Precious and Grace (8 page)

“Fanwell,” she said. “That dog can come to Zebra Drive this evening. It can stay there until we work something out. You needn't worry.”

Fanwell clapped his hands together, dropping the paper towel as he did so. “Oh, Mma…Oh, Mma, you are the kindest lady in Botswana—in the whole of Africa. That is one hundred per cent true, Mma—I'm not just saying it. You are the best lady there is…” He glanced at Mma Makutsi. “And you too, Mma Makutsi, you are a very good lady too. You are both very kind.”

Mma Ramotswe explained that she would need his help to create a run for the dog. “We'll need a long wire pegged out so that we can attach his lead—you know the sort of thing. That will mean that the dog can run backwards and forwards when we are not there.”

“I'll make that myself, Mma,” promised Fanwell. “The dog will be very safe there, at your place. And he will keep burglars away too, Mma. They'll see the dog and think,
I'm not going to steal from that place—not with that dog there.
”

“No burglar would dare to steal from Mma Ramotswe anyway, Fanwell,” said Mma Makutsi.

“No, maybe not,” said Fanwell.

“Why?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

Fanwell looked at the floor. “Because…because…” It was to do with traditional build, but he could not say that. He had never witnessed Mma Ramotswe engaged in a physical struggle—not surprisingly, since she abjured violence of any sort—but he had heard that when absolutely pressed, she had been known to sit on people, crushing the resistance out of them remarkably quickly and efficiently. A well-informed burglar might know that, and give the house on Zebra Drive a wide berth for that reason.

Mma Makutsi took over. “Because burglars aren't stupid, Mma. They know that you're a detective. What burglar would steal from a detective's house? Only a very stupid one, Mma.”

“Yes,” said Fanwell hurriedly. “That's what I meant, Mma. That's exactly what I meant.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her watch. “Get your dog ready, Fanwell,” she said. Then, to Mma Makutsi, she said, “Mma, have you talked to Mr. Polopetsi recently? He hasn't been in for a while.”

Mma Makutsi made a vague gesture. “He's been teaching, I think. You know what he's like—he never tells anybody what he's doing. The school calls him up at short notice.”

“But have you spoken to him?”

Mma Makutsi replied that she had seen him the previous week. “He was very excited. He came to my place.”

Mma Ramotswe was interested. “Specially to see you?”

Mma Makutsi smiled. “Yes. You know about his scheme? You know he has a business scheme, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “I've heard about it.”

“It's a very good scheme, apparently,” said Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe hardly dared ask. “And did you…”

She did not finish. Mma Makutsi looked pleased. “You know something, Mma? He let me in on very preferential terms.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “He did, did he?”

“Yes. Phuti gives me a bit of money now and then for my own savings—you know how kind he is. Well, I put some of that into Mr. Polopetsi's scheme. He wanted ten thousand, but I didn't give him that. I put in three thousand pula, though, and I believe that I shall be getting—”

“Twenty-five per cent return,” supplied Mma Ramotswe.

“Exactly. How did you know, Mma? Are you in on it too?”

Mma Ramotswe sighed again. “I heard about it,” she said.

“Word gets out,” mused Mma Makutsi. “Have a good idea, and word gets out. It always does.”

M
MA RAMOTSWE
had been confronted with cases like this before, where the client wanted to find out something but could provide very little information. The fallibility of human memory, its vague and impressionistic nature, meant that the details that would enable a reconstruction of the past were simply not there. Sometimes the vagueness was extreme, as where a woman searching for the father of her child, conceived twenty-five years previously, remembered only the nickname by which she and his friends knew him. As if this were not difficult enough, she had then produced a photograph of him in which his face had been cut out, leaving only torso and limbs for identification.

“I was cross with him,” she said, “and so I cut out his face and threw it down the toilet.”

Mma Ramotswe had been understanding. Men who sired children and then failed to accept responsibility for them were anathema to her, and she reserved particular disapproval for those who then completely disappeared. She wondered how they managed it; was there some sort of secret organisation, known only to men, that spirited them away, perhaps giving them a new identity under which they could continue their irresponsible ways? In that case she had eventually managed to find him through a trick, mentioned by Clovis Andersen in
The Principles of Private Detection,
that she had thought would never work, but did.
If all else fails,
wrote Mr. Andersen,
you can try to trace people by asking them to step forward! Yes, believe it or not, that works. Place an ad in the press asking for—and here insert the name of the person (you have, at least, to know that)—to reply to a box number about a possible legacy. That may work. Of course there is the familiar ethical issue, but remember you are only talking about a possible legacy and it's always possible that anybody will get a legacy one of these days.

Mma Ramotswe had been very doubtful but had eventually put in a small advertisement saying,
“If the person known as Fancy Harry, resident in Gaborone twenty-five years ago, contacts the undermentioned, he will learn something of great interest to himself.”
That wording, she decided, was completely honest. Fancy Harry, if he responded, would imagine that it was financial interest to which the advertisement was referring, but learning that your child and her mother were keen to contact you was undoubtedly of interest too, even if it was not exactly welcome information.

To her astonishment it worked. Fancy Harry responded, giving his current address and his real name, and adding that he could provide details of his bank account if required. She did not know what happened after she had provided this information to her client, but if Fancy Harry had an unwelcome shock, it was thoroughly deserved, as far as Mma Ramotswe was concerned; not that she expressed the same delight in this outcome as did Mma Makutsi. She had danced a small jig round the office when the reply was received, chanting, “That will teach men to have their fun and then disappear.”

Mma Ramotswe wondered whether a similar approach might bear fruit in Susan's case. She asked Mma Makutsi for her views, and was told that there would be no harm in trying. “People read the small ads in the
Botswana Daily News,
” she said. “There are many people who find them more interesting than the main news. If you put in something like
‘Are you called Rosie and did you work a long time ago for a Canadian family?'
then there may be people who knew her even if she herself does not read it.”

“But what about impostors?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “There will be many people who will sniff out some financial gain and will claim to be that Rosie. What will we do about them?”

Mma Makutsi clearly had not thought about that, and looked disappointed. But then she brightened. “We have the photograph, Mma,” she said. “We could publish that. We could say:
‘Are you this woman?'
That will discourage those people because they will not look like the real Rosie.” She paused. “I know the photograph is very indistinct, Mma, but at least it gives us some idea of the lady's build—and of the shape of her head.”

Mma Ramotswe considered this. It was a good idea, she thought, and it would not cost a great deal. They might even get the newspaper to make a news story of it, in which case it would be completely free. She raised this possibility with Mma Makutsi, who agreed.

“I can telephone that journalist woman,” she said. “Phuti gave her a big discount on her dining-room furniture a couple of months ago. I will enquire how her table is doing and then ask her.”

The telephone call was made that morning. The journalist required no persuasion. “Our readers are always interested in these human interest stories,” she said. “I shall come and interview you this morning, Mma Makutsi, and perhaps we can have your photograph in the paper as well. Shall I bring our photographer?”

The arrangements were made. Mma Ramotswe was pleased because she now had something to report to the client; Mma Makutsi, who had only been mentioned in the papers once before—when she graduated from the Botswana Secretarial College—was excited at the prospect of being interviewed and photographed. She was concerned that Mma Ramotswe might feel that she was stealing the limelight, but there was no sign of that. Mma Ramotswe, in fact, was happier being in the background. Everybody knew who she was, anyway, and she did not need any further exposure. And Clovis Andersen, it seemed, agreed with her.
Always remember the case is not about you,
he wrote.
The case is about the client. The more invisible you are, the better. Keep a low profile. Don't tell the press anything you don't need to tell them. Quietly does it—every time.

The journalist and the photographer arrived together, barely an hour after Mma Makutsi had made her telephone call. The journalist was called Bandie Mokwena, and she was known not only for her feature articles but also for her recent marriage to Quicktime Tsabong, a jaunty and well-liked sports commentator on Radio Botswana. They were the perfect media couple, much photographed themselves at charity events and public occasions. Quicktime had accompanied the Botswana team to the last Olympic Games, and wore the Olympic rings symbol on his blazer to remind people of the fact. Bandie, although quieter than her colourful husband, had a natural charm that set her interview subjects at ease and elicited facts that a less friendly manner would simply fail to uncover.

The photographer was a young man with a rather effusive manner. He looked at Mma Makutsi critically, asking her to move around the office until she was in the right light before he started to photograph her.

“I think I should stand over here,” said Mma Makutsi, positioning herself in front of her certificate from the Botswana Secretarial College. “Do you think this would do?”

“Okay, that's good,” said the photographer. “Now smile, honey. Show those teeth to the readers. That's perfect; snap, snap. Perfect.”

The interview was conducted over a cup of tea prepared by Mma Ramotswe. Bandie addressed all her questions to Mma Makutsi. “It complicates matters to have too many names in a piece,” she said. “So we'll stick to you, Mma, if Mma Ramotswe doesn't mind.”

She did not mind, and listened, bemused at times, to Mma Makutsi's telling of the story.

“This lady had a broken heart,” Mma Makutsi explained. “All the time she was in Canada she was pining, pining for Botswana. And now she wants to come back and see all her old friends. That quest brought her to our door, and it will be our pleasure to help her. I shall not rest until I bring these two ladies together so that they can talk about those old times.

“The place where you are born, you see, is very special. If you are born in Botswana, you are very lucky, as from your very first day you will have the sun of Botswana on your face. You will have the sounds of Botswana in your ears. You will have the smell of Botswana in your nose.”

That was a lot for a small baby to deal with, thought Mma Ramotswe, but she agreed with the general sentiment. There were blessings to be counted, and Mma Makutsi was right to list them. She would have added the sound of cattle coming home in the evening and the smell of their sweet breath. She knew that these were the things that her father said he would miss as he lay on his bed of illness.

“This lady has been thinking of these things for many years,” continued Mma Makutsi. “Now she has come to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency to help her find the people she knew as a child, in particular a lady who looked after her. Please look at the picture and ask yourself: Am I this lady?”

It all came out in a flood, and it surprised not only her audience, but Mma Makutsi herself.

“That was very moving,” said Bandie, as she transcribed the words in her notebook. “The readers will all hope that Rosie steps forward.”

Mma Ramotswe had been thinking. “I'm not sure whether the readers all need to ask themselves whether they are that lady,” she said. “They will know, surely, what their name is. So if you are called Alice, for instance, you will know that it cannot be you.”

Mma Makutsi looked to Bandie for support, but the journalist, after a few moments' thought, agreed with Mma Ramotswe. “That's a good point, Mma,” she said. “I think you should say: If you are called Rosie, are you the Rosie this lady is looking for?”

Mma Makutsi pouted. “But that lady may not be called Rosie any longer,” she said. “People change their names. So perhaps I should say: If you have at any time been called Rosie, then are you the Rosie this lady is looking for?”

“That is even better,” said Bandie. She looked impressed. “You ladies are very exact. Perhaps that comes from being detectives.”

“That is true,” said Mma Makutsi. “We are very careful with our words.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled.

“And one other thing,” said Mma Makutsi. “When you print my photograph, could you please refer to me as a graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College?”

Bandie looked up at the certificate on the wall.

“Ninety-seven per cent, Mma,” said the photographer. “Did you see it?”

“That's an amazing mark,” said Bandie.

“Thank you,” said Mma Makutsi.

“I must tell Quicktime about it,” Bandie went on. “He's interested in all sorts of records—not just sporting ones. He told me once about a boy in his class at school who got one hundred per cent in all his Cambridge exams.” She waited for a reaction, but none was forthcoming. “One hundred per cent, Mma!”

Mma Makutsi sniffed. “School is one thing; college is another.”

“Oh, of course,” said Bandie quickly. “I'm not saying that one is equal to the other. But it was nonetheless quite an achievement for that boy—one hundred per cent in everything.” She paused. “He was called Brainbox Tefolo, Quicktime said. A very suitable name for a boy like that.”

MMA RAMOTSWE KNEW
that the newspaper article might help and could, if they were lucky, bring an immediate result—at least in the search for Rosie. But there was more to the request that Susan had made of them. A reunion with Rosie might be her main ambition, but she had been at pains to stress that she was keen to find her old house and some of the children with whom she had been at school at Thornhill. These would not be easy things to discover, thought Mma Ramotswe, but she could at least make a start on the task while they were waiting for the outcome of the article.

They agreed on a division of labour. Mma Makutsi would handle any responses they had to the article, which would appear, Bandie assured them, in the following day's edition of the newspaper. While she was doing this, Mma Ramotswe and Charlie, who was due back the following day from a family funeral, would set about the task of finding the house in which Susan's family had lived. That done, they might be able to trace some of the neighbours from those days, and in this way start piecing together Susan's cherished past. She was not optimistic, though; thirty years was a long time in human affairs anywhere, but it was a particularly long time in a city like Gaborone, which had grown so quickly. A sleepy small town, no more than a handful of streets, had become a city, with all that this entailed. It was still recognisably the same place, though, and its character had remained intact. So whatever they were able to serve up to Susan, even if it was only a few fragments, would, she imagined, ring true and bring back to her at least some of the childhood she was so keen to re-create.