“And this girl, this Margaret, what did she do?”

“Margaret? Who is Margaret?”

“Your cousin’s daughter,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“She is not called Margaret,” said the receptionist. “She is called Angel. She did nothing, and he got away with it. Men get away with it, don’t they? Every time.”

Mma Ramotswe felt like saying No. Not always, but she was short of time, and so she said goodbye for the second time and began to make her way to the Department of Economics.

THE DOOR was open. Mma Ramotswe looked at the small notice before she knocked: Dr Oswald Ranta, BSc (Econ.), (UB) PhD (Duke). If I am not in, you may leave a message with the Departmental Secretary. Students wishing to have essays returned should see their tutor or go to the Departmental Office.

She listened for the sound of voices from within the room and none came. She heard the click of the keys of a keyboard. Dr Ranta was in.

He looked up sharply as she knocked and edged the door open.

“Yes, Mma,” he said. “What do you want?”

Mma Ramotswe switched from English to Setswana. “I would like to speak to you, Rra. Have you got a moment?”

He glanced quickly at his watch.

“Yes,” he said, not impolitely. “But I haven’t got forever. Are you one of my students?”

Mma Ramotswe made a self-deprecating gesture as she sat down on the chair which he had indicated. “No,” she said. “I am not that educated. I did my Cambridge Certificate, but nothing after that. I was busy working for my cousin’s husband’s bus company, you see. I could not go on with my education.”

“It is never too late, Mma,” he said. “You could study. We have some very old students here. Not that you are very old, of course, but the point is that anybody can study.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe one day.”

“You could study just about anything here,” he went on. “Except medicine. We can’t make doctors just yet.”

“Or detectives.”

He looked surprised. “Detectives? You cannot study detection at a university.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But I have read that at American universities there are courses in private detection. I have a book by …”

He cut her short. “Oh that! Yes, at American colleges you can take a course in anything. Swimming, if you like. But that’s only at some of them. At the good places, places that we call Ivy League, you can’t get away with that sort of nonsense. You have to study real subjects.”

“Like logic?”

“Logic? Yes. You would study that for a philosophy degree. They taught logic at Duke, of course. Or they did when I was there.”

He expected her to look impressed, and she tried to oblige him with a look of admiration. This, she thought, is a man who needs constant reassurance—hence all the girls.