“Of course not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They have expensive ones, of course, but they also have very good ones that do not cost too much. We can go and take a look. Judgment-day Jewellers, for example. They have a good selection.”

The decision was made. The next morning, after Mma Ramotswe had dealt with the mail at the detective agency, they would go to Judgment-day Jewellers and choose a ring. It was an exciting prospect, and even Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, feeling greatly relieved at the prospect of an affordable ring, found himself looking forward to the outing. Now that he had thought about it, there was something very appealing about diamonds, something that even a man could understand, if only he were to think hard enough about it. What was more important to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was the thought that this gift, which was possibly the most expensive gift he would ever give in his life, was a gift from the very soil of Botswana. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was a patriot. He loved his country, just as he knew Mma Ramotswe did. The thought that the diamond which he eventually chose could well have come from one of Botswana’s own three diamond mines added to the significance of the gift. He was giving, to the woman whom he loved and admired more than any other, a tiny speck of the very land on which they walked. It was a special speck of course: a fragment of rock which had been burned to a fine point of brightness all those years ago. Then somebody had dug it out of the earth up at Orapa, polished it, brought it down to Gaborone, and set it in gold. And all of this to allow Mma Ramotswe to wear it on the second finger of her left hand and announce to the world that he, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, the proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, was to be her husband.

THE PREMISES of Judgment-day Jewellers were tucked away at the end of a dusty street, alongside the Salvation Bookshop, which sold Bibles and other religious texts, and Mothobani Bookkeeping Services: Tell the Taxman to go away. It was a rather unprepossessing shop, with a sloping verandah roof supported by whitewashed brick pillars. The sign, which had been painted by an amateur sign-writer of modest talent, showed the head and shoulders of a glamorous woman wearing an elaborate necklace and large pendant earrings. The woman was smiling in a lopsided way, in spite of the weight of the earrings and the evident discomfort of the necklace.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe parked on the opposite side of the road, under the shade of an acacia tree. They were later than they had anticipated, and the heat of the day was already beginning to build up. By midday any vehicle left out in the sun would be almost impossible to touch, the seats too hot for exposed flesh, the steering wheel a rim of fire. Shade would prevent this, and under every tree there were nests of cars, nosed up against the trunks, like piglets to a sow, in order to enjoy the maximum protection afforded by the incomplete panoply of grey-green foliage.