THE RAISED VERANDAH of the President Hotel, reached by an open staircase from the public square below, was busy when Mma Ramotswe arrived. The hotel was known for its lunchtime curries, and these had now been laid out on the buffet table for those wanting to fit in an early lunch before the official lunch hour began at one o’clock. Over that hour, the hotel was popular with civil servants from the government departments just a short walk away. The permanent secretaries of various ministries—men and women burdened with responsibility and importance—would meet one another to exchange the gossip that is so important a part of the life of all officials throughout the world: who is next in line for promotion; who has overspent his or her departmental budget; which minister can be given just the right amount of unhelpful advice so as to hasten an inevitable departure from the Cabinet; and which ministerial mouth to put words into, if necessary, in order to thwart the objectives of new ministers who did not recognise just who should run the country, which everybody knew should be permanent secretaries.

At less senior, and less official, tables, the conversation might follow different lines. Here business might be discussed, or children, or affairs of the heart, or any of the day-to-day matters that were the stuff of ordinary life. At such a table, a sought-after one because of the view it commanded over the square below, sat Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane, contemplating, with evident pleasure, the ample helping of curry that each had on the plate in front of her. They had been given the table in the face of stiff competition because of Mma Ramotswe’s friendship with the head waiter. His father had known her father—indeed he had bought a bull from him many years ago. That bull had been the founder of a dynasty of particularly fine cattle, and all of his progeny called to reproductive duty had been named Obed in his honour. That was a connection that could hardly be forgotten, and it was a perfectly valid reason for allocating the best table to Mma Ramotswe, even if one or two senior civil servants felt that by rights it should be theirs. It was also grounds for larger helpings of everything and for a complimentary pot of tea at the end of the meal.

Mma Ramotswe told Mma Potokwane about her brush with disaster. Her friend shook her head at the mention of puff adders, and told her own story of finding one on the steps of her office only two months previously. “It was sitting there, Mma—or lying there, should I say…” She stopped, and lowered her voice. “There he is, Mma Ramotswe. There’s Mr. Polopetsi. See him—helping himself to curry?”