In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith

for
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    me. There might be a person who could be taught some simple garage tasks—changing oil, for instance—and who would at the same time be able to do some enquiry work in the agency. I was not thinking of somebody who was a detective, but of somebody who could take some of the burden off Mma Makutsi and myself.
    We seem to have too much work these days and it would be useful.”
    Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said nothing for a moment. He did not appear to be rejecting the idea out of hand, and so Mma Ramotswe
    continued.
    “There is somebody I met who is looking for a job,” she said. “I would like to try him out. We could take him for a month maybe, and see how he does. If he is good, then he might be able to help us both.”
    “Who is this person?” asked Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “Do you know anything about him?”
    “He is a person I happened to bump into,” said Mma Ramotswe,
    and then laughed. “Or I would have bumped into him if he had not swerved on his bicycle.”
    Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “You do not have to give him a job just because you almost knocked him over. You do not have to do that.”
    “I know that. And that is not the reason.”
    Mr J.L.B. Matekoni lifted up his mug and drained it of the last of his bush tea. “And do you know anything about him?” he asked. “What was his last job? How did he lose it?”
    Mma Ramotswe thought carefully. She could not lie to her husband, but she realised that if she revealed that the man had been in prison, then it would be extremely unlikely that he would agree to employ him. They would then be no different from everybody else who was refusing to give him work because of his past. He would never get a job in these circumstances.
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    “I do not know exactly what happened,” she said, truthfully. “But I shall ask him to speak to you himself. Then he could explain what happened.”
    It was some time before Mr J.L.B. Matekoni replied, but after a period, during which he seemed deep in reflection, he agreed to speak to the man when he came to collect his bicycle. This was all that Mma Ramotswe wanted. Now, with their tea finished, she thought that they might take a short stroll around the garden, in the last of the afternoon light, and discuss the other problem that needed to be resolved—the Charlie problem.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    A TEA DISASTER … AND WORSE
    THERE WAS an unusually large pile of mail awaiting them the next morning at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Letters for both businesses were opened in the same office, Mma Ramotswe normally dealing with those addressed to the agency and Mma Makutsi going through the garage mail. It was their policy to reply immediately to everything, and this often took up much of the morning. People wrote to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency about all sorts of things, and with impossible requests. Some of them were under the impression that they were a branch of the police force and made allegations against others, usually anonymously.
    There was one such letter that morning.
    “Dear Mma Ramotswe,” it read, “I saw an article about you in the Botswana Daily News. It said that you are the only ladies’ detective
    agency in Botswana. Men will not deal with this thing, and so that is why I am writing to you. I want to bring to your notice something
    that is happening in our village. I have not been able to talk about this thing to anybody here, because there are many people who would not believe me and would only say that I am lying and trying to make trouble. I wish to complain about some teachers at the school. They are always drinking and taking girl pupils to bars
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    where they give them strong drink and make them dance with them. I have seen this thing myself many times, and I think that it is something which the police should deal with. But the police here are also dancing in these bars. So please will you do something about this. I cannot give you my real name and address because I know that they will threaten me if they hear about