The girl smiled. It was the first time that she had smiled, and Mma Ramotswe saw her face light up. “Fanwell told me that you are a detective, Mma,” the girl said. “He told me that you are a very clever lady.” She paused. “And he also said that he often helps you solve cases.”

Mma Ramotswe gave nothing away. “Of course he does,” she said. “Your brother is very useful.”

The kettle had now begun to boil, and the girl busied herself with the making of tea. The brew was thin and the milk powdered, but Mma Ramotswe was thirsty and it was welcome. As she began to sip the tea, the front door opened and the grandmother came in.

THEY SAT TOGETHER at the table, Fanwell's grandmother and Mma Ramotswe. The teenage girl who had made the tea and the younger children had been sent outside, while the grandmother and her visitor talked.

“I am from Thamaga,” said the old woman. “I was born there, the firstborn of my parents. Number one of seven. Three girls and four boys. There are three of us left, Mma, after all these years. Three.”

“You are still here,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is a good thing.”

The grandmother acknowledged the truth of what Mma Ramotswe said. “Yes, it is. But then when you are old like me, you think that the whole world is changing. There are new people everywhere. New buildings. And all this rush—everybody is in a hurry. And you sit there and think: Why is everybody in a hurry? That will not make the crops grow any quicker, will it? It will not.

“Thamaga is a good place, and I was very happy there. I went to school and I was good at the things that they taught us. I can write, Mma. I can read too. I am not an illiterate. I have a Bible in the bedroom that I know a lot of by heart. I have read it many times. I can say much of it without reading. ‘In the beginning …’”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, I have heard that.” And added, quickly, “Tell me what happened to you, Mma. Out in Thamaga. What happened?”

The old woman looked at her in surprise. Her eyes, Mma Ramotswe noticed, were unusually moist round the edges, as are the eyes of one who has looked too long into the smoke of a wood fire, smarting. “Nothing happened to me in Thamaga, Mma. Nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “In all those years, Mma?”

The old woman's face creased with amusement. “I suppose that things happened. It's just that when you are living in a village, it seems at the time that there is nothing happening. You know how it is. There is the hot season. Then there are the rains. Then it gets cold. And then the hot weather starts again.

“And children are born,” she went on, “and they grow up and go away and more children are born. That is what happens in a place like Thamaga.”