Kalahari Typing School for Men (6 page)

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.

N
OTHING 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 Potokwane at the orphan farm and seek her advice. There was nothing that Mma Potokwane 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 be 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 rthat 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.”

“Oh,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And what does this principle say?”

Mma Makutsi looked momentarily flustered. She had received ninety-seven percent in the final examinations at the Botswana Secretarial College—that was well-known—but she had never been examined on the principle of competition, as far as she could recall.

“It means that there is competition,” she pronounced. “You don’t just have one business. There will always be more than one business.”

“That is true,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“So that means that if one business does well, then there will be other businesses which will try to do well, too,” Mma Makutsi went on, warming to her theme. “There is nothing that can be done about it. In fact, it is healthy.”

Mma Ramotswe was not convinced. “Healthy enough to take away all our business,” she said.

Mma Makutsi nodded. “But we also learned that you have to know what the competition is. I remember them saying that.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed, and, encouraged, Mma Makutsi continued. “We need to do some detective work for ourselves,” she said. “We need to go and take a look at these new people and see what they are up to. Then we will know what the competition is.”

Mma Ramotswe reached for the key to her tiny white van.

“You are right, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “We need to go and introduce ourselves to these new detectives. Then we’ll know just how clever they are.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “And there’s one other thing. These new detectives are not ladies, like ourselves. These are men.”

“Ah,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is a good thing, and a bad thing, too.”

——

IT WAS
not hard to find the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency. A large sign, very similar to the one which had appeared outside the original premises of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, announced the name of the business and showed a picture of a smiling man behind a desk, hands folded, and clearly satisfied. Then, underneath this picture, was painted in large red letters: Experienced staff. Ex-CID. Ex–New York. Ex-cellent!

Mma Ramotswe parked the tiny white van on the opposite side of the street, under a convenient acacia tree.

“So!” she said, her voice lowered, although nobody could possibly hear them. “So that is the competition.”

Mma Makutsi, who was sitting in the passenger seat, leaned forward to be able to see past Mma Ramotswe. Her employer was a large lady—traditionally built, as she described herself—and it was not easy to get a good view of the offending sign.

“Ex-CID,” said Mma Ramotswe. “A retired policeman then. That is not good news for us. People will love the idea of taking their problems to a retired policeman.”

“And ex–New York,” said Mma Makutsi admiringly. “That will impress people a great deal. They have seen films about New York detectives and they know how good they are.”

Mma Ramotswe cast a glance at Mma Makutsi. “Do you mean Superman?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “That sort of thing. Superman.”

Mma Ramotswe opened her mouth to say something to her assistant but then stopped. She was well aware of Mma Makutsi’s academic achievements at the Botswana Secretarial College—she could hardly avoid the framed certificate to that effect hanging above Mma Makutsi’s desk—but sometimes she thought her extraordinarily naive. Superman indeed! Why anybody above, well, the age of six or seven
at the most
should be interested in such nonsense quite escaped her. And yet they did show an interest;
when films like that came to the cinema in town, the one owned by the rich man with a house near Nyerere Drive, there were always crowds of people who were prepared to pay for the seats. Of course some of these were courting couples, who would not necessarily be interested in what was happening on the screen, but others appeared to go for the films themselves.

There was no point in arguing about Superman with Mma Makutsi. Whoever had opened this agency, even if they were really ex–New York, would hardly be Superman.

“We’ll go in and introduce ourselves,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I can see somebody inside. They are already at work.”

“On some big important case,” observed Mma Makutsi ruefully.

“Perhaps,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But then again, perhaps not. When people drive past the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and see us inside, they may think that we’re working on a big important case. Yet most of the time, as you know, we are only sitting there drinking bush tea and reading the
Botswana Daily News
. So you see that appearances can be deceptive.”

Mma Makutsi thought that this was rather too self-effacing. It was true that they were not particularly busy at present, and it was also true that a fair amount of bush tea was consumed in the office, but it was not always like that. There were times when they were very busy and the passerby would have been quite correct in making the assumption that the office was a hive of activity. So Mma Ramotswe was wrong; but there was no point in arguing with Mma Ramotswe, who seemed to be in a rather defeatist mood. Something was happening at home, thought Mma Makutsi, because it was so unlike her to be anything but optimistic.

They crossed the road and approached the door of the small shop which now housed the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective rAgency. The front was largely taken up by a glass display window,
behind which a screen prevented the passerby from seeing more than the heads of the people working within. In the window was a framed picture of a group of men standing together outside a rather impressive-looking official building. The men were all wearing wide-brimmed hats which shaded their faces and made it impossible to distinguish their features.