Mma Soleti was watching her, a look of disappointment on her face. Noticing this, Mma Ramotswe understood that she would have to say something.

‘You may be wondering what to do, Mma,’ she said.

‘I was. Yes.’

Mma Ramotswe nodded her head. ‘At the moment, nothing,’ she said. ‘There are some situations where it is best to wait and watch.’

‘Is this one of those?’ asked Mma Soleti.

‘Yes,’ answered Mma Ramotswe. ‘This is one of those cases where doing nothing is doing something, if you see what I mean, Mma.’

Mma Soleti hesitated, but then she said, ‘If that’s what you say, Mma.’

‘It is,’ said Mma Ramotswe.

Chapter Six

That is My Baby, Mma

Later that day Mma Ramotswe received word from Phuti Radiphuti that Mma Makutsi had returned home from hospital, and was back on her feet and looking forward to a visit in the afternoon. She sent a message back saying that she was very happy to hear all this and that she would be at the Radiphuti house shortly after four. She said that she would not stay long, as she knew how tired people could be after childbirth, and that it would not be necessary even to make so much as a cup of tea for her.

The hours before four dragged. Without Mma Makutsi, the office was a disturbingly quiet place, and although Mma Ramotswe had a number of reports to write, she found that she could not settle to the task. Shortly before three, she rose from her desk, put aside a barely begun report, and made her way into the garage workshop next door.

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, her husband and by all accounts the finest mechanic in Botswana, was busy attempting to instruct his two assistants, Charlie and Fanwell, on an obscure point of engine tuning. They had broken off from their technical discussion and turned to an issue that Mma Ramotswe believed was causing a degree of friction – how they should be referred to at work. They had both been taken on as Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s apprentices, but Fanwell had now qualified and so had to be addressed as an assistant mechanic. Charlie had failed his examinations, several times, and seemed doomed to perpetual apprentice-status, but did not like to be described as such.

‘I know as much as Fanwell,’ he protested, ‘and you do not call him an apprentice. So why should I be called that?’

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni tried to explain that there were formalities in life that had to be completed, and examinations were just such formalities. ‘Take Mma Makutsi, for instance,’ he said. ‘She did not get her job just like that – she had to write exams and get her ninety-seven per cent, or whatever it was.’

Charlie sniggered. ‘Ninety-seven per cent of nothing is nothing, boss. Or it used to be.’