To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) by Alexander McCall Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

doesn’t mean actually filing it in the filing cabinet.”
    “ Submitting would be better, Mma.”
    There were some battles simply not worth fighting, thought Mma Ramotswe. And then there were battles that should not be battles anyway; this, she thought, was one of those.
    “Submitting, then, Mma Makutsi.”
    “Good,” said Mma Makutsi. “Now then. Let’s see.” She returned to the letter. “The report indicates…That’s very good wording, Mma. It is very professional. The report indicates that your husband is not seeing a lover but is seeing another woman—” She broke off. “No, Mma, you cannot say that. That will give quite the wrong impression.”
    “Read on, Mma Makutsi.”
    “Seeing another woman who is a teacher. Oh, I see, Mma. I see what you’re saying. We could investigate further, but we think that any man who is studying for a mathematics examination is unlikely to be having an affair at the same time. For this reason, we do not recommend further surveillance.”
    Mma Makutsi put down the letter. “That is a very good letter, Mma.”
    Mma Ramotswe reached out to recover the piece of paper. “I’m glad you approve of it, Mma,” she said.
    “But why is he studying mathematics?” asked Mma Makutsi.
    “People do, Mma. They are always studying things. You can never tell what people will get up to.” People took up entirely innocent pursuits, she pointed out. She remembered a similar case, where a husband suspected of conducting an affair was in fact receiving instruction in the Roman Catholic faith. She now reminded Mma Makutsi of that case. “Remember that man who lived near the hospital, Mma? He was not having an affair at all but was thinking of becoming a Roman Catholic.”
    Mma Makutsi remembered the case. “People are always joining churches,” she said. “This church, that church. They like the singing in one place and they go there. Then they hear there is better singing in another place, and off they go to that one. Or there is a better preacher—one with a louder voice—and they say, ‘He is the one now.’ And off they go to listen to him. That’s how it works, Mma.”
    Mma Makutsi could see the wisdom of all that. Phuti had a cousin who was a good example of that, having been, in the space of a single year, a Baptist as well as an Anglican, and had now joined a small congregation of people who believed not that the end was coming—as some people did—but that it had actually come, and we had simply failed to notice it. But this situation had a particular smell to it, she thought. It was the smell, and that was something that was sometimes difficult to put into words. “There’s one thing worrying me here, Mma,” she mused. “Why has he not told his wife? She obviously doesn’t know where he is going—he can’t have told her, Mma.”
    “Perhaps he wants her to think he’s going somewhere else,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But does it matter? It’s nothing to do with us why he should want to study mathematics.”
    “Oh, I know that,” said Mma Makutsi. “It’s just that I think there’s something odd going on, Mma Ramotswe. We’re not seeing everything there is to be seen. Something else is happening.”
    Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “Possibly. But I don’t see what it has to do with us.”
    Mma Makutsi went to her desk and sat down, and at that moment, from down at floor level, almost inaudible, but just to be made out, came a tiny voice. Mathematics, Mma? Do you believe that?
    Mma Makutsi looked up sharply.
    “Did you say something, Mma Ramotswe?”
    Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, Mma. I did not. I thought I heard something, though. I thought it was you.”
    “It was not me,” said Mma Makutsi. She looked down at her shoes. There was silence. If there had been a voice, and if it had said something about mathematics, it had nothing more to say now. She transferred her gaze to Mma Ramotswe.
    “Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “I have been thinking.