“And it is very good,” said Mr. Molofololo quickly. He gestured for Rops to sit down again, and then he indicated to an aide that he should take Puso out of the room. “Take the boy to the dressing room,” he said. “He can watch the players getting ready.”

Puso, star-struck silent but beaming with pleasure, was led away while Mma Ramotswe and the two men settled themselves around a table.

“Now, Rops,” Mr. Molofololo began, “I have told Mma Ramotswe about our problems. What I haven't told her is that you and I have talked and talked and talked and we have never got anywhere nearer a solution than when we started out. That's true, isn't it?”

Rops nodded his agreement. “We have, Boss. I agree with you in one thing. We have not been doing as well as we should. But I do not agree with you when you say that we have a traitor in the team. Who is this man? Can you point him out to me?”

This seemed to irritate Mr. Molofololo, who sat forward in his seat and began to drum his fingers on the table. “I am the one. It is me. Me. If I could point him out to you, then we would not be where we are today. We would have dealt with him. And I wouldn't have had to go to a detective agency to get help. No, I cannot point to the traitor because I do not know who he is. But that does not mean that he is not there.”

For a moment nobody spoke. Rops frowned, as if he was trying to disentangle Mr. Molofololo's message; Mma Ramotswe was silent because she was wondering about the significance of the words I am the one. It is me. It was as if he had suddenly decided to confess to being the traitor himself, which did not make sense. So what did I am the one mean, then?

Mma Ramotswe broke the silence. “Excuse me, Rra,” she said. “You said I am the one. What did you mean, Rra?”

Mr. Molofololo looked at her as if she had raised an irrelevance. “What did you say I said, Mma?”

“You said I am the one.”

He looked at Rops, who shrugged. Then he turned back to Mma Ramotswe. “I don't think I did, Mma. We were talking about finding this man who is letting the team down. We are looking for the jackal who has crept into the herd wearing the clothes of a goat. That is what we're talking about.”

Mma Ramotswe made a gesture of acceptance. “Very well, Rra. Let us talk about that.” She turned to face Rops. “Rra Thobega: Have you ever seen any of the players do anything that made you suspicious?”

Rops shook his head vehemently. “Never. Everybody plays with one-hundred-per-cent commitment. Commitment, Mma. Commitment.”

“Then why are we losing?” interjected Mr. Molofololo.

“Because somebody has to lose,” said Rops.

Mma Ramotswe thought this quite a reasonable thing to say. In any game where two teams were trying to win, one would be disappointed; that was the nature of competitive games. And there were, she imagined, teams that were not very good and would therefore lose consistently.