The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

CHAPTER NINE

THERE WERE three quite exceptional houses in the country, and Mma Ramotswe felt some satisfaction that she had been invited to two of them. The best-known of these was Mokolodi, a rambling chateau-like building placed in the middle of the bush to the south of Gaborone. This house, which had a gatehouse with gates on which hornbills had been worked in iron, was probably the grandest establishment in the country, and was certainly rather more impressive than Phakadi House, to the north, which was rather too close to the sewage ponds for Mma Ramotswe's taste. This had its compensations, though, as the sewage ponds attracted a great variety of bird life, and from the verandah of Phakadi one could watch flights of flamingos landing on the murky green water. But you could not do this if the wind was in the wrong direction, which it often was.

The third house could only be suspected of being a house of distinction, as very few people were invited to enter it, and Gaborone as a whole had to rely on what could be seen of the house from the outside-which was not much, as it was surrounded by a high white wall-or on reports from those who were summoned into the house for some special purpose. These reports were unanimous in their praise for the sheer opulence of the interior.

"Like Buckingham Palace," said one woman who had been called to arrange flowers for some family occasion. "Only rather better. I think that the Queen lives a bit more simply than those people in there."

The people in question were the family of Mr Paliwalar Sundigar Patel, the owner of eight stores-five in Gaborone and three in Francistown -a hotel in Orapa, and a large outfitters in Lobatse. He was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest men in the country, if not the wealthiest, but amongst the Batswana this counted for little, as none of the money had gone into cattle, and money which was not invested in cattle, as everybody knew, was but dust in the mouth.

Mr Paliwalar Patel had come to Botswana in 1967, at the age of twenty-five. He had not had a great deal in his pocket then, but his father, a trader in a remote part of Zululand, had advanced him the money to buy his first shop in the African Mall. This had been a great success; Mr Patel bought goods for virtually nothing from traders in distress and then sold them on at minimal profit. Trade blossomed and shop was added to shop, all of them run on the same commercial philosophy. By his fiftieth birthday, he stopped expanding his empire, and concentrated on the improvement and education of his family. There were four children-a son, Wallace, twin daughters, Sandri and Pali, and the youngest, a daughter called Nandira. Wallace had been sent to an expensive boarding school in Zimbabwe, in order to satisfy Mr Patel's ambition that he become a gentleman. There he had learned to play cricket, and to be cruel. He had been admitted to dental school, after a large donation by Mr Patel, and had then returned to Durban, where he set up a practice in cosmetic dentistry. At some point he had shortened his name-"for convenience's sake"-and had become Mr Wallace Pate BDS (Natal).

Mr Patel had protested at the change. "Why are you now this Mr Wallace Pate BDS (Natal) may I ask? Why? You ashamed, or something? You think I'm just a Mr Paliwalar Patel BA (Failed) or something?"

The son had tried to placate his father.

"Short names are easier, father. Pate, Patel-it's the same thing. So why have an extra letter at the end? The modern idea is to be brief. We must be modern these days. Everything is modern, even names."

There had been no such pretensions from the twins. They had both been sent back to the Natal to meet husbands, which they had done in the manner expected by their father. Both sons-in-law had now been taken into the business and were proving to have good heads for figures and a sound understanding of the importance of tight profit margins.

Then there was Nandira, who was sixteen at the time and a pupil at Maru-a-Pula School in Gaborone, the best and most expensive school in the country. She was bright academically, was consistently given glowing reports from the school, and was expected to make a good marriage in the fullness of time-probably on her twentieth birthday, which Mr Patel had felt was precisely the right time for a girl to marry.

The entire family, including the sons-in-law, the grandparents, and several distant cousins, lived in the Patel mansion near the old Botswana Defence Force Club. There had been several houses on the plot, old colonial-style houses with wide verandahs and fly screens, but Mr Patel had knocked them down and built his new house from scratch. In fact, it was several houses linked together, all forming the family compound. "We Indians like to live in a compound," Mr Patel had explained to the architect. "We like to be able to see what's going on in the family, you know."

The architect, who was given a free rein, designed a house in which he indulged every architectural whimsy which more demanding and less well-funded clients had suppressed over the years. To his astonishment, Mr Patel accepted everything, and the resulting building proved to be much to his taste. It was furnished in what could only be called Delhi Rococo, with a great deal of gilt in furniture and curtains, and on the walls expensive pictures of Hindu saints and mountain deer with eyes that followed one about the room.

When the twins married, at an expensive ceremony in Durban to which over fifteen hundred guests were invited, they were each given their own quarters, the house having been considerably expanded for the purpose. The sons-in-law were also each given a red Mercedes-Benz, with their initials on the driver's door. This required the Patel garage to be expanded as well, as there were now four Mercedes-Benz cars to be housed there; Mr Patel's, Mrs Patel's car (driven by a driver), and the two belonging to the sons-in law.

An elderly cousin had said to him at the wedding in Durban: "Look, man, we Indians have got to be careful. You shouldn't go flashing your money around the place. The Africans don't like that, you know, and when they get the chance they'll take it all away from us. Look at what happened in Uganda. Listen to what some of the hotheads are saying in Zimbabwe. Imagine what the Zulus would do to us if they had half a chance. We've got to be discreet."

Mr Patel had shaken his head. "None of that applies in Botswana. There's no danger there, I'm telling you. They're stable people. You should see them; with all their diamonds. Diamonds bring stability to a place, believe me."

The cousin appeared to ignore him. " Africa 's like that, you see," he continued. "Everything's going fine one day, just fine, and then the next morning you wake up and discover your throat's been cut. Just watch out."

Mr Patel had taken the warning to heart, to an extent, and had added to the height of the wall surrounding his house so that people could not look in the windows and see the luxury. And if they continued to drive around in their big cars, well, there were plenty of those in town and there was no reason why they should be singled out for special attention.

MMA RAMOTSWE was delighted when she received the telephone call from Mr Patel asking her whether she could possibly call on him, in his house, some evening in the near future. They agreed upon that very evening, and she went home to change into a more formal dress before presenting herself at the gates of the Patel mansion. Before she went out, she telephoned Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

"You said I should get a rich client," she said. "And now I have. Mr Patel."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni drew in his breath. "He is a very rich man," he said. "He has four Mercedes-Benzes. Four. Three of them are all right, but one has had bad problems with its transmission. There was a coupling problem, one of the worst I've seen, and I had to spend days trying to get a new casing…"

YOU COULD not just push open the gate at the Patel house; nor could you park outside and hoot your horn, as everybody did with other houses. At the Patel house you pressed a bell in the wall, and a high-pitched voice issued from a small speaker above your head.

"Yes. Patel place here. What do you want?" "Mma Ramotswe," she said. "Private…" A crackling noise came from the speaker. "Private? Private what?"

She was about to answer, when there was another crackling sound and the gate began to swing open. Mma Ramotswe had left her tiny white van round the corner, to keep up appearances, and so she entered the compound by foot. Inside, she found herself in a courtyard which had been transformed by shade netting into a grove of lush vegetation. At the far end of the courtyard was the entrance to the house itself, a large doorway flanked by tall white pillars and tubs of plants. Mr Patel appeared before the open door and waved to her with his walking stick.

She had seen Mr Patel before, of course, and knew that he had an artificial leg, but she had never seen him at really close quarters and had not expected him to be so small. Mma Ramotswe was not tall-being blessed with generous girth, rather than height-but Mr Patel still found himself looking up at her when he shook her hand and gestured for her to come inside.

"Have you been in my house before?" he asked, knowing, of course, that she had not. "Have you been at one of my parties?"

This was a lie as well, she knew. Mr Patel never gave parties, and she wondered why he should pretend to do so.

"No," she said simply. "You have never asked me."

"Oh dear," he said, chuckling as he spoke. "I have made a big mistake."

He led her through an entrance hall, a long room with a shiny black and white marble floor. There was a lot of brass in this room-expensive, polished brass-and the overall effect was one of glitter.

"We shall go through to my study," he said. "That is my private room in which none of the family are ever allowed. They know not to disturb me there, even if the house is burning down."

The study was another large room, dominated by a large desk on which there were three telephones and an elaborate pen and ink stand. Mma Ramotswe looked at the stand, which consisted of several glass shelves for the pens, the shelves being supported by miniature elephant tusks, carved in ivory.

"Sit down, please," said Mr Patel, pointing to a white leather armchair. "It takes me a little time to sit because I am missing one leg. There, you see. I am always on the lookout for a better leg. This one is Italian and cost me a lot of money, but I think there are better legs to be had. Maybe in America."

Mma Ramotswe sank into the chair and looked at her host.

"I'll get straight to the point," said Mr Patel. "There's no point in beating about the bush and chasing all sorts of rabbits, is there? No, there isn't."

He paused, waiting for Mma Ramotswe's confirmation. She nodded her head slightly.

"I am a family man, Mma Ramotswe," he said. "I have a happy family who all live in this house, except for my son, who is a gentleman dentist in Durban. You may have heard of him. People call him Pate these days."

"I know of him," said Mma Ramotswe. "People speak highly of him, even here."

Mr Patel beamed. "Well, my goodness, that's a very pleasing thing to be told. But my other children are also very important to me. I make no distinction between my children. They are all the same. Equal-equal."

"That's the best way to do it," said Mma Ramotswe. "If you favour one, then that leads to a great deal of bitterness."

"You can say that again, oh yes," said Mr Patel. "Children notice when their parents give two sweets to one and one to another. They can count same as us."

Mma Ramotswe nodded again, wondering where the conversation was leading.

"Now," said Mr Patel. "My big girls, the twins, are well married to good boys and are living here under this roof. That is all very excellent. And that leaves just one child, my little Nandira. She is sixteen and she is at Maru-a-PuIa. She is doing well at school, but…"

He paused, looking at Mma Ramotswe through narrowed eyes. "You know about teenagers, don't you? You know how things are with teenagers in these modern days?"

Mma Ramotswe shrugged. "They are often bad trouble for their parents. I have seen parents crying their eyes out over their teenagers."

Mr Patel suddenly lifted his walking stick and hit his artificial leg for emphasis. The sound was surprisingly hollow and tinny.

"That's what is worrying me," he said vehemently. "That's what is happening. And I will not have that. Not in my family." "What?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Teenagers?" "Boys," said Mr Patel bitterly. "My Nandira is seeing some boy in secret. She denies it, but I know that there is a boy. And this cannot be allowed, whatever these modern people are saying about the town. It cannot be allowed in this family-in this house."

AS MR Patel spoke, the door to his study, which had been closed behind them when they had entered, opened and a woman came into the room. She was a local woman and she greeted Mma Ramotswe politely in Setswana before offering her a tray on which various glasses of fruit juice were set. Mma Ramotswe chose a glass of guava juice and thanked the servant. Mr Patel helped himself to orange juice and then impatiently waved the servant out of the room with his stick, waiting until she had gone before he continued to speak.

"I have spoken to her about this," he said. "I have made it very clear to her. I told her that I don't care what other children are doing-that is their parents' business, not mine. But I have made it very clear that she is not to go about the town with boys or see boys after school. That is final."

He tapped his artificial leg lightly with his walking stick and then looked at Mma Ramotswe expectantly.

Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. "You want me to do something about this?" she said quietly. "Is this why you have asked me here this evening?"

Mr Patel nodded. "That is precisely why. I want you to find out who this boy is, and then I will speak to him."

Mma Ramotswe stared at Mr Patel. Had he the remotest idea, she wondered, how young people behaved these days, especially at a school like Maru-a-Pula, where there were all those foreign children, even children from the American Embassy and such places? She had heard about Indian fathers trying to arrange marriages, but she had never actually encountered such behaviour. And here was Mr Patel assuming that she would agree with him; that she would take exactly the same view.

"Wouldn't it be better to speak to her?" she asked gently. "If you asked her who the young man was, then she might tell you."

Mr Patel reached for his stick and tapped his tin leg.

"Not at all," he said sharply, his voice becoming shrill."Not at all. I have already been asking her for three weeks, maybe four weeks. And she gives no answer. She is dumb insolent."

Mma Ramotswe sat and looked down at her feet, aware of Mr Patel's expectant gaze upon her. She had decided to make it a principle of her professional life never to turn anybody away, unless they asked her to do something criminal. This rule appeared to be working; she had already found that her ideas about a request for help, about its moral rights and wrongs, had changed when she had become more aware of all the factors involved. It might be the same with Mr Patel; but even if it were not, were there good enough reasons for turning him down? Who was she to condemn an anxious Indian father when she really knew very little about how these people ran their lives? She felt a natural sympathy for the girl, of course; what a terrible fate to have a father like this one, intent on keeping one in some sort of gilded cage. Her own Daddy had never stood in her way over anything; he had trusted her and she, in turn, had never kept anything from him-apart from the truth about Note perhaps.

She looked up. Mr Patel was watching her with his dark eyes, the tip of his walking stick tapping almost imperceptibly on the floor.

"I'll find out for you," she said. "Although I must say I don't really like doing this. I don't like the idea of watching a child."

"But children must be watched!" expostulated Mr Patel. "If parents don't watch their children, then what happens? You answer that!"

"There comes a time when they must have their own lives," said Mma Ramotswe. "We have to let go."

"Nonsense!" shouted Mr Patel. "Modern nonsense. My father beat me when I was twenty-two! Yes, he beat me for making a mistake in the shop. And I deserved it. None of this modern nonsense."

Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet.

"I am a modern lady," she said. "So perhaps we have different ideas. But that has nothing to do with it. I have agreed to do as you have asked me. Now all that you need to do is to let me see a photograph of this girl, so that I can know who it is I am going to be watching."

Mr Patel struggled to his feet, straightening the tin leg with his hands as he did so.

"No need for a photograph," he said. "I can produce the girl herself. You can look at her."

Mma Ramotswe raised her hands in protest. "But then she will know me," she said. "I must be able to be unobserved."

"Ah!" said Mr Patel. "A very good idea. You detectives are very clever men."

"Women," said Mma Ramotswe.

Mr Patel looked at her sideways, but said nothing. He had no time for modern ideas.

As she left the house, Mma Ramotswe thought: He has four children; I have none. He is not a good father this man, because he loves his children too much-he wants to own them. You have to let go. You have to let go.

And she thought of that moment when, not even supported by Note, who had made some excuse, she had laid the tiny body of their premature baby, so fragile, so light, into the earth and had looked up at the sky and wanted to say something to God, but couldn't because her throat was blocked with sobs and no words, nothing, would come.

IT SEEMED to Mma Ramotswe that it would be a rather easy case. Watching somebody could always be difficult, as you had to be aware of what they were doing all the time. This could mean long periods of waiting outside houses and offices, doing nothing but watching for somebody to appear. Nandira would be at school for most of the day, of course, and that meant that Mma Ramotswe could get on with other things until three o'clock came round and the school day drew to an end. That was the point at which she would have to follow her and see where she went.

Then the thought occurred to Mma Ramotswe that following a child could be problematic. It was one thing to follow somebody driving a car-all you had to do was tail them in the little white van. But if the person you were watching was riding a bicycle-as many children did on their way home from school-then it would look rather odd if the little white van were to be seen crawling along the road. If she walked home,of course, then Mma Ramotswe could herself walk, keeping a reasonable distance behind her. She could even borrow one of her neighbour's dreadful yellow dogs and pretend to be taking that for a walk.

On the day following her interview with Mr Patel, Mma Ramotswe parked the tiny white van in the school car park shortly before the final bell of the day sounded. The children came out in dribs and drabs, and it was not until shortly after twenty past three that Nandira walked out of the school entrance, carrying her schoolbag in one hand and a book in the other. She was by herself, and Mma Ramotswe was able to get a good look at her from the cab of her van. She was an attractive child, a young woman really; one of those sixteen-year-olds who could pass for nineteen, or even twenty.

She walked down the path and stopped briefly to talk to another girl, who was waiting under a tree for her parents to collect her. They chatted for a few minutes, and then Nandira walked off towards the school gates.

Mma Ramotswe waited a few moments, and then got out of the van. Once Nandira was out on the road, Mma Ramotswe followed her slowly. There were several people about, and there was no reason why she should be conspicuous. On a late winter afternoon it was quite pleasant to walk down the road; a month or so later it would be too hot, and then she could well appear out of place.

She followed the girl down the road and round the corner. It had become clear to her that Nandira was not going directly home, as the Patel house was in the opposite direction to the route she had chosen. Nor was she going into town, which meant that she must be going to meet somebody at a house somewhere. Mma Ramotswe felt a glow of satisfaction. All shewould probably have to do was to find the house and then it would be child's play to get the name of the owner, and the boy. Perhaps she could even go to Mr Patel this evening and reveal the boy's identity. That would impress him, and it would be a very easily earned fee.

Nandira turned another corner. Mma Ramotswe held back a little before following her. It would be easy to become overconfident following an innocent child, and she had to remind herself of the rules of pursuit. The manual on which she relied,The Principles of Private Investigation by Clovis Andersen, stressed that one should never crowd one's subject. "Keep a long rein," wrote Mr Andersen, "even if it means losing the subject from time to time. You can always pick up the trail later. And a few minutes of non-eye contact is better than an angry confrontation."

Mma Ramotswe judged that it was now time to go round the corner. She did so, expecting to see Nandira several hundred yards down the road, but when she looked down it, the road was empty-non-eye contact, as Clovis Andersen called it, had set in. She turned round, and looked in the other direction. There was a car in the distance, coming out of the driveway of a house, and nothing else.

Mma Ramotswe was puzzled. It was a quiet road, and there were not more than three houses on either side of it-at least in the direction in which Nandira had been going. But these houses all had gates and driveways, and bearing in mind that she had only been out of view for a minute or so, Nandira would not have had time to disappear into one of these houses. Mma Ramotswe would have seen her in a driveway or going in through a front door.

If she has gone into one of the houses, thought MmaRamotswe, then it must be one of the first two, as she would certainly not have been able to reach the houses farther along the road. So perhaps the situation was not as bad as she had thought it might be; all she would have to do would be to check up on the first house on the right-hand side of the road and the first house on the left.

She stood still for a moment, and then she made up her mind. Walking as quickly as she could, she made her way back to the tiny white van and drove back along the route on which she had so recently followed Nandira. Then, parking the van in front of the house on the right, she walked up the driveway towards the front door.

When she knocked on the door, a dog started to bark loudly inside the house. Mma Ramotswe knocked again, and there came the sound of somebody silencing the dog. "Quiet, Bison; quiet, I know, I know!" Then the door opened and a woman looked out at her. Mma Ramotswe could tell that she was not a Motswana. She was a West African, probably a Ghanaian, judging by the complexion and the dress. Ghanaians were Mma Ramotswe's favourite people; they had a wonderful sense of humor and were almost inevitably in a good mood.

"Hallo Mma," said Mma Ramotswe. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm looking for Sipho."

The woman frowned.

"Sipho? There's no Sipho here."

Mma Ramotswe shook her head.

"I'm sure it was this house. I'm one of the teachers from the secondary school, you see, and I need to get a message to one of the form four boys. I thought that this was his house."

The woman smiled. "I've got two daughters," she said. "But no son. Could you find me a son, do you think?"

"Oh dear," said Mma Ramotswe, sounding harassed. "Is it the house over the road then?"

The woman shook her head. "That's that Ugandan family," she said. "They've got a boy, but he's only six or seven, I think."

Mma Ramotswe made her apologies and walked back down the drive. She had lost Nandira on the very first afternoon, and she wondered whether the girl had deliberately shrugged her off. Could she possibly have known that she was being followed? This seemed most unlikely, which meant that it was no more than bad luck that she had lost her. Tomorrow she would be more careful. She would ignore Clovis Andersen for once and crowd her subject a little more.

At eight o'clock that night she received a telephone call from Mr Patel.

"You have anything to report to me yet?" he asked. "Any information?"

Mma Ramotswe told him that she unfortunately had not been able to find out where Nandira went after school, but that she hoped that she might be more successful the following day.

"Not very good," said Mr Patel. "Not very good. Well, I at least have something to report to you. She came home three hours after school finished-three hours-and told me that she had just been at a friend's house. I said: what friend? and she just answered that I did not know her. Her. Then my wife found a note on the table, a note which our Nandira must have dropped. It said: "See you tomorrow, Jack." Now who is this Jack, then? Who is this person?* Is that a girl's name, I ask you?"

"No," said Mma Ramotswe. "It sounds like a boy." "There!" said Mr Patel, with the air of one producing theelusive answer to a problem. "That is the boy, I think. That is the one we must find. Jack who? Where does he live? That sort of thing-you must tell me it all."

Mma Ramotswe prepared herself a cup of bush tea and went to bed early. It had been an unsatisfactory day in more than one respect, and Mr Patel's crowing telephone call merely set the seal on it. So she lay in bed, the bush tea on her bedside table, and read the newspaper before her eyelids began to droop and she drifted off to sleep.

THE NEXT afternoon she was late in reaching the school car park. She was beginning to wonder whether she had lost Nandira again when she saw the girl come out of the school, accompanied by another girl. Mma Ramotswe watched as the two of them walked down the path and stood at the school gate. They seemed deep in conversation with one another, in that exclusive way which teenagers have of talking to their friends, and Mma Ramotswe was sure that if only she could hear what was being said, then she would know the answers to more than one question. Girls talked about their boyfriends in an easy, conspiratorial way, and she was certain that this was the subject of conversation between Nandira and her friend.

Suddenly a blue car drew up opposite the two girls. Mma Ramotswe stiffened and watched as the driver leant over the passenger seat and opened the front door. Nandira got in, and her friend got into the back. Mma Ramotswe started the engine of the little white van and pulled out of the school car park, just as the blue car drew away from the school. She followed at a safe distance, but ready to close the gap between them if there was any chance of losing them. She would not repeat yesterday's mistake and see Nandira vanish into thin air.

The blue car was taking its time, and Mma Ramotswe did not have to strain to keep up. They drove past the Sun Hotel and made their way towards the Stadium roundabout. There they turned in towards town and drove past the hospital and the Anglican Cathedral towards the Mall. Shops, thought Mma Ramotswe. They're just going shopping; or are they? She had seen teenagers meeting one another after school in places like the Botswana Book Centre. They called it "hanging around," she believed. They stood about and chatted and cracked jokes and did everything except buy something. Perhaps Nandira was going off to hang around with this Jack.

The blue car nosed into a parking place near the President Hotel. Mma Ramotswe parked several cars away and watched as the two girls got out of the car, accompanied by an older woman, presumably the mother of the other girl. She said something to her daughter, who nodded, and then detached herself from the girls and walked off in the direction of the hardware stores.

Nandira and her friend walked past the steps of the President Hotel and then slowly made their way up to the Post Office. Mma Ramotswe followed them casually, stopping to look at a rack of African print blouses which a woman was displaying in the square.

"Buy one of these Mma," said the woman. "Very good blouses. They never run. Look, this one I'm wearing has been washed ten, twenty times, and hasn't run. Look."

Mma Ramotswe looked at the woman's blouse-the colours had certainly not run. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at the two girls. They were looking in the shoe shop window, taking their time about wherever they were going.

"You wouldn't have my size," said Mma Ramotswe. "I need a very big blouse."

The trader checked her rack and then looked at Mma Ramotswe again.

"You're right," she said. "You are too big for these blouses. Far too big."

Mma Ramotswe smiled. "But they are nice blouses, Mma, and I hope you sell them to some nice small person."

She moved on. The girls had finished with the shoe shop and were strolling up towards the Book Centre. Mma Ramotswe had been right; they were planning to hang about.

THERE WERE very few people in the Botswana Book Centre. Three or four men were paging through magazines in the periodical section, and one or two people were looking at books. The assistants were leaning over the counters, gossiping idly, and even the flies seemed lethargic.

Mma Ramotswe noticed that the two girls were at the far end of the shop, looking at a shelf of books in the Setswana section. What were they doing there? Nandira could be learning Setswana at school, but she would hardly be likely to be buying any of the schoolbooks or biblical commentaries that dominated that section. No, they must be waiting for somebody.

Mma Ramotswe walked purposefully to the African section and reached for a book. It wasThe Snakes of Southern Africa, and it was well illustrated. She gazed at a picture of a short brown snake and asked herself whether she had seen one of these. Her cousin had been bitten by a snake like that years ago, when they were children, and had come to no harm. Was that the snake? She looked at the text below the picture and read. It could well have been the same snake, because it was described as nonvenomous and not at all aggressive. But it had attacked her cousin; or had her cousin attacked it? Boys attacked snakes. They threw stones at them and seemed unable to leave them alone. But she was not sure whether Putoke had done that; it was so long ago, and she could not really remember.

She looked over at the girls. They were standing there, talking to one another again, and one of them was laughing. Some story about boys, thought Mma Ramotswe. Well, let them laugh; they'll realise soon enough that the whole subject of men was not very funny. In a few years' time it would be tears, not laughter, thought Mma Ramotswe grimly.

She returned to her perusal ofThe Snakes of Southern Africa. Now this was a bad snake, this one. There it was. Look at the head! Ow! And those evil eyes! Mma Ramotswe shuddered, and read: "The above picture is of an adult male black mamba, measuring 1.87 metres. As is shown in the distribution map, this snake is to be found throughout the region, although it has a certain preference for open veld. It differs from the green mamba, both in distribution, habitat, and toxi-city of venom. The snake is one of the most dangerous snakes to be found in Africa, being outranked in this respect only by the Gaboon Viper, a rare, forest-dwelling snake found in certain parts of the eastern districts of Zimbabwe.

"Accounts of attacks by black mambas are often exaggerated, and stories of the snake's attacking men on galloping horses, and overtaking them, are almost certainly apocryphal. The mamba can manage a considerable speed over a very short distance, but could not compete with a horse. Nor are the stories of virtually instantaneous death necessarily true, although the action of the venom can be speeded if the victim of the bite should panic, which of course he often does on realising that he has been bitten by a mamba.

"In one reliably recorded case, a twenty-six-year-old man in good physical condition sustained a mamba bite on his right ankle after he had inadvertently stepped on the snake in the bush. There was no serum immediately available, but the victim possibly succeeded in draining off some of the venom when he inflicted deep cuts on the site of the bite (not a course of action which is today regarded as helpful). He then walked some four miles through the bush to seek help and was admitted to hospital within two hours. Antivenom was administered and the victim survived unscathed; had it been a puff-adder bite, of course, there would have been considerable necrotic damage within that time and he may even have lost the leg…"

Mma Ramotswe paused. One leg. He would need to have an artificial leg. Mr Patel. Nandira. She looked up sharply. The snake book had so absorbed her that she had not been paying attention to the girls and now-where were they?-gone. They were gone.

She pushedThe Snakes of Southern Africa back onto the shelf and rushed out into the square. There were more people about now, as many people did their shopping in the latter part of the afternoon, to escape the heat. She looked about her. There were some teenagers a little way away, but they were boys. No, there was a girl. But was it Nandira? No. She looked in the other direction. There was a man parking his bicycle under a tree and she noticed that the bicycle had a car aerial on it. Why?

She set off in the direction of the President Hotel. Perhaps the girls had merely gone back to the car to rejoin the mother, in which case, everything would be all right. But when she got to the car park, she saw the blue car going out at the other end, with just the mother in it. So the girls were still around, somewhere in the square.

Mma Ramotswe went back to the steps of the President Hotel and looked out over the square. She moved her gaze systematically-as Clovis Andersen recommended-looking at each group of people, scrutinising each knot of shoppers outside each shop window. There was no sign of the girls. She noticed the woman with the rack of blouses. She had a packet of some sort in her hand and was extracting what looked like a Mopani worm from within it.

"Mopani worms?" asked Mma Ramotswe. The woman turned round and looked at her. "Yes." She offered the bag to Mma Ramotswe, who helped herself to one of the dried tree worms and popped it into her mouth. It was a delicacy she simply could not resist.

"You must see everything that goes on, Mma," she said, as she swallowed the worm. "Standing here like this."

The woman laughed. "I see everybody. Everybody."

"Did you see two girls come out of the Book Centre?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "One Indian girl and one African girl. The Indian one about so high?"

The trader picked out another worm from her bag and popped it into her mouth.

"I saw them," she said. "They went over to the cinema. Then they went off somewhere else. I didn't notice where they were going."

Mma Ramotswe smiled. "You should be a detective," she said.

"Like you," said the woman simply.

This surprised Mma Ramotswe. She was quite well-known, but she had not necessarily expected a street trader to know who she was. She reached into her handbag and extracted a ten-pula note, which she pressed into the woman's hand.

"Thank you," she said. "That's a fee from me. And I hope you will be able to help me again some time."

The woman seemed delighted.

"I can tell you everything," she said. "I am the eyes of this place. This morning, for example, do you want to know who was talking to whom just over there? Do you know? You'd be surprised if I told you."

"Some other time," said Mma Ramotswe. "I'll be in touch."

There was no point in trying to find where Nandira had got to now, but there was every point in following up the information that she already had. So Mma Ramotswe went to the cinema and enquired as to the time of that evening's performance, which is what she concluded the two girls had been doing. Then she returned to the little white van and drove home, to prepare herself for an early supper and an outing to the cinema. She had seen the name of the film; it was not something that she wanted to sit through, but it had been at least a year since she had been to the cinema and she found that she was looking forward to the prospect.

Mr Patel telephoned before she left.

"My daughter has said that she is going out to see a friend about some homework," he said peevishly. "She is lying to me again."

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "I'm afraid that she is. But I know where she's going and I shall be there, don't you worry."

"She is going to see this Jack?" shouted Mr Patel. "She is meeting this boy?"

"Probably," said Mma Ramotswe. "But there is no point in your upsetting yourself. I will give you a report tomorrow."

"Early-early, please," said Mr Patel. "I am always up at six, sharp-sharp-"

THERE WERE very few people in the cinema when Mma Ramotswe arrived. She chose a seat in the penultimate row, at the back. This gave her a good view of the door through which anybody entering the auditorium would have to pass, and even if Nandira and Jack came in after the lights had gone down, it would still be possible for Mma Ramotswe to pick them out.

Mma Ramotswe recognised several of the customers. Her butcher arrived shortly after she did, and he and his wife gave her a friendly wave. Then there was one of the teachers from the school and the woman who ran the aerobics class at the President Hotel. Finally there was the Catholic bishop, who arrived by himself and ate popcorn loudly in the front row.

Nandira arrived five minutes before the first part of the programme was about to start. She was by herself, and she stood for a moment in the door, looking around her. Mma Ramotswe felt her eyes rest on her, and she looked down quickly, as if inspecting the floor for something. After a moment or two she looked up again, and saw that the girl was still looking at her.

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the floor again, and saw a discarded ticket, which she reached down to pick up.

Nandira walked purposefully across the auditorium to Mma Ramotswe's row and sat down in the seat next to her.

"Evening, Mma," she said politely. "Is this seat taken?"

Mma Ramotswe looked up, as if surprised.

"There is nobody there," she said. "It is quite free."

Nandira sat down.

"I am looking forward to this film," she said pleasantly. "I have wanted to see it for a long time."

"Good," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is nice to see a film that you've always wanted to see."

There was a silence. The girl was looking at her, and Mma Ramotswe felt quite uncomfortable. What would Clovis Andersen have done in such circumstances? She was sure that he said something about this sort of thing, but she could not quite remember what it was. This was where the subject crowded you, rather than the other way round.

"I saw you this afternoon," said Nandira. "I saw you at Maru-a-Pula."

"Ah, yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "I was waiting for somebody."

"Then I saw you in the Book Centre," Nandira continued. "You were looking at a book."

"That's right," said Mma Ramotswe. "I was thinking of buying a book."

"Then you asked Mma Bapitse about me," Nandira said quietly. "She's that trader. She told me that you were asking about me."

Mma Ramotswe made a mental note to be careful of Mma Bapitse in the future.

"So, why are you following me?" asked Nandira, turning in her seat to stare at Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Ramotswe thought quickly. There was no point in denying it, and she may as well try to make the most of a difficult situation. So she told Nandira about her father's anxieties and how he had approached her.

"He wants to find out whether you're seeing boys," she said. "He's worried about it."

Nandira looked pleased.

"Well, if he's worried, he's only got himself to blame if I keep going out with boys."

"And are you?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Are you going out with lots of boys?"

Nandira hesitated. Then, quietly: "No. Not really."

"But what about this Jack?" asked Mma Ramotswe.

"Who's he?"

For a moment it seemed as if Nandira was not going to reply. Here was another adult trying to pry into her private life, and yet there was something about Mma Ramotswe that she trusted. Perhaps she could be useful; perhaps…

"Jack doesn't exist," she said quietly. "I made him up."

"Why?"

Nandira shrugged. "I want them-my family-to think I've got a boyfriend," she said. "I want them to think there's somebody I chose, not somebody they thought right for me." She paused. "Do you understand that?"

Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment. She felt sorry for this poor, overprotected girl, and imagined just how in such circumstances one might want to pretend to have a boyfriend.

"Yes," she said, laying a hand on Nandira's arm. "I understand."

Nandira fidgeted with her watchstrap.

"Are you going to tell him?" she asked.

"Well, do I have much choice?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "I can hardly say that I've seen you with a boy called Jack when he doesn't really exist."

Nandira sighed. "Well, I suppose I've asked for it. It's been a silly game." She paused. "But once he realises that there's nothing in it, do you think that he might let me have a bit more freedom? Do you think that he might let me live my life for a little without having to tell him how I spend every single minute?"

"I could try to persuade him," said Mma Ramotswe. "I don't know whether he'll listen to me. But I could try."

"Please do," said Nandira. "Please try."

They watched the film together, and both enjoyed it. Then Mma Ramotswe drove Nandira back in her tiny white van, in a companionable silence, and dropped her at the gate in the high white wall. The girl stood and watched as the van drove off, and then she turned and pressed the bell.

"Patel place here. What do you want?"

"Freedom," she muttered under her breath, and then, more loudly: "It's me, Papa. I'm home now."

MMA RAMOTSWE telephoned Mr Patel early the next morning, as she had promised to do. She explained to him that it would be better for her to speak to him at home, rather than to explain matters over the telephone.

"You've got bad news for me," he said, his voice rising. "You are going to be telling me something bad-bad. Oh my God! What is it?"

Mma Ramotswe reassured him that the news was not bad, but she still found him looking anxious when she was shown into his study half an hour later.

"I am very worried," he said. "You will not understand a father's worries. It is different for a mother. A father feels a special sort of worry."

Mma Ramotswe smiled reassuringly. "The news is good," she said. "There is no boyfriend." "And what about this note?" he said. "What about this Jack person? Is that all imagination?"

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe simply. "Yes, it is." Mr Patel looked puzzled. He lifted his walking stick and tapped his artificial leg several times. Then he opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing.

'You see," said Mma Ramotswe, "Nandira has been inventing a social life for herself. She made up a boyfriend for herself just to bring a bit of… of freedom into her life. The best thing you can do is just to ignore it. Give her a bit more time to lead her own life. Don't keep asking her to account for her time. There's no boyfriend and there may not even be one for some time."

Mr Patel put his walking stick down on the floor. Then he closed his eyes and appeared deep in thought.

"Why should I do this?" he said after a while. "Why should I give in to these modern ideas?"

Mma Ramotswe was ready with her answer. "Recause if you don't, then the imaginary boyfriend may turn into a real one. That's why."

Mma Ramotswe watched him as he wrestled with her advice. Then, without warning he stood up, tottered for a while before he got his balance, and then turned to face her.

"You are a very clever woman," he said. "And I'm going to take your advice. I will leave her to get on with her life, and then I am sure that in two or three years she will agree with us and allow me to arra… to help her to find a suitable man to marry."

"That could easily happen," said Mma Ramotswe, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Yes," said Mr Patel warmly. "And I shall have you to thank for it all!"

MMA RAMOTSWE often thought about Nandira when she drove past the Patel compound, with its high white wall. She expected to see her from time to time, now that she knew what she looked like, but she never did, at least not until a year later, when, while taking her Saturday morning coffee on the verandah of the President Hotel, she felt somebody tap her shoulder. She turned round in her seat, and there was Nandira, with a young man. The young man was about eighteen, she thought, and he had a pleasant, open expression.

"Mma Ramotswe," said Nandira in a friendly way. "I thought it was you."

Mma Ramotswe shook Nandira's hand. The young man smiled at her.

"This is my friend," said Nandira. "I don't think you've met him."

The young man stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Jack," he said.