Mma Ramotswe was not a prude. She knew what went on between people, but she believed that there was a part of life that should be private. She believed that what one felt about another was largely a personal matter, and that one should not talk about the mysteries of the soul. One should just not do it, because that was not how the old Botswana morality worked. There was such a thing as shame, she thought, although there were many people who seemed to forget it. And where would we be in a world without the old Botswana morality? It would not work, in Mma Ramotswe’s view, because it would mean that people could do as they wished without regard for what others thought. That would be a recipe for selfishness, a recipe as clear as if it were written out in a cookery book: Take one country, with all that the country means, with its kind people, and their smiles, and their habit of helping one another; ignore all this; shake about; add modern ideas; bake until ruined.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s question about whether girls thought about boys hung in the air, unanswered. He looked at her expectantly. “Well, Mma?” he asked. “Do girls not think about boys?”

“Sometimes,” said Mma Ramotswe nonchalantly. “When there is nothing better to think about, that is.” She smiled at her husband. “But that is not what we were discussing,” she continued. “What is this thing that you want me to do?”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni explained to her about the errand he wished her to carry out. It would involve a trip to Mokolodi, which was half an hour away to the south.

“My friend who dealt with the cobra,” he said. “Neil. He’s the one. He has an old pickup down there, a bakkie, which he kept for years and years. And then …” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni paused. The death of a car diminished him, because he was involved with cars. “There was nothing much more I could do for it. It needed a complete engine re-bore, Mma Ramotswe. New pistons. New piston rings.” He shook his head sadly, as a doctor might when faced with a hopeless prognosis.

Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling. “Yes,” she said. “It must have been very sad.”

“But fortunately Neil did not get rid of it,” he said. “Some people just throw cars away, Mma Ramotswe. They throw them away.”

Mma Ramotswe reached for a piece of paper on her desk and began to fold it. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni often needed some time to get to the point, but she was used to waiting.

“I have a customer with a broken half-shaft,” went on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “That is part of the rear axle. You know that, don’t you? There’s a shaft that comes down the middle until it gets to the gear mechanism in the middle of the rear axle. Then, on each side of that there’s something called the half-shaft that goes to the wheel on either side.”