Mma Makutsi looked with concern at her employer’s feet. ‘It is good for the face,’ she said. ‘I have not heard it is good for the feet.’ She frowned. ‘But there are different views, Mma. There are always different views on these things.’

She invited Mma Ramotswe to sit on the parapet of the veranda while she went to collect a basin for her to wash her feet. When she returned, she was carrying a small towel, a bar of soap and a plastic basin filled with warm water.

‘Let me wash them, Mma,’ she said. ‘You sit there, I’ll wash your feet for you.’

Mma Ramotswe felt the warm embrace of the water and the slippery caress of the soap. The intimacy of the situation impressed itself upon her; that an old friend – and that was how she looked at Mma Makutsi – should do this for you was strangely moving. Washing the feet of another, she thought. She tried to remember whether any other friend had done this for her. She thought not; and she had not done it for another. People were used to doing these things for children – washing them, changing them, tending to their physicals needs – but one so easily forgot what it was to do this for another adult, or to have it done for you.

Over a cup of tea, Mma Ramotswe told Mma Makutsi what she had learned from the will. Mma Makutsi listened gravely, interrupting her guest only to fetch the baby, who had awoken from a sleep. The rest of the story was heard with Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti clasped to his mother’s breast. Mma Ramotswe looked at the little head – so perfect, so untroubled by the world, so tiny. It was for this, exactly this, that people sought advantage over others, denied themselves, risked everything, and would, if pressed, even give their lives.

The baby finished his feed. ‘So,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘You know what I think, Mma?’

Mma Ramotswe said that she would very much like to find out. ‘I have some ideas, Mma, but if you tell me yours, I shall have some more, I think.’

Mma Makutsi smiled. ‘It is as if we were in the office,’ she said.

Mma Ramotswe tried not to look sad. ‘Yes.’

‘The lawyer is using you,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘She does not want to find out the truth about that young man on the farm.’

‘That is what I thought,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

‘She is determined that he will not inherit the farm.’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘I think you are right.’

Mma Makutsi was silent for a few moments. ‘The aunt knows about her brother’s affair with the lawyer and does not approve.’

Mma Ramotswe was surprised that Mma Makutsi had drawn the same conclusion as she had. ‘I thought exactly that, Mma,’ she said. ‘There is no evidence that they were having an affair, but I thought that.’