“No, Mma. I do not need that. I am happy to do the work I do. Maybe one day things will change for me, but I do not fret too much about that. I am happy right now. I like fixing cars, you see, and I like doing some work for you too. So what do I lack? I have enough food now. My children are not hungry. They are learning well at school. This is a good country, our Botswana. So why do I need to be a consultant?”

She could not answer, and so she simply looked at him, and he looked back at her. Everything was perfectly understood.

Then he said, “While you were out, there was a telephone call for you. I took it. It was that lady who is your friend, that Mma Mateleke. She said, Could Mma Ramotswe meet me for tea tomorrow morning at ten o’clock? Riverwalk. That café she goes to. I said that I would ask you and that I would phone her and let her know.”

Mma Ramotswe wondered if her friend was in trouble. She had looked ill at ease in church on Sunday, and the thought had crossed her mind that something was troubling Mma Mateleke. Domestic disputes, perhaps? She remembered the story that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had told her—about rescuing Mma Mateleke’s car from the Lobatse Road. He had said something about strange behaviour from some man who drove past, but he had not said much more than that, and she had been cooking at the time rather than listening. Was something going on in the Mateleke household? She would find out, no doubt, at the Riverwalk Café tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.

She stopped. Why was it called Riverwalk? Where was the river? The Notwane was nowhere in sight. And the walk?

CHAPTER NINE

RULE 32