‘That doesn’t matter. We all have to do things we don’t like. You had to be polite to that aunt of Phuti’s. You did it. You put up with her.’

‘That snake, Mma, it did us a big favour. Maybe it knew all about difficult aunts. Maybe it had a very nasty snake aunt who was always hissing.’

Mma Ramotswe laughed. ‘Yes, maybe.’ She became serious again. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it, Mma, that a person can feel so ashamed of something that they can never talk about it. That woman on the farm – the mother – she has spent her life being frightened that her secret will be found out. That cannot be easy.’

‘She is frightened more for the boy than for herself, I think,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘But it is equally sad.’

‘That is why I am pleased that they will get the farm. He will be a good farmer and she will be there watching him look after his father’s place. That is a good result, Mma.’

‘And Mma Sheba?’ asked Mma Makutsi.

‘She has enough money, I think – she does not need more. And she has her sadness, too, like the rest of us.’

‘Because Rra Edgar is late?’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘She has lost him. But she does not need his farm to be able to remember him. She does not need that.’

And now they had to tell Mma Soleti that they had identified the person who was waging the campaign against her: Violet Sephotho. Mma Makutsi was looking forward to this and to the subsequent denunciation – to Violet’s face – that she had been taking great pleasure in planning. Mma Ramotswe was more hesitant. She was prepared to be firm when firmness was required, but she did not like confrontation if she could possibly avoid it.

They left the office with Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti sound asleep in the small baby-seat that Phuti had bought and that strapped neatly into the passenger seat of the tiny white van, with Mma Makutsi herself travelling in the back. When they arrived, the infant was removed from the seat and tied firmly into a traditional African baby sling on his mother’s back. Some mothers, Mma Ramotswe had noticed, were beginning to use front slings, but this seemed to her to be all wrong. Babies had always been carried on their mothers’ backs in Africa, and it would be very confusing for everybody if they were to be carried in the front. What if the mother fell? She would fall on top of the baby. What if she were hit by one of those thorny branches while walking along a path through the bush? The baby would feel the thorns first. There were many arguments for the traditional approach, and she was pleased that she did not have to raise any of them with Mma Makutsi.