“But it would look a bit silly, wouldn’t it?” said Mma Ramotswe. “Everybody would eventually have some sort of sign. I would have a sign saying MMA RAMOTSWE on my back, or DETECTIVE perhaps. That would be silly.” And then she thought, but did not say it: And Mma Makutsi would have a sign on her back which said 97 per cent.

“I did not suggest that,” said Mr Polopetsi, rather peevishly. “All I said was that people who drop litter could have a sign. That is all.”

It was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni who brought the discussion to an end. “We are almost there,” he said. “Is this not the turning that you said you took?”

They slowed down, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni cautiously headed the truck down the track. By daylight the potholes and rifts in the ground looked far worse than they had at night. It was no surprise to Mma Ramotswe that the tiny white van had been damaged in these conditions; stones, exposed by the movement of soil, reared up in jagged points and at places there jutted onto the track the fallen limbs of trees, plastered now in dried red mud by energetic white ants. Beside the track, watching the truck with mournful eyes, was a small herd of cattle, standing listlessly under the shade of a tree.

“Those cattle are not in good condition,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “Look at the ribs on that one.”

Mma Ramotswe cast an expert eye over the light grey beast and agreed. “It is ill,” she said. “My father would have known what to do about that.”

“Yes, he knew about cattle,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He had never met Obed Ramotswe, of course, but he knew of his reputation as a fine judge of cattle. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was always prepared to listen to stories about Obed Ramotswe, although he had heard them all from Mma Ramotswe many times over. He had heard the story of how Obed Ramotswe had met Seretse Khama once when he had come to Mochudi, and had shaken the great man’s hand. He had heard the story of his hat, and how it had once been left near the kgotla and carefully placed on a wall where he might find it again. He had also heard about how the hat had been blown off his head once in a dust storm and had ended up in a tree. There were many such stories, and he understood just how important they were, and listened with patience and with respect. A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?