To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) (14 page)

Mma Tsepole continued, “The mother of this child—she was working in the fields, although she was ill. She was still working. And the child was with her, playing, when the elephant came. There was another woman there, on the other side of the field, and she saw the elephant coming and she shouted to warn this child’s mother. But she did not hear, and the elephant was angry because it had that condition that elephants get, where their eyes water. And the people up there know to keep well away from an elephant when it is like that.”

Mma Ramotswe was silent. She saw the scene: the field, the sun, the struggling crops, the woman tending them. And the elephant, a grey shape that came out of nowhere, as elephants can do, and that could move with such swiftness and agility, like a great dancer, when angered or afraid.

“The elephant killed the mother,” said Mma Potokwane. “The other woman saw it all happen—and so did the little girl. The elephant picked the mother up and threw her, as those creatures do, and then trampled her. The child saw it happen.”

Mma Ramotswe closed her eyes. “The poor child.” It was not much to say, she knew. The poor child.

“They shouted at the elephant and banged an old tin bath they had at the fields,” said Mma Tsepole. “That made it turn away. Sometimes they lose interest, you see. It turned and went away before it could kill the child too.”

Mma Potokwane shrugged her shoulders. “She will not remember it in the future. I think she remembers now—maybe that is why she says
Mama
sometimes—but she will forget. Children forget. They forget the most terrible things, Mma, if they are young enough.”

“But later, when they are older, Mma,” said Mma Tsepole. “I think it is different then.”

Mma Potokwane nodded gravely. “Yes, it can be very different.”

Daisy had moved. Now, a few hesitant steps later, she was beside Mma Ramotswe’s chair, looking up at her. Mma Potokwane smiled. “See, Mma, she has come to you.”

Mma Ramotswe turned in her chair and gazed down at the little girl. “She is very pretty,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mma Tsepole. “I think she is, Mma. She has those eyes—you know the eyes that some of them have. She has those.”

Daisy now reached out and took hold of Mma Ramotswe’s hand that had been half proffered to her. The tiny hand fastened onto a finger and gripped tight.

“She’s holding your hand,” whispered Mma Potokwane. “Look, Mma. She is holding on to you.”

Mma Ramotswe moved her hand slightly, but the child did not relinquish her grip. She leaned over and picked her up, taking her to her bosom. The child held on. She buried her head in Mma Ramotswe. She clung to her.

The two other women were silent. There was nothing that they could say.

“Yes,” Mma Ramotswe whispered. “Yes, my little one.”

And then she kissed the child gently, on her head, and put her free hand on her back and hugged her closer.

“Yes, my little one. Now you have met Mma Ramotswe. That’s who I am. I am Mma Ramotswe.”

She thought of those moments, so infinitely painful to the memory, and therefore not thought about very often, when she had held her baby who died. How small the infant had been—a scrap of humanity—but how vast the chasm of sorrow it had opened in her. She struggled with the memory, and after a short while she put it out of her mind and was back in this room, with her two friends, and this strange little girl who seemed to have taken to her so quickly.

“I must put you down, little one,” she whispered, and began to detach herself from the child. But Daisy was not to be put down, and held on all the tighter, struggling to remain exactly where she was, in the arms of Mma Ramotswe, nestling at her chest.

Mma Potokwane leaned over towards her friend. “They can cling very tight, Mma,” she said. “After they have lost the mother, they can cling very tight.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. She understood, and she stopped trying to put Daisy down. Instead she rose to her feet, still holding the child, and walked over to the other side of the kitchen, to the door that gave out onto the back yard.

“Look,” she said. “Look out there. Can you see the trees? And look, there’s a bird there, on that branch. Can you see it?”

The child looked, but soon turned her head back to Mma Ramotswe and the comfort of her bosom.

“And look—look up there. That’s the sky, you see. It goes for a long way. And out there, not far away, is the Kalahari. And at night there are many stars there, you know. High, high—many, many stars.”

The child uttered a sound that she did not hear very well. It could have been anything, but it was probably nothing, she thought.

“Maybe you’re hungry,” she said. “Maybe that is what it is.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Tsepole, who reached for a battered tin box and took out a plain rusk. “They love these,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “Milk rusks. I make them for the children.” She handed the rusk to Mma Ramotswe, who offered it to Daisy. A small hand reached for it but did not put it in her mouth. She held the rusk, which shed crumbs on Mma Ramotswe.

“She’s not hungry,” said Mma Potokwane. “And we should wait a little, I think, so that she can have food with her pill.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. “Her pill, Mma?”

Mma Potokwane sighed. “The mother was ill, Mma, as we told you.”

It took Mma Ramotswe no more than a few seconds to grasp the significance of this. She gave an involuntary gasp. “Oh, Mma Potokwane…”

“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “That is how it is, Mma. It is hard, I know. It is very hard.”

Mma Ramotswe kissed Daisy again, and held her more tightly. She rocked her gently, as if in an effort to calm her—although the child was not upset.

Mma Tsepole turned away. She could not bear it; she could not bear it. And yet she had to, because this was her job and you could not allow your emotions to get the better of you. Others would have to do the weeping, because a housemother in tears was no help to the other children. A housemother had to be brave.

Mma Potokwane lifted her mug and took a sip of tea. “These children have very special needs, Mma. It would be good if we could give little Daisy more attention, but there are so many children. Mma Tsepole has to look after…How many is it, Mma?”

“Eight now,” said Mma Tsepole. “And there are two more coming, you said.”

“Possibly,” said Mma Potokwane. Then, to Mma Ramotswe, “We have a helper for this child, thanks to one of the firms that support us. They have paid for a young woman to look after her. But we have no accommodation for her—the young woman, that is. She has to travel over from the far side of the village every day, and then go back at night.” She paused, and addressed Mma Tsepole again. “Where is that girl, Mma?”

“She has gone to the stores,” said Mma Tsepole. “She’ll be back in an hour, maybe. I am covering in the meantime.”

Mma Potokwane nodded. “You see, Mma Ramotswe, it is a bit hard for us. We have to balance all these needs. This child needs this thing, that child needs that thing, and a third child needs something else altogether. It isn’t easy.”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe, kissing the top of Daisy’s head again. “It cannot be.”

Mma Potokwane hesitated. She glanced at Mma Tsepole, who intercepted her glance, but said nothing. Then she continued, “Of course, it would be ideal if somebody were to offer to take this child—and the young woman. It would only be for a month or two, because we have found a home for this child. There are some good people who are going to take her, but their new house is still being built and it is not yet ready. In the meantime, it is very hard for the helper to get in here every day at the right time. And she cannot travel back in the dark, so she has to leave early and there is nobody to look after the child.”

Mma Ramotswe understood. “It must be hard—with all these children. I can see that, Mma Potokwane.”

Mma Potokwane brushed a fly away. “If there were somebody,” she continued, “who had unoccupied servants’ quarters, for example, at the back of their yard, where the young woman could live. That would be very good.” She paused. “It wouldn’t cost them anything, of course, because we get money for the young woman from that firm, and the government also gives us some money to support the child. So there would be no cost at all.”

There was a silence. Another fly buzzed against the fly screen on the kitchen window, looking for freedom in that quarter but unaware of the open door behind it.

“It would be a great help, that,” agreed Mma Tsepole. Then, “You foster two children already, don’t you, Mma?”

“I do,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They are with us forever now.”

“That’s very good,” said Mma Tsepole. “Children like security. They like to have one person who is just theirs, you see.”

“I understand,” muttered Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane put down her cup. “You don’t by any chance have unoccupied quarters at the back of your yard, do you, Mma?”

LATER, AS SHE LAY IN BED
and contemplated what she had done, Mma Ramotswe thought: it was the tea that did it. It was the tea that had made her say what she said. It was the tea.

But she had never once regretted what she had done under the influence of tea, and would not start doing so now. And what was there to regret? Motholeli had been so pleased to discover Daisy, and Puso, although usually indifferent to younger children, had listened carefully as she told him how Daisy had lost her mother. “That’s very sad,” he said at the end. “I shall try to make her happy.”

“We all shall,” said Mma Ramotswe, dispelling there and then the last of her doubts as to her admittedly impetuous decision. If you could not help in a case like this, when you had been given so much, and when your friend, Mma Potokwane, spent every minute of her working day trying to make life better for these poor children, then what could you do? Of course you had to do it. Of course you had to say to Mma Potokwane, “Well, as it happens, Mma, we have the room and the young woman will be able to look after her during the day when I am at the office, and yes, Mma, there is always enough love for some of it to be given to a little girl who has had these things happen to her.” And Mma Potokwane, for her part, had to say, “Well, Mma Ramotswe, it’s good that you should say that because I thought this might just be the right thing for this child, and we can sort out the paperwork later on—not that I am a great believer in paperwork. Why wait, when she so obviously wants you to look after her; see how she still holds on to you? See that? That is a sign, I think.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been uncertain what to say. He wondered whether he should ask Mma Ramotswe why she had not consulted him, but decided against it. If husbands started to question their wives’ decisions, then where would it end, and what purpose would it serve? You could not undo what your wife had done. Some men tried it, he knew, but they almost always failed, because women so often did the right thing, and the right thing may be beyond undoing. It was far better to accept what had happened and make the best of it. It was also the case, he reflected, that Mma Ramotswe usually got her way. She was so nice about it, so disinclined to be insistent or pushy, but she usually got him to do what she wanted—and he was happy enough about that when all was said and done.

And in that spirit he had crept into the room at the back of the house to be shown where Daisy was asleep in a cot borrowed from a Zebra Drive neighbour. And there, seeing the sleeping child’s head upon the pillow, he had unexpectedly found himself in tears. A handkerchief was pressed into his hand by Mma Ramotswe, who said, “There, Rra, there.” And then they had closed the door quietly and made their way back to the kitchen and their waiting dinner. It was always the strongest men who were the first to cry, thought Mma Ramotswe. Some people said it was the other way round, but they were wrong, she told herself; they were simply wrong.

A
T MORNING TEA TIME
the next day, Mma Ramotswe outlined to Mma Makutsi and Charlie what she had in mind to do about Nametso. Charlie, she suggested, should take up position in the van, discreetly parked, ready to follow Nametso when she left work that evening.

“People leave that sort of office at five on the dot,” she said. “They are always ready to pack up and go the moment the clock says the working day is over.”

“Unlike us,” said Mma Makutsi. “We self-employed people are always working odd hours. If the work is there, we do it.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed, refraining from pointing out that both Mma Makutsi and Charlie had always had a very keen sense of when it was five o’clock.

“I shall come too,” offered Mma Makutsi. “I think this is a sensitive matter, Mma, and…” She looked at Charlie. “I think there is a need for a senior operative.”

Charlie looked to Mma Ramotswe for support. “That’s very kind, Mma Makutsi,” he said. “But I am sure I shall manage.”

“No,” said Mma Makutsi. “You do not need to thank me, Charlie. It is for the best.”

Mma Ramotswe made her decision. There was something about this case—if one could call it a case—that made her uncomfortable, and she wanted to watch over it carefully. Diamonds were involved, and you did not tread lightly with diamonds—not in a country that prided itself on the careful regulation of the industry. Diamonds were sensitive, and Charlie and Mma Makutsi might easily wander into something that would have to be handed over to the authorities. “I shall come too,” Mma Ramotswe announced. “That way there will be many eyes watching her.”

“Six,” said Charlie. “Six eyes, Mma.”

“That’s correct, Charlie,” she said. “Six eyes. Three pairs.”

At four-fifteen, in time to beat the traffic that built up after five, the three of them left the agency in the tiny white van, with Charlie at the wheel, Mma Makutsi in the middle of the ancient bench seat that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had installed in the cab, and, up against the passenger door, its uncomfortable broken handle pressing into her side, Mma Ramotswe. They were so squashed that in unspoken agreement their breathing fell into a sequence, with Charlie breathing in first, while Mma Makutsi breathed out, and this gave room for Mma Ramotswe to fall into synchronicity with Charlie. In this way they drove slowly along the street that approached the diamond-sorting office and found, more or less exactly where they had expected it, a gleaming silver Mercedes-Benz parked in between a pick-up truck and a modest, somewhat battered car bearing a large
Be Careful
sticker.

“There,” said Mma Ramotswe, wanting to point, but unable to disentangle her elbow from Mma Makutsi’s rib cage.

“That’s the car,” said Charlie, swerving in his excitement. “That’ll be her car, Mma.”

“Don’t park too close, Charlie,” said Mma Makutsi. “You don’t want her to see us.”

Mma Ramotswe thought: And how could they possibly avoid being seen? Two women and a young man shoehorned into a cab meant for two, if not one, in a van listing markedly to the left and emitting, she now noticed, a small cloud of steam from its front. That was worrying, she thought, and made a mental note to draw Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s attention to it, although she was loath to do so. He was looking for an excuse, she suspected, once again to urge her to retire the van and replace it with something more modern. She would have to resist that, because one did not lightly retire an old friend, which is what it would seem like to her.

As luck would have it, Charlie found a spot not far away that was in the process of being vacated by another driver, and the van fitted neatly into that. This afforded them a view of the Mercedes-Benz, but from such a distance that would allow them to slip out without it being too obvious, they hoped, that they were following the driver. Once the van was parked, Mma Ramotswe opened her door, not completely, but sufficiently to allow for a release of the pressure.

Charlie was gazing across the street, in the direction of the parked silver car. “Why does that sticker say
Be Careful
?” he asked. “You see it? It says
Be Careful
. That’s all:
Be Careful.
”

“That is good advice,” said Mma Makutsi. “You have to be careful.”

“About what?” asked Charlie.

Mma Makutsi was patient. “About everything, Charlie. You have to watch out these days.” She half turned to Mma Ramotswe. It was still a bit difficult to move, even with the passenger door partly open. “That’s good advice, don’t you think, Mma? The sort of advice Charlie should listen to, wouldn’t you say?”

“I am always careful,” protested Charlie. “Always. Crossing the road. Coming to work. Going home. Careful, careful, careful.”

“I’m sure you are, Charlie,” Mma Ramotswe said. She stopped. They had parked facing a dry-cleaning depot. This had a door in the front and a large shop window through which they could see the counter and several large machines beyond it. A young woman had emerged from this door, holding a large folded plastic bag in which a dress was stored. As she came out into the light, the young woman blinked, shading her eyes from the low-angled rays of the sun. At that moment, her gaze met Mma Ramotswe’s, and Mma Ramotswe knew that this was Nametso. She had never met her, and had no idea of her appearance, but she knew, almost instinctively, that this was the woman she was there to observe.

Nametso looked puzzled, evidently wondering about the odd combination in the van: the two women, one of them traditionally built, the other with large round spectacles—far too big for her face—and hints of a troublesome skin; and the young man with the rather loud shirt, staring at her as if he recognised her.

Mma Ramotswe looked away, whispering to the others, “Don’t stare, don’t stare. Just look somewhere else.”

“She was staring at me, Mma,” Charlie whispered. “She is the one who was staring.”

“Now she has seen us,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “How can we follow somebody who has seen us? We are finished, Mma Ramotswe.”

But Mma Ramotswe was not one to give up so readily. She pointed out that there was no reason to suspect them of taking an undue interest in her. From her point of view, she said, they were just a van full of people who had probably come into town from somewhere out in the bush and were gaping at everything they saw. They could be people who had perhaps never seen a dry-cleaner’s place before and were marvelling at the machinery. Sometimes you saw that in town: people, particularly elderly people from outlying areas, would come into the city and be astonished by what they saw. You noticed them standing on street corners simply staring and wondering how all these people could be living in one place and going about their business like this. And where were the cattle? What was there for the cattle to eat here where the only grass seemed to be that grown in front of houses—which would have been heaven for cattle, if only they were allowed to eat it.

Nametso crossed the road and, as they expected, unlocked the silver Mercedes-Benz.

“You see,” said Charlie. “I told you.” He craned his neck. “I know that model. It is very expensive. One hundred and sixty-three horsepower. That’s max. Automatic gearbox, one, two, three—”

“Yes, yes, Charlie,” said Mma Makutsi. “But just concentrate. We have to get ready to follow.”

Mma Ramotswe squeezed herself back into her share of the seat and, breathing in, just managed to get the door shut. On the other side of the road, the reversing lights of the silver Mercedes-Benz flicked on.

“See those lights,” said Charlie. “They come on automatically, of course. And there’s an extra one you can switch on if you really need to see what’s behind you in the dark. There’s a camera in the car too, you know, and—”

Mma Makutsi cut him short once more. “We do not need to hear all this, Charlie.”

The Mercedes-Benz reversed out of its parking place. For a few moments it seemed as if the driver was hesitating, uncertain as to which way to go. Then the decision was made, and the car sped off down the road, heading away from the centre of town.

“Quick,” urged Mma Makutsi. “We must not lose her, Charlie.”

Charlie struggled with the gears, pushing Mma Makutsi’s legs away from the lever. “It is very hard, Mma, if you are sitting like that.”

Somehow Charlie managed to get the van under way. The other car, though, had almost disappeared, and Charlie had to coax the van’s badly struggling engine to the limits of its capacity to keep up.

“Do you think she’s noticed us?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe looked at the back of the Mercedes-Benz. “If she’s looked in the mirror, perhaps. But people often don’t.”

By the traffic circle near the university gate, Nametso slowed down. It seemed for a few moments as if she was about to turn off to the left, but she did not, and continued to the far end of the road that skirted the university grounds. There were several large blocks of flats there, and it was through the gates of one of these buildings that the Mercedes now swung, braked sharply, and then came to a halt. Charlie slowed the van down to a snail’s pace, keeping to the road outside. From there, they watched as Nametso got out of her car, retrieved her dry-cleaning, and walked the short distance into one of the flats.

“Now?” asked Charlie.

Mma Ramotswe told Charlie to park further down the road.

“This is not where she lives,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Her mother told me she lived with some other people over near the railway station.”

“So what is she doing here?” asked Charlie.

Mma Makutsi tapped the window. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Some people have places where they live part of the time. They live there, but they don’t live there all the time.”

Mma Ramotswe waited.

“So I think this woman lives here,” Mma Makutsi continued. “She is leading a double life. She doesn’t want anybody to know about her car. She doesn’t want anybody to know about this flat.”

Charlie whistled. “She is a big thief, then. She is definitely stealing diamonds. You can only have two lives if you’re stealing something.”

“Possibly,” said Mma Ramotswe. She paused. “Of course, people who are leading two lives are usually very secretive. One of those lives will be led in the shadows, you know.”

“So how are we going to find out?” asked Charlie.

Mma Ramotswe smiled. There were times when it was appropriate to quote Clovis Andersen, but there were also times when it seemed right to quote herself. Not that she would do that, of course, but she had always maintained that the best way of finding out about something was simply to ask somebody. There was always somebody who would have the information you needed, and, in just about every case, such a person would be happy to give it to you. It was just a question of finding out whom one should ask and then asking. It was no more complicated than that.

She smiled at Charlie. “We ask.”

“Who do we ask, Mma?”

The answer to that was simple. “Who are the people who see everything that goes on, Charlie? Neighbours. They are the ones. Neighbours know everything, Charlie. And they are also usually the ones who are keenest to talk.”

Mma Makutsi gestured towards the block of flats. “Over there, Mma?”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There are plenty of neighbours over there, and I think that they will be keen to talk to us.” She paused. Windows were open. A smell of distant cooking drifted over from the nearest of the flats. People were home, and of course they would talk—especially about a young woman who appeared to own a silver Mercedes-Benz and who had something to do with diamonds.

Mma Ramotswe opened her door and began to manoeuvre herself out of the van. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was right about at least one thing: a more modern van would not only be more reliable, but would have more room. “People have been becoming more traditionally built over recent years,” he had pointed out. “And the people who make cars know that. They have made the seats much bigger, Mma. You would find that out if you let me buy you a new van.”

He was right, but there was more to life than just having more room to spread out in. Having more room did not in itself make you happier; having something you loved did that, and she still loved her van, just as one might love a comfortable pair of shoes, or a scarf somebody gave you—somebody you had in turn loved very much—or a teacup from which you had drunk your tea for years and years. Such love did not go away when something new and shiny came along.

“We shall all go,” she said. “I’ll go and speak to the people in the flat on the left. Mma Makutsi, you take the neighbours in the flat upstairs, and Charlie…”

“But what do I say?” asked Charlie. “I can’t just go up to their door and say, ‘Tell me all about your neighbour, please.’ They could say, ‘What business is it of yours?’ and tell me to go away.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You have a story, Charlie. You say you’re looking for somebody and ask them if that person lives next door.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “Then they’ll say, ‘Oh no, that person doesn’t live there. That is a young woman called Nametso.’ ”