Mma Ramotswe shrugged. ‘Any lawyer, Mma. There are plenty of them. And anyway, people who tell other people about their lawyers rarely have a lawyer. Just mentioning a lawyer is usually enough, even if you don’t have one, which we don’t.’

‘Mma Sheba?’

Mma Ramotswe had not thought of her. It was useful to have a name of a lawyer, even if the lawyer had not agreed to act for you. ‘A very good idea, Mma,’ she said. ‘Now we have a lawyer.’

The premises of Clear Image Copies were sandwiched between a takeaway food place and a shop selling fashionable men’s shoes. Mma Makutsi stopped outside the men’s shoe shop; she had never been able to walk past a shoe shop without pausing to admire the display, and Mma Ramotswe waited patiently as her assistant examined the offerings in the window.

‘Shoes are wasted on men,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘They don’t appreciate them, Mma.’

Mma Ramotswe made a non-committal sound. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni possessed two pairs of shoes: one was his working pair, made of ancient suede and covered in grease to the extent that their original colour could not be discerned, and the other was a black leather pair that he donned on those occasions when he wore his one and only suit. ‘I do not need more shoes than that,’ he said to Mma Ramotswe. ‘I have only got one pair of feet.’

‘Those shoes over there,’ said Mma Makutsi, pointing to a pair of white shoes with narrow, pointed toes. ‘Those are very good shoes, Mma – very fashionable, I think – but there would be no point my buying those for Phuti. No point at all. He would not appreciate them. Men never do.’ She paused. ‘And he has that problem with his foot after that accident. He can’t use any old shoes.’

She reluctantly tore herself away from the shoe shop window and joined Mma Ramotswe, who was now standing outside the door of Clear Image Copies. It was not a large store, and much of the space within was occupied by a photocopying machine that was in action when they arrived, spitting out paper into a receiving tray at the side. Operating this machine was a woman in a red dress, who looked out through the shop window when Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi appeared. She nodded to the two women, and then continued with her task of duplication.

Mma Ramotswe entered first.

‘One moment, Mma,’ the woman said. ‘One moment and I will be finished.’

The machine cast a leaked band of light across the wall with each pass. Mma Ramotswe noticed how the light caught Mma Makutsi’s glasses and was reflected for a second time. Their eyes met briefly and she thought: she has decided; her mind is made up.