Again, Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile. Phuti Radiphuti was just like Mma Makutsi, really: they both had a tendency to make odd, sometimes rather obvious, remarks. Married couples often reinforced one’s another’s quirks, she thought. Of course anybody who worked in the Bank of Botswana would have something to do with money. That, she thought, went with the job, although, to be fair to Phuti, there would be people there who were in charge of personnel, or the staff café, or some such thing, and they might be described as people who had nothing to do with money.

‘And your son, Rra?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘Have you seen him yet? Have you held him?’

Phuti’s eyes glowed with pride as he answered. ‘I saw him. He was in a special room for babies. There were a lot of cots and the babies were in those.’

‘Very good,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘They look after babies very well there.’

‘Many of the babies were crying,’ Phuti continued. ‘But my son was not one of them. He was behaving very well.’

Mma Ramotswe reached out to pat Phuti on the shoulder. ‘He will be a very well-behaved boy, Rra. He is starting as he intends to carry on.’

Phuti seemed pleased with the compliment, but then he frowned. ‘My aunt…’

‘Ah.’ Mma Ramotswe knew all about Phuti’s aunt, whom she had met on more than one occasion. This was the aunt with the reputation for jealousy and interference, the owner of that unattractive brown car with its mean-spirited windows, the aunt who had tried to come between Phuti and Mma Makutsi.

‘My aunt came round to the hospital. I don’t know how she knew that Grace had been taken there, but she was there half an hour after we arrived. I think she has many spies throughout the town and one of them must have phoned her and told her.’

Mma Ramotswe summoned up as much sympathy as she could manage. ‘I suppose she was very proud of you, Rra. I think it is always nice for an aunt when her nephew’s wife has a baby. That can be a very big thing for an aunt.’

Phuti understood this. ‘I am not saying that she should not have been there, but I do not agree with what she said. She said that Grace should go with her to her house and stay there for a month or two before they came back to my place. She said that is the traditional way and my father would have wanted it.’