“We couldn’t lie to him,” she said. “He had heard a bit of what was said and so we just had to tell him everything. He’s got a no-good lawyer, you see, and Charlie said that …”

She narrated the story of Charlie’s friend, of his inadequate defence, and of the unfortunate consequences that followed. Phuti Radiphuti listened gravely. “They should get another lawyer,” he said. “Surely there are better people around. That man with the big nose—you know the one—they say that he’s very good. The judges can’t take their eyes off his nose, and so they always decide in his favour.”

Mma Makutsi wondered why a large nose should be an advantage in a lawyer, and decided that perhaps it had something to do with authority. Was it more difficult to argue with a large-nosed person? She had not considered the question before, but now it occurred to her that perhaps it was. But it was too late now to look for a lawyer with a more convincing nose, even if one were to be found. Money, she explained, had already been paid to the inadequate lawyer, and Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who were footing the bill for Fanwell’s defence, could not afford to pay a second time.

“How did he take it?” asked Phuti.

“He was very worried,” she replied. “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni tried to tell him that it would be all right; that he would speak to the lawyer and make sure that he handled it properly.”

“And was Fanwell reassured?”

“No.”

Phuti Radiphuti shook his head sadly. “It is a very sad business. And if they send him to prison, you can imagine the men he will mix with there. He is just a young man, and they will corrupt him with their bad talk and their bad stories. It is very worrying.”

They looked at one another despairingly, but they had work to do that lunch time, and life, as Phuti Radiphuti pointed out, had to go on. “There are many sad things,” he said. “They are all around us, but we have to get on with our lives, don’t we? And that means that we must get on with choosing those things, Grace.”

Mma Makutsi agreed. The rapid progress with their new house meant that in a couple of months they would have to furnish it. At present Phuti had no furniture of his own, as the house they were occupying, which belonged to the wider Radiphuti family, was filled with family furniture: chairs that had been left in the house by various aunts, tables that had belonged to grandmothers and were now of uncertain ownership, beds that belonged to nobody in particular but had simply always been there.