Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “Oh no, Rra. Nobody could ever say that. In fact, they say exactly the opposite—I’ve heard them. They say, ‘That Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is the best mechanic in all Botswana.’ I have heard at least three people say that—all in the last couple of years.”

“Perhaps they know you’re married to me, Mma. Perhaps they are trying to be kind.”

She denied this vigorously. “They mean it, Rra. You can tell when somebody means a compliment and when it’s just empty words. You can tell…”

“How? How exactly can you tell?”

She looked out into the darkness. His question was a good one; how could you tell something like that? Instinct? A sixth sense? That was all very well, but how could you explain what instinct or a sixth sense meant? Or did they both boil down, when all was said and done, to nothing more than a hunch?

She thought of what had happened that day with Mma Not Rosie. She was sure that Mma Makutsi had been acting on some sort of hunch about that woman when she first met her, and then had tried to find grounds for dismissing her as a fraud. By contrast, Mma Ramotswe was now beginning to feel that whatever the flaws in her story might be, she was genuine. This feeling had been building up ever since she’d started to cook the stew, and now it was quite strong. That poor woman had been telling the truth and all she had encountered was a wall of suspicion from Mma Makutsi, and from herself something not much better—a bit politer, perhaps, but still not much better.

She turned to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “What do you think it’s like, Rra, to be telling the truth and then to find that nobody believes you?”

He thought for a moment. “Horrible,” he said with conviction. “It is a very horrible feeling, Mma.”

The forcefulness of his answer surprised her. “Has it happened to you, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?”

He took his time to answer. “Once,” he said. “And it was very, very bad.”