It worried her that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni should find his work repetitive. Everybody’s work was repetitive, if one thought about it; even in a business such as the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency there was a certain sameness to the enquiries that she and Mma Makutsi undertook. Was so-and-so being unfaithful? Was some dispatch clerk making up bogus orders and then claiming that the invoices were lost? Were somebody’s impressive work record and testimonials entirely false? The same things arose time and time again, even if there were features of some cases that made them particularly amusing. That testimonial, for example, that she had been asked to check a few months ago where the writing was almost illegible and where the final sentence said, I have never heard this person use strong language, even to himself. Did anybody seriously imagine that real testimonials said things like that? Obviously somebody did think that. What might she write—in that style—of Mma Makutsi, if she had to write her a testimonial? She divides the office doughnuts with complete impartiality. That would be a good recommendation, she thought; how a person divided a shared doughnut was a real test of integrity. A good person would cut the doughnut into two equal pieces. A shifty, selfish person would divide it into two pieces, but one would be bigger than the other and he would take that one himself. She had seen that happen.

No, every job had its repetitive side and most people, surely, recognised that. She glanced again at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She knew that many men of his age started to feel trapped and began to wonder if this was all that life offered. It was understandable; anyone might feel that, not just men, although they might feel it particularly acutely, as they felt themselves weaken and began to realise that they were no longer young. Women were better at coming to terms with that, thought Mma Ramotswe, as long as they were not the worrying sort. If one was of traditional build and not given to fretting…If one drank plenty of bush tea…

“You know,” she said to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, “all of us have things that are the same in our jobs. Even in the sort of work I do, the same sort of thing happens quite a lot. I don’t think there is anything much that you can do.”

It was not like Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to argue, but now, if there was a stubborn streak in his character, it showed. “No,” he said. “I think there is something that you can do. You can try something different.”