Free Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 by The Full Cupboard of Life Page A

listened
intently. This explained the state of the tiny white van when he had first seen
it. He had assumed that the worn brake pads and the loose clutch were the
results of neglect by Mma Ramotswe herself, rather than a consequence of the
van having been looked after—if one could call it that—by First
Class Motors, as it had the temerity to call itself. The thought made his heart
skip a beat; it would have been so very easy for Mma Ramotswe to have had an
accident as a result of her faulty brakes, and if that had happened he might
never have met her and he would never have been what he was today—the
fiancé of one of the finest women in Botswana. But he recognised that
there was no point in entertaining such thoughts. History was littered with
events that had changed everything and might easily not have done so. Imagine
if the British had given in to South African pressure and had agreed to make
what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate into part of the Cape Province.
They might easily have done that, and then there would be no Botswana today,
and that would have been a loss for everybody. And his people would have
suffered so much too if that had happened; all those years of suffering which
others had borne but which they had been spared; and all that had stood between
them and that was the decision of some politician somewhere who may never even
have visited the Protectorate, or cared very much. And then, of course, there
was Mr Churchill, whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni admired greatly, although he had been
no more than a small boy when Mr Churchill had died. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had
read in one of Mma Makutsi’s magazines that Mr Churchill had almost been
run over by a car when he was visiting America as a young man. If he had been
standing six inches further into the road when the car hit him he would not
have survived, and that would have made history very different, or so the
article suggested. And then there was President Kennedy, who might have leaned
forward just at the moment when that trigger was pulled, and might have lived
to change history even more than he had already done. But Mr Churchill had
survived, as had Mma Ramotswe, and that was the important thing. Now the tiny
white van was scrupulously maintained, with its tight clutch and its responsive
brakes. And Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had fitted a new, extra-large seat belt in the
front, so that Mma Ramotswe could strap herself in without feeling
uncomfortable. She was safe, which was what he wanted above all else; it would
be unthinkable for anything to happen to Mma Ramotswe.
    “You will
have to do something about this,” said Mma Ramotswe suddenly. “You
cannot leave it be.”
    “Of course not,” said Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni. “I have told the butcher to bring the car round here next week,
and I shall start to fix it for him. I shall have to order special parts, but I
think I know where I can find them. There is a man in Mafikeng who knows all
about these old cars and the parts they need. I shall ask him.”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. “That will be a kind thing to do,” she
said. “But I was really thinking that you would have to do something
about First Class Motors. They are the ones who have been cheating him. And
they will be cheating others.”
    Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked
thoughtful. “But I don’t know what I can do about them,” he
said. “You can’t make good mechanics out of bad ones. You cannot
teach a hyena to dance.”
    “Hyenas have nothing to do with
it,” said Mma Ramotswe firmly. “But jackals do. Those men in that
garage are jackals. You will have to stop them.”
    Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni felt alarmed. Mma Ramotswe was right about those mechanics, but he
really did not see what he could do to stop them. There was no Chamber of
Mechanics to which he could complain (Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had often thought that
a Chamber of Mechanics would have been a good idea), and he had no proof that
they had committed a crime. He would never be able to convince