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Chapters (25)
  1. Cover Page
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  24. BOOKS BY ALEXANDER MC CALL SMITH
  25. COPYRIGHT

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stood at the edge of the square, looking over the traders’ stalls, deep in thought. Then he asked himself a question which, although easily posed, was rather more difficult to answer: How does a husband become more exciting?

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

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AN ACCOUNT OF A PUZZLING CONVERSATION

THAT EVENING, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made his way to the address which Mma Botumile had given him as they had sat on the verandah of the President Hotel; sat tealess, in his case, because she had so selfishly dismissed the waitress. It was a modest office block, three storeys high, on Kudumatse Drive, flanked on either side by equally undistinguished buildings, a furniture warehouse and a workshop that repaired electric fans. He parked his truck on the opposite side of the road, in a position where he could see the front entrance to the offices, but sufficiently far away so as not to look suspicious to anybody who should emerge from the building. He was just a man in a truck; the sort of man, and the sort of truck, one saw all the time on the roads of Gaborone; quite unexceptional. Most of those men, and trucks, were busy going somewhere, but occasionally they stopped, as this man had done, and waited for something or other to happen. It was not an unusual sight.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked at his watch. It was now almost five o’clock, the time when, according to Mma Botumile, her husband invariably left the office. He was a creature of habit, she said, even if some of these habits had become bad ones. If Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni were to wait outside the office, he would see him coming out and getting into his large red car, which would be parked by the side of the building. There was no need to give a detailed description of him, she said, as he could be identified by his car.

“What make of car is it?” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had asked politely. He would never describe a car simply by its colour, and it astonished him that people did this. He had noticed Mma Makutsi doing it, and even Mma Ramotswe, who should have known better, described cars in terms of their colour, without making any reference to make or engine capacity.

Mma Botumile had looked at him almost with pity. “How do you expect me to know that?” she said. “You’re the mechanic.”