“No time,” said Mma Botumile. “This is business, remember. I am paying for your time, I take it. Two hundred pula an hour, or something like that?”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni did not know what to say. There would be a fee, of course, but he had not thought about what it would be. He was accustomed to charging for mechanical work and he imagined that each case would have its mechanical equivalent. Finding out about an errant husband would be the equivalent perhaps of a full service, with oil change and attention to brakes. A more complex enquiry might be charged at the same rate as the replacement of a timing chain. He had not worked any of this out, but he would certainly not be charging two hundred pula an hour to sit and talk on the verandah of the President Hotel.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was a tolerant man, not given to animosity of any sort, but as he gazed at Mma Botumile he found himself developing a strong dislike for her. But he knew too that this was dangerous; he knew that as a professional person he should keep personal feelings strictly out of the picture. He had heard Mma Ramotswe talk about this before, and he had agreed with her. One simply could not allow one’s feelings to get in the way of one’s judgement. It was exactly the same with cars: emotion should not come into decisions about a car’s future, no matter what the bonds between the car and the owner. But then there was Mma Ramotswe’s tiny white van; if ever there were a case for not allowing emotion to cloud one’s view of a vehicle, then that was it. He had nursed and cajoled that vehicle when good sense suggested that it should be replaced by something more modern, but Mma Ramotswe would have none of that. “I cannot see myself in a new car,” she said. “I am a tiny white van person. That is what I want.”

He lowered his gaze; Mma Botumile was staring back at him and he felt uncomfortable. “You must tell me about your husband,” he said. “I must know the sort of things that he likes to do.”

Mma Botumile settled back in her chair. “My husband is not a very strong man,” she said. “He is one of those men who does not really know what he wants. I can tell, of course, what he wants, but he cannot.” She looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as if expecting a challenge to this, but when none came she continued. “We have been married for twenty years now, which is a long time. We met when we were both students at the University of Botswana. I am a B.Com., you see. He is an accountant with a mining company.