Mma Makutsi stared at Mma Ramotswe. ‘You don’t have to thank me, Mma. I’m the one who should thank you. You took me – a nothing girl from Bobonong – and gave me a job. You taught me everything. You showed me how to be… myself.’

‘You were always yourself,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Right from the word go, you were yourself.’

Mma Makutsi shook her head. ‘No, Mma, you showed me. So I should be thanking you.’

‘Well, then,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘You’re thanking me and I’m thanking you. We are both thanking one another.’

‘Good,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘But now, Mma, I think we should stop putting things off. We need to go to see Mma Manchwe.’

Mma Ramotswe thought, I’m not putting things off. But she did not say that. Instead, she said, ‘Yes. Right now. Let’s go, Mma.’

Mma Manchwe was behind her desk when they entered the premises of Clear Image Copies. She greeted them warmly.

‘You’ve looked at my price list?’ she said. ‘What did I tell you? Nobody beats my prices.’

‘Well, we did…’ began Mma Ramotswe.

She was interrupted by Mma Manchwe. ‘So what did you want me to do? I can have documents designed, you know. I have a young man who designs for me.’

Mma Ramotswe reached into her bag and took out the leaflet headed Be warned! ‘I suppose he designed this, did he?’ she asked, handing it to her.

Mma Manchwe took a pair of reading glasses out of her pocket and put them on the end of her nose. ‘What have we here?’ she said, beginning to read. ‘Be warned. Warned about what?’

As she read further down the document, her frown deepened. When she had finished, she handed the piece of paper back to Mma Ramotswe. ‘I most certainly did not design that – or give it to anybody to be designed. That is what I call poison, Mma, and I will have nothing to do with it.’

Mma Ramotswe knew immediately that she was telling the truth. She might not have been able to say why she thought this; it was one of those things one knew in a way that could not be explained. It was something to do with the voice; or to do with the voice and the face combined; or perhaps to do with the eyes.

Mma Makutsi stepped forward. ‘Then why, Mma,’ she began, ‘was it copied on your machine?’

Mma Manchwe looked indignant. ‘On my machine? I did not do that. And anyway, how can you possibly tell?’

Mma Makutsi was ready. ‘This is the way we tell, Mma,’ she said, producing the price list. ‘I take it that you copied your own price list?’

She put the two pieces of paper on the table and pointed out the telltale mark. While Mma Manchwe studied it sullenly, Mma Ramotswe made a suggestion.