It was Mma Makutsi who asked the question for her. She had been thinking the same thing as Mma Ramotswe. She had noticed the disparity between the signs of poverty—something that Mma Makutsi knew all about—and the educated voice. She had seen, too, that the man’s hands were what she would describe as well-kept. These were not the hands of a manual labourer, nor those of a man who tended the land. She noticed such hands at her part-time typing classes at the Kalahari Typing School for Men. Many of her pupils there, who worked in offices, had hands like this man’s.

“Do you work in an office, Rra?” she asked. “And may I ask you: What is your name?”

The man glanced at her, and then turned away.

“My name is Polopetsi,” he said. “And no, I have no work. I am looking for work, but there is no place that will take me.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. “It is hard now,” she said. “That must be very bad for you.” She paused. “What did you do before?”

Mr Polopetsi did not answer directly, and the question seemed to hang in the air for a while. Then he spoke.

“I was in prison for two years. I have been out for six months.”

The tiny white van swerved slightly, almost imperceptibly. “And nobody will give you a job?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“They will not,” he answered.

“And you always tell them that you have been in prison?” interjected Mma Makutsi.

“I do,” said Mr Polopetsi. “I am an honest man. I cannot lie to them when they say what have you been doing this last year. I cannot tell them that I was in Johannesburg or something like that. I cannot tell them that I have been working.”

“So, you are an honest man,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But why were you in prison? Are there honest men in prison?” She asked the question before she thought about it and she immediately realised that it sounded very rude; as if she were questioning the man’s story.

He did not seem to take objection. “I was not sent to prison for dishonesty,” he said. “But there are honest men in prison, by the way. There are some very dishonest men there, and some very bad men. But there are also men who are there because of other things that they did.”

They waited for him to continue, but he did not.

“So,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What did you do, Rra? Why did they send you to prison?”

Mr Polopetsi looked at his hands. “I was sent to prison because of an accident.”

Mma Makutsi turned to look at him. “An accident? They sent you instead of somebody else?”

“No,” said the man. “I was sent to prison because there was an accident while I was in charge of something. It was my fault, and a person was killed. It was an accident, but they said that it would not have happened had I been more careful.”