The Miracle at Speedy Motors

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AN UNUSUAL CHASE IN AN UNUSUAL PLACE

TWO DAYS PASSED—two days in which more rain fell, great cloudbursts of rain, drenching the length and breadth of Botswana. People held their breath in gratitude, hardly daring to speak of the deluge lest it should suddenly stop and the dryness return. The rivers, for long months little more than dusty beds of rust-coloured sand, appeared again, filled to overflowing in some cases, twisting snakes of mud-brown water moving across the plains. Here and there low bridges were overwhelmed by the floods and were covered with fast-moving water, cutting off villages and settlements from the larger roads; but nobody complained. The bush, a desiccated brown before the storms, turned green overnight, as the shoots of dormant plants thrust their way through the soil. Flowers followed, tiny yellow flowers, spreading like a dusting of gold across the land. Ground vines sent out tendrils; melons would grow in abundance later on, as an offering, an expiation for the barrenness of the dry months that had gone before.

For Mma Ramotswe, those two days of rain were days of waiting. There was work enough for her to attend to—several matters that for some time she had been meaning to finish off were calling for attention—and Mma Makutsi too had things to do. She had been handling the case of the tenant who was not who he claimed to be, and there was a report to be written on that. She and Phuti had followed the man staying in the house, driving behind him discreetly in Phuti’s white car with the red stripe down the side. That had gone smoothly enough, and they had seen the tenant go into the office of a supplier of diesel generators, exactly where the informing neighbour had said that he worked. But was he the Mr. Moganana who was named in the lease, or was he his brother-in-law, who had no right to be staying in the house? That had been solved by Phuti, who had gone into the office and asked to speak to Mr. Moganana. He had expected to be told that no such person worked there; instead the man they had followed had appeared. Phuti, unprepared for this, had simply asked him whether he was the man who had leased the house in question.

“Of course I am, Rra,” Mr. Moganana replied. “And a real dump it is too. Are you from the landlord?”

“In a way,” said Phuti.

“Well, you can tell her that I am fed up with her never doing anything about that bathroom.”

“Is there something wrong, Rra?”

“There certainly is. If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve signed that lease I would leave tomorrow.”

And that had solved that. The client would be told that if she wanted the house back, all she had to do was to cancel the lease; both sides would be pleased. It was one of those cases where both sides appeared to win, and everybody ended up happy.

For his part, Phuti enjoyed the experience, and dropped broad hints that he was at the agency’s disposal at any time they needed his services. Mma Makutsi had smiled, and promised to pass the message on to Mma Ramotswe. And then, in the glow of warmth over a job well done, she had confessed to him about the bed.

“It is the second bed,” she said. “The one you have taken from the garage and put into storage is the second bed. I ruined the first. It was all my fault.”

He had listened sympathetically and taken her hand at the end of the story. “I thought that there was something odd about it,” he said. “But I didn’t like to ask. This one has a different pattern on the headboard. I noticed that straightaway. And…”

She caught her breath. What would he think of her for not having told him before? Perhaps she should tell him that she had simply forgotten to do so, but that would be another lie, and she was ashamed enough of the first one.

“I knew that you did it so that I should not be upset,” said Phuti. “You were very kind.”

Mma Makutsi said nothing.

“You are so kind to me,” said Phuti. “I am a very fortunate man.”

The writing of the report on their case kept Mma Makutsi busy for a time, but once that was done she seemed to pick up the unease which was affecting her employer, and she took it upon herself to engage in a restless sorting through of old files and refiling them according to a new system that she was in the process of developing. Both of them drank too much tea; the act of putting on the kettle and making the tea was at least a ritual which could divert them for twenty minutes or so, and if one did it often enough a morning or an afternoon would slip by quickly enough.

At least Mma Ramotswe knew the cause, or rather the causes, of her unease. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Motholeli were due back in two days’ time, and she was anxious about their return. But there was more than that. She had made the occasional mistake in her professional life, she was not perfect, but the mistake that she felt she had made in introducing Mma Sebina to Mr. Sekape was, she thought, one of the more serious ones. I should have been more careful, she told herself; I should have thought about it. I should have spoken to them both separately before I introduced them. I should have done everything differently. Such thoughts now played on her mind, and she considered each one of them in turn, and then went back to the first and started again.

For something very bad had happened, something that now placed her, she felt, in an impossible position. This new development was not entirely her fault; if anybody should be blamed it was Mma Potokwane, but the redoubtable matron of the orphan farm was showing herself to be quite cavalier in her attitude to what she had done; there had been no apology from that quarter. And now Mma Ramotswe would have to do something about it—there was no doubt in her mind about that—but she could not bring herself to face the prospect. Like an animal in the lights of an oncoming car, she found herself incapable of moving.

She turned to Mma Makutsi for help. Her assistant was sympathetic, immediately launching into spirited criticism of Mma Potokwane, whom she had always regarded as excessively pushy and—“Did I not tell you, Mma Ramotswe?”—now downright irresponsible. But Mma Makutsi did not volunteer to do for Mma Ramotswe the thing that she was dreading; Mma Ramotswe would have to do that herself.

“You’ll have to go and see her,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’m sorry, Mma, but there’s no other way. You’ll have to go and see Mma Sebina and tell her.”

Mma Ramotswe groaned inwardly. “I know, Mma. You’re quite right. I cannot run away from this.”

“Of course it’s all Mma Potokwane’s fault, Mma,” Mma Makutsi went on, shaking her head in disbelief. “You would think, wouldn’t you, Mma Ramotswe, that when it came to something as important as that she would bother to check her facts. But did she? She did not, Mma! She said to you, just like that, ‘Oh yes, I remember those children. I remember that there were two—a brother and a sister.’ And then she phones up and says, ‘Oh, Mma Ramotswe, there has been a mistake. That man, that Mr. Sekape who works at the Standard Bank, he was not the brother of the girl who went to Otse. The brother of that girl died when she was still quite young. I am sorry, Mma, but that means she has no brother.’ How could she do that, Mma? How could she be so stupid?”

Mma Makutsi stared at Mma Ramotswe in triumph: there could be no defence for Mma Potokwane, none at all. And as she thought this, she glanced down at her shoes, her green shoes with the sky-blue linings, and it seemed to her that even her shoes, contrary as they were at times, agreed with her. Quite right, Boss! Mma Potokwane’s shoes are pretty stupid too! Stupid lady, stupid shoes!

“Oh, I know it’s a silly mistake,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it must be easy enough to make, with all those children going through her hands. I don’t know how she remembers all their names.”

“She doesn’t,” said Mma Makutsi simply. “She gets them wrong. As we have seen.”

Mma Ramotswe wanted to defend her old friend against such attack, but could not; she felt too miserable for that. She knew, too, that from whatever angle she considered the matter, the answer would be the same: she would have to go to Mma Sebina and announce that she had not found her brother after all. And then she would have to tell Mr. Sekape, too, that there had been a misunderstanding and he was, once again, alone.

When she first heard about Mma Potokwane’s mistake, her initial thought was that it might not be a bad thing after all. The meeting that she had set up between Mma Sebina and Mr. Sekape had not been the success she had envisaged, and at first she wondered whether Mma Sebina, having found a brother, would prove to be quite happy to lose him again. After all, when she had eventually located Mma Sebina and brought her to the office to meet Mr. Sekape, the encounter between the two long-lost siblings had been far from the emotionally charged reunion Mma Ramotswe had expected. Mr. Sekape had stood up, barely looking at his new-found sister, and had extended his hand for a formal handshake. For her part, Mma Sebina had been largely silent, replying to his questions in a voice which both Mma Ramotswe and Mr. Sekape himself had had to struggle to hear. There had been no effusive expressions of sentiment; no exchanges of embraces; just rather stiff social formalities. Where did you go to school, Mma? Did you ever meet anybody who knew our mother? Do you think that we might have some uncles on our father’s side? These were the questions which formed the conversation between the two.

And at the back of Mma Ramotswe’s mind, as she listened to this, was the thought of what Mr. Sekape had said earlier on in the van. Mma Ramotswe understood that there were some men who did not like women, just as there were some women who did not like men. But she had never encountered somebody who had spelled that out so clearly; and even if one were to give Mr. Sekape some credit for honesty, all that credit would rapidly be offset by the discredit he would get for writing off half of humanity in such firm and unfriendly terms. If he were my brother, thought Mma Ramotswe, I would settle that issue right at the beginning.

The meeting between the two of them had not lasted long. After about half an hour or so, silence had set in, and Mma Sebina had given Mma Ramotswe a glance of the sort that one woman can give another which signals that help is required. Mma Ramotswe had then said something about how time was marching on and that if Mr. Sekape did not mind she would now run him back to the bank in her van. This offer had been accepted, and then the two had exchanged telephone numbers.

“I shall telephone you tonight,” said Mr. Sekape.

And Mma Sebina had replied, “I shall be there, Rra. I shall answer.”

No, it had been a stiff meeting, a disappointment, and Mma Ramotswe had decided that she would not be surprised if the relationship fizzled out altogether. There were brothers and sisters, after all, who saw one another infrequently and did not seem to mind if they met only at family weddings and funerals. Perhaps this is how it would be for them.

But it was not. This gloomy prognosis had to be revised the following day when Mma Sebina telephoned Mma Ramotswe and told her that the two of them had met again on the very evening of their first encounter.

“He came to my house, Mma,” she said, “and I made him a very good meal. He said that he had not had anybody to cook for him since his mother became late. He was very happy.”

“I am glad about that,” said Mma Ramotswe. So at least Mr. Sekape accepted that women could have some uses, even if he professed to have such a low opinion of them. Mind you, she thought, all men who dislike women leave their dislike at the kitchen door.

“Yes,” enthused Mma Sebina. “And we had a very good time. He told me some very funny stories about the bank. He has a good sense of humour. I have often wondered if people who work in banks laugh much. Now I know they do.”

Mma Ramotswe was too surprised to say anything to this. Perhaps Mr. Sekape’s self-confessed hostility to women did not extend to sisters; perhaps he had discovered that his dislike was not as intense as he had imagined it to be. Or perhaps she had misunderstood him altogether, and his surprising remark had not been intended to be taken seriously. Whatever the explanation was, it was a welcome development: Mma Ramotswe did not like to disappoint clients, and it seemed that Mma Sebina was more than happy with the outcome of the encounter.

And that, of course, made her task of breaking the present news all the more difficult. But she had to do it, and had at last plucked up sufficient courage to go and speak to Mma Sebina.

“I shall go right now,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “I have put the matter off for long enough. I shall go, Mma—”

And that is the moment at which Charlie burst in. He did not knock, as even he normally did; he burst in.

“I’ve seen her,” he announced breathlessly. “I’ve just seen her.”

Mma Makutsi sniffed in an irritated way. “Seen who?” she snapped. “And have you forgotten how to knock, Charlie?”

Charlie ignored her and addressed his next remark to Mma Ramotswe. “That woman who brought the letter,” he said. “I have just seen her go into the supermarket. You seemed so interested in her that I rushed back to tell you. But since Mma Makutsi seems to be more concerned about knocking and such things perhaps I should not have bothered.”

Mma Ramotswe stood up. “Charlie,” she said, “we must go there now. You. Me. Mma Makutsi. Straightaway.”

THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH ROOM for all three of them in the tiny white van, and so Charlie crouched in the back, clinging on to the side, while Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi occupied the driver’s and passenger’s seat, respectively. The van was making the suspicious knocking noise again, but that did not stop Mma Ramotswe from pressing the accelerator pedal flat to the floor. Even so, with the engine doing its utmost, there was no question of reaching such momentum as would break the speed limit, and Mma Ramotswe found herself glancing anxiously at her watch as they made their way along the Tlokweng Road in the direction of the Pick and Pay supermarket.

Fortunately the traffic, such as it was, was going in the opposite direction, streaming away from town, and there was little to hold them up. When they reached the lights at the southern edge of the village, the tiny white van was brought to a halt dutifully at the line.

“It’s a pity the lights are red,” said Mma Makutsi. “When you see detectives in films they do not let these things hold them up.”

Mma Ramotswe glanced from left to right. Everything was clear; there were no vehicles approaching.

“But it’s the law, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “You cannot have people deciding whether or not they will stop at lights. That is not the way we do things in Botswana—yet.”

“I was not saying that you should jump the lights, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi, somewhat huffily. “I do not jump the lights myself.”

“But you don’t drive,” observed Mma Ramotswe. “You can’t jump lights if you don’t drive.”

“When I am with Phuti,” said Mma Makutsi. “What I meant was that Phuti and I don’t jump lights. We always stop when the lights are red. Even when they are orange, we stop.”

Mma Ramotswe looked in both directions again. There was still nothing coming.

“Of course, if it’s an emergency,” she said hesitantly. “If one is heading somewhere to solve a crime, for example. Or taking a pregnant lady to the hospital. Then I think that it’s all right to go against the lights. As long as you’ve looked, of course.”

Mma Makutsi looked up the road. “Do you think that this is an emergency, Mma?”

“Well, writing threatening letters is a crime, I think,” said Mma Ramotswe. But she was not completely sure of that. She had a copy of the Botswana Penal Code in the office, which she occasionally waved at any client who might suggest doing something illegal—such as listening to the telephone calls of another—but was there anything in the code about threatening letters? There should be, she felt, but then there were many things that should be in the Botswana Penal Code but were not, because of some oversight on the part of the compilers—failing to support an indigent parent, for example, or conducting a loud telephone conversation on the verandah of the President Hotel when other people were trying to drink their tea in peace.

The lights changed, and they moved forward. Within a few moments they were in the parking area and she nosed the tiny white van into the nearest vacant space, switched off the ignition, and began to half run towards the supermarket entrance, accompanied by Charlie and Mma Makutsi.

“We must get a trolley,” said Mma Makutsi, as they entered.

“We must be careful to look like normal shoppers. Then we shall be able to see this person and observe her.”

“And then?” asked Charlie. “Should I detain her?”

Mma Makutsi scoffed. “You cannot detain people, Charlie. You are not a policeman! No, what we shall do is follow her and find out who she is. That’s what we should do, isn’t it, Mma Ramotswe?”

Mma Ramotswe had not thought that far. “I think so,” she said. “We will observe, I think.”

They moved towards the vegetable section. Charlie’s offer to push the trolley had been turned down by Mma Ramotswe, who thought it better for her to remain in control. Mma Makutsi walked beside her, one hand on the trolley bar.

“Do you mind if I pick up a few things as we go along?” asked Mma Makutsi. “I was going to have to come shopping later on, anyway. So I may as well get something for Phuti’s dinner while I’m about it.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed that this was a good idea. “But don’t spend too much time choosing,” she said. “She could almost have finished her shopping by now, and so we had better get down towards the end of the store as soon as possible.”

The supermarket was not busy, although there were short lines of people at the bakery and meat sections. They avoided these, and walked instead down the curry and pasta lanes. Mma Makutsi reached for a jar of peri-peri sauce and put it into the tray.

“Phuti likes peri-peri chicken,” she explained. “He has a taste for hot things.”

“I can’t stand it,” said Charlie. “Why spoil good food by making it so hot that it burns your mouth? What’s so good about having a burnt mouth, Mma Makutsi?”

“It doesn’t really burn your mouth,” Mma Makutsi replied. “It just tastes like that.”

“Same thing,” said Charlie.

Mma Ramotswe was eager to return to the business in hand. “Let’s not argue about such matters,” she said. “Everybody likes different things. We are not all made the same way.”

They were approaching the tea section, and Mma Ramotswe began to slow down, her attention drawn to a display of brightly coloured boxes of tea. “Now that looks very nice,” she said. “Perhaps—”

She did not finish. Charlie had seen something; now he abruptly reached out and clapped his hand over hers on the trolley bar. “There she is, Mma! There. Look.”

They stood quite still. At the end of the lane, on the point of turning the corner, was a woman in a shiny green dress, pushing a trolley laden with foodstuffs.

It was Mma Makutsi who broke the silence. “Violet!” she exclaimed. “Violet Sephotho!”

Mma Makutsi’s voice carried, at least as far as Violet, who spun round to find out who it was who had called her name. For a moment she appeared confused, but then, turning sharply on her heel, she changed the direction of her shopping trolley and began to push it towards the household products section. Mma Ramotswe lost no time. Leaning into the trolley, she began to pursue Violet, the trolley wheels clattering noisily as they picked up speed.

After a few seconds, Violet half turned to glance behind her. Seeing herself pursued by Mma Ramotswe’s advancing trolley, she spun her own trolley round the approaching corner. For a short while she was out of sight of her pursuers, but Mma Ramotswe was now assisted in the pushing of the trolley by Mma Makutsi and Charlie, and they began rapidly to close the distance between them.

“Violet Sephotho!” called out Mma Makutsi. “You stop right now! You stop! In the name of…” In the name of what? she thought. And it came to her, even if she did not utter the words: In the name of the Botswana Secretarial College. Violet Sephotho had been her contemporary there, the leader of the glamorous girls, the seditious, lazy one who sat at the back of the classroom and read magazines. Mma Makutsi had not forgotten how it was Violet who had pretended to snore during a lecture on double-entry bookkeeping by a very important visitor, the secretary of the Botswana Association of Certified Accountants. Neither had Mma Makutsi forgotten the stream of eligible boyfriends paraded so shamelessly on Violet’s arm; nor the moment when she had announced that she had landed the best-paid job of that year’s graduates in spite of her appallingly bad examination results. And now she was revealed as the author of those unpleasant letters. But why, she wondered, would she have done that?

Violet showed no sign of stopping, but then, turning a corner past an elaborate display of stacked boxes of soap powder, she slipped. She righted herself quickly, but it was enough to send her trolley into the pile of boxes, which tumbled about her in a cloud of white powder. More from surprise than from anything else, she stood where she was, allowing Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi to catch up with her.

“We need to talk to you, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“About those letters,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Violet.

Mma Makutsi’s eyes were wide. “You don’t? Those letters addressed to Mma Ramotswe. The ones that made those remarks about us. Those ones. You don’t know anything about them?”

Violet dusted soap powder off her dress. “No, I don’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Grace Makutsi. I really don’t.”

“Then why did you run away from us, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She spoke calmly, and there was about her demean-our none of the outrage that had so obviously seized Mma Makutsi.

Violet hesitated. “Was I running away, Mma? What made you think I was running away?”

“But you were!” shouted Mma Makutsi.

“You saw us, and you ran away,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It did look a bit like that, Mma.”

For a few moments Violet said nothing. Then she laughed. “Oh, I see how you thought that. There’s a simple explanation, you know—even if it will be a bit hard for some of you to get into her head.” At this, she looked at Mma Makutsi, before continuing, “You see, I thought you were somebody else altogether. I thought that you were somebody who…well, I owe a bit of money to. I’m going to pay them back next month, but I didn’t want them to make a scene here, in public. So I decided to get away from them. Simple, you see.”

Mma Ramotswe studied Violet as she spoke. It was hard to judge, she thought. Most liars were transparent, but the really hardened ones, the ones who were cold inside, who felt nothing, could lie very convincingly precisely because they felt no guilt. Everything that she had heard about Violet suggested that she was a person of that sort, and so all this might be lies—or it could be truth; she simply could not tell. And yet there still were questions she could ask.

“Tell me, Mma,” she asked gently, “why did you think that we were those other people? Do we look like them? Is one of them a traditionally built person? And one a young man like this one here? Or one like Mma Makutsi?”

Violet frowned, as if trying to make sense of the question. Then her answer came. “I cannot see very well in the distance at the moment,” she said. “I have lost my glasses, you see.”

The look that Mma Makutsi exchanged with Mma Ramotswe was so obvious, so triumphant, that even Violet noticed it.

“So?” said Violet. “So what’s so odd about that?”

“Blue frames?” asked Mma Makutsi, leaning forward towards Violet as she spoke. “Small glasses with blue frames?”

“No, not those ones,” said Violet. “I have those with me here, not that it’s any of your business, Grace Makutsi. My other glasses. The ones I use for long distance.”

And with that, she took a small pair of blue glasses out of the pocket of her dress, polished them ostentatiously, and then put them away.