It was strange that the girl should come into her mind, the memory triggered by no more than looking up at the sky. But that, she told herself, was how memory worked; one would see something and then it would make one think of one thing and then of another; snatches of conversation would come back, images of things one had seen, memories that one thought one had forgotten, but that had been filed away in the back of the head, in those recesses where such things are tucked away. Clovis Andersen and his Principles of Private Detection … When had she first seen that book? Right at the beginning of her life as a private detective; and she had held it in her hand and opened it at the title page with all the excitement that you feel when opening a new book and there are the words on the page, ready for you, as if the author himself is standing in front of you, clearing his throat, ready to engage you in conversation. And she had seen the name Clovis Andersen little thinking that years later, after so much had happened, she would be meeting the very man, that he would address her as Mma Ramotswe; that she would, for a short time, have the attention of the world’s greatest authority on private detection … Such a miracle, such an extraordinary development … such a privilege.

“Mma Ramotswe?”

She gave a start, and turned in her seat to see Clovis Andersen standing behind her. He was dressed in rather baggy khaki trousers with an olive-green shirt on to which far too many pockets had been stitched—the sort of outfit that people thought was standard dress for Botswana but was really only worn by visitors. It was a practical enough outfit, she supposed, but she wondered what people could possibly do with so many pockets. Did they imagine that one needed to carry penknives and compasses and the like, even when going to Mochudi?

“This is a very fine view you get from here,” said Clovis Andersen as he sat down.

Mma Ramotswe glanced at the square and remembered how, long ago, she had once asked the dress-seller down below for information because she knew that such people missed very little of what happened around them. And Clovis Andersen himself had said …

“You see that woman,” said Mma Ramotswe as Clovis Andersen settled himself into his chair. “I asked her for information once. She knows everything, I think. And you say in your book Always ask somebody who knows. That is what you wrote, Rra, and I have always followed that advice.”

Clovis Andersen smiled. “I remember writing that. And I suppose it’s true, isn’t it? If you ask somebody who doesn’t know anything, then you won’t get much of an answer. At least, that’s the way I look at it.”