“You know what I think, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?” she said. “I think that it’s probably a joke. It’s the sort of letter schoolboys write. They think that it’s funny.”

For a moment he seemed to weigh this possibility, but then he shook his head again, more vigorously this time. “It is not a joke, Mma Ramotswe. Those words are not the words of a schoolboy. They are the words of a dangerous person. A maniac.”

She tried to be dismissive. “I don’t think such a person is dangerous! Ridiculous, maybe; not dangerous.”

But her levity had no effect. He was becoming animated now, emphasising his points with movements of his hands. “It makes me even more sure,” he said. “It makes me certain that you should give it up. Detective work is not for women. It is for men who can look after themselves.”

Mma Ramotswe looked out into the darkness. He spoke in this way, she knew, because he loved her, and was anxious about her safety. She had suspected from time to time that he did not want her to continue with the agency, but she had always ignored these suspicions. She felt that in the fullness of time he would get used to her profession and what it entailed; that he would accept her calling, even be proud of it, in the way in which a husband can be proud of a successful wife. But she knew that once Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni got an idea in his head, it could be difficult to dislodge it. And this notion, she thought, was one of those that would be difficult to move.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

AN UNCLE WITH AN UNSOPHISTICATED, BROKEN NOSE

AS MMA RAMOTSWE and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni conversed on their verandah that evening, Mr. Phuti Radiphuti sat in the modest living room of his fiancée, Mma Grace Makutsi, waiting for her to serve his dinner. They were having their meal rather later than usual that evening, as they had been shopping together and had been distracted by a display of beds in the large furniture store at River Walk. Phuti Radiphuti had been surprised at the prices, which he thought were below cost, but Mma Makutsi had been taken by the headboards, which not only were covered in a deep red velvet but were heart-shaped into the bargain.

“These are very fine beds,” she observed, reaching out to feel the texture of the velvet headboard. “A person would sleep very well in a bed like that. And there is a lot of room too.”