“Of course she did. That is because that would cover her tracks. She wrote to me and had you in her sights at the same time. I would probably be just as bad in her eyes. Good husband. A nice house. Cattle.” She paused. “And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can’t say whether it will change her in her heart—it probably won’t. But if it makes her feel even just a little bit better about herself, she will be less envious.”

Mma Makutsi laid aside her pencil and stared across the room at her employer. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. There was much she wanted to say, but even these few moments of contemplation of what Mma Ramotswe had said had shown her that everything that she, Mma Makutsi, would have said was wrong. Mma Ramotswe was right: evil repaid with retribution, with punishment, had achieved half its goal; evil repaid with kindness was shown to be what it really was, a small, petty thing, not something frightening at all, but something pitiable, a paltry affair. So she picked up her pencil, opened a drawer in her desk, and dropped the pencil inside. “I think you’re probably right, Mma,” she said, through tight lips. “You usually are in these matters, because you are a kind lady. But I wish that you were wrong. Which you aren’t. But I still wish it.”

THE LETTER TO VIOLET was an easy task by comparison with what now lay before Mma Ramotswe. She had managed to contact Mma Sebina by telephone and had told her that she needed to see her with some important information.

“About my brother?” asked Mma Sebina brightly. “He is coming to see me tonight. We are going to go to the cinema together.”

Mma Ramotswe swallowed. If she were to be completely honest, then the answer to that would be no, it is not about your brother, because he is not your brother. But she could not; the truth could be too cruel on occasion, and this was one such. And yet that same truth would have to be disclosed very soon.

“It is about your brother,” she said. “Yes, it is, Mma.”

And now she was standing in front of Mma Sebina’s gate and calling out Ko! Ko! And there was Mma Sebina coming out of her front door, wiping her hands on a piece of kitchen towel, and waving to her.

“Mma Ramotswe! You must come in and try what I have just baked. Some banana bread, Mma. It’s a special recipe. Kenneth told me he liked it.”

“Kenneth?”

“My brother. That is his first name. Kenneth Sekape.”

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the ground, and Mma Sebina noticed.

“Is there something wrong?” There was panic in her voice.

“There’s something wrong, Mma. Oh, you have come to give me bad news…”