She opened the door of the van and manoeuvred herself out. The van was slightly too small for a lady like herself, of traditional build, but she was fond of it and dreaded the day when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would be able to fix it no longer. No modern van, with all its gadgets and sophistication, would be able to take the place of the tiny white van. Since she had acquired it eleven years previously, it had borne her faithfully on her every journey, putting up with the heights of the October heat, or the fine dust which at certain times of year drifted in from the Kalahari and covered everything with a red-brown blanket. Dust was the enemy of engines, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had explained—on more than one occasion—the enemy of engines, but the friend of the hungry mechanic.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni watched Mma Ramotswe approach the front door and knock. Dr Ranta must have been waiting for her, as she was quickly admitted and the door was closed behind her.

“Is it just yourself, Mma?” said Dr Ranta. “Is your friend out there coming in?”

“No,” she said. “He will wait for me outside.”

Dr Ranta laughed. “Security? So you feel safe?”

She did not answer his question. “You have a nice house,” she said. “You are fortunate.”

He gestured for her to follow him into the living room. Then he pointed to a chair and he himself sat down.

“I don’t want to waste my time talking to you,” he said. “I will speak only because you have threatened me and I am experiencing some difficulty with some lying women. That is the only reason why I am talking to you.”

His pride was hurt, she realised. He had been cornered—and by a woman, too; a stinging humiliation for a womaniser. There was no point in preliminaries, she thought, and so she went straight to the point.

“How did Michael Curtin die?” she asked.

He sat in his chair, directly opposite her, his lips pursed.

“I worked there,” he said, appearing to ignore her question. “I was a rural economist and they had been given a grant by the Ford Foundation to employ somebody to do studies of the economics of these small-scale agricultural ventures. That was my job. But I knew that things were hopeless. Right from the start. Those people were just idealists. They thought that you could change the way things had always been. I knew it wouldn’t work.”

“But you accepted the money,” said Mma Ramotswe.

He stared at her contemptuously. “It was a job. I am a professional economist. I study things that work and things that don’t work. Maybe you don’t understand that.”

“I understand,” she said.