After their marriage, of course, Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tended to arrive at exactly the same time, even if they drove in two vehicles, as in a convoy, with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck leading the way and the tiny white van, at the wheel of which sat Mma Ramotswe, following valiantly behind.

On that particular morning it was Mma Makutsi, carrying a brown paper parcel, who was first to arrive. She unlocked the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, placed the parcel on her desk, and opened the window to let in some air. It was barely seven o’clock, and it would be half an hour or so before Mma Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni arrived. This would give her time to organise her desk, to telephone her cousin’s sister-in-law about a family matter, and to write a quick letter to her father in Bobonong. Her father was seventy-one, and he had nothing very much to do, other than to walk to the small post office in the village and check for mail. Usually there was nothing, but at least once a week there would be a letter from Mma Makutsi, containing a few snippets of news from Gaborone and sometimes a fifty-pula note. Her father could not read English very well, and so Mma Makutsi always wrote to him in Kalanga, which gave her pleasure, as she liked to keep her grasp of the language alive.

There was much to tell him that day. She had had a busy weekend, with an invitation to a meal at the house of one of her new neighbours, who was a Malawian lady teaching at one of the schools. This lady had lived in London for a year and knew all about places that Mma Makutsi had only seen in the pages of the National Geographic magazine. Yet she carried her experience lightly, and did not make Mma Makutsi feel at all provincial or untravelled. Quite the opposite, in fact. The neighbour had asked probing questions about Bobonong and had listened attentively while Mma Makutsi had told her of Francistown and Maun, and places like that.

“You are lucky to live in this country,” said the neighbour. “You have everything. Lots of land, as far as the eye can see, and further. And all those diamonds. And the cattle. There is everything here.”

“We are very fortunate,” said Mma Makutsi. “We know that.”

“And you now have that nice new house,” the neighbour went on, “and that interesting job of yours. People must ask you all the time: What is it like to be a private detective?”

Mma Makutsi smiled modestly. “They think it is a very exciting job,” she said. “But it is not really. Most of the time we are just helping people to find out things they already know.”

“And this Mma Ramotswe people talk about?” asked the neighbour. “What is she like? I have seen her at the shops. She has a very kind face. You would not think she was a detective, just to look at her.”