By the time she reached Zebra Drive it was four o’clock, and doubt had replaced the certainty of earlier. An hour later, she no longer knew what to think. She took a pumpkin out of the store cupboard and began to prepare it by splitting it with the heaviest of her kitchen knives. Pumpkin was something uncomplicated, something completely certain, and cooking a pumpkin, she felt, was a good thing to do when you did not know quite where you were.

Chapter Nine

All Men Can Benefit

There had been periods – sometimes rather long ones – in Mma Ramotswe’s life, as in the lives of most of us, when nothing very much had happened. There had, for instance, been the period shortly after the foundation of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency when there had been a marked paucity of clients – there had been none, in fact – and she and Mma Makutsi had spent long days trying to find tasks to do without giving the appearance of having no real work. It had been easier, perhaps, for Mma Makutsi, as she had been able first to invent and then to refine an elaborate filing system that, she claimed, catered for all possible eventualities. Thus there was an entry in this system entitled MEN, which at one level below was subdivided into FAITHFUL MEN and UNFAITHFUL MEN. Matters relating to men could also be filed under such disparate headings as: DISHONEST MEN, GENERAL MEN and UNKNOWN MEN. Then there were files for CLIENTS WHO HAVE NOT PAID THEIR BILL – rather a larger file than Mma Ramotswe would have liked – and for CLIENTS WHO MIGHT NOT PAY THEIR BILL. The judgement on whether or not a client was likely to pay the bill was one made entirely by Mma Makutsi – on criteria that Mma Ramotswe had tried unsuccessfully to get her to clarify.

‘It is not only done on the way they look,’ said Mma Makutsi, in answer to Mma Ramotswe’s enquiry.

‘I’m glad to hear that, Mma,’ Mma Ramotswe said.

But then Mma Makutsi went on firmly, ‘Although that is a very important factor. You see, dishonest people look dishonest, Mma. There is never any question about that.’

‘Well,’ said Mma Ramotswe, ‘I’m not at all —’

‘I never have any difficulty,’ Mma Makutsi cut in. ‘There are many ways of telling, Mma. There is the way their eyes look, for instance – if they are too close together.’

Mma Ramotswe frowned. ‘I don’t think so, Mma. There are many —’ She was not allowed to finish.

‘Oh, make no mistake about it, Mma. If the eyes are close together, that person is going to be trouble. I’ve always said that, Mma. And the same goes for those whose eyes are too far apart – the same thing there. They will be up to no good.’