The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (17 page)

Mr. Botumile clapped his hands together. “But that is Baleseng. He works with me. Baleseng is the financial controller. You followed Baleseng, Rra! Baleseng is having an affair!”

Mma Botumile directed a withering look at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “You stupid, stupid, useless man,” she said. “And that stupid photograph of yours. That is a picture of Baleseng going back to his wife! You stupid man!”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took the insult in silence. He looked down at the table, at the photograph, now revealed to be so innocent. A faithful man returns to his wife: that could be the title of that picture. He had made a mistake, yes, but it was a genuine mistake, a mistake of the sort that anybody, including this impossibly arrogant woman, might make. “You're not to call me stupid,” he said quietly. “I will not have that, Mma.”

She glared at him. “Stupid,” she said. “There. I have called you stupid, Rra.”

But Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was thinking. It now dawned on him that he did have some information that might be of use to these people, even if it was something of a long shot.

“I followed this Baleseng twice, you know,” he said. “And on the first occasion I saw something very interesting.”

“Oh yes,” sneered Mma Botumile. “You saw him go shopping perhaps? You saw him buy a pair of socks? Very interesting information, Rra!”

“You must not make fun of me,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, his voice rising, but still just under control. “You must not talk to me like that, Mma. You are very ill-mannered.” He paused. “I saw him have a meeting with Charlie Gotso. And I overheard what they talked about.”

The effect of this information was dramatic. Mr. Botumile, who had been quietly smirking ever since he had been cleared of suspicion, now became animated. “Gotso?” he said. “He met Gotso?”

“Yes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“What about?” asked Mma Botumile. “What did they talk about?”

“Mining,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

Mr. Botumile gave his wife a glance. “We must hear about this.”

“Once you have apologised,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni with dignity. “Then I shall tell you about it. But not before.”

Mma Botumile's eyes widened. She was wrestling with conflicting emotions, it seemed, but eventually she turned to her husband. “I'm sorry,” she said. “We can talk later.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni cleared his throat. He had meant that she should apologise to him, and now she had apologised to
him.
She would have to apologise again, which would do her good, he thought, as this was a woman who had a lot of apologising to do.

As he waited for the apology, which eventually came, even if grudgingly given, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought:
I am a mechanic. I am not a detective. That has become well known.

“Now, please tell us exactly what you heard them talk about,” said Mr. Botumile.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told them. There were holes in his account of what was said, but the Botumiles seemed ready to fill these in. At the end, smiling with satisfaction at what he had discovered, Mr. Botumile explained to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni about share manipulation; about insider information; about having that precious advantage of advance knowledge. Charlie Gotso could have made a large profit on the company's shares, because he knew what was coming before anybody else did. And some of that profit, Mr. Botumile explained, would go back to Baleseng.

“You've been an extremely good detective,” said Mr. Botumile at last. “You really have, Rra.”

“Oh,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He did not think that was true. Could one be good at something without knowing it? Could one accept the credit for an accidental result? Whatever the answers to these questions were, though, he had already made his decision. The things that we do best, he thought, are the things that we have always done best.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WE DECEIVE OURSELVES, OR ARE DECEIVED

N
OW MMA MAKUTSI,”
said Mma Ramotswe. “I want you to tell me about your case. That small woman…”

“Teenie.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I suppose she doesn't mind. But why do people put up with names like that? Sometimes we Batswana are not very kind in the names we give ourselves.”

Mma Makutsi agreed. There had been a boy in Bobonong whose name meant
the one with ears that stick out.
He had lived with this and had seemed unconcerned. It was also true; his ears did stick out, almost at right angles to his head. But why land a child with that? And then there was that man who worked in the supermarket whose name when translated from Setswana meant
large nose.
His nose was large, but there were people with much larger noses than his and it was only because of his name that Mma Makutsi felt her eyes drawn inexorably to that dominating feature. It was tactless and unkind.

“I don't think she minds being called that, Mma,” she said. “And she is very small. She's also…” She trailed off. There was something indefinably sad about Teenie, with her pleading look. She wanted something, she felt, but she was unsure what it was. Love? Friendship? There was a loneliness about her, as there was about some people who just did not seem to belong, who fitted in—to an extent—but who never seemed quite at home.

“She is an unhappy one,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen that woman. I do not know her, but I have seen her.”

“Yes, she is unhappy,” said Mma Makutsi. “But we cannot do anything about that, can we, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “We cannot make all our clients happy, Mma. Sometimes, maybe. It depends on whether they want to know what we tell them. The truth is not always a happy thing, is it?”

Mma Makutsi picked up a pencil on her desk and idly started a sketch on a piece of paper. She found herself drawing a sky, a cloud, an emptiness, the umbrella shape of an acacia tree, a few strokes of the pencil against the white of the paper. Happiness. Why should she see these things when she thought of happiness?

“Are you happy, Mma Ramotswe?” Her pencil moved against the paper. A pot now, a cooking pot, and these were the flames, these wavy lines below. Cooking. A meal for Phuti Radiphuti, for the man who had given her that diamond, to show that he loved her, and who did; she knew that. A girl from Bobonong, with a diamond ring, and a man who had a furniture shop and a house. All that has come to me.

“I am very happy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have a good husband. I have my house on Zebra Drive. Motholeli, Puso. I have this business. And all my friends, including you, Mma Makutsi. I am a very happy woman.”

“That is good.”

“And you, Mma. You are happy too?”

Mma Makutsi put down her pencil. She looked down at her shoes, the green shoes with sky-blue linings, and the shoes looked back at her.
Come on, Boss. Don't beat about the bush. Tell her.
She felt a momentary irritation that her shoes should speak to her like this, but she knew that they were right.

“I am happy,” she said. “I am engaged to be married to Mr. Phuti Radiphuti.”

“Who is a good man,” interjected Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes, who is a good man. And I have a good job.”

That was a relief to Mma Ramotswe, who nodded enthusiastically.

“As an associate detective,” Mma Makutsi rapidly added.

Mma Ramotswe was quick to confirm this. “Yes. An associate detective.”

“So I have everything I need in this life,” concluded Mma Makutsi. “And I owe a lot of that to you, Mma. And I am thankful, really thankful.”

There was not much more to be said about happiness, and so the conversation reverted to the subject of Teenie and her difficulties. Mma Makutsi told Mma Ramotswe of her visit to the printing works and of her meeting with the people who worked there. “I spoke to all of them,” she said. “But they knew who I was—word got out very quickly after I had been identified. They all said that they did not know anything about things going missing. They all said that they could not imagine anybody stealing from the works. And that was it.” She paused. “I'm not sure what to do now, Mma. There is one person whom Teenie suspects, and I must say that he seemed very shifty when I saw him.”

Mma Ramotswe was intrigued. “Was that your instinct, Mma?”

“Oh yes,” Mma Makutsi replied. “I know that you shouldn't judge by appearances. I know that. But…”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But. And it's an important but. People tell you a lot from the way they look at you. They cannot help it.”

Mma Makutsi remembered the man in the office and the way he had looked away when she had been introduced to him. And when he raised his eyes and met her gaze, they darted away again. She would never trust a man who looked that way, she thought.

“Maybe he is the one,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But what can we do? Set some sort of trap? We have done that before in these cases, haven't we? We have put something tempting out and then found it in the possession of the thief. You could do that.”

“Yes. Well…”

Then Mma Ramotswe remembered. Mma Potokwane had said something about this problem, had she not, on the picnic? There had been a child who was stealing from the food cupboard. And Mma Potokwane had solved the problem. Children, of course, were different, but not all that different when it came to fears and emotions.

“There is a story Mma Potokwane told me,” said Mma Ramotswe thoughtfully. “She said that at the orphan farm they had a child who stole. And they solved the problem by giving the child the key to the cupboard. That stopped it.”

Mma Ramotswe had half-expected Mma Makutsi to reject the idea out of hand. But her assistant seemed interested. “And that worked?” Mma Makutsi asked.

“No more thievery,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The child had never known what it was like to be trusted. Once he was trusted, he rose to the challenge. Now, your shifty man at the printing works. What if he were put in charge of supplies? What if this Teenie person showed him that she trusted him?”

Mma Makutsi looked down at her shoes.
Give it a try, Boss!
She thought for a moment. “Maybe, Mma,” she said. She sounded tentative at first, but then continued with growing conviction, “Yes. I'll suggest that he's put in charge of supplies. Then one of two things will happen: he'll stop thieving because he's trusted, or…or he'll take everything. One of those things will happen.”

That was not the spirit of Mma Potokwane's story, thought Mma Ramotswe, but one had to acknowledge Mma Makutsi's realism. “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It will decide matters one way or the other.”

He'll steal the lot, Boss,
whispered Mma Makutsi's shoes.

         

CHARLIE REAPPEARED
that afternoon. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was involved with a gearbox and the younger apprentice was engaged in a routine draining of oil. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who saw him first, stood up and wiped his hands on a paper towel. Charlie, standing at the entrance to the garage workshop, made a halfhearted gesture of greeting with his right hand.

“It's me, Boss. It's me.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni chuckled. “I've not forgotten who you are, Rra! You have come back to see us.” He looked behind Charlie, out onto the open ground in front of the garage. “Where's the Mercedes-B…?” His voice died off at the end of the question. There was no Benz, no car.

Charlie's demeanour gave everything away—in the way his eyes dropped, in the misery of his expression, in his utterly defeated posture. The younger apprentice, who had come over to stand next to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, looked nervously at his employer. “Charlie's back,” he said, and tried to smile. “You see, Rra. He's come back now. You must give him his job back, Rra. You must. Please.” He tugged at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's sleeve, leaving a smudge of grease on the cloth.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni glanced at the grease marks. It was maddening. He had told these boys time and time again not to touch him with their greasy fingers, and they always did it, always, tapping him on the shoulder, grabbing his arm to show him something, ruining his overalls, which he always tried to keep as clean as possible. And now this foolish young man had left his fingerprints on him again, and this other, even more foolish young man had probably succeeded in destroying an old but perfectly serviceable Mercedes-Benz. What could one do? Where could one start?

He addressed Charlie, his voice low. “What happened? Just tell me what happened. No this, no that. No,
It wasn't my fault, Rra.
Just what happened.”

Charlie shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “There was an accident. Two days ago.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took a deep breath. “And?”

Charlie shrugged. “I could not even get it brought here,” he said. “The police mechanic looked at it. He said…” He moved his hand in a gesture of helplessness.

“A write-off?” asked the younger apprentice.

Charlie moved a hand up to cover his mouth. From behind his fingers, his voice was muffled. “Yes. He said that it would cost far more than it was worth to try to fix it. Yes, it's a write-off.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked up at the sky. He had brought these boys here, he had done his best, and everything they did, everything, went wrong. He asked himself if he had been like this as a young man, as prone to disaster, as incapable of getting anything right. He had made mistakes, of course; there had been several false starts, but nothing ever approaching the level of incompetence that these young men so effortlessly achieved.

He felt a sudden urge to shout at Charlie, to seize him by the lapels of his jacket and shake him; to shake him until some sense came into that head of his, full, as it was, with thoughts of girls and flashy clothes and the like. It was tempting, almost overpoweringly so, but he did not. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had never laid an angry hand on another and would not start now. The dangerous moment passed.

“I was wondering, Boss,” Charlie began. “I was wondering if I could come back here.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni bit his lip. This was undoubtedly his chance to get rid of Charlie, if he wished to do so, but he realised, just as the possibility entered his head, that he was, in fact, relieved to have him back, even in these difficult circumstances. The car was still covered by his own insurance, but with the deductible element he would still be left out of pocket on its loss—almost to the tune of five thousand pula, he imagined. That was five thousand pula which Charlie's accident would cost him, and the young man would never have any means of paying that back. But these boys were part of the life of the garage. They were like demanding relatives, like drought, like bad debts—things that were always there, and to which one became accustomed.

He sighed. “Very well. You may start again tomorrow.”

The younger apprentice, overjoyed, seized Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni by the arm and squeezed hard. “Oh, Boss, you are such a kind man. You are so kind to Charlie.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni said nothing. He carefully extricated himself from the young man's grip and walked back into the workshop. There were more grease stains where the younger apprentice had held him. He could have fumed about those, but did not. What was the point? he thought. Some things just are.

He went into the office, where he found Mma Ramotswe dictating a letter to Mma Makutsi, who was writing it down in shorthand. He stood in the doorway for a moment, until Mma Ramotswe signalled that he should come in.

“It's nothing private,” she said. “Just a letter to somebody who has not paid his bills.”

“Oh?” he said. “And what do you say?”

“If you do not pay the outstanding bill by the end of next month, we shall be obliged…” She paused. “That is as far as we got.”

“We shall be obliged to…,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Take action,” offered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is what we shall do.” She laughed. “Not that we ever take action. But there we are. As long as people think that you're going to do something, that's enough.”

“Bad debts are a very big problem,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He was about to add “just like bad apprentices,” but he did not. Instead, with the air of one conveying very mundane news, he said, “Charlie's back. Car crashed. Written off. He's coming back.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was watching Mma Makutsi as he gave this news, and when he looked over in the direction of Mma Ramotswe, he saw that she too was looking at her assistant. He knew of Mma Makutsi's difficulties with the apprentices, and particularly with Charlie, and he imagined the impending return would not be well received. But Mma Makutsi, aware of their scrutiny, did not react sharply. There was a moment, perhaps, when the lenses of her large round glasses seemed to flash, but this was only because a movement of her head caused them to catch the light; not a sign. And when she did speak, it was quietly.