Then the minister cleared his throat. “I cannot speak about these things, Mma,” he said, his tone now reproachful. “When people come to me in their sorrow and their difficulties, they do not expect me to talk to other people about that. They do not think that I shall discuss their affairs with the first private detective who telephones.”

Mma Makutsi felt her embarrassment increase at the rebuke. What would he think of her? Not only had she left an unsolicited lecture on his answering machine, but now she had quite improperly asked him to disclose a confidence. She would have to apologise and bring the conversation to an end before the reputation, in his eyes, of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency suffered even further.

“I am very sorry, Reverend,” she began. “I did not mean …”

“People think,” interrupted the minister, “people think that ministers sit in judgement on them. They think that we sit here and think, now that’s a very bad thing to do, or that’s a very wicked person. But we do not do that, you know. We recognise that all of us are weak and that we all do things that we should not. There is not one of us who is not a sinner, you know. Not one. And so when this poor man came to see me with his troubled soul, I did not sit here and think you should not have taken that money. I did not think that. Nor did I tell him that he should not go running off to Johannesburg, to his cousin, who works in a big hotel there, as he was intending to do. I did not do that. But I did tell him that he could speak to me in complete confidence and that I would not go to the police. And I have not gone to the police, because that would be to break the secrecy of the conversation that a minister has with one of his flock, whoever he might be. So, you see, Mma, I cannot talk to you about this man. I just cannot do that.”

Mma Makutsi sat bolt upright at her desk. In front of her, on a small piece of paper, she had written the words: Gone to Johannesburg. Cousin. Hotel.

She smiled to herself. “You have been very kind,” she said to the minister. “I am sorry for asking about these private matters.”

“And I am sorry that I cannot help you,” said the minister.