade them to pay us back.”

“How?” asked Charlie.

Hector laughed. “Lots of people have cars these days. And if their car is grounded for a while, it’s very inconvenient for them—very. That’s where you come in. You are a mechanic, aren’t you?”

Charlie nodded.

“Then it’ll be simple,” said Hector. “You go and take something out of the car—some important piece. You immobilise them. That’s why I’m giving you this great opportunity, Charlie. I know you’re a mechanic, and so you can do this sort of thing.”

Charlie’s eyes widened.

“You remove the distributor or something,” Hector continued. “Maybe one or two of its wheels. Or you make sure the car won’t start. And then they realise that we mean business, and you won’t see them for dust—running around to make sure they pay us back and get their cars going again. Simple. Everybody’s happy—or, at least, we’re happy; they may not be.”

Charlie stared at Hector open-mouthed. “You want me to sabotage their cars?” he asked. “Is that what you want?”

“You could put it that way, Charlie,” said Hector. “But remember: You’re the one who needs the money. You’re the one who wants to get married to my sister. All that I’m doing is making it possible for you. You work for me, and I’ll give you the money to give to the old man.” He smiled. “Simple, you see. You should say, ‘Thank you, Hector.’ That’s what you should say, Charlie, my friend!”