Their eyes did not meet. Mma Makutsi, however, immediately recognised Phuti Radiphuti's car and gave a start. She sat bolt upright, face close to the window, taking in first the car, then Phuti at the wheel, and then, in an awful, heart-stopping moment, the figure of Violet Sephotho, false claimant of eighty per cent, writer of anonymous letters, Jezebel.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BIG MAN TAFA

A TUESDAY MORNING, thought Mma Ramotswe, is a good day on which to start work on a case. This was largely because of the positioning of Tuesday: Monday was a difficult day for no other reason than that it was Monday the start of another week, with the prospect of another weekend as distant as it ever could be. Wednesday was halfway through the week, and a day on which, for some reason, there always seemed to be rather too much to do. By Thursday one was getting tired, and then on Friday, with the end in sight, one was in no mood to begin anything. That left Tuesday, which it now was; the day on which Mma Ramotswe found herself contemplating afresh the list of names of football players and deciding which of them to investigate first.

She glanced across the room at Mma Makutsi, who was sitting stiffly at her desk, in a way which Mma Ramotswe recognised as her bad-day posture. Mma Makutsi was like that; she could be moody, particularly when there was some problem on the domestic front. Certainly, there was something worrying her, but Mma Ramotswe knew better than to raise it with her at this point. It would come out later in the day, and she would be able to comfort or reassure her. Then the mood would lighten and everything would return to normal. That was what normally happened.

The Molofololo case was difficult not only because of the strange world of football with which it was concerned, but also because of the sheer challenge of looking into the private lives of quite so many men. She would have to delegate, she decided. Mma Makutsi could take on some of the names, Mr. Polopetsi— if things were quiet in the garage—could be allocated a few of the others, and she would do the rest. Now, looking at the list, she picked up a pencil and divided the names. The drivers of the Mercedes-Benzes, each of whom had a tick against his name, were, according to Mr. Polopetsi, unlikely candidates; they could be left to Mr. Polopetsi himself in that case, as he was the least experienced of the three of them. She then divided the remaining names at random between Mma Makutsi and herself.

She had decided that the best approach was to speak directly to the players. Mr. Molofololo's suggestion that she pose as a masseuse was not practical, for a number of reasons. Prominent amongst these was that Mma Ramotswe had no idea of how to perform a massage, and she simply did not fancy pounding and manipulating the limbs of these muscly football players. She might pull the wrong way and make matters worse; she might tickle them inadvertently; anything could happen. No, that was not a good idea; far better to be transparent and to tell the players that she had been asked by Mr. Molofololo to talk to everybody to find out what was going wrong. That had the benefit of being true, but it also gave people the chance to do what they liked to do best—which was to talk. Much as Mma Ramotswe admired Clovis Andersen's The Principles of Private Detection, it had to be said that this was one matter on which she felt she knew better than Mr. Andersen himself. Nowhere in that great book did the author recommend the practice that Mma Ramotswe had found to be the strongest weapon in the private detective's armoury— that of asking people directly about something. That always worked, she found; always. When in doubt, ask somebody; it was as simple as that.