She looked at her list, sighed, and let the slip of paper fall from her hand. These were difficult issues, indeed, and not one of them, as far as she could see, involved a fee. The trickiest one was undoubtedly the blackmail problem, and now that she had established that Poppy was unlikely to lose her job—for which she could hardly charge very much, if anything—there was no financial reason to become further involved. There was a moral reason, of course, and that would inevitably prevail, but the setting of wrong to right often brought no financial reward. She had sighed, but it was not a sigh of desperation; she knew that there would be other cases, lucrative ones in which bills could be sent to firms that could well afford to pay. And had they not just posted a whole raft of such bills, each of which would bring in a comfortable cheque? And was there not an awful lot of banging and clattering going on in the garage next door, all of which meant money in the till and food on several tables? So she could afford to spend the time, if she wanted to, on these unremunerative matters, and she need not feel bad about it.

She picked up the list again and looked at it. Blackmail was too difficult. She would come back to it, she knew, but for now she felt like dealing with something which was more manageable. The word Mokolodi stood out on the page. She looked at her watch. It was three o’clock. She had nothing to do (ignoring, for the moment, everything else on the list), and it would be pleasant to drive down to Mokolodi and talk to her cousin perhaps and see whether she could find out what was happening down there. She could take Mma Makutsi with her for company; but no, that would not be much fun, with Mma Makutsi in her current mood. She could go by herself or, and here another possibility came to mind, she could take Mr Polopetsi. She was keen to train him to do the occasional piece of work for the agency, as well as the work that he did for the garage. He was always interesting company and would keep her entertained on the short drive south.

“I HAVE NEVER BEEN to this place,” said Mr Polopetsi. “I have heard of it, but I have never been here.”

They were no more than a few minutes away from the main gate of Mokolodi, with Mma Ramotswe at the wheel of the van and Mr Polopetsi in the passenger seat, his arm resting on the sill of the open window as he looked with interest at the passing landscape.

“I do not like wild animals very much,” he continued. “I am happy for them to be there, out in the bush, but I do not like them to be too close.”