She was about to say no, but she did not speak quickly enough. Charlie had now inserted a finger under the corner of the flap and torn it open. There was a folded piece of paper inside. He extracted this and began to read, silently.
“What does it say, Charlie?”
He looked up. “It is very odd, Mma,” he said, handing the note to her.
She read out the message, which was written in capital letters, as with the invitation on the envelope. I CAN ADD JUST AS WELL AS ANYBODY, the message ran. SO I KNOW THAT TWO PLUS TWO MAKES FOUR, YOU BAD RUBBISH WOMAN!
Charlie waited for her response, but Mma Makutsi was examining the note again. “Well, Mma,” he said after a few moments. “That looks like a clue to me.”
She looked up from the note. “A clue to what, Charlie?”
He shrugged. “It tells us that she’s a bad woman. That’s what it says, doesn’t it? A bad woman.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that…” His voice trailed off. What did it mean? He was not sure.
It was for Mma Makutsi to provide the answer. “It means that this lady—whoever she is—has at least one enemy.”
She folded the note and took the envelope from Charlie. “I’m going to take this away,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Why not put it back where we found it?”
“Because it is a threat, Charlie. It is an anonymous letter, and I don’t think it right that the lady who lives in this house should be threatened like that.”
“Even if she is bad? Even if what the note says is true?”
“Even then,” said Mma Makutsi.
She tucked the note into a pocket.
“We need to get back to the office,” she said. “We can talk to Mma Ramotswe about it there.”
Charlie shrugged again. “I’m just the assistant,” he said. “Obviously nobody pays any attention to what I think…”
“That’s right,” said Mma Makutsi. “They don’t.”
Charlie kicked at the dust out of sheer frustration. “Why do you think I’m so stupid, Mma Makutsi?”
She felt a sudden pang of guilt. She did not think Charlie stupid. She did not dislike him. In fact, she found that she liked him more and more as time went by.
“I was only joking, Charlie. I listen to you, you know. It’s just that sometimes…”
“Sometimes what, Mma?”
“Sometimes I forget that you still have a lot to learn and I judge you by standards that are too high. That is my fault—and I’m sorry about it. I shall try to avoid doing that in the future.”
They began to walk the short distance to the car. As she walked, Mma Makutsi thought she heard a small voice from down below, down at the level of the rough ground and stones.
Change of tone there, Boss!, said the shoes.
She looked at her shoes. It was absurd. Even now, after years of interventions on the part of her shoes, she found that they surprised her. Nobody’s shoes ever talked to them—they just didn’t. But then Charlie said, “Did you say something, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Sometimes one hears things when nobody’s talking,” she said. “But you shouldn’t pay attention to such things, you know. It’s just imagination.” She tapped her forehead. “That’s where these things come from, Charlie.”
* * *
—
MMA RAMOTSWE LOOKED UP from her desk when Mma Makutsi and Charlie returned. She had picked up the mail on her way back to the office and had just finished sorting it. There were several items for the garage—bills, by the look of them—and two letters for the agency, one addressed to her personally, as Mma Ramotswe, and the other indirectly as The Detective Woman on the Tlokweng Road (please place in relevant post-box, thank you). It was a tribute to the conscientious staff of the sorting office as much as to Mma Ramotswe’s reputation in the wider community that the letter had been delivered appropriately. It was not the first time, though, that a vaguely addressed letter had found its way to its proper destination. On another occasion she had received a small parcel addressed to The woman who drives a white van, comes from Mochudi, and is married to a mechanic of some sort, Gaborone (I think). That was a gift from a woman to whom she had given a lift on the road to Lobatse. The woman’s car had broken down, and Mma Ramotswe had driven out of her way to deliver her safely to her home some twelve miles outside Lobatse. The woman had wanted to thank her but had not noted down her name and address. She had enough information, though, from their conversation to come up with that description and trust to the good will and knowledge of the Post Office to do the rest. They had had little difficulty in identifying Mma Ramotswe and had in due course placed the parcel in the agency’s post-box. It was an embroidered handkerchief, lovingly worked with small representations of creatures of the bush: a dik-dik, that tiny, timid antelope; a long-snouted anteater; a guinea fowl with minute white spots. Mma Ramotswe had expected no thanks for what she had done. You helped other people—you just did. Had her van broken down, then she would have hoped that somebody would have done the same for her, and she thought that they would.
She had slit open the letter addressed to The Detective Woman on the Tlokweng Road a few minutes before the return of Mma Makutsi and Charlie, and had absorbed the contents.
Dear Detective Lady, the letter had begun. I am sorry I do not know your name and do not have your post-box number. I believe, though, that you were recently engaged by my wife to investigate my behaviour. I have heard that you have now written to my wife and told her that I am not having an affair. I do not like to be rude, Mma, but may I ask you: How can you be so sure? You discovered that I was visiting a lady, and yet you tell my wife that I am an innocent man and that she should not divorce me. How do you know I’m innocent, Mma? Do you really think that I go to that lady to learn about mathematics? If you think that, Mma, then you are very foolish. Yours truly, L.D.M. Mogorosi, BA (University of Botswana).
Mma Ramotswe had read through the letter twice, and then sighed, and it was while she was trying to work out its implications that Mma Makutsi returned. She picked up the letter and began to pass it to Mma Makutsi.
“Well, Mma Makutsi, everything is becoming more complicated. I have received a letter—”
She got no further. Breathlessly, Mma Makutsi brushed the letter aside. “Oh, there are always letters, Mma. Every day there are letters. We can deal with the mail later on. I have some very important information to tell you about.”
“Very important,” said Charlie. “We have found a very important piece of evidence.”