Chapter One
The Daddy
Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of KgaleHill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, twochairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot,in which Mma Ramotswe-the only lady private detective inBotswana-brewed redbush tea. And three mugs-one for herself, onefor her secretary, and one for the client. What else does adetective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on humanintuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had inabundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.
But there was also the view, which again could appear on noinventory. How could any such list describe what one saw when onelooked out from Mma Ramotswe's door? To the front, an acacia tree,the thorn tree which dots the wide edges of the Kalahari; the greatwhite thorns, a warning; the olive-grey leaves, by contrast, sodelicate. In its branches, in the late afternoon, or in the cool ofthe early morning, one might see a Go-Away Bird, or hear it, rather.And beyond the acacia, over the dusty road, the roofs of the townunder a cover of trees and scrub bush; on the horizon, in a blueshimmer of heat, the hills, like improbable, overgrown termitemounds.
Everybody called her Mma Ramotswe, although if people had wanted tobe formal, they would have addressed her as Mme Mma Ramotswe. Thisis the right thing for a person of stature, but which she had neverused of herself. So it was always Mma Ramotswe, rather than PreciousRamotswe, a name which very few people employed.
She was a good detective, and a good woman. A good woman in a goodcountry, one might say. She loved her country, Botswana, which is aplace of peace, and she loved Africa, for all its trials. I am notashamed to be called an African patriot, said Mma Ramotswe. I loveall the people whom God made, but I especially know how to love thepeople who live in this place. They are my people, my brothers andsisters. It is my duty to help them to solve the mysteries in theirlives. That is what I am called to do.
In idle moments, when there were no pressing matters to be dealtwith, and when everybody seemed to be sleepy from the heat, shewould sit under her acacia tree. It was a dusty place to sit, andthe chickens would occasionally come and peck about her feet, but itwas a place which seemed to encourage thought. It was here that MmaRamotswe would contemplate some of the issues which, in everydaylife, may so easily be pushed to one side.
Everything, thought Mma Ramotswe, has been something before. Here Iam, the only lady private detective in the whole of Botswana,sitting in front of my detective agency. But only a few years agothere was no detective agency, and before that, before there wereeven any buildings here, there were just the acacia trees, and theriverbed in the distance, and the Kalahari over there, so close.
In those days there was no Botswana even, just the BechuanalandProtectorate, and before that again there was Khama's Country, andlions with the dry wind in their manes. But look at it now: adetective agency, right here in Gaborone, with me, the fat ladydetective, sitting outside and thinking these thoughts about howwhat is one thing today becomes quite another thing tomorrow.
Mma Ramotswe set up the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency with theproceeds of the sale of her father's cattle. He had owned a bigherd, and had no other children; so every single beast, all onehundred and eighty of them, including the white Brahmin bulls whosegrandparents he had bred himself, went to her. The cattle were movedfrom the cattle post, back to Mochudi where they waited, in thedust, under the eyes of the chattering herd boys, until thelivestock agent came.
They fetched a good price, as there had been heavy rains that year,and the grass had been lush. Had it been the year before, when mostof that southern part of Africa had been wracked by drought, itwould have been a different matter. People had dithered then,wanting to hold on to their cattle, as without your cattle you werenaked; others, feeling more desperate, sold, because the rains hadfailed year after year and they had seen the animals become thinnerand thinner. Mma Ramotswe was pleased that her father's illness hadprevented his making any decision, as now the price had gone up andthose who had held on were well rewarded.
"I want you to have your own business," he said to her on his deathbed. "You'll get a good price for the cattle now. Sell them and buya business. A butchery maybe. A bottle store. Whatever you like."
She held her father's hand and looked into the eyes of the man sheloved beyond all others, her Daddy, her wise Daddy, whose lungs hadbeen filled with dust in those mines and who had scrimped and savedto make life good for her.
It was difficult to talk through her tears, but she managed to say:"I'm going to set up a detective agency. Down in Gaborone. It willbe the best one in Botswana. The No. 1 Agency."
For a moment her father's eyes opened wide and it seemed as if hewas struggling to speak.
"But ... but ..."
But he died before he could say anything more, and Mma Ramotswe fellon his chest and wept for all the dignity, love and suffering thatdied with him.
She had a sign painted in bright colours, which was then set up justoff the Lobatse Road, on the edge of town, pointing to the smallbuilding she had purchased: the no. 1 ladies' detective agency forall confidential matters and enquiries, satisfaction guaranteed forall parties under personal management.
There was considerable public interest in the setting up of heragency. There was an interview on Radio Botswana, in which shethought she was rather rudely pressed to reveal her qualifications,and a rather more satisfactory article in The Botswana News, whichdrew attention to the fact that she was the only lady privatedetective in the country. This article was cut out, copied, andplaced prominently on a small board beside the front door of theagency.
After a slow start, she was rather surprised to find that herservices were in considerable demand. She was consulted aboutmissing husbands, about the creditworthiness of potential businesspartners, and about suspected fraud by employees. In almost everycase, she was able to come up with at least some information for theclient; when she could not, she waived her fee, which meant thatvirtually nobody who consulted her was dissatisfied. People inBotswana liked to talk, she discovered, and the mere mention of thefact that she was a private detective would let loose a positiveoutpouring of information on all sorts of subjects. It flatteredpeople, she concluded, to be approached by a private detective, andthis effectively loosened their tongues. This happened with HappyBapetsi, one of her earlier clients. Poor Happy! To have lost yourdaddy and then found him, and then lost him again ...
"I used to have a happy life," said Happy Bapetsi. "A very happylife. Then this thing happened, and I can't say that anymore."
Mma Ramotswe watched her client as she sipped her bush tea.Everything you wanted to know about a person was written in theface, she believed. It's not that she believed that the shape of thehead was what counted-even if there were many who still clung tothat belief; it was more a question of taking care to scrutinise thelines and the general look. And the eyes, of course; they were veryimportant. The eyes allowed you to see right into a person, topenetrate their very essence, and that was why people with somethingto hide wore sunglasses indoors. They were the ones you had to watchvery carefully.
Now this Happy Bapetsi was intelligent; that was immediatelyapparent. She also had few worries-this was shown by the fact thatthere were no lines on her face, other than smile lines of course.So it was man trouble, thought Mma Ramotswe. Some man has turned upand spoilt everything, destroying her happiness with his badbehaviour.
"Let me tell you a little about myself first," said Happy Bapetsi."I come from Maun, you see, right up on the Okavango. My mother hada small shop and I lived with her in the house at the back. We hadlots of chickens and we were very happy.
"My mother told me that my Daddy had left a long time ago, when Iwas still a little baby. He had gone off to work in Bulawayo and hehad never come back. Somebody had written to us-another Motswanaliving there-to say that he thought that my Daddy was dead, but hewasn't sure. He said that he had gone to see somebody at MpiloHospital one day and as he was walking along a corridor he saw themwheeling somebody out on a stretcher and that the dead person on thestretcher looked remarkably like my Daddy. But he couldn't becertain.
"So we decided that he was probably dead, but my mother did not minda great deal because she had never really liked him very much. Andof course I couldn't even remember him, so it did not make muchdifference to me.
"I went to school in Maun at a place run by some Catholicmissionaries. One of them discovered that I could do arithmeticrather well and he spent a lot of time helping me. He said that hehad never met a girl who could count so well.
"I suppose it was very odd. I could see a group of figures and Iwould just remember it. Then I would find that I had added thefigures in my head, even without thinking about it. It just camevery easily-I didn't have to work at it at all.
"I did very well in my exams and at the end of the day I went off toGaborone and learned how to be a bookkeeper. Again it was verysimple for me; I could look at a whole sheet of figures andunderstand it immediately. Then, the next day, I could rememberevery figure exactly and write them all down if I needed to.
"I got a job in the bank and I was given promotion after promotion.Now I am the No. 1 subaccountant and I don't think I can go anyfurther because all the men are worried that I'll make them lookstupid. But I don't mind. I get very good pay and I can finish allmy work by three in the afternoon, sometimes earlier. I go shoppingafter that. I have a nice house with four rooms and I am very happy.To have all that by the time you are thirty-eight is good enough, Ithink."
Mma Ramotswe smiled. "That is all very interesting. You're right.You've done well."
"I'm very lucky," said Happy Bapetsi. "But then this thing happened.My Daddy arrived at the house."
Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath. She had not expected this; she hadthought it would be a boyfriend problem. Fathers were a differentmatter altogether.
"He just knocked on the door," said Happy Bapetsi. "It was aSaturday afternoon and I was taking a rest on my bed when I heardhis knocking. I got up, went to the door, and there was this man,about sixty or so, standing there with his hat in his hands. He toldme that he was my Daddy, and that he had been living in Bulawayo fora long time but was now back in Botswana and had come to see me.
"You can understand how shocked I was. I had to sit down, or I thinkI would have fainted. In the meantime, he spoke. He told me mymother's name, which was correct, and he said that he was sorry thathe hadn't been in touch before. Then he asked if he could stay inone of the spare rooms, as he had nowhere else to go.
"I said that of course he could. In a way I was very excited to seemy Daddy and I thought that it would be good to be able to make upfor all those lost years and to have him staying with me,particularly since my poor mother died. So I made a bed for him inone of the rooms and cooked him a large meal of steak and potatoes,which he ate very quickly. Then he asked for more.
"That was about three months ago. Since then, he has been living inthat room and I have been doing all the work for him. I make hisbreakfast, cook him some lunch, which I leave in the kitchen, andthen make his supper at night. I buy him one bottle of beer a dayand have also bought him some new clothes and a pair of good shoes.All he does is sit in his chair outside the front door and tell mewhat to do for him next."
"Many men are like that," interrupted Mma Ramotswe.
Happy Bapetsi nodded. "This one is especially like that. He has notwashed a single cooking pot since he arrived and I have been gettingvery tired running after him. He also spends a lot of my money onvitamin pills and biltong.
"I would not resent this, you know, except for one thing. I do notthink that he is my real Daddy. I have no way of proving this, but Ithink that this man is an impostor and that he heard about ourfamily from my real Daddy before he died and is now just pretending.I think he is a man who has been looking for a retirement home andwho is very pleased because he has found a good one."
Mma Ramotswe found herself staring in frank wonderment at HappyBapetsi. There was no doubt but that she was telling the truth; whatastonished her was the effrontery, the sheer, naked effrontery ofmen. How dare this person come and impose on this helpful, happyperson! What a piece of chicanery, of fraud! What a piece ofoutright theft in fact!
"Can you help me?" asked Happy Bapetsi. "Can you find out whetherthis man is really my Daddy? If he is, then I will be a dutifuldaughter and put up with him. If he is not, then I should prefer forhim to go somewhere else."
Mma Ramotswe did not hesitate. "I'll find out," she said. "It maytake me a day or two, but I'll find out!"
Of course, it was easier said than done. There were blood teststhese days, but she doubted very much whether this person wouldagree to that. No, she would have to try something more subtle,something that would show beyond any argument whether he was theDaddy or not. She stopped in her line of thought. Yes! There wassomething biblical about this story. What, she thought, wouldSolomon have done?
Continues...
Excerpted from The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency 5-Book Boxed Setby Alexander McCall Smith Copyright © 2005 by Alexander McCall Smith. Excerpted by permission.
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