On the other side of the door was a short corridor. The smell she had picked up when she first came into the building was stronger now, and there was noise too, the obedient clatter of a machine performing some repetitive task. From the background somewhere, there came strains of radio music.
“Our new machine is on,” said Teenie proudly. “That is it making that noise. Listen. That is our new German machine printing a brochure. They make very good machines, the Germans, you know, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi agreed. “Yes,” she said. “They do. They are…” She was not sure how to continue. She had been about to pass a further comment on the Germans, but realised that she actually knew very little about them. The Chinese one saw a lot of, and they seemed quiet and industrious too, but one did not see many Germans. In fact, she had seen none.
Teenie turned and looked up at her. The expectant, plaintive look was there; as if there was something important that Mma Makutsi might say about the Germans and which she desperately wanted to hear.
“I would like to go to Germany,” said Mma Makutsi lamely.
“Yes,” said Teenie. “I would like to visit other countries. I would like to go to London some day. But I do not think I shall ever get out of Botswana. This business keeps me tied up. It is like a chain around my ankle sometimes. You cannot go anywhere if you have a chain around your ankle.”
“No,” said Mma Makutsi, raising her voice now to compete with the sound of the German printing machine.
Mma Makutsi gazed about her. If she needed to act the part of the interested client, then it was not a difficult role for her to fill; she was very interested. They were in a large, high-ceilinged space, windowless but with an open door at the back. The sun streamed through the back door, but the main lighting was provided by a bank of fluorescent tube lights hanging from the ceiling. In the centre of the room stood the German printing machine, while four or five other complicated-looking machines were arranged around the rest of the area. Mma Makutsi noticed an electric guillotine, with shavings of paper below, and large bottles of what must have been ink on high racked shelves. There were several large supply cupboards, walk-in affairs, and stacks of supplies on trolleys and tables. It was a good place for a thief, she thought; there were plenty of things.
Next, she noticed the people. There were two young men standing at the side of the German printing machine: one engaged in some sort of adjusting task, the other watching a rapidly growing pile of printed brochures. At the far end of the room, two women were stacking piles of paper onto a trolley, while a third person, a man, was doing something to what looked like another, smaller printing machine. Just off the main space there were two blocked-off glass cubicles, small offices. One was empty, but lit; a man and a woman were in the other, the woman showing a piece of paper to the man. When Mma Makutsi looked in their direction, the woman nudged the man and pointed at her. The man looked across the room.
“You should introduce me to the staff,” said Mma Makutsi. “Why don’t we start with those two?” She indicated the two young men attending to the large printing machine.
“They are very nice young men,” said Teenie. “They are my best people. They have a printer’s eye, Mma. Do you know what a printer’s eye is? It means that they can see how things are going to turn out even before the machine is turned on.”
Mma Makutsi thought of the two apprentices. If there was such a thing as a mechanic’s eye, then she doubted whether the apprentices had it.
“Printers used to be able to read backwards,” said Teenie as they approached the machine and its two young attendants. “They could do that when type was set in metal. They put the letters in backwards.”
“Mirrors,” said Mma Makutsi. “They must have had mirrors in their heads.”
“No,” said Teenie. “They did not.”
As they approached the printing machine, the two young men stopped what they were doing. One flicked a switch and the machine ground to a halt. Without the noise it had been making the works now seemed unnaturally quiet, apart from the radio in the background somewhere which could still be heard churning out the insistent beat of a rock tune, the sort of music that Mma Ramotswe described as the sound of an angry stomach.
The young men were dressed in work overalls and one of them now took a cloth out of his pocket and wiped his hands on it. The other, who had a large mouth, which he kept open, reached a finger up to fiddle with his nose, but thought better of it and dropped his hand to his side.
“This lady is a client,” said Teenie. “She is very interested in printing. You could tell her about the new machine. She is called Mma Makutsi.”
Mma Makutsi smiled encouragingly at the young men. She tried to keep her eyes off the face of the young man with the gaping mouth, but found that she could not; such a deep space, like the mouth of a cave, allowing one to see straight into his head. It was fascinating, in a curious, uncomfortable way.
The printer who had wiped his hands on the cloth leaned forward to shake hands with Mma Makutsi. He spoke politely to her, and told her his name. While this was happening, Mma Makutsi felt the eyes of the other young man on her. She glanced at him, but saw only the open mouth. Absurdly, temptingly, she wanted to put something into it: pieces of paper, perhaps, small erasers, anything that would block it up; it was ridiculous.
Then the young man spoke. “You are that lady from the detective agency,” he said. “That place on the Tlokweng Road.” The sound of his voice may have come from his mouth, but to Mma Makutsi it seemed that it really came from somewhere below, down in his chest or stomach.
Mma Makutsi looked at Teenie, who turned to stare up at her in blank surprise. “I am that lady,” she stuttered. “Yes.”
There was silence. Mma Makutsi was momentarily at a loss as to what to say. She felt an intense irritation that this young man, with his disconcerting mouth, should expose her so quickly. But then she began to wonder how he knew. It was flattering to think that she was well known, a public figure almost, even if it meant that she would be unable to carry out enquiries quite as discreetly as she hoped; certainly this enquiry was ruined now, as everybody here would know within minutes who she was.
Her surprise turned to anger. “So I am that lady,” she snapped at the young man. “But that means nothing. Nothing at all.”
“I’ve never met a detective,” said the young man with the cloth. “Is it interesting work, Mma? Do you come to places like this to investigate…”
“Thefts,” supplied the mouth.
Teenie gave a start. She had been watching the young men as they talked; now she spun round and looked at Mma Makutsi. Again there was that pleading look, as if she wanted Mma Makutsi to say that it was not true, that she was not a detective, and that she had certainly not come here to look into thefts.
Mma Makutsi decided that the best tactic would be to pretend to be amused by the very suggestion. “We do not spend all our time investigating,” she said, smiling archly. “There are other things in our lives.”
The young man with the large mouth cocked his head sideways as she spoke, as if he was trying to look at Mma Makutsi from a different angle. She glanced at him and found herself looking past his teeth and lips, into the very cave, the labyrinth. There were people who found such caves irresistible, she knew, who loved exploring. She imagined tiny people, equipped with minuscule ropes and picks, climbing into that mouth, leaning into the hot gusts of wind that came up from the lungs somewhere down below.
Teenie took Mma Makutsi’s arm and led her off towards the offices. “They are not involved in it,” she said. “They would never steal.”
Mma Makutsi was not so sure. “One can’t be too sure about that,” she said. “Sometimes it is the most unlikely person who is to blame for something. We have had many cases where you would never have suspected the person who turns out to be guilty. Ministers of religion for example. Yes. Even them.”