THEY TOLD MMA POTOKWANE about what they had discovered. She listened carefully, then rushed forward and threw her arms around an astonished Clovis Andersen. “Oh, thank you, Rra! Thank you, thank you!” If, over the last few days, there had been signs of depression in her demeanour, these now disappeared with extraordinary rapidity.

Clovis Andersen extracted himself from the embrace. “It wasn’t me, Mma. You should thank Mma Ramotswe. She found this out.”

“You did,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It was your idea.”

He refused to accept the credit. “No, Mma, it was you.”

“Does it matter?” said Mma Potokwane. “Maybe it was the two of you.”

“It was definitely her,” said Clovis Andersen, pointing at Mma Ramotswe. “It was not me.”

They returned to Mma Potokwane’s office, where tea was poured and accompanied by liberal slices of fruit cake. Then Mma Ramotswe and Clovis Andersen travelled back to the agency.

“Paper,” said Clovis Andersen as they turned on to the Tlokweng Road. “You’d be surprised, Mma Ramotswe, by how often people leave a paper trail. It’s the undoing of so many malefactors—so many.”

Mma Ramotswe repeated the word malefactors. “That is a very interesting word, Rra. We do not use it very much here in Botswana. What exactly does it mean?”

Clovis Andersen explained. “It means people who do wrong—any sort of wrong.”

Mma Ramotswe repeated the word several times. “It is a good word,” she said. “I shall use it more often. Malefactors. Malefactors. There are many malefactors.”

“There are,” agreed Clovis Andersen.

“Are there many malefactors in Munchie?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“Muncie. No, no more than anywhere else. In fact, maybe fewer. Muncie, Indiana, is not a bad place.”

“Like Gaborone?”

He smiled. “Yes, a bit like Gaborone. The human heart, you see, Mma Ramotswe, is pretty much the same wherever one goes.”

She nodded her agreement. “Yes, Rra, that is certainly true. All human hearts are the same, no matter how different we are on the outside.”

They travelled in silence for a short while. Then Clovis Andersen turned to Mma Ramotswe and said, “What now, Mma?”

“I have an idea,” she said. “I have an idea why Mr. Ditso gave the contract to that firm.”

“And why is that?”

She smiled. “Would you mind, Rra, if I didn’t tell you just yet? I think I’m right, but I’m not absolutely certain.”

“Not one hundred per cent certain?”

“No, not one hundred per cent. More like … more like ninety-seven per cent, I think.”

Clovis Andersen frowned. “Where have I heard that figure before? Where has ninety-seven per cent cropped up before?”

“It is just a guess, Rra. Ninety-seven per cent is a figure that I have also heard before. So it just came into my mind.”