“Lions?” The man chuckled. “There are no lions here, Mma. You ask my donkeys—if they get a smell of a lion, even if the lion is far, far away, they run. No, there are no lions any more—not here. A day’s walk over that way—over towards the Kalahari, yes, you get one or two lions. But not here.”

“A day or two’s walk for us, or for a lion?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe made light of the question. “It doesn’t matter, Mma. He says there are no lions.”

“For us,” said the man, turning to Mma Makutsi. “For a lion, two hours, maybe. Lions are very fast runners. Have you seen them running, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. She had never seen a lion doing anything, not ever having come across one, but somehow she felt she knew how they ran.

“I know how they go,” she said. “They lie down on their stomachs and creep along.”

The man frowned. “No, that is only when they are stalking their prey, Mma. And that is a lioness. If you are walking through the bush, say, and a lioness sees you and decides that she will eat you, then she goes down like this and she walks on bended legs. That is so that her head doesn’t stick up over the top of the grass. It means that nobody can see her. That is what lions like.” He paused, and gestured to the bush that stretched out behind the van. “Over there, you see, that is a good place for a lioness to creep. Those little bushes would cover her and we wouldn’t know that she was there, while all the time she’s getting closer, closer.”

He turned back to face Mma Ramotswe. “You said you were here to see Mma Potokwane, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “That is so, Rra. She is our old friend, and she has her lands along there.”

“Oh, I know that,” said the man. “She is my old friend too. In fact, she is the cousin of my brother’s cousin, by a different mother. I have known her all my life.”

“Is she here, Rra?” asked Mma Makutsi.

The man pointed down the track. “Yes, she is here. She came out yesterday. Nobody had been expecting her, but there she was. There is something wrong, I think, but she won’t speak to the other ladies about it. My wife has asked her, and she says that everything is all right. But it isn’t.”

“No, Rra, you’re right,” Mma Ramotswe. “There is something very wrong. It’s to do with her work.”