SHE FOUND her, and the hotel, without difficulty. Mma Ramotswe’s friend made a few telephone calls and gave her the name and address of the hotel. It was an old building, in the colonial style, on the road to the Matopos. It was not clear who might stay there, but it seemed well kept and there was a noisy bar somewhere in the background. Above the front door, painted in small white lettering on black was a sign: Carla Smit, Licensee, licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. This was the end of the quest, and, as the end of a quest so often was, it was a mundane setting, quite unexceptionable; yet it was surprising nonetheless that the person sought should actually exist, and be there.

“I AM Carla.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at the woman, sitting behind her desk, an untidy pile of papers in front of her. On the wall behind her, pinned above a filing cabinet, was a year-chart with blocks of days marked up in bright colours; a gift from its printers, in heavy Bodoni type: Printed by the Matabeleland Printing Company (Private) Limited: You think, we ink! It occurred to her that she might issue a calendar to her own clients: Suspicious? Call the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. You ask, we answer! No, that was too lame. You cry, we spy! No. Not all the clients felt miserable. We find things out. That was better: it had the necessary dignity.

“You are?” the woman enquired, politely, but with a touch of suspicion in her voice. She thinks that I have come for a job, thought Mma Ramotswe, and she is steeling herself to turn me down.

“My name is Precious Ramotswe,” she said. “I’m from Gaborone. And I have not come to ask for a job.”

The woman smiled. “So many people do,” she said. “There is such terrible unemployment. People who have done all sorts of courses are desperate for a job. Anything. They’ll do anything. I get ten, maybe twelve enquiries every week; many more at the end of the school year.”

“Conditions are bad?”

The woman sighed. “Yes, and have been for some time. Many people suffer.”

“I see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We are lucky down there in Botswana. We do not have these troubles.”

Carla nodded, and looked thoughtful. “I know. I lived there for a couple of years. It was some time ago, but I hear it hasn’t changed too much. That’s why you are lucky.”

“You preferred the old Africa?”

Carla looked at her quizzically. This was a political question, and she would need to be cautious.

She spoke slowly, choosing her words. “No. Not in the sense of preferring the colonial days. Of course not. Not all white people liked that, you know. I may have been a South African, but I left South Africa to get away from apartheid. That’s why I went to Botswana.”