“I wish it were that simple,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And no, Mma, he is definitely not the one. My nose told me that. Again it was my nose.”

Mma Makutsi wondered what her own nose had told her about Oteng Bolelang. Her meeting with him had been a very unsatisfactory one, she told Mma Ramotswe, although she had learned that he suspected that Big Man Tafa could not see very well.

“What a strange thing,” Mma Ramotswe exclaimed. “Did he actually say that, Mma?”

“Yes. He said that he had tested Big Man's sight by throwing him a pencil and Big Man had not caught it because he could not see well enough.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Or because he wasn't ready for it, don't you think, Mma? If I suddenly threw you something, would you be able to catch it?”

Mma Makutsi pondered this. Mma Ramotswe was probably right. We did not expect people to throw things at us and therefore were not prepared. It was not surprising, then, if we failed to catch them.

“And there's another thing,” said Mma Ramotswe. “People are always accusing players—and referees—of not being able to see. When I was at the Stadium, I heard people shouting out, Where are your glasses, Ref? I thought it very rude.”

“It is a very rude game altogether,” said Mma Makutsi.

“And did you learn anything else, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi told her about Oteng Bolelang's comments on Mr. Molofololo. “Apparently he is always changing everything. Outfits. Colours. Tactics. Even telephone numbers.”

Mma Ramotswe made a clucking sound. “He is not popular with his players, you know, Mma. And you know what that means?”

Mma Makutsi peeled the last of the potatoes and dropped it into the saucepan of water that Mma Ramotswe had placed in the sink. “What does it mean, Mma?”

“It means that all of them probably have a motive,” said Mma Ramotswe. She sounded discouraged. If every player had a motive, then how could they possibly single out the player who was responsible for the team's bad performance? And there was another possibility to consider: What if none of the players was responsible, and the reason for the decline of the team lay elsewhere? No, this was not going to be an easy case, and as she turned the chicken pieces in their oil, she wondered again whether this was not one of those cases that they would have been far wiser to have refused. Having a high success rate depends on the ability to say no to hopeless cases, wrote Clovis Andersen. Once again, Clovis Andersen was right. He always was. Always.

They sat at the table and ate their chicken and potatoes. They had talked enough about the Molofololo case and were happy to speak about other things now. Mma Ramotswe was wary of raising the subject of Phuti and Violet Sephotho, but Mma Makutsi did that herself.

“I talked to Phuti when he came to eat last night,” she said.

Mma Ramotswe waited. “And?”