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

hypocritical, but MmaRamotswe was not so sure about that. If something, or somebody, could help you to get through life, to lead a life that was good and purposeful, did it matter all that much if that thing or that person did not exist? She thought it did not—not in the slightest bit.
    BY THE TIME Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck drew into the driveway of the house on Zebra Drive, its headlights describing a wide arc across Mma Ramotswe’s garden, illuminating the mopipi tree and the flourish of bougainvillea, the children were asleep and Mma Ramotswe was herself sprawled dozing on the sofa, her feet up on a cushion, a newspaper spread across her stomach. The sound of the truck dispelled tiredness, and she rapidly sat up, folded the newspaper neatly, and slipped back into her comfortable, flat-heeled house shoes. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s dinner, a mutton stew rich in grease and lentils, sat warm and secure in the lower drawer of the oven. It was her dinner too, as she had held back from eating with the children so that she could sit down with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and recount to him the momentous events of that day. She had planned exactly what she would say, starting with an invitation to guess who had walked in the door that morning. He would never guess, of course, and so she would tantalise him with snippets of information until, almost casually, she would let drop the name of Clovis Andersen. And then she would tell him everything: Mr. Andersen’s plans; what he had said to her and Mma Makutsi; what Mma Makutsi had said to him; what she had said to Mma Makutsi after Mr. Andersen had gone and what Mma Makutsi had said to her. No detail would be spared.
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni came into the house and tossed the keys of his truck on to a table. “There are some people,” he began, “who should not be allowed on the road. Maybe they shouldn’t even be allowed to walk anywhere, either. Maybe we should hang a largesign around their neck saying
Very Dangerous
, or
No Sense
, or something like that.”
    Mma Ramotswe spoke soothingly. “You have been on the Lobatse Road, Rra. It always makes you cross.”
    “The road itself is not the problem,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, stretching out his arms to dispel an incipient cramp. “It is the people who use the road. There was one man, you know, who came up behind me, and although he couldn’t possibly see what was coming—we were right on the brow of a hill and there were lines on the road warning you not to overtake—in spite of that, he just pulled past me. And then there was this big Botswana Defence Force lorry coming the other way and it was full of soldiers, I think, and the driver of that had to go right over on to the verge and kicked up a big cloud of dust and little stones flying all over the place, and one of those stones comes—
zing
—and makes a little crack in my windscreen. And this stupid man just drives on like a … like a … like an ostrich.”
    “Like an ostrich?”
    “You know what I mean, Mma. You know how ostriches run, and how they go this way and that, swerving around. Anyway, he was lucky that he didn’t make that Defence Force driver go right off the road because that would have put him in big trouble. It would be like declaring war, Mma. You don’t declare war on the Botswana Defence Force.”
    Mma Ramotswe agreed that such a thing would be unwise. “I’m very sorry to hear about these stupid people on the road,” she said. “I’m sorry that we still have such people in these modern days.”
    “Yes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And so am I.” He sniffed at the air. “Is that mutton stew, Mma? Is that what I can smell?”
    “It is, Rra. There is a big pot waiting for you—for us—in the oven. It will be ready after you have washed your hands. And whilewe are eating, I can tell you of a very strange thing that happened to me today. Or happened to both of us, should I say. To Mma Makutsi and me.”
    He went through to the