Free Ladies' Detective Agency 01 - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

its
quarry. Mma Ramotswe raised the rifle to her shoulder and saw the side of the
crocodile’s head framed perfectly in her sights. She pulled the
trigger.
    When the bullet struck the crocodile, it gave a great leap, a
somersault in fact, and landed on its back, half in the water, half out. For a
moment or two it twitched and then was still. It had been a perfectly placed
shot.
    Mma Ramotswe noticed that she was trembling as she put the rifle
down. Her Daddy had taught her to shoot, and he had done it well, but she did
not like to shoot animals, especially crocodiles. They were bad luck, these
creatures, but duty had to be done. And what was it doing there anyway? These
creatures were not meant to be in the Notwane River; it must have wandered for
miles overland, or swum up in the flood waters from the Limpopo itself. Poor
crocodile—this was the end of its adventure.
    She took a knife and
slit through the creature’s belly. The leather was soft, and the stomach
was soon exposed and its contents revealed. Inside there were pebbles, which
the crocodile used for digesting its food, and several pieces of foul-smelling
fish. But it was not this that interested her; she was more interested in the
undigested bangles and rings and wristwatch she found. These were corroded, and
one or two of them were encrusted, but they stood out amongst the stomach
contents, each of them the evidence of the crocodile’s sinister
appetites.
     
    “IS THIS your
husband’s property?” she asked Mma Malatsi, handing her the
wristwatch she had claimed from the crocodile’s stomach.
    Mma
Malatsi took the watch and looked at it. Mma Ramotswe grimaced; she hated
moments like this, when she had no choice but to be the bearer of bad
news.
    But Mma Malatsi was extraordinarily calm. “Well at least I
know that he’s with the Lord,” she said. “And that’s
much better than knowing that he’s in the arms of some other woman,
isn’t it?”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I think it
is,” she said.
    “Were you married, Mma?” asked Mma
Malatsi. “Do you know what it is like to be married to a man?”
    Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. There was a thorn tree outside her
window, but beyond that she could see the boulder-strewn hill.
    “I
had a husband,” she said. “Once I had a husband. He played the
trumpet. He made me unhappy and now I am glad that I no longer have a
husband.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to be rude.
You’ve lost your husband and you must be very sorry.”
    “A bit,” said Mma Malatsi. “But I have lots to
do.”

    CHAPTER
SIX
    BOY
    T HE BOY was eleven, and was small for his
age. They had tried everything to get him to grow, but he was taking his time,
and now, when you saw him, you would say that he was only eight or nine, rather
than eleven. Not that it bothered him in the slightest; his father had said to
him: I was a short boy too. Now I am a tall man. Look at me. That will happen
to you. You just wait.
    But secretly the parents feared that there
was something wrong; that his spine was twisted, perhaps, and that this was
preventing him from growing. When he was barely four, he had fallen out of a
tree—he had been after birds’ eggs—and had lain still for
several minutes, the breath knocked out of him; until his grandmother had run
wailing across the melon field and had lifted him up and carried him home, a
shattered egg still clasped in his hand. He had recovered—or so they
thought at the time—but his walk was different, they thought. They had
taken him to the clinic, where a nurse had looked at his eyes and into his
mouth and had pronounced him healthy.
    “Boys fall all the time.
They hardly ever break anything.”
    The nurse placed her hands on
the child’s shoulders and twisted his torso.
    “See. There is
nothing wrong with him. Nothing. If he had broken anything, he would have cried
out.”
    But years later, when he remained small, the mother thought
of the fall and blamed herself for