She looked about her. She had worked as a detective for some years now, and in that time she had done her best for her clients. She liked to think that she had made a difference to the lives of at least some people and helped them to deal with problems that had become too burdensome for them to handle on their own. Now, however, surveying the shabby little office, she wondered whether she really had achieved very much. It was a rare moment of gloom, and it was at this point that she realised she was doing something that she very seldom did. She supported many people in their tears – for tears could so easily come to those who were recounting their troubles – but there were few occasions on which she herself cried. If you are there to staunch the tears of the world, then it does not cross your mind that you yourself may weep. But now she did, not copiously but discreetly and inconsequentially, and barely noticeably – except to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, who chose that moment to come into the room, wiping the grease off his hands, ready with a remark about what he had just discovered under the latest unfortunate car.

For a moment he stood quite still. Then, letting the lint fall from his hands, he swiftly crossed the room and put his arm about his wife’s shoulder, lowering his head so that they were cheek to cheek and she could feel the stubble on his chin and the warmth of his breath.

‘My Precious, my Precious.’

She reached up and took his hand. There was still a smear on it – some vital fluid of the injured car to which he had been attending – but she paid no attention to that.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘There is really no reason for me to cry. I am being silly.’

‘You are not silly, Mma. You are never silly. What is it?’

With her free hand she took the handkerchief from where it was tucked into the front of her dress. She blew her nose, and with some determination too. After all, the blowing of a nose can be the punctuation that brings such moments to an end.

‘I am much better now,’ she said. ‘I have been sitting and thinking when I should be working. And without Mma Makutsi to talk to, well, you know how hard it can be to sit with the problems of other people.’

He knew, or thought he knew. Yes, he knew how she felt. ‘Just like cars,’ he said. ‘You sit and look at a car and you think of all its problems, and it can get you down.’

‘Yes, I’m sure it can.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’ll be all right, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. Mma Makutsi will come back and everything will be the same again.’