Mma Ramotswe stared at Mma Makutsi. She had always valued her secretary’s comments, but she had never expected that she would make such a moral mountain out of the sort of little problem that detectives encountered every day. It was messy work. You helped other people with their problems; you did not have to come up with a complete solution. What they did with the information was their own affair. It was their life, and they had to lead it.

But as she thought about this, she realised that she had done far more than that in the past. In a number of her successful cases, she had gone beyond the finding of information. She had made decisions about the outcome, and these decisions had often proved to be momentous ones. For example, in the case of the woman whose husband had a stolen Mercedes- Benz, she had arranged for the return of the car to its owner. In the case of the fraudulent insurance claims by the man with thirteen fingers, she had made the decision not to report him to the police. That was a decision which had changed a life. He may have become honest after she had given him this chance, but he may not. She could not tell. But what she had done was to offer him a chance, and that may have made a difference. So she did interfere in other people’s lives, and it was not true that all that she did was provide information.

In this case, she realised that the real issue was the fate of the boy. The adults could look after themselves; Mr Badule could cope with a discovery of adultery (in his heart of hearts he already knew that his wife was unfaithful); the other man could go back to his wife on his bended knees and take his punishment (perhaps be hauled back to live in that remote village with his Catholic wife), and as for the fashionable lady, well, she could spend a bit more time in the butchery, rather than resting on that big bed on Nyerere Drive. The boy, though, could not be left to the mercy of events. She would have to ensure that whatever happened, he did not suffer for the bad behaviour of his mother.