Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment. What Mr Polopetsi said was probably right, but it still did not justify his taking matters into his own hands. “Where did you let it go, Rra?” she asked. “Those birds don’t live down here. They live up there.” She pointed northwards, in the direction of the empty bush of the Tuli Block, of the Swapong Hills, of the great plains of Matabeleland.

“I know that,” said Mr Polopetsi. “And that is why I have not let it go yet. I have asked one of the truck drivers to take it up there when he drives up to Francistown tomorrow. He will let it go for us. I have given him a few pula to do this. And some cigarettes.”

“So where is this bird now?” interjected Mma Makutsi. “Where are you hiding it?”

“I am not hiding it anywhere,” said Mr Polopetsi. “It is in a cardboard box outside. I will show it to you.”

He rose to his feet. Mma Ramotswe exchanged a glance with Mma Makutsi—a glance which was difficult to interpret, but which was a mixture of surprise and foreboding. Then the two of them followed him out of the office and round to the back of the building. Against the wall, unprotected from the sun, was a large cardboard box, air holes punched into the top.

Mr Polopetsi approached the box cautiously. “I will open the lid just a little bit,” he said. “I do not want the bird to escape.”

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi stood immediately behind him as he gently tugged at one of the flaps of the box. “Look inside,” he whispered. “There he is. He is resting.”

Mma Ramotswe peered into the box. There at the bottom lay the great shape of the ground hornbill, its unwieldy bill lying across its chest, half open. She stared for a moment, and then she stood up.

“The bird is dead, Rra,” she said. “It is not resting. It is late.”

SHE WAS GENTLE with Mr Polopetsi, who was too upset to help them bury the bird in the bush behind Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. She did not point out to him the foolishness of leaving the bird for several hours out in the hot sun, in a box in which the temperature must have climbed too high for the bird to survive. She did not say that, and a warning glance to Mma Makutsi prevented her from pointing it out either. Instead she said that anybody could make a mistake and that she knew that he was trying to be helpful. And then, as politely as she could, she told him that he should in future get her agreement to any proposed solutions he might have to problems. “It’s better that way,” she said quietly, touching him gently on the shoulder in an act of reassurance and forgiveness.