It was easy walking along the road, along the well-used tar. This was a properly maintained road, with a smooth surface, and walking along it one might make good progress. But it still felt strange to her to be so utterly isolated in the night, with darkness stretching out on either side of the road. How far away, she wondered, was the nearest creature that might wish to eat her? There were no lions this close to Gaborone, but if one went forty miles to the east, then that might be different. And what would happen if a lion decided to wander? Forty miles for a lion was nothing, and after having covered forty miles a lion might be hungry and in just the right mood to find a traditionally built meal …

It did not help to think about lions, and so Mma Ramotswe moved on to something different. She began to think, for some reason, of Mr Polopetsi, and of how well he had fitted into his new job at the garage. She had not discussed the situation with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, but she was going to propose to him that their new employee be taken on permanently and be trained for the job. There was simply too much work to be handled at the garage, and she was beginning to get concerned over how much Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had to do. The apprentices had always been a worry for him, and when they finished their apprenticeship—if they ever did—then he should encourage them to go elsewhere. That would leave him without an assistant, unless Mr Polopetsi stayed. And there was another reason why he was so suitable. Mma Makutsi had already used him for some secretarial work and had spoken highly of his abilities. He could be attached to the detective agency in some vague, unspecified capacity. Yes, he was certainly the best choice, and it had been a happy accident when she had made him fall off his bicycle. Life was full of these happy accidents, if one came to think of it. Had she not taken her tiny white van to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors—and she could quite easily have gone to another garage—then she would not have met Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and she would never then have found herself marrying him. And had Mma Makutsi not been looking for a job just at the time that she was setting up the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, then she would never have got to know her and Mma Makutsi would never have become an assistant private detective. That was a fortunate coincidence, and for a few minutes she thought of what might have happened had she employed one of those useless secretaries about whom Mma Makutsi had told her, one of those girls who got barely fifty per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College. That hardly bore thinking about.