Mma Ramotswe waited for him to expand on this, but he simply looked at her angrily, as if blaming her in some way for his team's misfortunes. Was he one of those people, she wondered, who see enemies at every turn? She had known somebody like that once; he had suspected everybody of plotting against him. Perhaps Mr. Molofololo saw traitors everywhere, all of them intent on letting him down.

“Perhaps you should tell me about this traitor,” she said gently. “Is it a business rival of yours, maybe?”

This suggestion seemed to make Mr. Molofololo even crosser. “I don't know, Mma,” he said, somewhat peevishly. “It may be somebody like that behind the traitor. Who knows? The real problem is that there is a traitor in the team.”

“Somebody who wants you to lose?” Mma Ramotswe had heard of people who fixed games—there had been some row about this happening in cricket in South Africa and it had got into the local papers. But would the same thing happen in football in Gaborone? She wondered whether the stakes would be high enough; perhaps they were. Perhaps it was a matter of Mercedes-Benzes; they seemed to come into these things a great deal.

Mr. Molofololo folded his hands in his lap. “Yes, Mma Ramotswe, I'm afraid that may be true. In fact, I'm sure that it's true. There is somebody in the team who wants us to lose and is making very sure that we do.”

Mr. Molofololo stopped speaking, and there was silence. Outside, in the acacia tree behind the office, a dove cooed—the small Cape dove that had taken up residence in the tree and cooed for a mate who never came.

Mma Ramotswe spread her hands. “I don't know, Rra, if I am the best person to find out what is going on here,” she said.

“But you're a detective,” protested Mr. Molofololo. “And I have asked around, Mma. Everybody has said to me: you go to that Mma Ramotswe—she is the one who can find things out. That is what they said.”

It was flattering to Mma Ramotswe to hear that her reputation had spread, but she knew nothing at all about football, and it seemed to her that it would be impossible to detect something as subtle and devious as match-fixing. It would be difficult enough for her to work out which direction the team was playing in, let alone to discover who was deliberately not doing his best.

“I may be a detective, Rra,” she explained, “but this is a very special thing you are asking me to do. How can I find out who this … this traitor is if I know nothing about football? I cannot sit there and say, See that? See what is going on over there—that is very suspicious. I cannot do that.”

“And I cannot either,” said Mma Makutsi. “I know nothing about football either.”

Mr. Molofololo sighed. “I'm not asking you to do that, Mma,” he said. “I'm asking you to look into the private lives of the players. Find out who is being paid money to do this—because money will be changing hands, I'm sure of it.”