Read To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) for Free Online Page B

seemed…or…or, a disturbing thought occurred. Was she slipping away? Perhaps the world was just carrying on as usual and we, all the people thinking about how it had changed, were really just changing ourselves. No, surely not. The world had changed—you only had to look about you to see that. And yet, many of those changes were good ones, and not things to fret over, or lament, or bemoan in the way in which people who are slipping away often complain about everything going past them.
    She rose from her desk. She had already had a cup of tea at home, before she left for the office, but that was no reason not to have one now. A cup of tea usually restored perspective on things, and that was what she needed now, rather than to sit and think about the ways in which the modern world was ordered. And she was right: a steaming cup of red bush tea was sufficient to banish thoughts of change and decay and to restore the spirits. This was going to be a good day—she was determined to make that so—and she was going to work steadily and efficiently through the list of tasks she had written out for herself.
    By the time that Mma Makutsi arrived, she had already achieved a considerable amount. Three items on the list were neatly ticked off, and she had made a good start on the fourth, a particularly sensitive letter in which she had to inform a client who was hoping to expose—and leave—her husband that the husband under suspicion was not meeting a lover, but was actually having mathematics lessons. The secret meetings she suspected him of having were indeed meetings, but were far from the assignations she suspected. They were visits to the teacher’s house, where he was being prepared for a forthcoming public examination in advanced mathematics.
    The letter took a long time to write, and was still unfinished by the time Mma Makutsi arrived in the office.
    “Well, Mma Ramotswe,” said Mma Makutsi. “I didn’t expect to find you hard at work so early.”
    It was an innocent remark, but Mma Ramotswe felt slightly annoyed at the inference that she was not the type to arrive early. Did Mma Makutsi think that she just sat around in the mornings?
    “I am often up very early, Mma Makutsi,” she said. “You should try it, perhaps.”
    The retort came quickly. “But I am also up early, Mma. Every day. When you have a baby, as I do, then you cannot lie about in bed. You are up early because the baby wants his breakfast. You are also up early because you have a husband to get going. There are many things for women to do in the morning.”
    Mma Makutsi peered at Mma Ramotswe’s desk. “You’re writing a letter, Mma?”
    Mma Ramotswe sat back in her chair. “It’s not an easy letter, this one. You remember that woman who came to see us about her husband?”
    Mma Makutsi frowned. There were so many women who came to see them about their husbands—husbands, it seemed, were the main reason why women went to private detectives.
    “The one we had followed by Charlie,” Mma Ramotswe prompted.
    Mma Makutsi smiled. “Of course. And Charlie saw him going to the house of that teacher. That one?”
    Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I have to tell her that her husband is not seeing another woman,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But I think that she will not like to hear that news, Mma. When she spoke to me about it at the beginning, she said she was looking forward to divorcing him. I think she has her own lover, you see.”
    “Ha!” said Mma Makutsi. “She will be very disappointed then. But tell me, Mma, how can you be sure about that—about her having a lover?”
    “Because I saw her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I saw her in the supermarket with another man. They were buying food together.”
    Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. “But he could have been a relative, Mma. A brother, perhaps. Or a cousin. You know how many cousins there are about the place. The whole city is full of cousins. Everywhere there are cousins.” She paused. “I think there