“How did he do that?” Mma Ramotswe enquired.

Big Man did not know, but he assured Mma Ramotswe that it had happened and that Rops still felt angry about it.

“I see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But if Rops dislikes Mr. Molofololo so much, why can he not just resign? He is such a well-known man that there will be many teams who will want him to play for them. He could go to Extension Gunners. He could go anywhere.”

Big Man Tafa shook his head. “Rops is too old now. He can no longer play very well. Rops is finished.”

“But surely he wouldn't want to end his career like this,” Mma Ramotswe persisted. “Who would want to retire after a long spell of losing every game?”

“Don't ask me,” said Big Man Tafa. “You should know that sort of thing. You're the detective.”

Mma Ramotswe sat quite still. “How do you know that, Rra? How do you know that I'm a detective?”

Big Man looked at her in surprise. “Because everybody knows that, Mma Ramotswe. You are a famous lady in these parts. Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Everybody knows you now.”

“Your cover is blown,” said Mma Tafa, smiling at Mma Ramotswe. “Isn't that what you detectives say?”

Big Man Tafa answered the question for her. “It is,” he said.

AS SHE WALKED back to the car, Mma Ramotswe was deep in thought. She was not quite sure what to make of her conversation with the Tafas; some things had become clearer while other things had become more obscure. Some things, indeed, were now quite unintelligible.

The small boy was sitting on duty at the van, and she fished a couple of coins out of her bag to pay him.

“You have looked after the van very well,” she said, pressing the coins into his outstretched palm.

“Thank you, Mma.”

She looked down at him, at his funny, rather serious face; he was wiser, perhaps, than most boys of his age. Boys know everything, she remembered somebody saying. Everything.

“Tell me,” she said to the boy. “Big Man Tafa: Is he a good man, do you think, or is he a bad man?”

The boy's eyes moved slightly. A fly had landed on his head and was walking slowly across the smooth expanse of his brow. He did nothing to brush it off.

“He is bad man, I think,” he said. “A very bad man. And one day God is going to punish him.”

Mma Ramotswe was taken aback. The judgement had been so swift, so clear; but it always is, she reflected, when you're that size.

“Who says he is a bad man?” she asked. “Just you?”

The boy shook his head, making the fly take off from its suddenly uncertain landing strip.

“My father,” he said. “Big Man Tafa owes my father ten thousand pula. That is this much, Mma.” He stretched out his hand to illustrate a pile of money. “He says that only bad men don't pay what they have promised to pay. That is why I think that God will get him.”