The cattle by the roadside were not in particularly good condition, Mma Ramotswe thought. There was little grazing for them at this time of the year, with the rains a few months away and such grass as there was dry and brittle. The cattle would find something, of course, leaves, bits and pieces of vegetation that would provide some sustenance; but these beasts looked defeated and listless. They would not have a good owner, Mma Ramotswe concluded as she continued on her journey. To start with, they should not be out on the verge like that. Not only was that a risk to the cattle themselves, but it was a terrible danger to anybody driving on the road at night. Some cattle were the colour of night and seemed to merge perfectly into the darkness; a driver coming round a corner or surmounting a hump in the road might suddenly find himself face-to-face with one of these cattle and be unable to stop in time. If that happened, then those in the car could be impaled on the horns of the cow as it was hurled through the windscreen—that had happened, and often. Mma Ramotswe shuddered, and concentrated on the winding strip of tar ahead. Cattle, goats, children, other drivers—there were so many perils on the road.

By the time she arrived in Mochudi, her dawdling on the road had made her late. She looked at her watch. It was twelve o’clock and she had arranged to meet the doctor at a restaurant on the edge of the town fifteen minutes earlier; he had to have an early lunch, he explained, as he would be on duty at the hospital at two. She wondered if he would wait; she had telephoned him out of the blue and asked to see him—there were many who would decline an invitation of that sort, but he had agreed without any probing into what her business with him might be. All she had said was that she was a friend of Tati Monyena; that, it seemed, was enough.

Mochudi had a number of restaurants, most of them very small affairs, one small room at the most, or a rickety bench outside a lean-to shack serving braised maize cobs and plates of pap; simple fare, but filling and delicious. Then there were the liquor restaurants, which were larger and noisier. Some of these stayed one step ahead of the police and the tribal authorities, and were regularly being closed down for the disturbance they created and their cavalier attitude to licencing hours. Mma Ramotswe did not like these, with their dark interiors and their groups of drinkers engaged in endless and heated debates over their bottles of beer; that was not for her.