In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

CHAPTER NINETEEN DOING THE DONKEY WORK

MR POLOPETSI stood under the empty sky, beside the track and a half-dead acacia tree. His excitement was making itself felt physically: a pulse that was becoming more rapid and a prickling in his skin at the back of his neck. He had watched Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck make its bumpy way up the track in the direction of the main road, a small cloud of dust being thrown up behind it as the heavily treaded tyres engaged with the surface dirt. Now it had disappeared and he was alone in the middle of the bush, looking down at the stain on the ground where Mma Ramotswe’s van had bled its final drops of oil. He smiled. If his father could see him now, how proud he would be. He would never have dreamed, of course, that the skills which he had taught his son would be put to this use, nor would he have dreamed that his son would end up in prison, nor work as a mechanic at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, nor be, if he dared to think of it, an assistant private detective at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. He could not really claim that last title, of course, but if only they gave him the chance to prove himself then there was surely no reason why he should not be every bit as good as Mma Makutsi. He would not aspire to become another Mma Ramotswe—nobody could do that—but at least he might be able to do the things that Mma Makutsi did, ninety-seven per cent or no ninety-seven per cent.

Mr Polopetsi’s father, Ernest Polopetsi, had been a small-scale farmer who had enjoyed hunting in his spare time. He had rarely shot any game, as he had no rifle and relied on others for that, but he had been adept at following animal spoor and had taught his son how to do it too. He had shown him the prints made by the different animals—by civet cats, by duiker, by rock rabbits—and he had shown him how to tell how long ago an animal had passed by. There was the wind, which blew small grains of sand into the indentations made by the animal hoof or pads; there was rain, which washed everything away; there was the sun which dried out freshly turned soil. Then there was the bending of the grass, which could spring back, but slowly and in a time that could be read as a person might read the hands of a clock. This knowledge had been passed on to Mr Polopetsi as a boy and now, so unexpectedly, he was presented with the chance to use it.

He looked down at the ground and began his examination. There were prints which he could rule out at the outset: his own, to begin with; the marks of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s veldschoens—a flat footprint reflecting soft rubber soles; then there were Mma Ramotswe’s footprints, one set more recent than the other, because she had walked around the van the night before, immediately after it had broken down. Then there were other prints—a pair of boots that had walked along a path that joined the track from the right. The boots had been accompanied by a set of bare feet, small in size and therefore the feet of a child, perhaps, or of a small woman. That pair of boots had walked round and round in a circle and had then stopped and done something near the oil stain. After that, the boots had gone off and, yes, they had come back with another set of prints. Mr Polopetsi bent down and looked at the confusion of spoor: boots, tyres (small tyre prints—the prints of the tiny white van itself), and then, quite unmistakably, the prints of donkey hoofs. Yes! thought Mr Polopetsi. And then, yes! again.

He stood up and stretched. It was uncomfortable bending down like that, but it was the only thing to do when one was tracking. One had to get down to that level, to see the world from the point of view of the grains of sand and the blades of grass. It was another world down there, a world of ants and tiny crusts of earth, like miniature mountain ridges, but it was a world that could tell you a great deal about the world of a few feet up; all you had to do was ask it.

He stooped down again and began to move off, following the donkey spoor. This went up the road a short way and then turned off to the right, in the same direction as the path down which the pair of boots had walked. Now, in the ground between the shrubs, the picture was becoming much clearer. There had been much activity on the track itself; now the donkeys, inspanned to the tiny white van, had pulled their burden across undisturbed ground and the tracks were tell-tale. The donkeys—and there had been four of them, concluded Mr Polopetsi—had been led, whipped no doubt, by the man in boots and behind them, moving over at least some of the donkey tracks and obliterating them—had come the tiny white van itself. There must have been somebody else sitting at the wheel and steering the van as it was pulled along. Of course that was the pair of bare feet—a boy no doubt. Yes, the boy had steered while his father drove the donkeys. That is what had happened.

It was easy from there. Mr Polopetsi followed the tracks across the virgin ground for about half a mile before he saw the small cluster of single-room traditional houses and the stock pen made from brushwood. He paused. He was sure that the tiny white van would be there, concealed, perhaps, under a covering of sticks and leaves, but there nonetheless. What should he do? One possibility would be to run back to the track and make his way up the main road. He could be back in Gaborone within a couple of hours and he could tell the police about it, but by that time the van might well have vanished altogether. He stood and thought, and as he stood there he noticed a boy looking at him from the doorway of one of the houses. That decided it for him. He could not leave now as his presence would be reported and action would be taken to get rid of the van.

Mr Polopetsi walked towards the nearest of the four buildings and, as he did so, he saw the tiny white van. It was parked behind the house he was approaching, half covered with an old tarpaulin. The sight filled him with indignation. He had never been able to understand dishonesty, and here was a blatant example of the most bare-faced thievery. Did these people—these useless people—know what sort of person’s van they had stolen? The worst in Botswana had stolen from the finest in Botswana; it was as straightforward as that.

As he came closer to the house, a man came out. This man, clad in khaki shirt and trousers, now walked towards Mr Polopetsi and greeted him.

“Are you lost, Rra?” the man asked. His tone was neutral.

Mr Polopetsi felt his heart thumping within him. “I am not lost,” he said. “I have come to fetch my employer’s van.” He gestured towards the half-concealed van, and the man’s eye followed him.

“You are the owner of that van?” asked the man.

“No,” said Mr Polopetsi. “As I told you, it is owned by my boss. I have come to get it back.”

The man looked away. Mr Polopetsi watched him, and realised that the man was thinking. It would be difficult for him to explain its presence, half hidden, behind his house.

Mr Polopetsi decided to be direct. “You have stolen that van,” he challenged. “You had no right to take it.”

The man looked at him, his eyes narrowed. “I did not steal it, Rra. Watch what you say. I merely brought it here for safe-keeping. You cannot leave vans out in the bush, you know.”

Mr Polopetsi drew in his breath. The sheer effrontery of this man’s explanation astonished him. Did this man think that he was quite that gullible?

“But how would we have found out that you were looking after this van for us?” he asked sarcastically. “Perhaps you left a note that we missed?”

The man shrugged. “I do not want to discuss this with you,” he said. “Please take that van away. It is cluttering up our yard.”

Mr Polopetsi stared at the other man, struggling with his indignation. “Now listen to me, Rra,” he said. “You listen very carefully. You have made a very bad mistake in taking that van. A very bad mistake.”

The man laughed. “Oh yes?” he said. “Let me think now. Does it belong to the President? Or maybe it belongs to Ian Khama or the Chief Justice or somebody just as important! What a bad mistake I have made!”

Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “That van belongs to nobody like that,” he said quietly. “That van belongs to Mma Ramotswe, who is a senior detective in Gaborone. You have heard of the CID, Rra? You know about detectives? Detectives are plain-clothes senior policemen. You do know that, Rra?”

Mr Polopetsi saw that his words were having the desired effect. The attitude of the other man now changed, and he was no longer off-hand.

“I’m telling the truth, Rra,” he whined. “I was just trying to look after that van. I am not a thief. Believe me, Rra. It is true.”

Mr Polopetsi knew that it was not in the slightest bit true, but now he changed tack.

“I am prepared to forget all about this,” he said. “You just return this van to the main road up there—you get your donkeys out—and then we shall arrange for a tow truck to come out.”

The man frowned. “All the way up to the main road? That will take a long time.”

“I’m sure that you have plenty of time,” said Mr Polopetsi. “That is, unless you want to spend some of that time in prison.”

The man said nothing. Then he turned round and called out to the boy who had been watching from afar. “Get the donkeys,” he shouted. “The van is going up to the main road.”

Mr Polopetsi smiled. “And there’s another thing,” he said. “The detective—the chief detective, I should call her—has had her time wasted by having to come out to look for her van and then finding it gone. I see that you have grown some very good pumpkins down here. I suggest that you put four of your best pumpkins into the back of the van. That will make up for her wasted time.”

The man opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it, and sulkily went off to fetch the pumpkins. Then, with its fine cargo of yellow vegetables stacked in the back, the tiny white van was connected to the team of donkeys, and the journey began. Mr Polopetsi began to walk alongside, but thought better of it and decided to make the rest of the journey in the van, with the pumpkins. It was comfortable there, resting on some old sacking, watching the sky above and thinking with some satisfaction of the pleasure which Mma Ramotswe would experience when he told her that the tiny white van was safe, rescued from captivity vile, ready to resume duties—after some necessary repairs, of course.