Read The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (13) for Free Online

smile. “I can tell that a mile off. Your house has got my name on it.”

    THE PLOT THAT Phuti Radiphuti had chosen for their marital home was well placed from more than one point of view. Gaborone had grown, with the result that many people now had a long journey into work each day, making their way into the city in swaying, crowded minibuses. It would have been easy for Phuti to find a plot of land in one of these new suburbs, but neither he nor Mma Makutsi wanted to spend hours on the roads. So when Mma Makutsi noticed that there was a small parcel of building land not far from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the contiguous office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Phuti was quick to inspect it—and equally quick to snap it up.
    “It’s perfect,” he said, when he reported back to her. “It will take you five or ten minutes to get to work—no more. And I will need fifteen minutes to drive to the store. It could not be better.”
    The plot was at the end of an untarred road, a cul-de-sac that led nowhere and down which few cars would venture. There were one or two houses not far away, but nothing close by, and on at least two sides of what would become their garden, there was acacia scrub—thorn trees, low-lying bushes with twisted brown leaves, tussocks of hardy grass that would miraculously become green within hours of the arrival of the first rains. It looked like poor earth—dusty and unwelcoming—but it was enough to keep cattle happy, and they could be seen wandering across this landscape, picking at what nourishment they could find, the soft sound of their bells filling the air.
    Negotiations for the purchase of the plot were swift and uncomplicated, and within days of Phuti’s seeing the plot it was theirs. Now came the task of designing the house that would be erected on the newly acquired land. Phuti Radiphuti, it transpired, had a friend who was a draughtsman. “You do not need to pay anarchitect for this,” he announced to Mma Makutsi. “My friend can do all the drawings for nothing.”
    Mma Makutsi was slightly concerned over this. She was not sure that it was a good idea to get a friend to design one’s house, even if that friend happened to be a draughtsman. There were many technical issues, were there not? Did you not need to take into account the weight of the roof and the size of the doors? And had there not been a house up in Francistown that had collapsed because these things had been ignored and the walls built far too thin? There had been a picture of it in the paper, she recalled. A woman had been captured standing outside what looked like a pile of rubble, and above it the paper had printed,
Poor lady sees her house fall down
. Mma Makutsi had been struck by the poignancy of this photograph; it must be devastating, she felt, to see one’s house collapse. Presumably everything inside was covered by tumbled bricks and pieces of shattered timber: all the poor lady’s pots and pans, all her clothing, all her shoes …
    She did not feel that she could argue with Phuti. It was his money, after all, even if their wedding vows had made reference to sharing everything, and she had to accept that he knew all about how to deal with builders and suppliers and the like. If he decided that his draughtsman friend should design the house, then she would not question his judgement, no matter what private reservations she might harbour. And this view, she thought, would be approved of by Mma Ramotswe herself, who had once remarked to her, “Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma—it just is.”
    Now Mma Makutsi was gazing at the plot with Phuti Radiphuti beside her, waiting for the arrival of their builder who was coming to discuss the project.
    “It is ours now,” said Phuti. “Look at it. That is where our house will be, and