Mma Makutsi would have preferred to wander the length of the Mall, stopping to chat to people she recognised, but saw that she was already a few minutes late for her appointment. So, with the sinking heart of one obliged to perform an unwelcome task, she climbed up the open staircase that graced the front of the President Hotel and made her way onto the shaded verandah.

The hotel would become busy at lunch time, but now only a few of the tables were occupied. At one, a smartly dressed woman sat alone, a magazine on the table in front of her. She was on edge, Mma Makutsi noticed, with the nervous look of one who is expecting to meet somebody important—somebody she was keen to impress, perhaps. From time to time she looked at a small mobile phone on the table; looked longingly, thought Mma Makutsi. Oh, my sister, Mma Makutsi said under her breath. Oh, my sister, I am sorry. He is not going to come, is he?

Mma Makutsi's gaze moved on. A middle-aged couple, visitors wearing large floppy hats, sat at a table poring over a tourist guide. Mma Makutsi smiled; so many people read these guides when they might have been looking around them and seeing the place they were reading about. It was the same with cameras: visitors spent so much time peering through the viewfinders of their cameras that they never looked at the country they were photographing. The couple lowered their books, though, and looked at her, smiled; her own smile grew wider. That was better. What does the book say about me? she wondered. Look out for Mma Makutsi. She is the fiancée of Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, and you should look out for him too.

The brief reverie ended. There he was—there was no doubt about it—Mr. Oteng Bolelang, midfield attacker, sitting at a table near the verandah parapet, pointedly looking at his watch.

“I am very sorry to be late, Rra,” she said, as she sat down at the table. “But as Mma Ramotswe says, it is better to be late than to be the late.”

Oteng Bolelang looked at her in puzzlement. “What is this? Who is this Mma Ramotswe?”

He spoke with an unusually high-pitched voice, which caught Mma Makutsi unawares. She had imagined that footballers—and especially midfield attackers—would speak with deep, masculine voices. This man, however, spoke with a rather thin, reed-like voice, the voice of a bird, she thought, or the voice of one of those thin dogs howling at the top of its register.

“Mma Ramotswe is the woman who owns the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,” she said. “That is who she is.”

Oteng gave a shrug. “I do not know her.” His tone was peevish.

Mma Makutsi smiled pleasantly. “Well, maybe one day you will meet her, Rra. She has asked me, though, to speak to you. You will know that Mr. Molofololo wants you all to speak to us.”

“He told us that,” said the footballer. “He thinks that we have nothing better to do than to talk to wo … talk to people.”