Mr J. L. B. Matekoni thought this was true. He enquired where the course was held, and Mma Potokwani explained that she believed it was held in the evening in one of the buildings at the university. ‘I’m sure they will find you a place, Rra,’ she said. ‘I have heard that they turn nobody away, not even the most unpromising men. All men can benefit, Rra.’

He went over those words in his mind. All men can benefit. It would make a wonderful slogan for anything – even for a beer advertisement. But he stopped this train of thought, as he suspected that modern husbands did not allow themselves to think such things, at least not in public.

Chapter Ten

Not a Lady With Many Enemies

If Mma Ramotswe had felt at all defeated – and she had, after all, found herself in tears at her desk – then that feeling was a temporary one. It was not in her nature to be morose or to engage in self-pity; she saw these things in others and was always sympathetic to those who felt that the world was in some respect too much for them, but was herself rarely in anything but an equable state of mind. So while the sight of her in a momentary low state was enough to trigger alarm in Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe was, within a matter of minutes, back to normal. Yes, she was missing Mma Makutsi, and yes, it was not easy to run a detective agency by yourself and with nobody to bounce ideas off, but these setbacks were minor irritations compared with the lot of so many other people; and anyway, they were not destined to last. Mma Makutsi had said that she did not intend to take a long maternity leave, and even in the time that she was away Mma Ramotswe could still consult her on any matter on which she needed advice. And she would do that, she decided, over the next day or so: she would visit Mma Makutsi and see what she made of the troublesome case of the young man who claimed to be Liso Molapo and who might or might not be lying.

That thought gave her pause. The young man might be lying – that was certainly possible – but there was another aspect of the situation that had not occurred to her. If Liso was telling the truth, then did that necessarily mean that he was the real Liso Molapo? Or could it be that he was not lying, but still was not the person he said he was? That could be the case if he believed himself to be Liso Molapo, having been told that this was who he was, but all the while he was actually somebody else altogether? The possibility was enough to make her head ache, but now it had come to her, she had to think it through.