For the first time in the course of their meeting, Mma Botumile smiled. “It’s easier to talk to another woman about these matters,” she said. “But since your Mma Ramotswe is so busy, I suppose that I shall have to talk to you, Rra.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni waited.

Mma Botumile lowered her voice. “Men make certain demands of ladies,” she said. “And if they stop, then it’s a very good sign. Any woman knows that.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni caught his breath.

There was a glint of amusement in Mma Botumile’s eye. “Yes,” she said. “That is always a sign that the man has another friend.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni did not know what to say. He looked down at the table, and then at the floor. Somebody had spilled some sugar from the table, a small line of white grains, and he noticed that a troop of ants, marshalled with military precision, had arrived to carry them off, minuscule porters staggering under the weight of their trophies.

“So that is what you need to find out, Rra,” said Mma Botumile, signalling to the waitress to bring her bill. “You will have to follow him and find out who this lady is. I can give you no help about that—that is why I have asked you. That is why you are being paid two hundred pula an hour.”

“I’m not,” muttered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

HE LEFT THE PRESIDENT HOTEL uncertain what to do and unsure, he now realised, whether he wanted to carry out this investigation at all. The meeting with Mma Botumile had not been a satisfactory one. She had given him no guidance as to where he might start looking for her husband’s girlfriend, and the only suggestion that she had made was that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni might follow him after work one day and see where he went. “He certainly doesn’t come home straightaway,” she said. “He says that he’s seeing clients, but I don’t believe that, do you?” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni muttered something which could have been yes or equally could have been no. He did not like being expected to take sides like this, and yet, he told himself, this is what must be expected of people like private detectives, or lawyers, for that matter. People paid them to take their side, and this meant that you had to believe in what the client wanted. The thought made him feel very uncomfortable. What if you were to be hired by somebody whom you could not bear, or if you found out that the person who had engaged you was lying? Would you have to pretend that you believed the lies—which would be impossible, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni—or could you tell them that you would have no truck with their falsehoods?