Mma Ramotswe laughed. “And how do you know that he’s going to leave her? Are you sure that you are not just hoping that he will come to his senses?”

“That boy has very few senses,” said Mma Makutsi. “No, I think that he will very soon be persuaded by that lady’s husband to come back. I telephoned him, you see. I managed to get his number from the shebeen queen who is living in Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s house. Then I telephoned the husband in Johannesburg and said that I thought that he should know that his wife was carrying on with a young man. He said that he would come over to Gaborone and sort out that young man. I said that he should not harm Charlie, but should just warn him off and tell him to get back to his job. He was unwilling to agree to this, of course, but then I said that if he did not, then he would have to look for another wife. I said that if he would promise not to harm Charlie, then I would see to it that Charlie stopped carrying on with his wife.”

Mma Ramotswe looked puzzled.

“Yes,” Mma Makutsi went on. “I told him that this wife of his was ready to run away with this young man. The only way of stopping that would be to get the young man to leave her of his own accord.”

“And how could that be done?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She had seen how headstrong Charlie could be, and she could not imagine him yielding to advice from Mma Makutsi, or anybody else for that matter.

“I then got hold of Charlie and told him that I had heard that the woman’s husband was coming to deal with him,” she said. “He looked very frightened and asked me how I knew this thing. That’s the point at which I had to tell a small lie, although it was a lie for Charlie’s benefit. I told him that I had a cousin in the police who had told me that this man was suspected of disposing of another of his wife’s boyfriends. They had not been able to prove it, but they said that he had done it.”

“That was not a very big lie,” observed Mma Ramotswe. “It may even be true.”

“It could be,” said Mma Makutsi. “That man certainly talked about Charlie in a very threatening way.”

“So Charlie is now scared off?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “And he asked me whether Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would take him back. I said that I thought that he might, provided that he promised to work very hard and not to spend all his time looking at girls.”

“And what did he say to that?”