Eventually she finished with her call. “Yes, Rra,” she said, tossing the cordless telephone down on a cushion beside her. “You have some information for me.”

There was no greeting, no enquiry after his health, but he was used to that now, and he did not let it upset him.

“I have carried out enquiries,” he said solemnly. He looked at the chair next to hers. “May I sit down, Mma?”

She made a curt gesture. “If you wish. Yes. Sit down and tell me what you have found out about this husband of mine.”

He lowered himself into the chair and took the photograph out of its envelope. “I have followed your husband, Mma,” he began. “I followed him from his work in the evening and I was able to establish that he has been seeing another woman.”

He watched her reaction to this disclosure. She was controlled, merely closing her eyes briefly for a few moments. Then she looked at him. “Yes?”

“The lady is called Mma Baleseng, I believe, and she lives over at…”

There was a sudden intake of breath by Mma Botumile. “Baleseng?”

“Yes,” he said. “If you look at this photograph you will see her. That is her house. And that person there, whom you cannot see properly because of the tree, that is your husband going up the steps. Those are his legs.”

Mma Botumile peered at the photograph. “That is her,” she hissed. “That is her.”

“Do you know her?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

Mma Botumile looked up from the photograph and addressed him with fury. “Do I know her? You’re asking me—do I know her?” She flung the photograph down on the table. “Of course I know her. Her husband works with my husband. They do not like one another very much, but they are colleagues. And now she is carrying on with my husband. Can you believe that, Rra?”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni clasped his hands together. He wished that he had spoken to Mma Ramotswe about the proper way to convey information of this nature; was one expected to sympathise? Should one try to comfort the client? He thought that it would be difficult to comfort somebody like Mma Botumile, but wondered if he should perhaps try.

“I never thought that he would be carrying on with her,” Mma Botumile spat out. “She’s a very ugly woman, that one. Very ugly.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wanted to say, But she can’t help that surely, but he did not.

“Maybe…,” he began, but did not finish. Mma Botumile had risen to her feet and was peering down the driveway.

“Oh yes,” she said. “This is very well timed. This is my husband coming back now.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni began to stand up, but was pushed back into his seat by Mma Botumile. “You stay,” she said. “I might need you.”

“Are you going to…,” he began to ask.