‘I am sure that woman is very good, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. She wanted to rise from her chair and embrace her assistant. She wanted to say to her: We are back again in the team that has always worked so well. She wanted to say to her: You were only away for a very short time, Mma, but I’ve missed you so much; I’ve missed your odd remarks; I’ve missed your talking shoes; I’ve missed your going on and on about the Botswana Secretarial College; I’ve missed everything, Mma, everything. But she did not – she simply said what she said and smiled. For once again she sensed that our heart is not always able to say what it wants to say and frequently has to content itself with less.

The extraction of the tiny white van, now spattered brown with mud, was arranged by Mma Makutsi, who telephoned one of Phuti’s men. He came round with a four-wheel-drive truck that pulled the van out of the mud with ease while the two women shouted encouragement from the veranda. After that, Mma Ramotswe decided not to go back to the office. She had left the Back Sometime notice on the door – the notice that she displayed when there was a chance that she might return that day but when there was also a chance that she would decide to do something impulsive. That often turned out to be a drive out to Mochudi, for no reason other than a desire to get back to the village where she had been brought up and which was, in a sense, her real home.

But it was not the prospect of a drive to Mochudi that made her choose not to go back to the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency that afternoon; rather, it was a sense of excitement and anticipation, a feeling bordering on joy, about Mma Makutsi’s return to work. Admittedly there was an aspect of this return that gave cause for concern – the bringing of Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti into the office might prove to be awkward – but any difficulties would no doubt be sorted out. People took babies everywhere, and babies seemed to be happy enough with such arrangements. And Mma Makutsi, surely, would be reasonably flexible if the baby proved to be too much of a distraction in the office. The important thing was that she would be around for at least a couple of hours each day, and that would make all the difference.