But the business in hand was Mma Sebina, the woman sitting in front of her, not buckets and shebeens and the mysterious doings of neighbours. She looked at Mma Sebina and made a mental note of what she and Mma Makutsi called the essential particulars. They had not invented the term, having found it in the pages of her vade mecum, Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection. “When you meet somebody for the first time,” wrote Clovis Andersen, “make sure that you note the essential particulars. That means those aspects of their appearance which might be relevant to the case. You can ignore incidentals—the fact that a shoelace is frayed at the end or that there is a small stain on a jacket. That sort of thing is not an essential particular because a frayed shoelace or a stain on a piece of clothing tells us nothing about that person—they are things that can happen to anybody. But if a watch is worn on the right wrist rather than the left, if an item of clothing is particularly expensive, or if fingernails are bitten down to the quick, that can tell us something about who that person is, about what that person is like.”

Now, running a discreet eye up and down Mma Sebina—or up and down that part of her which was visible above the edge of her desk—Mma Ramotswe noted the neat, middle-cost clothing; the well-groomed but not ostentatiously braided hair; the carefully plucked eyebrows. This was a woman who took pride in her appearance, but was not driven by fashion. And there was another thing that Mma Ramotswe noticed: Mma Sebina spoke with a certain reticence, which suggested that she was ready to stop if the person to whom she was speaking had something more important, more pertinent, to say. That was always a good sign, Mma Ramotswe thought. Too many people were determined to blurt out their views even if the person being addressed knew much more about the subject under discussion. Reticence was a good sign.

Mma Ramotswe straightened the pad before her on the desk and reached for a pencil. “You wrote to me, Mma,” she said. “You said that you hoped that I would be able to trace some family members for you. And the answer is yes, we can do that sort of thing. We are always doing it, aren’t we, Mma Makutsi?”

Mma Sebina turned to look at Mma Makutsi, who smiled at her encouragingly. “Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “We are experts at finding people, Mma We have found many, many people—including some who did not want to be found.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Usually, though, we’re looking for somebody who is quite happy to be found.” She paused. “Tell me, Mma: Who is this relative you are looking for?”