Read Online Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith - Free Book Online Page B

Mma
Ramotswe sat at her desk and Mma Makutsi sat at hers, behind the typewriter.
She looked at Mma Ramotswe and smiled even more broadly.
    “I am
ready for work,” she said. “I am ready to start.”
    “Mmm,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It’s early days yet.
We’ve only just opened. We will have to wait for a client to
come.”
    In her heart of hearts, she knew there would be no
clients. The whole idea was a ghastly mistake. Nobody wanted a private
detective, and certainly nobody would want her. Who was she, after all? She was
just Precious Ramotswe from Mochudi. She had never been to London or wherever
detectives went to find out how to be private detectives. She had never even
been to Johannesburg. What if somebody came in and said “You know
Johannesburg of course,” she would have to lie, or just say nothing.
    Mma Makutsi looked at her, and then looked down at the typewriter keyboard.
She opened a drawer, peered inside, and then closed it. At that moment a hen
came into the room from the yard outside and pecked at something on the
floor.
    “Get out,” shouted Mma Makutsi. “No chickens
in here!”
    At ten o’clock Mma Makutsi got up from her desk
and went into the back room to make the tea. She had been asked to make bush
tea, which was Mma Ramotswe’s favourite, and she soon brought two cups
back. She had a tin of condensed milk in her handbag, and she took this out and
poured a small amount into each cup. Then they drank their tea, watching a
small boy at the edge of the road throwing stones at a skeletal dog.
    At
eleven o’clock they had another cup of tea, and at twelve Mma Ramotswe
rose to her feet and announced that she was going to walk down the road to the
shops to buy herself some perfume. Mma Makutsi was to stay behind and answer
the telephone and welcome any clients who might come. Mma Ramotswe smiled as
she said this. There would be no clients, of course, and she would be closed at
the end of the month. Did Mma Makutsi understand what a parlous job she had
obtained for herself? A woman with an average of 97 percent deserved better
than this.
    Mma Ramotswe was standing at the counter of the shop looking
at a bottle of perfume when Mma Makutsi hurtled through the door.
    “Mma Ramotswe,” she panted. “A client. There is a client
in the office. It is a big case. A missing man. Come quickly. There is no time
to lose.”
     
    THE WIVES of missing men are
all the same, thought Mma Ramotswe. At first they feel anxiety, and are
convinced that something dreadful has happened. Then doubt begins to creep in,
and they wonder whether he’s gone off with another woman (which he
usually has), and then finally they become angry. At the anger stage, most of
them don’t want him back anymore, even if he’s found. They just
want to have a good chance to shout at him.
    Mma Malatsi was in the
second stage, she thought. She has begun to suspect that he is off somewhere
having a good time, while she’s left at home, and of course it’s
beginning to rankle. Perhaps there are debts to be paid, even if she looks as
if she’s got a fair bit of money.
    “Maybe you should tell me
a little bit more about your husband,” she said, as Mma Malatsi began to
drink the cup of strong bush tea which Mma Makutsi had brewed for her.
    “His name is Peter Malatsi,” Mma Malatsi said.
“He’s forty and he has—had—has a business selling
furniture. It’s a good business and he did well. So he hasn’t run
away from any creditors.”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. “There must
be another reason,” she began, and then, cautiously: “You know what
men are like, Mma. What about another woman? Do you think …”
    Mma Malatsi shook her head vigorously.
    “I don’t think
so,” she said. “Maybe a year ago that would have been possible, but
then he became a Christian and took up with some Church that was always singing
and marching around the place in white uniforms.”
    Mma Ramotswe
noted this down. Church. Singing. Got religion