“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
NOW 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?”