Mr Polopetsi stood up and stretched. It was difficult working on cars in confined spaces, although he was beginning to get used to it. It amused him to think that throughout his education he had worked and worked to get himself a job which would involve no manual labour, and here he was enjoying the rediscovery of his hands. Of course they had said that this job was only temporary, but he had begun to settle in to being a mechanic and perhaps he would ask about becoming a real apprentice. And why not? Botswana needed mechanics—everyone knew that—and there was no reason why older people should be prevented from acquiring such skills.

Mr Polopetsi scratched his head. “I have not seen him before,” he said. “He was a Motswana, judging from the way he spoke. But there was something about him that seemed foreign. You know how it is when people are away for a long time. They carry themselves in a different way.”

“Johannesburg?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mr Polopetsi nodded. It was sometimes difficult to put it into words, but there was an unmistakable air about people who came from Johannesburg or who had lived a long time there. There was a way of walking in Johannesburg, a way of holding oneself, that was different from the way in which people did these things in Botswana. Johannesburg was a city of swagger, and that was something which people in Botswana would never do. There were some people who swaggered these days, particularly those who had more money, but it was not really the Botswana way of doing things.

“And what do you think this man wanted from Mma Ramotswe?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Did he bring her bad news, do you think? Did he tell her that somebody is late?”

Mr Polopetsi shook his head. “I have very good hearing, Mma,” he said. “I can hear a car when it is far, far away. I can hear an animal before you can see it in the bush. I am like one of those people out in the bush who can tell you everything just by listening to the wind. So I can tell you that he did not tell her that somebody is late.”

Mma Makutsi was surprised by this sudden disclosure on the part of Mr Polopetsi. He had seemed such a quiet and inoffensive man, and now he was admitting to the talents of a bush tracker. Such a person could be useful in a detective agency. You were not allowed to tape a person’s telephone line, but then there would be no need to do so if you had a Mr Polopetsi. You could just position him on the other side of the street, with his ears pointed in the right direction, and he could report what was said behind closed doors. It would be one of those low technology solutions that people sometimes talked about.