Now there was the report to compile, and she and Mma Makutsi began to busy themselves with the task of writing it. The matter to be reported was a routine one—the bread-and-butter, or bread-and-gravy as Mma Makutsi put it, of a detective agency: marital infidelity. This case, however, was rather more sensitive than the usual run-of-the-mill investigation, as the client was a prominent politician, Mma Helen Olesitsi, a former government minister in charge of the police. She had developed suspicions about the conduct of her husband, Kholisani, who was a businessman. She was sure that he was having an affair, but had been unable to find out the identity of her rival; could Mma Ramotswe help?

Mma Ramotswe, assisted by Mma Makutsi, had done her best. Long hours had been spent parked outside houses and in the lobbies of hotels; and more than one evening wasted in bars known to be popular with married men on the lookout for a mistress. Mma Ramotswe disapproved of these bars, which, she said, knew exactly what they were doing. One, in particular, was the object of her derision, a bar that called itself The Second Home—a name that she felt was deliberately and cynically inflammatory to women. This bar advertised itself as a place where “those in need of entertainment they cannot find at home will be given a warm welcome.”

“Those words make it very clear, don’t you think, Mma Makutsi?” said Mma Ramotswe, pointing an angry finger at the offending newspaper advertisement. “Why don’t they just come out in the open and say, ‘Married men: you come here to meet other ladies’? That’s what it should say, Mma, if they were being honest.”

Mma Makutsi was in complete agreement. “As a married woman, I can only say that I agree one hundred per cent. Even if I know that Phuti would never go to a place like that, I know that there are many men who are far weaker and will do that. Shame on them, Mma Ramotswe! Shame on them!”

It was not clear to Mma Ramotswe whether the shame should be heaped on the weak married men or on the bar, or on both, but she nodded her head. Their one trip to The Second Home had been an eye-opener, but had not resulted in any information on Mr. Kholisani Olesitsi. They had shown photographs to the barman, who had been perfectly obliging but who had shaken his head. “Never here, Mma Ramotswe. I have never seen this man. Not once. Are you sure that he has been here?”

Mma Makutsi had been doubtful about the truthfulness of this barman. “I think he probably says that about anybody,” she said. “That is why he is the barman in a place like that. He is discreet. If you showed him a photograph of … of the Mayor of Gaborone himself, he would deny knowing who it was.”