“Can we not talk here?” asked Phuti. “If you want to talk in private, my wife can go and look at the outside.”

“No, I don’t mind talking to the lady too. But not here.”

THEY LEFT THE SITE and drove a short distance down the road before stopping.

“I’m not surprised by this,” said Mma Makutsi. “Something has been going on. I noticed how strangely he behaved when we saw him at the petrol station. Remember? He pretended not to know you.”

“I thought he was shy,” said Phuti. “There are some people like that. And there’s that business with his being illegal.”

“No, it was more than that. There was something else.”

Phuti drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He looked in the driving mirror. “We’ll soon see,” he said. “He is coming now. He’s walking down the road.”

Phuti got out of the car to greet the builder.

Thomas spoke tersely. “Can I show you something, Rra? Can we go in the car?”

Phuti agreed, and Thomas got into the back seat. Mma Makutsi turned round to smile at him, to set him at his ease. “We can take you wherever you want,” she said brightly. “We are not in a hurry.”

“I’ll show you,” he said. “It isn’t all that far. If you go down to the bottom of this road and turn right it will take us about fifteen minutes.”

They set off in silence. Mma Makutsi exchanged glances with Phuti, and then turned to engage Thomas in conversation.

“We are very happy with the work, Thomas. We are very happy.”

He nodded. “It is a well-built house, Mma. It is very solid.”

She decided to press him. “But you are unhappy about something? Do you want to speak to us about it? We know how difficult it can be for you people, being so far from home. That cannot be easy, Rra.”

He looked at her with his bloodshot eyes; it was the dust, she realised—a building site was not easy on the eyes. “Please do not tell anybody that I have shown you this thing,” he said. “Please do not say it was me.”

“Of course not. We won’t say, will we, Phuti?”

Phuti Radiphuti assured him that he would keep the whole matter confidential—whatever it was. But what was it? Could he tell them now?

“I will show you,” said Thomas simply. “Then you will understand.”

Thomas said nothing else on the brief journey other than to tell them which turning to take. They arrived at a side-road off a residential street, and there, at the end of the road, was another building site.

“We can go in,” Thomas said. “There is nobody working here today, and Mr. Putumelo is up in Francistown this week.”