In the Time of Five Pumpkins, page 1
Books by Alexander McCall Smith
In the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
The Miracle at Speedy Motors
Tea Time for the Traditionally Built
The Double Comfort Safari Club
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection
The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon
The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café
The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine
Precious and Grace
The House of Unexpected Sisters
The Colors of All the Cattle
To the Land of Long Lost Friends
How to Raise an Elephant
The Joy and Light Bus Company
A Song of Comfortable Chairs
From a Far and Lovely Country
The Great Hippopotamus Hotel
In the Time of Five Pumpkins
Other Series
The 44 Scotland Street Series
The Corduroy Mansions Series
The Detective Varg Series
The Isabel Dalhousie Series
The Paul Stuart Series
The Perfect Passion Company Series
The Professor von Igelfeld Series
Other Works
The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa
La’s Orchestra Saves the World
Trains and Lovers
The Forever Girl
Emma: A Modern Retelling
Chance Developments
The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse
Pianos and Flowers
Tiny Tales
In a Time of Distance and Other Poems
The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even
The Winds from Further West
First American Edition
Published by Pantheon Books 2025
Copyright © 2025 by Alexander McCall Smith
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Published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Abacus, an imprint of Little, Brown Group, a Hachette UK Company, London, in 2025.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LCCN 2025942822 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-593-70178-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-593-70179-9 (ebook)
Ebook ISBN 9780593701799
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Cover illustration by Iain McIntosh
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Contents
Dedication
Chapter One: Termite Man
Chapter Two: A Very Polite Boy
Chapter Three: Listen to Your Shoes
Chapter Four: We Are a Bit Like Ants
Chapter Five: The Weaker Brethren
Chapter Six: The Real Business. Big Time.
Chapter Seven: All Men Seem Handsome
Chapter Eight: I Am So Fortunate
Chapter Nine: Big, Big Danger
Chapter Ten: A Lady Who Had Some Hens
Chapter Eleven: Government Crocodiles
Chapter Twelve: Rain, Mma, Rain
Chapter Thirteen: We Must Love One Another
Chapter Fourteen: Everybody Likes Looking at Cattle
Chapter Fifteen: The Smell of Disinfectant
Chapter Sixteen: People Can Be Hard on Men
About the Author
_153157671_
This book is for Jenna Emmons.
Chapter One
Termite Man
It was a long time since Grace Makutsi had first been employed as secretary of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a business once described in the local paper as “the answer to the problems of those who have problems.” She had more or less appointed herself to that position when, all those years ago, Mma Ramotswe, the agency’s only begetter, had announced its opening. Mma Ramotswe had not originally envisaged having a secretary—how was a small business to pay such a person?—but she had not had the heart to turn her away.
For Mma Makutsi had been insistent. “It is most important, Mma Ramotswe,” she said, leaning forward to emphasise her point, “for a future-looking business to have a professional secretary.” She paused before concluding, “Like me—for instance.”
Mma Ramotswe was not sure whether her business would be future-looking: she entertained only modest ambitions for it, and the way Mma Makutsi was talking made her wonder whether this rather pushy secretary might not be better looking for a position with a diamond-mining company. They had grand offices, those people—quite unlike the single room of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which made no statement, even if its view was worth a thousand words: the acacia trees, so popular with Cape doves; the Botswana sky; the winding, dusty paths through the bush…
“Well—” she began, but got no further before she was interrupted.
“If you do not have a secretary,” Mma Makutsi warned, “people will have no confidence in you. A business without a secretary?” She shook her head. “That cannot be much good—that is what people will say, Mma—they will all say that.”
“Well, Mma—”
“I am especially interested in filing. It is very important to have a good filing system.”
Mma Ramotswe sighed. “Mma,” she said, “there is not much money. This business is only starting. We have no clients yet, I’m afraid. We may never get any—who knows?” She knew she sounded defeatist, but more than one person had warned her that many new businesses failed to survive beyond a few months.
Mma Makutsi had hesitated, but only briefly. Then she said, “That does not matter, Mma. You can pay me when the fees start to come in.”
Mma Ramotswe sighed again, and then, not really knowing why she did so, agreed. There could be no mistaking Mma Makutsi’s motivation: somebody who was prepared to work on a speculative basis was bound to be a keen and conscientious employee. And so it was that Mma Makutsi, graduate summa cum laude of the Botswana Secretarial College—with ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations—embarked on her career with the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. “It was the best thing I ever did in my life,” she said, but then immediately qualified her statement. “The best thing after I decided to study at the Botswana Secretarial College, that is.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “That was a very good move, Mma. A higher education stays with you for the rest of your days.”
“You’re right,” agreed Mma Makutsi. She looked at Mma Ramotswe, a certain sympathy in her expression. “I’m sure you would have done very well yourself, Mma, if you had been given the opportunity.”
Mma Ramotswe had left school in her mid-teens. She had done well at Mochudi High School, but there were fewer options in those days, and her formal education had ended then. She would have liked to have gone on to further study—it was one of the regrets of her life that she had not done so—but she had been given a good start by her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, who had patiently taught her so much about the world around her, as a good parent should do. He had taken her on long walks in the bush outside the village, or out at the cattle post, and had introduced her to the complexities of the natural world. He had taught her the Setswana names of the plants they came across—and their traditional use—knowledge that was fast fading in Gaborone and other towns. Words were dying, quietly and unlamented, through lack of use on the lips of younger people; it seemed, at times, that only the old remembered, and as they in due course became silent, whole lexicons of vocabulary were heard no more.
He had instructed her, too, in the ways of the San people, who could survive even in the harshest conditions of the Kalahari—priceless, ancient knowledge that he had acquired from a man of that origin whom he had known and who was a tracker with the Wildlife Department. All of that she learned, along with so much else about the country in which they lived—its sayings, its story, the habits of its people. He was prou
She had never forgotten any of these lessons, and in remembering them she felt that she was keeping alive the memory of a man who stood for all that she admired in her country and its culture.
Now, as Mma Makutsi made this reference to the difference in their educational opportunities, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself of what she had learned from her father and of what she had picked up simply by being an engaged citizen. You could learn most things, she thought, by simply keeping your eyes open and listening. That’s where most people fell down—they would not listen. We spend a lot of time shouting at one another, Mma Ramotswe once observed. If we spent a fraction of that shouting time on listening, we would do far better. There would be fewer wars, she thought—and fewer tears.
Her train of thought was interrupted by Mma Makutsi’s continuing observations.
“I have been very happy working here in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” she said. “It has been my calling.”
She had certainly been successful. Employees who leave it to their employers to promote them may have a long time to wait, but this was not the fate of Mma Makutsi. She had somehow managed to promote herself, first to the role of senior secretary, then, without discussing the matter with Mma Ramotswe, to assistant detective, associate detective, associate director, co-director and so on, to the position she had most recently chosen for herself—executive president for development. This was a novel description and had rather puzzled Mma Ramotswe.
“I see that you are signing executive president for development on letters now, Mma,” she had said. “This is an unusual title, is it not, Mma Makutsi?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “It is not all that unusual, Mma. There are many companies who have people in such positions.”
Mma Ramotswe considered this. “So that makes me a…”
“You could be executive president for operations, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “You are the one who started the business. I would not want to claim to have been that person.”
Mma Ramotswe had shrugged. It did not matter too much, she thought, what Mma Makutsi called herself. People paid very little attention to the titles that people gave themselves in the working world. What mattered was whether the work of the business was done to the satisfaction of the client, and there was no doubt but that Mma Makutsi was efficient and, what was more, effective. If she wanted to be called an executive president for development, then that was a harmless enough ambition. We all had our little vanities, and no harm was done if one indulged such things in others.
* * *
—
It was a Monday now—a day that Mma Ramotswe rather liked. She knew that there were many who took a contrary view, but she relished the feeling of freshness that came with Monday morning. The whole week lay ahead, and from the very first days of the agency there had been no shortage of unusual clients walking through the door. That was the interesting thing about her profession, she thought. If you ran a dry-cleaning business or a hardware store, you knew from the beginning what clients would want when they came to your door: in the world of dry-cleaning, the clothes that needed attention might differ, but the basic need was always the same; as was the case with the hardware trade: one customer might need nails while another might be looking for a brush to sweep the kitchen, but they all wanted something for the house or the yard. Nobody went into a dry-cleaner’s or a hardware store to unburden themselves of some long-concealed secret or a nagging fear. That, by contrast, was often the reason why they made their way to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’s office on the Tlokweng Road, and there, of course, they would find the listening ear, and the solace, that troubled people so sorely need.
And that was exactly what brought Mr. Excellence Modise to the agency at ten o’clock that Monday, without an appointment. He knocked at the door and did not enter until Mma Makutsi called out from within. That was a good sign—and both Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe noticed it. There were far too many people, Mma Makutsi had observed, who simply barged in. They might remember to knock, but many of them did not wait for an invitation, which, in her view, destroyed the point of knocking in the first place. Was the knock in such cases simply intended to warn people inside—to give them time to stop whatever they were doing, if what they were doing was something that they did not want others to see? It was best not to think too much about these matters, Mma Ramotswe believed.
The man who came in was of average height, middle-aged—perhaps fifty, thought Mma Ramotswe—and, apart from one thing, not somebody who would attract much attention if passed on the street. But there was that one thing that would have made him stand out, and that was his outfit. As he introduced himself, both Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe found their eyes drawn to the two-tone shoes, the red shirt, and the small strip of yellow tie across his shirt front.
The traditional courtesies were exchanged and the visitor was invited to sit down. Then Mma Makutsi said, “You do not have an appointment, Rra?”
Mr. Excellence Modise shifted his weight uncomfortably in his seat. “No, I am sorry, Mma, but I have been very busy-busy.” He paused. “If you want me to go, I can come back some other time…” He looked about him. He glanced at the electric kettle, which Mma Makutsi had just switched on; his eye moved on to the empty in-tray on Mma Ramotswe’s desk. “…some other time, perhaps, when you are under less pressure.”
Mma Makutsi was quick to reassure him. “That does not matter, Rra,” she said. “I think we can squeeze you in.”
Mr. Excellence Modise smiled. “So, I am not too fat,” he said.
Mma Makutsi frowned. She glanced at Mma Ramotswe, who also seemed puzzled by this remark.
“You said that you can squeeze me in,” explained Mr. Modise. “I said that means I can’t be too fat—otherwise you would not be able to squeeze me in. That is what I said. It is a joke, you see.”
Mma Makutsi managed a strained smile. “Ah, I see. Of course. That is very amusing.”
“Perhaps you might care for a cup of tea, Mr. Modise,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Mma Makutsi was just about to make tea. We always have a cup at about this time in the morning.”
Mr. Modise nodded. “That is very good of you, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi rose to attend to the kettle. “Do you take milk and sugar, Rra?” she asked.
Mr. Modise raised a finger, as might be done by one making an important point. “Yes, milk, please, Mma. Sugar—no. Real men don’t take sugar.”
Mma Makutsi stopped in her tracks, halfway to the kettle. “I beg your pardon, Rra?” she said.
“I said: real men don’t take sugar,” said Mr. Modise. “That was another joke, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi continued on her way to the kettle. “My husband takes sugar,” she said. “He has sugar in his tea and also in his coffee. My husband is very keen on sugar.”
Mma Ramotswe picked up the note of irritation in Mma Makutsi’s voice. It would have been difficult not to do so.
“I’m sure that Mr. Modise was not suggesting there is anything wrong with men who take sugar,” she said.
Mr. Modise waved a hand. “Of course not, Mma. It was just a remark.”
Mma Ramotswe decided to take control of the situation. On occasion, people got off on the wrong foot with Mma Makutsi, and it was often very difficult, not to say impossible, to retrieve the situation afterwards. “Perhaps you might tell us, Rra,” she said, “what we can do for you.”
Mr. Modise sat back in his chair. “If you can do anything for me, Mma.”
