Mma Ramotswe said that no business could survive a whispering campaign. At the back of her mind was a precise example, but what was it? It took a moment or two, but then she remembered. ‘That restaurant,’ she said. ‘The one that everybody used to say was so good. The one that had that very traditionally built chef.’

Mma Soleti looked confused. ‘What has this got to do with restaurants, Mma?’

‘I was thinking of another business that had this problem, Mma. It was a restaurant out on the road to Molepolole. Somebody said that they were serving dogs as beef. They said they were going out at night and catching people’s dogs. The next day the dogs would be on the menu, but not as dogs, of course. Now they were cattle.’

Mma Soleti’s eyes widened. ‘That is a very wicked thing to do,’ she said. ‘I’m glad that I never went to that place.’

Mma Ramotswe found it hard not to laugh. ‘Hold on, Mma,’ she said. ‘You’ve fallen into the same trap as everybody else. You believed a rumour.’

‘But you said —’

‘No, Mma, I said that those poor people whose business collapsed were the victims of a made-up story.’

Mma Soleti wrinkled her nose. ‘I would not like to eat dog,’ she said.

‘Some people like it,’ observed Mma Ramotswe. ‘I would not like to eat dog either, but then you know, some people do.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘Dogs are meant to be our friends, and you shouldn’t eat your friends.’

‘As a general rule, you should not,’ said Mma Ramotswe. She sensed that the conversation was drifting – just as it sometimes did when she was in discussion with Mma Makutsi, who might suddenly start talking about what happened in Bobonong or at the Botswana Secretarial College, or something of that sort, while all the time you were hoping to talk about the matter in hand.

‘What have they been saying about your salon, Mma?’

The question brought pain. ‘It is very unkind,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘And it’s untrue too. They say that I put the wrong cream on somebody and her face came off – actually peeled right off. That is what they have all been saying.’ She waited for the enormity of the defamation to sink in before she continued. ‘Your face can’t peel off, Mma. It isn’t possible. People who know about faces will know that.’

Instinctively, Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to her cheek as if to reassure herself that it was still there. There would be a lot to peel off in her case, not that there was any danger of that ever happening – if Mma Soleti were to be believed.