Friends were different from colleagues, of course, although colleagues could also be friends. Being self-employed, Mma Ramotswe did not have a large number of colleagues; in fact, she only had one full-time, permanent colleague, so to speak, although she had a part-time colleague in the shape of Mr. Polopetsi and another, if one took a liberal view of the definition, in the shape of Charlie. Fanwell, the former apprentice and now assistant mechanic, was not really a colleague in the strict sense, as he worked in the adjacent garage owned by Mma Ramotswe’s husband and was really Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s colleague rather than hers.

The full-time colleague was, as everybody knew, Mma Makutsi—Grace Makutsi, former secretary, graduate magna cum laude of the Botswana Secretarial College, where she achieved the mark of ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations; born in the remote and unexceptional town of Bobonong; survivor…Yes, Mma Makutsi had every right to be called a survivor. She had survived poverty; she had survived the battle for an education; she had lived with a slightly difficult skin and with the necessity of large spectacles; she had struggled for everything she possessed; and at last her ship had come home, unambiguously and magnificently, when she had met and married Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, a kind man, and a wealthy one too, being the proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Store. And together they had had a baby, Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti, a fine young son, and the only purring baby in Botswana.

That was Mma Makutsi, and Mma Ramotswe, thinking of her now, could only smile at her ways, which were well known, and perfectly tolerable once you became used to them. Mr. Polopetsi, her part-time colleague, was in awe of Mma Makutsi. He was a very mild man, a chemist with a chequered career, who worked in the agency on a voluntary basis because he needed something to do. He had now found a job as a part-time chemistry teacher at Gaborone Secondary School, a job that brought in very little money as it rarely required more than a few hours of his time each week. But the pay did not matter: his wife, a senior civil servant, was the main breadwinner. She preferred her husband to be occupied, and so was happy for him to spend his time on his poorly paid teaching job and his unpaid detective work in the agency.

And it suited the agency too. “Mr. Polopetsi may not be a great detective,” observed Mma Makutsi. “But he does understand the scientific method and the need for evidence. That is important, Mma Ramotswe.”