The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (13) by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online

never spoke to you but instead looked over your shoulder as if you were not even there?
    “He will be a small man inside,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He will feel small and unimportant. That is why he needs to put ladies down, Mma. Men who are big inside never feel the need to do that.”
    She was right, thought Mma Makutsi. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was one of those men who were large inside—kind and generous, and strong too—and he was never anything but courteous in his dealings with women, and with men too, for that matter.
    “So what I suggest, Mma,” Mma Ramotswe continued, “is that you don’t let this man annoy you. Just ignore his bad manners.”
    Mma Makutsi nodded enthusiastically. “I shall ignore him altogether,” she said. “It will be as if he is not there. When he talks I shall simply look up in the sky—like this—as if I can hear something but am not sure what it is.”
    Mma Ramotswe gently explained that this was not what she had in mind. “Don’t repay rudeness with rudeness, Mma. It is much better to show a rude person how to behave. Have you not seen how well that works?”
    “I have not seen that, Mma.”
    Mma Ramotswe knew she would not persuade Mma Makutsi, but she continued nonetheless. “Well, it does work. A rude person wants you to be rude back to him. He really likes that. But if you just smile and are very polite, then he will realise that his rudeness has not hurt you. He has achieved nothing.”
    This was greeted with silence, and Mma Ramotswe decidedthat it would be best to move on to another subject. There was work to do: a report to be typed up and sent off to a client, which would keep them busy for the hour or so before lunch time. Both she and Mma Makutsi went home for lunch now—Mma Ramotswe in her van and Mma Makutsi in the car sent for her by Phuti. This car, which had
The Double Comfort Furniture Store
emblazoned on its side, had been the subject of some remark by the two junior mechanics. “She is very grand now,” Charlie had said. “Too grand to go on public transport, like the rest of us. You may have to sit next to some poor person in a minibus. She is now too big for that.”
    Fanwell, who had at last qualified—though Charlie had not done so, and was still an apprentice—was more charitable. “It must be very nice to have a car with a driver,” he said. “Maybe if I marry a girl who has a furniture store that will happen to me.”
    “That will never happen,” said Charlie. “Girls with furniture stores are looking for someone more exciting than you, Fanwell. Sorry about that.”
    The inference was clear: these furniture-store girls, whoever they were, would be more satisfied with Charlie than they would be with Fanwell. That was probably true, thought Mma Ramotswe, who had overheard this conversation, but the fact that something was true was not always justification for saying it.
    Now there was the report to compile, and she and Mma Makutsi began to busy themselves with the task of writing it. The matter to be reported was a routine one—the bread-and-butter, or bread-and-gravy as Mma Makutsi put it, of a detective agency: marital infidelity. This case, however, was rather more sensitive than the usual run-of-the-mill investigation, as the client was a prominent politician, Mma Helen Olesitsi, a former government minister in charge of the police. She had developed suspicions about the conduct of her husband, Kholisani, who was a businessman.She was sure that he was having an affair, but had been unable to find out the identity of her rival; could Mma Ramotswe help?
    Mma Ramotswe, assisted by Mma Makutsi, had done her best. Long hours had been spent parked outside houses and in the lobbies of hotels; and more than one evening wasted in bars known to be popular with married men on the lookout for a mistress. Mma Ramotswe disapproved of these bars, which, she said, knew exactly what they were doing. One, in particular, was the object of her derision, a bar