She closed her eyes. She was standing next to her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that great man, and he was handing her an ice cream. He was wearing his hat, his battered old hat that he wore until the day he went into hospital for the last time. And he smiled at her from underneath the brim of that old hat, and the sun was behind him, high in the sky, and the ice cream tasted sweeter and purer than anything else she had ever tasted in her life. She would give anything—anything—to have her father back with her, just for a day, so that she could tell him about how her life had been and how she owed everything to him and to his goodness to her. It would not take long to tell him all that—about the same amount of time it takes to eat an ice cream or to walk the length of Zebra Drive. Not long.

Mma Ramotswe opened her eyes again, to see that Mma Makutsi was staring up at the ceiling. “Why do you think we like ice cream so much, Mma?” Mma Makutsi asked. “Or is that one of those questions that we can never answer?”

“I think it is,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking down at the table. There was one large helping of ice cream left—or two small ones. There was no doubt in her mind what was the right thing to do. “You must have that ice cream,” she said, reaching across for Mma Makutsi's plate. She hoped that Mma Makutsi would say, “No, we must share it, Mma.”

But Mma Makutsi did not. “Thank you very much, Mma,” she said. “You are very kind.”

SHE DROVE MMA MAKUTSI home in the blue van, dropping her off outside her lightless house. The evening was warm; night had brought little relief from the heat of the day, and the leaves of Mma Makutsi's two pawpaw trees, dark shapes against the moonlit sky, were drooping, as if with sheer exhaustion. The hot months were not easy—they drained the country of its energy, its vitality, crushing animals, people, plants under a sky that at times seemed like one great oven. And then, as the whole land became drier and drier and, in bad years, the cattle began to die, nature would relent, would remember that it was the time for rain. Great rain clouds, purple bank stacked upon purple bank, would appear above the horizon and then sweep in over the land with their longed-for gift of water. The temperatures would drop as the land breathed again; brown would become green; and the hearts of everything living would be filled with relief and gratitude. But that had not happened yet; it was still oppressively hot … and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was still not back from Lobatse.

Mma Ramotswe looked at her watch as she drove away from Mma Makutsi's house. It was almost twenty to ten; their easy, woman-to-woman conversation had made the time pass quickly. Twenty minutes to ten; if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had finished work at eight o'clock—and surely it would have been unreasonable for them to keep him beyond that time—then he should have been back by nine fifteen. Of course he would have had to run Charlie home, and that could take, what? Fifteen minutes, perhaps. There was not much traffic at this hour, and none of those frustrating waits at traffic lights and intersections. If he had reached Game City at half past nine, allowing for a few minutes' delay at the police roadblock near the Mokolodi turn-off, then with fifteen minutes to get to Charlie's house and back … quarter to ten, then. But you always had to allow ten minutes or so leeway, so that meant that ten o'clock would be the latest she should expect him back. Now, if she took ten minutes to drive from Mma Makutsi's place back to Zebra Drive, then she should arrive back at the house at roughly the same time as he did.