Mr. Polopetsi tried to say something, but no words came. He looked at the tie, with its eagle motif, and then, taking off the grey one he was wearing, he began to put the new one round his neck.

“Very smart,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“But why me?” asked Mr. Polopetsi.

She thought for a moment. “Because you have helped me in the past, Rra. Because you have given me your company. Because we have worked together. Because you are a good, kind man, and many people take good, kind men for granted and never say thank you to them. Because of all these reasons I’m giving you a tie.”

They walked on in silence. She noticed, though, that the shoulders of his jacket seemed less empty now, his walk more confident.

“I think we shall have rain rather sooner than we thought,” said Mma Ramotswe as they reached her van.

“Rain,” said Mr. Polopetsi, and nodded.

She started the van and drove off. Before she dropped him at the gates of the school where he was a part-time teacher, she said, “You mustn’t worry, Rra. I have a very good idea about how to sort out this…this mess you’ve got yourself into.”

He looked anxious once more. “I’ll do everything I can to help, Mma.”

“I think you’ll need to,” said Mma Ramotswe.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DOGS DO NOT HAVE A SOUL INSIDE THEM. THEY ARE JUST MEAT

IT WAS UNCOMFORTABLY HOT in the offices of the Botswana Housing Corporation.

“They promised us air-conditioning a long time ago,” said the clerk who was leading Mma Ramotswe through a narrow, airless corridor. “The senior people are all right—they’ve got it up in their offices—but down here, not a chance.” He shook his head. “It is always like that, isn’t it, Mma? Junior staff don’t mind the heat, do they? Junior staff don’t mind drinking water from the tap rather than from one of those water fountains they have upstairs. Junior staff don’t mind having the last choice of holiday dates, do they? They don’t mind all of these things.”

Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic clucking noise. “You are right, Rra,” she said. “It is hard to be junior staff.”

Unless you were Mma Makutsi, she thought. If you were Mma Makutsi, you simply promoted yourself regularly until you ended up as joint co-director, or whatever her current position was—Mma Ramotswe had rather lost track of Mma Makutsi’s stellar ascent.