“Yes. That afternoon the accountant and the director carried out an on-the-spot check. The director asked me for the key to the drawer and before I could say anything he had opened it and discovered the shortfall. I said to him that I was just about to tell him about the missing three hundred pula, but he just looked at me as if to say, ‘That’s a likely story!’ I felt awful. I knew that I was telling the truth, but I also knew that if I were in the director’s position I would probably think exactly the same thing. So I could do nothing but protest my innocence, knowing that I was not believed.”

Mma Ramotswe groaned. “An awful situation, Rra. A nightmare.”

“Yes. And no matter how much I tried, I could not convince him that I was telling the truth. So he said to me that I had one week to pay the money back, or he would report the matter to the police. He said that he was giving me a chance because, apart from this incident, he had been impressed with my work.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, of course, I borrowed it from my uncle and I handed it over to the director. When I did that, he looked at me sternly and said, ‘Don’t ever be dishonest again. Never, ever take money that does not belong to you—even if you think you can repay it.’ I felt so wronged, Mma. I felt that I was being judged to be dishonest when I was not. I felt dirtied by the whole matter.”

Mma Ramotswe wondered whether the real culprit had ever been found.

“We never found out who it was,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But here’s a thing, Mma: there were several thefts after I had left the brigade—after the end of my time there. They were the same sort of thing, and I heard that the director then realised that I had, in fact, been innocent. But do you know what? I saw him about six months after that—I met him in the street—and he did not say sorry to me. He did not say, ‘I was wrong to accuse you of theft.’ He said nothing, in fact. He just asked me what I was doing and left it at that. He could have said sorry. He could have said that they had found the real thief, but he did not. What do you think of that, Mma?”

“Not very much,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But then I’ve noticed it, Rra: people are very slow to say sorry. I don’t know why this should be, but they do not say sorry easily.”

“Perhaps it’s because they think that saying sorry means that they were wrong. Perhaps it makes them feel small. Or look small.”