Mma Ramotswe suddenly felt more confident. This was not a matter of sport; this was a matter of simple human greed, and that was something of which she had seen a great deal. Now she was on familiar ground – the ground of the private detective.

‘Would you like me to find out about this, Rra?’ she said. ‘Would you like me to find out whether he’s getting money? I’ve done this sort of thing before, you know. There are ways of finding out.’ Indeed there were – most of them straightforward. People who were bribed with large sums usually gave themselves away by spending those same large sums. Such people were, by nature, spenders rather than savers. Their spending was often very obvious – flashy cars, for instance.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Gefeli. ‘I would like you to find out for me, Mma. Once I have proof, then I can act. Before that, I can do nothing – he is far too popular.’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘Does he drive a car?’ she asked.

Mr Gefeli seemed surprised by the question. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, he does drive.’

‘What sort of car is that?’ asked Mma Ramotswe.

‘An old one,’ said Mr Gefeli. ‘Nothing special.’

Mma Ramotswe looked disappointed. Perhaps it would not be as simple as she had thought.

2

‘Well now, Mma Ramotswe,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, her husband, that evening. ‘You had a very important visitor this morning, didn’t you?’

Mma Ramotswe did not normally discuss her clients’ business. It was different, though, with Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. Although he was not exactly staff, all the same he owned Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, in a spare room of which the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had its office. This meant that he always had a fairly good idea of what was going on in the agency, even if nobody told him anything. So now Mr J. L. B. Matekoni listened closely as she told him about the problem of the Comets’ goalkeeper, James Pikani, whose erratic playing had cost the team several games.

‘Letting goals through?’ asked Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘That is very bad.’

Mma Ramotswe agreed. ‘Money is very corrupting,’ she said. ‘People will do anything for money. Not everybody, of course, but some will.’ As she spoke, she thought of those people who would never accept a bribe, under any circumstances, and at the head of that list, of course, was Mr J. L. B. Matekoni.

She reflected on the case that night, lying awake in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. If James Pikani was being bribed to let goals through, then there were two ways of tackling the problem. One was to find out who benefited from the resulting victory, and to try to trap them in the act of bribing, and the other was to follow the money. The first of these would be very difficult. The obvious suspect was the management of the winning team, but there was a feature which complicated the case.