“And was she?” asked Mr Polopetsi.
“I don’t think so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that she must have told at least one other person.”
“And if we can find out who that person is, then that will be the blackmailer?”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “There you are!” she said. “I knew that you were a good detective. That is exactly the conclusion one should draw.” She paused. “Go and speak to this Poppy and ask her this question. Ask her this: Did you write to anybody, anybody about your troubles? That is all you have to ask her. Use those exact words, and see what she says.”
She explained to Mr Polopetsi where Poppy worked. He could go there immediately, she said, and ask to see her. He could tell them that he had a message for her. People were always sending messages to one another, and she would come to receive it.
After Mr Polopetsi had left, Mma Ramotswe smiled at Mma Makutsi. “He is a good detective, that man,” she said. “He would be a very good assistant for you, Mma Makutsi.”
Mma Makutsi welcomed this. She relished the thought of having an assistant, or indeed anybody who was junior to her. She had done a course in personnel management at the Botswana Secretarial College and had secured a very good mark in it. She still had her notes somewhere and would be able to dig them out and read them through before she started to exercise actual authority over Mr Polopetsi.
“But now,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing at her watch, “I have a medical appointment. I mustn’t miss it.”
“You aren’t ill, are you, Mma Ramotswe?” enquired Mma Makutsi. “This diet of yours …”
Mma Ramotswe cut her off. “My diet is going very well,” she said. “No, it is nothing to do with the diet. It’s just that I thought I should go and have my blood pressure checked.”
IT HAD BEEN EASY to find out which doctor Boitelo had been talking about. She had let slip, without thinking, that he was Ugandan, and that his clinic was close enough to where she lived for her to walk to work. She had Boitelo’s address and that meant a simple trawl of the list of medical practitioners in the telephone book. The Ugandan names were easily enough spotted—there were a number of them—and after that it was a simple matter to see that Dr Eustace Lubega ran a clinic just round the corner from the street in which Boitelo lived. After that, all that was required was a telephone call to the clinic to make an appointment.
It had been Boitelo who answered the telephone. Mma Ramotswe announced who she was, and there was a silence at the other end of the line.
“Why are you phoning this place?” said Boitelo, her voice lowered.
“I want to make an appointment—as a patient—with your good Dr Lubega,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And don’t worry. I shall pretend not to recognise you. I shall say nothing about you.”
This reassurance was followed by a brief silence. “Do you promise?” asked Boitelo.
“Of course I promise, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I will protect you. You don’t need to worry.”
“What do you want to see him about?” asked Boitelo.
“I want my blood pressure checked,” said Mma Ramotswe.
Now, parking the tiny white van in front of the sign that announced the clinic of Dr Eustace Lubega, MB, ChB (Makerere), she made her way through the front door and into the waiting room. The clinic had been a private house before—one of those old Botswana Housing Corporation houses with a small verandah, not unlike her own house in Zebra Drive—and the living room was now used as the reception area. The fireplace, in which many wood fires would have burned in the cold nights of winter, was still there, but filled now with an arrangement of dried flowers and seed pods. And on one wall a large noticeboard had been mounted, on which were pinned notices about immunisation and several large warnings about the care that people should take now in their personal lives. And then there was a picture of a mosquito and a warning to remain vigilant about stagnant water.
There was another patient waiting to see the doctor, a pregnant woman, who nodded politely to Mma Ramotswe as she came in. Boitelo gave no sign of recognising Mma Ramotswe and invited her to take a seat. The pregnant woman did not seem to need long with the doctor, and so now it was Mma Ramotswe’s turn to go in.
Dr Lubega looked up from his desk. Gesturing for Mma Ramotswe to sit down beside his desk, he held out a card in front of him.
“I don’t have any records for you,” he said.
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I have not seen a doctor for a long time, Dr Lubega. My records would be very old.”
The doctor shrugged. “Well, Mma Ramotswe, what can I do for you today?”
Mma Ramotswe frowned. “My friends have been talking to me about my health,” she said. “You know how people are. They said that I should have my blood pressure taken. They say that because I am a bit traditionally built …”
Dr Lubega looked puzzled. “Traditionally built, Mma?”
“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am the shape that African ladies are traditionally meant to be.”
Dr Lubega started to smile, but his professional manner took over and he became grave. “They are right about blood pressure. Overweight people need to be a little careful of that. I will check that for you, Mma, and give you a general physical examination.”
Mma Ramotswe sat on the examination couch while Dr Lubega conducted a cursory examination. She glanced at him quickly as he listened to her heart; she saw the spotless white shirt with its starched collar, the tie with a university crest, the small line of hair beneath the side of his chin that his razor had missed.
“Your heart sounds strong enough,” he said. “You must be a big-hearted lady, Mma.”
She smiled weakly, and he raised an eyebrow. “Now, then,” he said. “Your blood pressure.”
He started to wrap the cuff of the sphygmomanometer around her upper arm, but stopped.
“This cuff is too small,” he muttered, unwrapping it. “I must get a traditionally built cuff.”
He turned away and opened a cabinet drawer from which he extracted a larger cuff. Connecting this to the instrument, he wound it round Mma Ramotswe’s arm and took the reading. She saw that he noted figures down on a card, but she did not see what he wrote.
Back at the side of the doctor’s desk, Mma Ramotswe listened to what he had to say.
“You seem in reasonable shape,” he said, “for a … for a traditionally built lady. But your blood pressure is a bit on the high side, I’m afraid. It’s one hundred and sixty over ninety. That’s marginally high, and I think that you will need to take some drugs to get it down a bit. I can recommend a very good drug. It is two drugs in one—what we call a beta-blocker and a diuretic. You should take these pills.”
“I will do that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I will do as you say, Doctor.”
“Good,” said Dr Lubega. “But there is one thing I should tell you, Mma. This very good drug is not cheap. It will cost you two hundred pula a month. I can sell it to you here, but that is what it will cost.”
Mma Ramotswe whistled. “Ow! That is a lot of money just for some little pills.” She paused. “But I really need it, do I?”
“You do,” said Dr Lubega.
“In that case I will take it. I do not have two hundred pula with me, but I do have fifty pula.”
Dr Lubega made a liberal gesture with his hands. “That will get you started. You can come back for some more, once you have the money.”
ARMED WITH HER SMALL BOTTLE of light blue pills, Mma Ramotswe went that evening to the house of her friend Howard Moffat. He and his wife were sitting in their living room when she called at their door. Dr Moffat’s bad-tempered brown dog, of whom Mma Ramotswe had a particular distrust, barked loudly but was silenced by his master and sent to the back of the house.