BY THE end of the following day, Mma Ramotswe had compiled a list of five Christian groups which could fit the description. Over the next two days she tracked down the leaders of three of them, and was satisfied that nothing was known of Peter Malatsi. Two of the three tried to convert her; the third merely asked her for money and received a five-pula note.
When she located the leader of the fourth group, the Reverend Shadreck Mapeli, she knew that the search was over. When she mentioned the Malatsi name, the Reverend gave a shudder and glanced over his shoulder surreptitiously.
“Are you from the police?” he asked. “Are you a policeman?”
“Policewoman,” she said.
“Ah!” he said mournfully. “Aee!”
“I mean, I’m not a policewoman,” she said quickly. “I’m a private detective.”
The Reverend appeared to calm down slightly.
“Who sent you?”
“Mma Malatsi.”
“Ooh,” said the Reverend. “He told us that he had no wife.”
“Well, he did,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And she’s been wondering where he is.”
“He’s dead,” said the Reverend. “He’s gone to the Lord.”
Mma Ramotswe sensed that he was telling the truth, and that the enquiry was effectively at an end. Now all that remained to be done was to find out how he had died.
“You must tell me,” she said. “I won’t reveal your name to anybody if you don’t want me to. Just tell me how it happened.”
They drove to the river in Mma Ramotswe’s small white van. It was the rainy season, and there had been several storms, which made the track almost impassable. But at last they reached the river’s edge and parked the van under a tree.
“This is where we have our baptisms,” said the Reverend, pointing to a pool in the swollen waters of the river. “This is where I stood, here, and this is where the sinners entered the water.”
“How many sinners did you have?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
“Six sinners altogether, including Peter. They all went in together, while I prepared to follow them with my staff.”
“Yes?” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then what happened?”
“The sinners were standing in the water up to about here.” The Reverend indicated his upper chest. “I turned round to tell the flock to start singing, and then when I turned back I noticed that there was something wrong. There were only five sinners in the water.”
“One had disappeared?”
“Yes,” said the Reverend, shaking slightly as he spoke. “God had taken one of them to His bosom.”
Mma Ramotswe looked at the water. It was not a big river, and for much of the year it was reduced to a few stagnant pools. But in a good rainy season, such as that year’s, it could be quite a torrent. A nonswimmer could easily be swept away, she reflected, and yet, if somebody were to be swept away the body would surely be found downstream. There were plenty of people who went down to the river for one purpose or another and who would be bound to notice a body. The police would have been called. There would have been something in the newspaper about an unidentified body being found in the Notwane River; the paper was always looking for stories like that. They wouldn’t have let the opportunity go by.
She thought for a moment. There was another explanation, and it made her shiver. But before she went into that, she had to find out why the Reverend had kept so quiet about it all.
“You didn’t tell the police,” she said, trying not to sound too accusing. “Why not?”
The Reverend looked down at the ground, which, in her experience, was where people usually looked if they felt truly sorry. The shamelessly unrepentant, she found, always looked up at the sky.
“I know I should have told them. God will punish me for it. But I was worried that I would be blamed for poor Peter’s accident and I thought they would take me to court. They might make me pay damages for it, and that would drive the Church into bankruptcy and put a stop to God’s work.” He paused. “Do you understand why I kept quiet, and told all the flock not to say anything?”
Mma Ramotswe nodded, and reached out to touch the Reverend gently on the arm.
“I do not think that what you did was bad,” she said. “I’m sure that God wanted you to continue and He will not be angry. It was not your fault.”
The Reverend raised his eyes and smiled.
“Those are kind words, my sister. Thank you.”
THAT AFTERNOON, Mma Ramotswe asked her neighbour if she could borrow one of his dogs. He had a pack of five, and she hated every one of them for their incessant barking. These dogs barked in the morning, as if they were roosters, and at night, when the moon rose in the sky. They barked at crows, and at hammerkops; they barked at passersby; and they sometimes barked just because they had got too hot.
“I need a dog to help me on one of my cases,” she explained. “I’ll bring him back safe and sound.”
The neighbour was flattered to have been asked.
“I’ll give you this dog here,” he said. “It’s the senior dog, and he has a very good nose. He will make a good detective dog.”
Mma Ramotswe took the dog warily. It was a large yellow creature, with a curious, offensive smell. That night, just after sunset, she put it in the back of her van, tying its neck to a handle with a piece of string. Then she set off down the track that led to the river, her headlights picking out the shapes of the thorn trees and the anthills in the darkness. In a strange way, she felt glad of the company of the dog, unpleasant though it was.
Now, beside the pool in the river, she took a thick stake from the van and drove it into the soft ground near the water’s edge. Then she fetched the dog, led it down to the pool, and tied its string firmly to the stake. From a bag she had with her, she took out a large bone and put it in front of the yellow dog’s nose. The animal gave a grunt of pleasure and immediately settled down to gnaw the bone.
Mma Ramotswe waited just a few yards away, a blanket tucked round her legs to keep off the mosquitoes and her old rifle over her knees. She knew it could be a long wait, and she hoped that she would not go to sleep. If she did, though, she was sure that the dog would wake her up when the time came.
