MMA RAMOTSWE TRAVELLED to Mochudi the next day. She decided to take Mr. Polopetsi with her; there was nothing for him to do in the garage that morning and he had asked Mma Makutsi three times if there was anything that he could help her with in the office. She had tried to think of some task, and failed, and so Mma Ramotswe had invited him to accompany her on the Mochudi trip. She enjoyed his company, and it would be good to have somebody to talk to. Whether he would contribute anything to her enquiries there was another matter; Mr. Polopetsi, she feared, would never distinguish himself in the role of detective, as he tended to jump to conclusions and to act impetuously. But there was something appealing about him that made all that forgivable—an earnestness combined with a slight air of vulnerability that made people, particularly women, want to protect him. Even Mma Makutsi, who was famously short with the two apprentices and who tended to talk to men as if they were children, had been won over by Mr. Polopetsi. “There are many men for whom there does not appear to be any reason,” she once said to Mma Ramotswe. “But I don’t feel that about Mr. Polopetsi. Even when he is standing there, doing nothing, I don’t think that.”

It had been a curious thing to say, but then Mma Makutsi often said things that surprised Mma Ramotswe and she had become used to her pronouncements. But what made this remark particularly unusual was the fact that it was made while Mr. Polopetsi was in the office, busying himself with the making of a pot of tea. Mma Makutsi must have been aware of his coming into the room, but must simply have forgotten his presence after a few moments and addressed Mma Ramotswe without thinking. And there was no doubt in Mma Ramotswe’s mind that Mr. Polopetsi had heard what was said about him, for he stopped stirring the tea for a moment, as if frozen, and then, after a few seconds, began to rattle the spoon about the pot more vigorously than before. Mma Ramotswe had felt acutely embarrassed, but had decided that the remark was hardly unflattering to Mr. Polopetsi, even if he had scurried out of the room, his mug of tea in his hand, studiously avoiding looking at the author of the remark. For Mma Makutsi’s part, she had simply raised an eyebrow when she realised that he had heard her, and shrugged, as if this was merely one of those things that happened in offices.