“It’s just that you are the first person I have talked to about … about this thing.”

“It is not easy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is not easy to talk about things that are worrying you. Sometimes we cannot even talk to our friends about these things.”

From the back of the room there came the hissing sound of the kettle as it began to bring the water to the boil. Outside, in the branches of the acacia tree that shaded the back wall of the building, a grey dove cooed to its mate. They mate for life, thought Mma Ramotswe inconsequentially. Those doves. For life.

“Do you mind if I start from the beginning?” asked Boitelo.

This was more than most people did, thought Mma Ramotswe. Most people started at the end, or somewhere around the middle. Very few people put events in order and explained clearly to others what happened. But Boitelo, of course, was a nurse, and nurses knew how to take a history from people, separating unrelated facts from each other and getting to the bottom of a matter that way. She gestured to Boitelo to begin, while Mma Makutsi spooned red bush tea into one tea-pot and black tea into another (for herself). It is important to give the client a choice, thought Mma Makutsi. Mma Ramotswe, by contrast, imagined that everybody would like bush tea, and not everybody did. She, for one, preferred ordinary tea, and so did Phuti Radiphuti. Phuti Radiphuti! Just the thought of him made her feel warm and contented. My man, she thought; I have a man. I have a fiancé. And soon I shall have a husband. Which is more, I suspect, than this poor Boitelo has.

“I AM FROM A SMALL VILLAGE,” began Boitelo. “Over that way. Near Molepolole. You will not have heard of it, I think, because it is very small. I trained at the hospital in Molepolole—you know the one? The one they used to call the Scottish Livingstone Hospital. The one where Dr Merriweather worked.”

“He was a very good man,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Boitelo’s reply came quickly. “Some doctors are good men,” she said.

There was a note in her voice which alerted Mma Ramotswe. And then she thought: Yes, that is it! That is the oldest problem that nurses have. Doctors who make advances to them. This young woman has had a doctor pestering her. That is why she is frightened. It’s simple. There is very little new in the affairs of people. The same things happen again and again.

But then Boitelo continued. “Do you think that a doctor can be a criminal, Mma?” she asked.