The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (18 page)

“I am very sorry, Mma,” she said. “Mr. Polopetsi came to see me. He did not know what to do.”

“But I told you to leave him,” said Mma Makutsi, her voice rising. “I told you, Mma—leave it up to him.”

“But I couldn't do that, Mma Makutsi. We have our duty to the client.”

This brought a strange sound from Mma Makutsi—a mixture of a snort and a sigh. “The client, Mma? The client?”

“Yes. We owe a duty to our clients. We have to do our best by them.”

Mma Makutsi's glasses flashed another signal—this time of outrage. “But the client, Mma…” She faltered, and then, making a visible effort to calm down, she said, “Just tell me what you have found out, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe was relieved that the outburst was over. Speaking carefully, so as not to reignite Mma Makutsi, she gave an account of their visit to Saint Potokwane. She repeated their conversation and then added an account of her subsequent listing of possibilities. Mma Makutsi listened intently, but Mma Ramotswe noticed that with each major point in her account, the other woman shook her head. This she did with sadness, almost as if she were commenting on the fact that somebody could get something so wrong. At the end, Mma Ramotswe asked her if she thought her conclusions were reasonable.

“No,” said Mma Makutsi. “You are one hundred per cent wrong, Mma. One hundred per cent wrong.”

Not even ninety-seven per cent, thought Mma Ramotswe.

“I'm sorry, Mma Makutsi, I just do not see how you can say I am wrong.” She paused. “Do you have another explanation?”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “I do. You see, Mma, you are assuming that our client is telling the truth. What if the client is lying? Don't you remember that Mr. Andersen himself said something about that—in chapter six, I think it was. He says that you should not always believe your client, because he or she may be concealing something or even telling complete untruths. Those were his words, Mma Ramotswe—complete untruths.”

Mma Ramotswe did not know what to say. She stared at Mma Makutsi in disbelief. Why would Mr. Government Keboneng's sister lie about anything to do with this case? Her objective was simple enough, surely; it was to protect the reputation of a late brother who could not defend himself. She brought this up now, challenging Mma Makutsi to refute it.

“Because she never liked her brother,” said Mma Makutsi. “She was always in his shadow. People were always saying that she was the sister of Mr. Government Keboneng rather than saying that he was her brother. That can be very hard for people. They do not like to be in the shadow. I'm afraid she hated him, Mma. That is a terrible thing, but it is true.”

It took Mma Ramotswe a few moments to absorb this. “But why would a sister want to stop the naming of a street for her own brother, even if she did not have friendly feelings towards him?”

“Because it was the last straw,” answered Mma Makutsi. “Because all her life she had heard people saying what a great man he was. When she was a little girl, he was described as a great boy. Then he became a great man. She could not bear it.”

“And so she told the council about a scandal? Did she know of anything?”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I don't think so. I think she told them about it and then she decided that she would try to find something real—some real scandal—to back up her allegations. That is why she came to us. She did not want us to prove that there was nothing, as she claimed when she first consulted the agency; on the contrary—she wanted us to find something, on the grounds that if you dig deep enough around any politician, you will find something. And then, I'm afraid, after I put in a preliminary report that we were not uncovering anything, she set up the scandal herself.”

“And how did she do that, Mma?” Mma Ramotswe posed this question not as a challenge, in the spirit of disbelief, but to receive an explanation.

“Well,” Mma Makutsi continued, “she was never very fond of Naledi Potokwane. She thought she was a bit fast—and she may be, but only a little, I think. So she decided to create a story that Government had had an affair with Naledi, and that Naledi had had an affair with virtually everybody else. She put this idea into the head of Saint Potokwane, knowing that he would always talk about something without worrying about its effect. She imagined that we would find out about him and speak to him. So she put all that nonsense in his head.”

There was something that Mma Ramotswe did not understand. “But how do you know that she told Saint this?”

Mma Makutsi smiled. It was the first smile of the morning, and there was a ring of triumph to it.

“As it happens, Mma,” she said, “I know somebody who goes to the same church as Saint and that woman who looks after him. So I went there on Sunday and while everybody was drinking tea outside, as they do at that place, I went up to Saint. He was standing about and nobody was with him. So I went up and asked him about the family and whether he knew Government Keboneng well and so on. He spoke quite freely. A lot of it was about the Defence Force and helicopters, but when I asked him about Government he said that Mma Potokwane—the client Mma Potokwane—had told him to say that Government was seeing Naledi and Naledi was seeing other men. He told me all this in a very matter-of-fact way, because these people who are like that often speak very openly. And that, Mma, is how I discovered what our client was up to.”

Mma Ramotswe listened in silence. She thought:
Did I teach this woman to do all this?

“And then,” continued Mma Makutsi, “I went to see Naledi and put the whole thing to her, and she was incensed. She said that it was all lies. She said that she had never had any affairs while she was married to Saviour and now she was happily married again to a very respectable man. She was very cross.”

“I see.”

There was still resentment in Mma Makutsi's voice. “Yes, Mma, I'm glad that you see.”

Mma Ramotswe closed her eyes, allowing her feelings of relief to wash over her. Not only was she pleased that the case had been resolved, but she could now put out of her mind any possibility that Mma Sylvia Potokwane's husband had been involved with Naledi. That had been an uncomfortable possibility, and it was now firmly disposed of. Good.

But there remained something that had not been cleared up, which she now raised with Mma Makutsi. “May I ask you, Mma, why you haven't tackled the client over this? Are you proposing to let her get away with it?”

Mma Makutsi seemed prepared for this. “I did not speak to her, Mma. When I found out what I found out, I realised that it might be difficult to prove any allegation I made against her. So what I did was to go to the council and tell them that we had made a full investigation and that we had discovered nothing. We told them that Mr. Government Keboneng's reputation was sound, and that any charge to the contrary was motivated by malice and came, moreover, from a source we knew about but were not at liberty to divulge.” She paused, savouring this last phrase. “Not at liberty to divulge, Mma.”

“Why did you do that, Mma?”

“Because it achieved everything necessary. It meant that Mr. Government Keboneng's reputation was restored and the whole issue could be put to bed. And that, Mma Ramotswe, was very important because it saves poor Saint from being drawn further into something he can't understand.”

Mma Ramotswe understood that—and thought that it was exactly the right thing to do. “There was something about cattle, though—something about Saint's cattle having been taken away from him.”

“There is no truth in that, Mma. I think she put him up to saying that.”

“Perhaps.”

“Not perhaps, Mma—definitely. I made further enquiries, you see. And his cattle are down at that place where he lives—they are very fine cattle.”

Mma Ramotswe realised these were the cattle she had seen—and they were indeed fine beasts.

Mma Makutsi was now fully composed. “But our client does not get away with it altogether,” she said. “I did what you have always done, Mma. I decided to give her a second chance—along with a warning.”

“What did you do, Mma?”

“I told her that I had discovered that she was the informant who had gone to the council. I had not discovered this, of course, but her reaction to it confirmed that it was true. Then I told her that she should go to Naledi and apologise. She should ask for her forgiveness and she should promise not to spread any more rumours. If she did not, then people might just discover that she had tried to destroy her own brother's reputation. And there are many followers of Mr. Government Keboneng who would be very angry if they were to hear that.”

“So she agreed.”

“She agreed, Mma—people usually agree to do what they really have to do. And I said something else to her, Mma Ramotswe. I told her that she would need to forgive her brother—to forgive him for being a good man.”

Mma Makutsi looked intently at Mma Ramotswe. “At first she didn't know what I meant, Mma, but then, after a while, I think she did.”

Mma Ramotswe sat back in her chair. She looked at Mma Makutsi. “Mma,” she said, “I should never have doubted that you were on top of this case. I am very, very sorry, Mma. I have done you a great injustice.”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “If you have done me an injustice, Mma, you did it for a good reason. And I know how hard it is to let go of things. I know how hard it is for you to realise that I am fully capable.”

“It is not hard now, Mma Makutsi,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are the most capable lady I have ever met.”

“Oh, Mma, you are very kind…” The coldness and the anger had all gone; Mma Makutsi, the familiar Mma Makutsi, was back. And that familiar Mma Makutsi seemed to be thinking about something, as there came a flash of light from her glasses—a coincidence, of course, the sun can catch glasses at all sorts of times, but it so often seemed to catch Mma Makutsi's just at the point where she was thinking about something. “Mr. Polopetsi…,” she said.

Mma Ramotswe looked up. “Yes. What about him, Mma?”

“I think that I might have been unfair to him. I think that it was a bit unkind to throw him into the middle of the river.”

Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile as she imagined the scene: Mma Makutsi, who was considerably bigger than Mr. Polopetsi, picking him up, tottering to the bank of the Limpopo River, and then tossing him, arms flailing, into the middle of it. Then Mma Makutsi would adjust her glasses, rub her hands together, and stand there as poor Mr. Polopetsi floundered in the water. Of course, there were people who really did throw others into rivers—it had happened a few years ago in the Okavango Delta when one person had thrown another into a river, but had slipped and fallen in as well. And then the person who had thrown the other person in was bitten by a crocodile, while the first person (the person thrown in by the second person) had clambered out in time and avoided being bitten. That had been widely reported in the newspaper because it somehow made a point about justice.

Mma Makutsi continued with her self-examination. “It was wrong, I think. I shouldn't have left him to make enquiries that I knew would get nowhere.”

Mma Ramotswe was glad that Mma Makutsi had raised this, because it was something that had been worrying her. She could not see why Mma Makutsi should have used Mr. Polopetsi in this way: What was the point of wasting his time in the investigation of an issue she had already solved? She chose her words carefully. “I have been wondering about that, Mma,” she said. “I have tried to figure out why you should think you needed to mislead him”—and here she hesitated, but decided to go ahead anyway—“and I was wondering why you told me that everything was in hand. You might have brought me into your confidence, Mma.”

There was reproach in that final sentence; she had not intended it, but reproach came through.

Mma Makutsi looked at her with an intensity that took Mma Ramotswe slightly by surprise. “Oh, Mma…,” she began, but then her voice trailed off.

Fearing another emotional moment, Mma Ramotswe was quick to reassure her. “It was just a thought, Mma, just a thought.”

“No,” said Mma Makutsi. “It is a very good question. It is just the question that anybody would ask. And you have asked it, I think.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded—and waited.

“It is all to do with Mma Potokwane,” Mma Makutsi pronounced.

“Which Mma Potokwane?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “There are many, many Mma Potokwanes.”

“Our Mma Potokwane. Mma Sylvia Potokwane. The matron. Her.”

There was a further pause, and then Mma Makutsi continued, “You see, I found out that one of the people that Naledi was said to have been involved with was her husband—Mma Sylvia Potokwane's husband, that is. Yes, Mma: that is what that poor man, Saint Potokwane, said to me.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “But I do not understand, Mma. You said that Saint told you that he had been instructed to relate that story about Naledi and her affairs.”

“That was on our second meeting,” explained Mma Makutsi. “We had two meetings, you see. The first meeting had been set up by the client. She told me that as it happened there was a family member I might like to talk to. She was looking after him for a couple of days while the woman who normally did that was away. I met him at the client's house. She left us alone together but told me that I could ask him about the family. Out it all came—obviously, just as she had intended. I was suspicious, but at that stage I could not put my finger on anything. So I worked out a way of seeing him again—when the client would not be around. That was the meeting at the church, the one that I've told you about. He forgot that I had spoken to him earlier—and out came the truth. He said that he had been told to tell a story.”

Mma Makutsi watched as Mma Ramotswe thought about this. “Do you see, Mma Ramotswe?” she asked.