“But the old Botswana is no more, Mma,” retorted Mma Makutsi. “This is the new Botswana now. You cannot live in the past.”

Mma Ramotswe wanted to challenge her on that. Why, she wanted to ask, could one not live in the past? If enough people were determined to live in the past, then surely that would keep the past alive. You could go to an old-fashioned hairdresser who braided hair in the way in which they used to braid hair in the past; you could go to a doctor who dressed and behaved as doctors did in your childhood, wearing a white coat and carrying a stethoscope, as doctors used to do; you could patronise a butcher who sold old-fashioned cuts of meat and then wrapped them up in brown paper parcels and tied these parcels neatly up with white string, as all butchers used to be taught to do; you could go to a bank where there was an old-fashioned bank manager who actually knew your name, as bank managers once did…

But she kept these thoughts to herself. Had she expressed them, she was sure that Mma Makutsi would have made much of it and gone on at great length about modern practices and the need to be competitive. On that point—the need for competitiveness—Mma Ramotswe had difficulty in working out just with whom they needed to compete.

“We actually have no competitors, when it comes down to it, Mma,” she had once said. “We are the only detective agency in Botswana—certainly the only one run by ladies. So who is there to compete with? The Bank of Botswana? The national airline?”

Mma Makutsi had looked pained at the levity of these remarks. “It doesn’t matter if there’s no actual competition,” she said. “Competitiveness is a state of mind, Mma. It shows that you are aware of the client’s interest. It is all about efficiency and value for money.”

“I think we are very good value for money,” countered Mma Ramotswe. “Sometimes we do not even charge anything at all. I have sent out many bills like that: ‘Grand Total, 0 pula.’ What better value for money can there be?”

“To somebody who has not had commercial training, perhaps. No disrespect, Mma, but when I was at the Botswana Secretarial College we learned about some of these very complicated matters. Some people have not had that opportunity—not that I’m saying it’s their fault, Mma. No, I’m not saying anything like that.”

In the end, Mma Ramotswe had agreed to the new billing system and had been instructed by Mma Makutsi as to how to keep a note of every moment spent on a client’s affairs.

“So if you are thinking about a case, Mma—just thinking—you should still bill the client for that.”

Mma Ramotswe expressed astonishment. “Should I write: ‘For thinking about your case for 18 minutes’? Should I write that sort of thing?”