“You may have shopping to do, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You know that you can have the time off whenever you want for things like that.”
Mma Makutsi had clearly been pleased by this, but again declined. There was filing to do, she insisted; it was extraordinary how quickly filing accumulated; one turned one’s back for a few hours and there it was—piled up. Mma Ramotswe thought that this was also true of detection work. “No sooner do you deal with one case,” she said, “than another turns up. There is somebody coming tomorrow morning. I should really be seeing people about that hospital matter, but I am going to have to be here to see this other person. Unless…”
She glanced across the room at Mma Makutsi, who was polishing her spectacles with that threadbare lace handkerchief of hers. You would think, Mma Ramotswe said to herself, that she would buy herself a new handkerchief now that she had the money, but people held on to things they loved; they just did.
Mma Makutsi finished with her polishing and replaced her large round spectacles. She looked straight at Mma Ramotswe. “Unless?”
Mma Ramotswe had always insisted that she see the client first, even if the matter was subsequently to be delegated to Mma Makutsi. But things had to change, and perhaps this was the time to do it. Mma Makutsi could be made an associate detective and given the chance to deal with clients herself, right from the beginning of a case. All that would be required would be that the client’s chair be turned round to face Mma Makutsi’s desk rather than hers.
“Unless you, as…as associate detective were to interview the client yourself and look after the whole matter.” Mma Ramotswe paused. The afternoon sun was slanting in through the window and had fallen on Mma Makutsi’s head, glinting off her spectacles.
“Of course,” said Mma Makutsi quietly. Associate detective. Whole matter. Herself. “Of course,” she repeated. “That would be possible. Tomorrow morning? Of course, Mma. You leave it to me.”
THE SMALL WOMAN sitting in the re-oriented client’s chair looked at Mma Makutsi. “Mma?”
“Makutsi. I am Grace Makutsi.”
“I had heard that there was a woman called Mma Ramotswe. People have spoken of her. I heard very good things.”
“There is a woman of that name,” said Mma Makutsi. “She is my colleague.” She faltered briefly at the word colleague. Of course Mma Ramotswe was her colleague; she was also her employer, but there was nothing to say that an employer could not also be a colleague. She went on, “We work very closely together. As associates. So that is why you are seeing me. She is out on another case.”
The small woman hesitated for a moment, but then appeared to accept that situation. She leaned forward in her chair, and Mma Makutsi noticed how her expression seemed to be a pleading one, the expression of one who wanted something very badly. “My name, Mma, is Mma Magama, but nobody calls me that very much. They call me Teenie.”
“That is because…” Mma Makutsi stopped herself.
“That is because I have always been called that,” said Teenie. “Teenie is a good name for a small person, you see, Mma.”
“You are not so small, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. But you are, she thought; you’re terribly small.
“I have seen some smaller people,” said Teenie appreciatively.
“Where did you see them?” asked Mma Makutsi. She had not intended to ask the question, but it slipped out.
Teenie pointed vaguely out of the window, but said nothing.
“Anyway, Mma,” Mma Makutsi went on. “Perhaps you will tell me why you have come to see us.”
Mma Makutsi watched Teenie’s eyes as she spoke. The pleading look that accompanied each sentence was disconcerting.
“I have a business, you see, Mma,” Teenie said. “It is a good business. It is a printing works. There are ten people who work there. Ten. People look at me and think that I am too small to have a business like that—they look surprised. But what difference does it make, Mma? What difference?”
Mma Makutsi shrugged. “No difference at all, Mma. Some people are very stupid.”
Teenie agreed with this. “Very,” she said. “What matters is what’s up here.” She tapped her head. Mma Makutsi could not help but notice that her head was very small too. Did the size of a brain have any bearing on its ability? she wondered. Chickens had very small brains but elephants had much bigger ones, and there was a difference.
“I started the business with my late husband,” Teenie went on. “He was run over on the Lobatse Road eleven years ago.”
Mma Makutsi lowered her eyes. He must have been small too; perhaps the driver just did not see him. “I am sorry, Mma. That was very sad.”
“Yes,” said Teenie. “But I had to get on with my life and so I carried on with the business. I built it up. I bought a new German printing machine which made us one of the cheapest places in the country to print anything. Full colour. Laminates. Everything, Mma.”
“That is very good,” said Mma Makutsi.
“We could do you a calendar for yourselves next year,” said Teenie, looking at the almost bare walls, but noticing, appreciatively, the display of her own calendar. “I see that somebody has given you our calendar up there. You will see how well printed it is. Or we could do some business cards. Have you got a business card, Mma?”
The answer was no, but the idea was implanted. If one was an associate detective, then perhaps one was expected to have a business card. Mma Ramotswe herself did not have one, but that was more to do with her traditional views than with cost.
“I would like to have one,” said Mma Makutsi. “And I would like you to print it for me.”
“We shall do that,” said Teenie. “We can take the cost off your fee.”
That was not what Mma Makutsi had intended, but now she was committed. She indicated to Teenie that she should continue with her story.
Teenie moved forward in her seat. Mma Makutsi saw that her client’s feet barely touched the floor in front of her. “I look after the people who work for me very well,” said Teenie. “I never ask people to work longer hours than they want to. Everybody gets three weeks’ holiday on full pay. After two years, everybody gets a bonus. Two years only, Mma! In some places you wait ten years for a bonus.”
“Your people must be very happy,” said Mma Makutsi. “It’s not everybody who is as good to their staff as you are.”
“That is true,” said Teenie. She frowned before continuing. “But then if they are so happy, why do I have somebody who is stealing from me? That is what I cannot understand—I really can’t. They are stealing supplies. Paper. Inks. The supply cupboards are always half-empty.”
From the moment that Teenie mentioned staff, Mma Makutsi had anticipated this. It was one of the commonest complaints that clients brought to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, although not quite as common as the errant husband complaint. Botswana was not a dishonest country—quite the contrary, really—but it was inevitable that there would be some who would cheat and steal and do all the unhelpful and unpleasant things that humanity was heir to. That had started a long time back, at the point at which some Eden somewhere had gone wrong, and somebody had picked up a stone and hurled it at another. It was in us, thought Mma Makutsi; it was in all of us, somewhere deep down in our very nature. When we were children we had to be taught to hold it in check, to banish it; we had to be taught to be concerned with the feelings of others. And that, she thought, was where things went wrong. Some children were just not taught, or would not learn, or were governed by some impulse within them that stopped them from feeling and understanding. Later on, there was very little one could do about these people, other than to thwart them. Mma Ramotswe, of course, said that you could be kind to them, to show them the way, but Mma Makutsi had her doubts about that; one could be too kind, she thought.