She sat down at her desk, pondering these matters, and was doing this, looking up at the ceiling, when Fanwell came in.

“I know that it is not yet tea time, Mma,” he said, looking at his watch. “But I am very thirsty. I would like to make some tea.”

“I am thirsty too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “So perhaps you will make some for me, too.”

Fanwell went off to fill the kettle and returned a few moments later. While waiting for the water to boil, he sat on top of Mma Makutsi's desk, kicking his legs against the side. He would never have dared to do that, thought Mma Ramotswe, had Mma Makutsi been present, but he could be forgiven the presumption. There were some things that she herself did when Mma Makutsi was absent that she would never have dared to do in her presence—such as using her assistant's cup if her own cup needed washing and she was too busy—or it was too hot—to do it.

“I'm very sorry,” said Fanwell suddenly.

Mma Ramotswe looked up in surprise. “What have you done?”

“No, I've done nothing, Mma. I'm very sorry about your late van.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “You're very kind, Fanwell. You're kind to say that.” Charlie, she had noticed, had said nothing about the end of her tiny white van, had even smiled over it, she recalled. But she was not vindictive, and there was no point in going into any of that.

“When we towed it away, I felt very sad,” Fanwell went on. “To think of all the times that van had carried you home and then back to the office. It must have been very sad for you, Mma.”

“It was,” said Mma Ramotswe. She had not seen the van being towed away, but it was no longer parked next to the garage, and she assumed that the deed had been done. She hardly dared ask about the physical fate of the van, but now she decided that perhaps she should. She had counselled Mma Makutsi that it was best to talk; well, perhaps it was best for her to talk too, in her case about the van's fate.

She asked Fanwell what had happened, and he explained. “We did it this morning,” he said. “While you were away somewhere in your new van. The boss drove the truck and I steered your van. We took it to that man who finds spare parts from scrapped cars. Harry Moloso. He has that place in the industrial site, over that side. I sometimes go and get spares there. He is a fat man who drinks a lot of beer and has a stomach that goes out like this. That is where we took it.”

Mma Ramotswe listened to this with a growing feeling of emptiness. It was not a dignified end for her tiny white van—to be handed over ignominiously to Harry Moloso with his beer belly and his oxyacetylene torch waiting in the background, every bit the cruel instrument of torture. She shuddered.