No, every job had its repetitive side and most people, surely, recognised that. She glanced again at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. She knew that many men of his age started to feel trapped and began to wonder if this was all that life offered. It was understandable; anyone might feel that, not just men, although they might feel it particularly acutely, as they felt themselves weaken and began to realise that they were no longer young. Women were better at coming to terms with that, thought Mma Ramotswe, as long as they were not the worrying sort. If one was of traditional build and not given to fretting…If one drank plenty of bush tea…
“You know,” she said to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, “all of us have things that are the same in our jobs. Even in the sort of work I do, the same sort of thing happens quite a lot. I don’t think there is anything much that you can do.”
It was not like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to argue, but now, if there was a stubborn streak in his character, it showed. “No,” he said. “I think there is something that you can do. You can try something different.”
Mma Ramotswe was silent. She reached for her teacup. It was cold. She looked at him. It was inconceivable that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could be anything but a mechanic; he was a truly great mechanic, a man who understood engines, who knew their every mood. She tried to picture him in the garb of some other profession—in a banker’s suit, for example, or in the white coat of a doctor, but neither of these seemed right, and she saw him again in his mechanic’s overalls, in his old suede boots so covered in grease, and that somehow rang true, that was just what he should wear.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni broke the silence. “I’m not thinking of stopping being a mechanic, of course. Certainly not. I know that I must do that to put bread on our table.”
Mma Ramotswe’s relief showed, and this caused him to smile reassuringly. “It’s just that I would like to do a little bit of detective work. Not much. Just a little.”
That, she thought, was reasonable enough. She had no desire to fix engines, but there was no harm in his wanting to see her side of the business. “Just to find out what it’s like? Just to get it out of your system?” she asked, smiling. Most men, she thought, fantasised about doing something exciting, about being a soldier, or a secret agent, or even a great lover; that was how men were. That was normal.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “Please don’t laugh at me, Mma Ramotswe.”
She leaned forward and rested her hand on his forearm. “I would never laugh at you, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. I would never do that. And of course you can look after a case. How about this Mma Botumile matter? Would that do?”
“That is the one that I want to investigate,” he said. “That is the one.”
“Then you shall investigate,” she said.
Even as she spoke, she had her misgivings, unexpressed. The thought of Mma Botumile’s reputation disturbed her, and she was not sure whether she should put Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in the path of a woman like that. But it was too late to do anything about it, and so she looked at her watch and rose to her feet. She would not think about it any more, or she would have difficulty in getting to sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
MMA RAMOTSWE GOES TO MOCHUDI WITH MR POLOPETSI, IN THE TINY WHITE VAN
MMA RAMOTSWE TRAVELLED to Mochudi the next day. She decided to take Mr Polopetsi with her; there was nothing for him to do in the garage that morning and he had asked Mma Makutsi three times if there was anything that he could help her with in the office. She had tried to think of some task, and failed, and so Mma Ramotswe had invited him to accompany her on the Mochudi trip. She enjoyed his company, and it would be good to have somebody to talk to. Whether he would contribute anything to her enquiries there was another matter; Mr Polopetsi, she feared, would never distinguish himself in the role of detective, as he tended to jump to conclusions and to act impetuously. But there was something appealing about him that made all that forgivable—an earnestness combined with a slight air of vulnerability that made people, particularly women, want to protect him. Even Mma Makutsi, who was famously short with the two apprentices and who tended to talk to men as if they were children, had been won over by Mr Polopetsi. “There are many men for whom there does not appear to be any reason,” she once said to Mma Ramotswe. “But I don’t feel that about Mr Polopetsi. Even when he is standing there, doing nothing, I don’t think that.”
It had been a curious thing to say, but then Mma Makutsi often said things that surprised Mma Ramotswe and she had become used to her pronouncements. But what made this remark particularly unusual was the fact that it was made while Mr Polopetsi was in the office, busying himself with the making of a pot of tea. Mma Makutsi must have been aware of his coming into the room, but must simply have forgotten his presence after a few moments and addressed Mma Ramotswe without thinking. And there was no doubt in Mma Ramotswe’s mind that Mr Polopetsi had heard what was said about him, for he stopped stirring the tea for a moment, as if frozen, and then, after a few seconds, began to rattle the spoon about the pot more vigorously than before. Mma Ramotswe had felt acutely embarrassed, but had decided that the remark was hardly unflattering to Mr Polopetsi, even if he had scurried out of the room, his mug of tea in his hand, studiously avoiding looking at the author of the remark. For Mma Makutsi’s part, she had simply raised an eyebrow when she realised that he had heard her, and shrugged, as if this was merely one of those things that happened in offices.
They drove out to Mochudi on the old road, because that was the way that Mma Ramotswe had always travelled and because it was quieter. It was a bright morning, and there was warmth in the air; not the heat that would come in a month or so and build up over the final months of the year, but a pleasant feeling of a benign sun upon the skin. As they left Gaborone behind them, the houses and their surrounding plots gave way to the bush, to the expanses of dry grass dotted with acacia and smaller thorn bushes that were halfway between trees and shrubs. Here and there was a dry river bed, a scar of sand that would remain parched until the rainy season, when it would be covered with swift-moving dun-coloured water, a proper river for a few days until it all drained off and the bed would cake and crack in the sun.
For a while they did not talk. Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window of her tiny white van, savouring the feeling of heading somewhere she was always happy to be going; for Mochudi was home, the place from which she had come and to which she knew that she would one day return for good. Mr Polopetsi looked straight ahead, at the road unfolding ahead of them, lost in thoughts of his own. He was waiting for Mma Ramotswe to tell him about the reason for their trip to Mochudi; she had simply said at the office that she needed to go there and would tell him all about it on the way up.
He glanced at her sideways. “This business…”
Mma Ramotswe was thinking of something quite different, of this road and of how she had once travelled down it by bus, unhappy to the very core of her being; but that was years ago, years. She moved her hands on the wheel. “We don’t usually get involved in cases where people have died, Rra,” she said. “We may be detectives, but not that sort.”
Mr Polopetsi drew in his breath. Ever since he had joined the staff of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency—even in his ill-defined adjunct role—he had been waiting for something like this. Murder was what detectives were meant to investigate, was it not, and now at last they were embarked on such an enquiry.