Her own telephone call to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had brought a confident Mma Makutsi to the line, who had explained to her that she had completed the investigation of the Badule matter and that all that required to be done was to determine what to do with the information she had gathered. They would have to talk about that, said Mma Ramotswe. She had feared that the investigation would produce a truth that would be far from simple in its moral implications. There were times when ignorance was more comfortable than knowledge.

The pumpkin, though, was ready, and it was time to sit down at the table, as a family for the first time.

Mma Ramotswe said grace.

“We are grateful for this pumpkin and this meat,” she said. “There are brothers and sisters who do not have good food on their table, and we think of them, and wish pumpkin and meat for them in the future. And we thank the Lord who has brought these children into our lives so that we might be happy and they might have a home with us. And we think of what a happy day this is for the late mother and the late daddy of these children, who are watching this from above.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could add nothing to this grace, which he thought was perfect in every respect. It expressed his own feelings entirely, and his heart was too full of emotion to allow him to speak. So he was silent.

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SEAT OF LEARNING

THE MORNING is the best time to address a problem, thought Mma Ramotswe. One is at one’s freshest in the first hours of the working day, when the sun is still low and the air is sharp. That is the time to ask oneself the major questions; a time of clarity and reason, unencumbered by the heaviness of the day.

“I have read your report,” said Mma Ramotswe, when Mma Makutsi arrived for work. “It is a very full one, and very well written. Well done.”

Mma Makutsi acknowledged the compliment graciously.

“I was happy that my first case was not a difficult one,” she said. “At least it was not difficult to find out what needed to be found out. But those questions which I put at the end—they are the difficult bit.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing down at the piece of paper. “The moral questions.”

“I don’t know how to solve them,” said Mma Makutsi. “If I think that one answer is correct, then I see all the difficulties with that. Then I consider the other answer, and I see another set of difficulties.”

She looked expectantly at Mma Ramotswe, who grimaced.